Tagged: Home Improvements

It’s a project months in the making. I purchased the first MDF for it back in September, and actually got to the building of it January 5th. I got the bones of it up in a couple of weekends, and by the middle of January the painting, sanding, painting, re-sanding, and re-painting began in earnest.

Nearly four months later I’m finally finished enough to actually put a book on it (although I’m going to wait a week or so to ensure that the paint has fully cured). The paint is applied, the shelves are assembled, the grommets and shelf supports are installed, and the behemoth looks spectacular. Continue Reading

Ryan, the home improvement expert came over this weekend and helped me build what can only be described as “The behemoth”. It’s nearly 10 feet tall. It’s the finest in engineered maples and MDF, and it will either change our lives for the better, or be the end of us (at this point I don’t know which is the worse fate).
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On Saturday morning around 10am I got a call from my neighbour down the street “Freak Daddy” Donnie. “Yo Dark, you busy?” he inquired. This is usually code for “Come over and play video games.”, “A little dude, I’m cleaning the office because my parents are coming over.” I responded (actually I was trying to FIND my office beneath the mess that had accumulated over the last couple of months). “Can you do me a favour, I think I’ve got food poisoning and I’m stuck in the bathroom, Sarah’s gone to Niagra, and Tasha’s screaming in the other room. Can you come over for a minute and take care of her?” Dude, seriously, no problem, I’m there.

I let Char know where I was going and ran over to Donnie and Sarah’s (little girl run style…because I know it will make Donnie smile). Poor Tash was crying in her crib, but she brightened up when she saw me (kid’s got the disposition of a trooper, she never plays strange and is always smiles with folks). I took her downstairs and hung out with her after checking on Donnie. I heard him rumbling around upstairs so we went up to see how he was doing (and to change Tash’s diaper)…I believe it was at this point that I made a grevious mistake. Somewhere between sticking around for Tasha’s diaper change, disposing of the diaper or just talking to Donnie, I unwittingly became infected with his sickness.

Donnie’s dad came by to take over and I headed home where I finished cleaning up before I started preparing my walkway for some major construction, and got to work laying bricks.

My mom and dad came down this weekend, and dad and I spent all Saturday putting sand down, tamping, and buying pavers to install in the walkway. The trip to the brickyard for the stones is a story in itself I’ll have to tell some time.

Sunday morning, feeling pretty good except for the residual soreness from all the work on Saturday, and a mild headache, dad and I got up and started laying bricks (I think the first ones went down around 9am or so). Char headed out to a shower for our friend Tiffany in Hamilton, while my mom took care of Kaylin. We stopped for a lunch break, but my mom was taking awesome care of the Kegger, so there was no need for me to go in there and disrupt their fun (mom even got Kaylin to go down for a nap without a fuss!). By about 6 we were done and other than putting down sand, and cementing the sides into place my work on the walk was done. While we were cleaning up I started feeling a little off, and despite a couple of Advils, my head was killing me, I decided I’d better get everything cleaned up before we went in for dinner thinking that once I stopped my body would probably rebel a little and complain if I didn’t let it rest a little bit.

I managed to scarf down a couple pieces of pizza, but I was just feeling terrible. I decided to lay down on the couch for a bit and just rested, but things were quickly going south. At first I was thinking I was just exhausted and must be feeling the effects of the heat or something. I went and had a shower as my mom and dad got ready to go back home, but things were getting worse, and my head was starting to pound.

Almost as soon as they left I went upstairs and laid down for a bit, but I knew things were getting worse. At about 6:30, it was just too much and my body decided that everything I had eaten today would need to go. The stomache just yelled out “Okay, one of you buggers that got in here is causing trouble, that’s it. EVERYBODY OUT!!!”, and out it came. I made it into the bathroom just in time, and expulsed a torrent of badness. Feeling a little better I went back to bed, and Charlene brought Kaylin up to get her ready for bed. After her night nursing, Kaylin suddenly exploded with vomit, her first vomit incident in her little life. Char got covered, and I tried to clean it up as best I could, but I just couldn’t stomache it. Sure enough, seconds later I was back in the bathroom. Poor Kegger got sick one more time, but seemed to be better after that (though she was more whiney than normal). Char got her to settle down and go to bed, and then she spent the next several hours taking care of me, getting me water, cleaning up after me a couple of times, and going out for Pepto and Ginger Ale, and giving me Advil to control my fever, as I ran back and forth to the bathroom. Around 1am I finally settled down enough that I could sleep (though I got up a couple more times during the night). In all I think I was sick for a good six hours, and when I was done, I was pretty empty.

The next morning I was just wasted. My head still hurt like heck and I just needed to sleep for hours. My stomache was doing flip-flops, but luckily I wasn’t vomiting any more (though I was still running to the toilet if you know what I mean). I called my mom, and found out my dad had spent the night praying to the porcelain god, and was recovering too. A quick call to Donnie found that his dad, Sarah, and her dad were all sick too. So far my mom and Charlene were the only two unaffected.

Tuesday evening though…things started going downhill for Char, and she went through pretty much everything I did from 6pm on, fever, cold sweats, chills, everything…except she had the added bonus of having to keep our baby nursed. She’s a trooper though and pulled through (I’m sure she’ll go through a blow by blow on I Heart Baby Toes when she feels up to it).

In the end, Donnie’s “food poisoning” ended up being a plague worse than the bubonic and I think I’m going to change Donnie’s name to “Typhoid Mary”. At least it was a fast one, and not one of those lingering sicknesses that go on for weeks, or that leave you with a cold after, this was a quick 24 hours of wastedness, followed by a couple of days of feeling gross, but nothing long lasting.