What a week . . .

I have to say I am happy to see this week finally end--its been an interesting one for sure, full of crappy things happening (well, only two crappy things I guess). During this past winter, during a severe windstorm we had, the chimney cap of our wood stove chimney (we have two separate chimneys) blew well off the house, and landed on the other side of the yard. It was to warped to put back on the chimney, and I wouldnt have done it anyway, since I am afraid of heights (and I'm a moron). On Tuesday, we had some of the worst rain in recent memory, and I came home a completely flooded chimney--without the cap (and also due to some cracks in the masonry that need attention) water came rushing down the chimney, behind the tile, and out through the mortar. The chimney runs through the inside of the house, so the ceilings in both the dining room, and, more importantly, the freshly renovated Bean's room, became damaged by water.

But look at how pretty Amanda looks, with roughly 5 weeks to go until the little man is set to arrive!! Crappy thing # 2: We got two cord of wood delivered today, and as you can see, the wood is awesome--a great mix of ash, oak, and maple (and no birch!! which we have tons of already, so that is good). I got it at a pretty good rate of 185 a cord. That might seem expensive, and it is, since last year I was paying 160 per cord. But this wood is already split (which I didnt want . . .but they only had "split wood and actually it is difficult to FIND wood this year for some reason) and it is of high quality. And, as I've said before, I'd much rather give my hard earned money to a man from Norridgewock Maine rather than George Bush and his rapist friends at OPEC. Oh yeah . . .the crappy thing. Well, the delivery man basically tore up our front yard in the process of delivering the goods. He had to back onto the lawn a bit--a lawn that basically sits on clay that, just yesterday, was covered with some standing water. His back tires sunk in like they were in quick sand, and he actually got stuck. We had to position some wood (thats what she said) under the tires to make a mock "ramp" so he could get "unstuck." It didnt work for the first three tries. Did I mention Bill from across the street stood in his window and watched the whole thing? So he finally got out, rendering us with two 4 feet long by 2 feet deep craters in our lawn. Not to mention, he totally cracked the side of the driveway (the pathetic driveway done by the poor excuse for a paver known as Steve Violette) because of the weight of his truck . . .

Here is the wood (against the garage, you can see I already stacked about a half a cord . . .).

A year or two ago, these two "crappy things" really would have killed me . . .but I've got to hand it to myself as to how far I've come dealing with this kind of stuff. Shit happens. Can I say shit? I mean, I am still really upset about the chimney, our ruined driveway, and our gouged lawn, but I've come a long way from a few years ago, where I probably would have reacted a lot worse--and made everyone else around me miserable too. Thank you Redhook Ale, for all your help. Just kidding. I've got a little guy on the way, so I've got to think about him.

Here's a picture of Amanda and our dear Jane, my colleague who just got back from Oxford a few weeks ago (her husband was finishing his Ph.D there). Jane is due exactly ten days from Amanda. She came by tonight to drop off a gift for our guy, and we had a nice little visit. It was great for Sally and Jane to be a "support group" for each other as they are dealing with the same issues. They both look fantastic. In this picture, Callum and Kylian are meeting each other for the first time! With stuff like this, who gives a crap about a driveway?