Finally! A New Post!

Hello Everybody! I'm finally starting to feel human again, so I thought I'd do a post and give an update on what's been going on. It's been a crazy month. We started our move, waited out hurricane Gustavo, finished our moved, lived through hurricane Ike and lived without power for four days, all while I have been deathly ill. It was nutty.

After we moved the 1st half of our stuff to the new house and waited out Gustavo, I got sick. It started as a really bad sore throat...I thought I was coming down with strep...then it moved into my chest, giving me a really painful cough. I went to the Dr. a week ago Monday and he prescribed me the antibiotic Keflex. The day after I took the Keflex, I started having difficulty breathing...I had had bronchitis before, but I'd never had the wheezing and difficulty breathing. The next day, the fevers started and by that night, I was dealing with some pretty bad diarrhea. I dealt with that and the fevers for about 24 hours and then the vomiting started. I spent an entire night getting up every 20 to 30 minutes to vomit and/or have diarrhea. The next day I looked up Keflex on the internet because I was getting sicker and sicker and wondered if it had to do with the antibiotic, rather than the bug. The website I found said that if you are allergic to Penicillin, which I am, you probably shouldn't take Keflex. I looked at the symptoms of an allergy to the drug, and I had everything that fell under the category of "Severe allergic Reaction" except for the impaired vision and rash. So I stopped taking the antibiotic and called the Dr. His nurse was less than sympathetic. She said to take some immodium and "if you still feel bad tomorrow, you can come in and see the doctor. But we might not be open tomorrow because of the hurricane." So, I asked her what to do if they weren't open? She said, "Well, you could go to the ER if you want. Or just try us again after the hurricane." Great...hopefully I wouldn't be dead by the time "after the hurricane" got here. When Ike hit, I spent most of it in bed, getting up a few times to look outside, simply because I didn't want to spend my first hurricane in bed. I was stressed because I didn't want to deal with the vomiting and diarrhea with no power or running water. Fortunately, we never lost the water. Court is from Beaumont, which was very close to where the eye of the hurricane was headed. So, his family had to evacuate indefinitely from the area. We housed some of them at our place and Court's sister, Caryn, had some at hers. Fortunately, the stint without power wasn't too bad because we have a generator. So we could have light at night, watch TV and keep the refrigerator cold.

Today, I'm feeling better, but still having bouts of nausea and diarrhea. Especially when I try to eat anything. I've lost about 7 pounds so far. This morning, Court went down to Beaumont...our church has asked the wards in our area to assemble teams of able-bodied men to head down and help with the hurricane clean up. I'm glad Court can go, but also a bit bummed because we still have a lot to get done at our house and I need his help. But, I guess that can wait. And, since I still don't feel well, I was looking forward to the weekend when he'd be here to help with Meredith a little bit. Oh well. I have to admit that the last couple of days I have been wishing we lived in Utah again. It's hard to move to a place where you know hardly anyone and then to be sick and have to go through a natural disaster all while taking care of an active 15 month old. I've been missing my family and friends a lot.

Anyway....here's a few pictures of the new house. We have video of the hurricane hoopla, but I don't know how to get it off the video camera and onto my computer. So, I'll have to wait for Court to help me. Whenever he'll have time to do that.

I love, love, love our back yard. It is so pretty!

Notice the beautiful 70's light fixture? We took that down and put up a ceiling fan. And, once we own the house, I'm going to paint over the blue. Not my favorite choice for that room.

The living room with our stuff in it...we're still trying to unpack and get organized!

I love this fireplace too. Although I'm not sure how often we'll use it?


The Kitchen - I love the tile work, although keeping the grout clean and all that will be a challenge. And, yes, you can see the kitchen from the front door. Not my favorite thing, but for the price, I'll live with it. Notice the beautiful stove/oven. It's original to the house. We'll be replacing that eventually. Right now we are renting the house, so we don't want to put too much money into it. We wouldn't want to up the value before we've had a chance to buy it.


Meredith's Room Before



Meredith's Room After

We call this the "Time Warp Hallway" because once you step through, you are transported back to the 70's with the wood paneling and all. The bathrooms have hideous gold and brown wallpaper and light fixtures. We still have some work to do on the house. But I'm excited to be able to work on it and make it look the way we want it to. Of course, we're so broke after having to rent a moving truck twice and the hurricanes, that it will be years before we'll be able to do much. Anyone want to make a donation to the cause?? ;)