A Jonah Month

I'm still here. Wrapped in blankets and nursing a mug of chicken noodle soup, but here.

First, if you're wondering about the title of this post you're obviously not familiar with the lovely Lucy Maud Montgomery. "A Jonah Day" is the title of a chapter in Anne of Avonlea. Basically, a Jonah Day is a day in which everything goes wrong. A day in which you feel as though you are in the belly of the whale. Anne's Jonah Day culminated when she confiscated a package from one of her students and threw it in the school woodburner, only to find out shortly thereafter that said package was full of fireworks. Fun, fun.

But right now I say, "Anne, you had it lucky. Because if there's anything worse than a Jonah Day, it's a Jonah Month." Which is what December has been around here.

-I started the month out with a visit to the doctor for a wicked sinus infection.

-Our son started the month out by dropping his Great Great Grandma Glick's antique glass milk jug onto his grandparents' glass-top stove. Great Great Grandma Glick's antique glass milk jug survived intact; his grandparents' glass-top stove did not.

-Our truck has been in the shop three times already in December.

-Our daughter visited the doctor for pink eye last week (and missed her preschool Christmas concert because of the same).

-Our son visited the doctor this week for a persistent, nagging cough which has been keeping him (and everyone else around here) up at night.

-Last week I discovered a giant mistake I made at work. Somehow back in October I completely spaced out and put the wrong defendant's name on a complaint. And didn't notice until the judgment entry came back. Not good.

-This giant "whoops" has also been coupled with more than a few other moments at work where my internal monologue says, "You've been in this position for more than 6 months now, Kimberly, shouldn't you have known that by now?" To which I reply, sheepishly, "yes".

-Last week our computer began randomly freezing. It will now only run for 5 minutes before everything locks up. (I'm on my parents' computer to type this.)(Oh, and don't expect any pictures here until this problem is fixed. Assuming I ever get back to the Einsel House to take more pictures.)

-Yesterday I gave in and went back to the doctor's office with classic flu symptoms. The doctor sent me home telling me to rest and drink lots of fluids. (Apparently Tamiflu only works if you start it at the beginning of flu symptoms.)

-Because of the above I'm missing the office Christmas party tonight, which has me feeling both disappointed and guilty.

-Because of all of the above, I have spent all of ONE day at the Einsel House so far this month. One.


But, thankfully, work at the Einsel House hasn't stopped because of Jonah's extended visit. There have been three contractors at the house. B has been patching plaster and skimcoating some bedroom walls. My Uncle J has been doing electrical work, cleaning up unnecessary lines in the basement, and taking outlets in the bedroom that were installed on top of the walls and sinking them into the walls. And C and J have been continuing work on the structural issues. This is moving forward but not without complications. The rotating beam in the basement is rising nicely, and the vertical supports in the back bedroom upstairs are already raised enough that they are once again touching the horizontal roof beam. However, with this is coming some expected cracking of the plaster walls and ceilings in the dining room. We will also have to take down the bathroom door soon. It still closes, but no longer latches, and we have a lot more shifting still to come.

The bigger complications are in the north end of the kitchen. At first, the beam along the roof peak was rising nicely, but this week when they attempted to raise the jacks it began to basically crumble. So, C and J began dismantling what was there and realized the current beam was basically just a hollow plywood box. They gave us a few options, but told us that the cheapest option (which would also provide the most structural stability) would be to drop the ceiling in the north end of the room to the same height it is over the kitchen. This is obviously disappointing, but we clearly cannot leave it the way it is. We are also hoping that this will allow more options for heating the room.

And finally, there's my mom. She's a good one. After her own round of sitting on the couch wrapped in blankets and nursing a mug of chicken noodle soup, she has been back at the house the past couple of days. She's working today on the transom and sidelights from the front door.

I think that brings all up to date. Sorry for the rather bah humbug nature of the post, but frankly, it's been a rather bah humbug month. It's not much fun being in the belly of the whale.