The first half of this month we spent without hot water. What started as a simple fix was upgraded to the whole system being condemned and many complications snowballed the repair time. As much as this sounds like a huge inconvenience, the major things it impeded were showers, dishes, and laundry (I use cold water but the dryer vents beside the furnace so was off-limits during the work). Oh, and lots of banging and having to answer doors for workmen. Unfortunately James really hurt a muscle in his back right as the situation commenced.
One of the main ways he deals with back and muscle pain is to take showers and alternate hot and cold water. I am not brave enough for this and have not experienced enough pain to think it necessary but he has had great success with it in the past. I do not know if he had had ready access to a shower if it would have healed faster but his back is still in pretty bad shape and it has affected other surrounding muscles.
It is strange how when we were without hot water things actually seemed more manageable. I think because there was a problem that had an end in sight (as much as that end continually receded) it was something we dealt with. But now it has been fixed for a couple weeks and we are just getting to the point of catching up to where we were before. And James' back is still bad. He's living with the pain (he lives with more pain that I ever want every day) but I think even for me (because this is all about me...) this back pain is more of an inconvenience than the hot water situation. Strange how I don't always realize just how much he helps out with everything.
Also we've been trying to help his mom in the enormous clean-up in order to sell the house. As much as I would have liked to have helped more than I did, it wasn't actually practical. Thankfully her daughter was a huge help so a lot of the necessary work was taken care of. Despite it all we managed to have a good Thanksgiving weekend and 40th birthday celebration. I felt bad I hadn't done much for organizing a party but then I remembered he got a car so yeah, that even broke the card budget. And Mom made a cake and we sang Happy Birthday while everyone was there at Thanksgiving.
Thank goodness my family's large and loving enough to stretch for both of us now! Well, I shouldn't say that entirely. It's been interesting becoming part of a family that isn't mine. I don't exactly know how to explain this but, as much as I feel as though my family is the norm, the more I see of how other families function (or dysfunction), the more I realize how different the one I was raised in is. But all this not to boast about how lucky I am but to say that when I joined James' family there was one rift but while this recent rift has opened, the other has amazingly started to close.
This past year has made me realize that you never know what the future will bring. I would never have imagined that James would be happy to save his car from his brother and put it out at my mom's. We've spent more time in the past year with his sister's children than his brother's. Although that's not hard: I've only seen the boys very briefly once this past spring. At least James was able to steal an opportunity in the chaos to tell them that we loved them and always would the last time he was there. Little victories, I suppose. It is great that we now get to see the other half of his family but it just seems such a shame that, although perhaps not at the expense of, it was congruent with the destruction of first half I knew. I know life is about ups and downs and more often than not a hearty mixture of the two but it's the unnecessary ones that trouble me the most.
These pictures were taken on James' birthday when we were able to take a little drive just outside of Ottawa and do some fishing and relax. As much as I have misgivings that I should have planned a party for him, this is really all he wanted.
The first half of this month we spent without hot water. What started as a simple fix was upgraded to the whole system being condemned and many complications snowballed the repair time. As much as this sounds like a huge inconvenience, the major things it impeded were showers, dishes, and laundry (I use cold water but the dryer vents beside the furnace so was off-limits during the work). Oh, and lots of banging and having to answer doors for workmen. Unfortunately James really hurt a muscle in his back right as the situation commenced. 
One of the main ways he deals with back and muscle pain is to take showers and alternate hot and cold water. I am not brave enough for this and have not experienced enough pain to think it necessary but he has had great success with it in the past. I do not know if he had had ready access to a shower if it would have healed faster but his back is still in pretty bad shape and it has affected other surrounding muscles. 
It is strange how when we were without hot water things actually seemed more manageable. I think because there was a problem that had an end in sight (as much as that end continually receded) it was something we dealt with. But now it has been fixed for a couple weeks and we are just getting to the point of catching up to where we were before. And James' back is still bad. He's living with the pain (he lives with more pain that I ever want every day) but I think even for me (because this is all about me...) this back pain is more of an inconvenience than the hot water situation. Strange how I don't always realize just how much he helps out with everything. 
Also we've been trying to help his mom in the enormous clean-up in order to sell the house. As much as I would have liked to have helped more than I did, it wasn't actually practical. Thankfully her daughter was a huge help so a lot of the necessary work was taken care of. Despite it all we managed to have a good Thanksgiving weekend and 40th birthday celebration. I felt bad I hadn't done much for organizing a party but then I remembered he got a car so yeah, that even broke the card budget. And Mom made a cake and we sang Happy Birthday while everyone was there at Thanksgiving. 
Thank goodness my family's large and loving enough to stretch for both of us now! Well, I shouldn't say that entirely. It's been interesting becoming part of a family that isn't mine. I don't exactly know how to explain this but, as much as I feel as though my family is the norm, the more I see of how other families function (or dysfunction), the more I realize how different the one I was raised in is. But all this not to boast about how lucky I am but to say that when I joined James' family there was one rift but while this recent rift has opened, the other has amazingly started to close. 
This past year has made me realize that you never know what the future will bring. I would never have imagined that James would be happy to save his car from his brother and put it out at my mom's. We've spent more time in the past year with his sister's children than his brother's. Although that's not hard: I've only seen the boys very briefly once this past spring. At least James was able to steal an opportunity in the chaos to tell them that we loved them and always would the last time he was there. Little victories, I suppose. It is great that we now get to see the other half of his family but it just seems such a shame that, although perhaps not at the expense of, it was congruent with the destruction of first half I knew. I know life is about ups and downs and more often than not a hearty mixture of the two but it's the unnecessary ones that trouble me the most. 
These pictures were taken on James' birthday when we were able to take a little drive just outside of Ottawa and do some fishing and relax. As much as I have misgivings that I should have planned a party for him, this is really all he wanted.
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