SPRING'S COMIN'---I HOPE

It has been almost three weeks since my last post on here.  I don't understand why it is so hard to find the time right now to keep this blog up but it is.

I said in the last posting that I had started working for TRANSCON Environmental inspecting the a new 345 kV power line that is being constructed through this area.  I am currently working about half time although that translates to parts of three days per week.  That doesn't seem like much but before I went to work for them I felt like I was pretty busy and in fact was wondering how I ever had time to work.  It isn't the same thing as working on fire because for fire you leave the area for two or three weeks and work about 16 hours a day so you don't have time to think or do anything else except eat and sleep.  That makes the time go by really fast and makes you really tired so when you sleep, you sleep.  When you get home from a fire you don't have to worry about what is going to happen the next day and can revert to your OTHER life.

When I was working I was generally awake at 4:00 a.m. even though the earliest I could officially get to work was 6:00 a.m.  It really irritates me that since I have taken this part time job I am raring to go at 4:00 a.m. again and the earliest I can officially start working is 7:00 a.m.  WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?  Old habits die hard.

Inklings had her knee surgery 38 days ago and she is doing very well.  She has been up and going for 10 days and has stretched her work outs on the stationary bike to 30 minutes a day.  That is really good and will probably keep her from having to go through a rehab center to regain her flexibility in the knee.  Time will tell but I think she is doing extremely well---but then again I am not a Doctor.  ;-)  

We also buried her Father two weeks ago and that has been tough for her and for all of her siblings to deal with.  They were all prepared for him to die if he fell and broke his hip or something or if he got really sick.  They were not prepared for him to die from heart failure, in his car, coming over to visit with us.  Her Mother was driving and did really good on getting him into the emergency room of a hospital but his heart was just not strong enough to make a recovery.  The nurse that dealt with him was the son of one of my good friends from high school and I am grateful to him for how he treated my mother-in-law.

Spring is arriving slowly with lots of surprise snow storms.  We got a flurry a few days ago that dropped 10" overnight.  That was quite a shock but now the grass is starting to green up and our tulips and daffodils are coming along nicely.  Here is a picture of the surprise snow storm we had last week.

    SPRING IS COMING---I'N'IT???

THINGS ARE LOOKIN' UP!

It has been almost three weeks since Inklings had surgery on her knee to repair a torn meniscus.  When they got inside the knee there was a lot more damage than they had anticipated.  The surgeon told me they would be out in about thirty minutes. In a little over two hours I got to talk to the surgeon for a few seconds while he was on his way to another surgery for which he was late.  He gave me eight photos of the inside of the knee and talked to me about all the work they had to do on it and showed me how they sewed the tendon back together.  He told me that Inklings was to stay off her knee for three full weeks and not try to do anything.

She is doing a lot better and is counting the minutes until she can start doing some things other than sit on the couch or lay on the bed.  She has been able to shower when she wanted to after the fifth day but was a very good patient for the first two weeks. She hurt like crazy so that is probably why she was so good.  This week she has been doing a little more, probably more than she should be doing, around the house and I think she is feeling a ton better even though she still can't move without the walker or bend her knee very much. I think the healing process is going very well and she is going to be alright again.

In the middle of this her father died.  He was 86 but it was a shock as the night before he had made arrangements with her to come over and visit the next day.  When she got the call she thought it would be her mom and dad telling her they were on their way.  Instead it was her mom trying to tell her that her dad had died but she couldn't talk.  They were on the way to see us when he had a bad chest pain.  They decided to keep coming our way and stop at the closest hospital.  As they got further down the road he had another bad pain in his chest but recovered somewhat from that.  When they arrived in the town the hospital is in her mother drove to the hospital and they took him on a gurney and gave him CPR for an extended period of time but his heart was not strong enough to maintain a rhythm and he died.  He was a good man and will be sorely missed by his family and his friends.

I took a job with TRANSCOM Environmental and am inspecting the environmental compliance for the construction of a new 345 kV power line.  This company recruited me and a good friend to help them with this project.  We agreed to split a job as neither of us wanted to work full time.  I also told them I was going to continue to do fire and if that was not OK then they needed to find someone else.  They assured me they could work around that.  I have worked two weeks and have found quite a few things in the project that needed to be changed.  My friend and I have discussed the changes and then called our boss to let him know our thoughts.  So far so good---every recommendation we have made has been implemented.

It has been kind of fun to be back in the game.  The company is treating us well and we are hoping to see the job through.  It will take two full years to complete the power line.  There is likely be another year of closing the access ways and rehabilitation of the construction disturbance so this job may turn out to be a good thing

HOPE THIS FINDS Y'ALL WELL!