I'm starting to think they'll have the house done this month. But
we'd originally been told August, so mentally we were planning on moving
shortly after school starts (Laurel's school starts August 20, and we'll
be in Minnesota from the 8th to the 19th). I guess we'll just see!
Laurel has indicated that she likes the house. And when I gave her some
choices of things to do while we had to be out of the house during the
agents' open house (I had to hang out with her and the caregiver because
the caregiver doesn't have a van to put the wheelchair in), she voted
for "show Letitia your new house"! Laurel has also indicated
that she wants to keep her pink zebra theming (which she chose a couple
of years ago when we switched the room to a "big girl" room)
and paint the room pink again. Daddy is showing some resistance to the
idea of painting right away, so we'll have to see who wins on that one. 
I think we're going to lose our kitty soon. She's been losing weight
like crazy - 3/4 of a pound in two months (mind you, at her heaviest she
was only seven pounds and change) and three ounces just since last
Friday. Over the weekend, she just stopped eating much - she'd ask for
the food but only eat maybe a third of it, where last week she was still
finishing the can (she's been a dry-food cat most of her life, but we've
been feeding her Fancy Feast in an attempt to plump her up). Bloodwork
all checked out, but she was x-rayed today and the x-rays are showing
that the mass in her lungs has grown and possibly been joined by a
second one. She's down to 5 lbs 11 oz and although still getting around,
spending a lot more time in one place than she used to. I woke up the
night before last and there was no cat on the bed. That just wasn't
right so I went and found her; she was on the loveseat where she's been
90% of the time lately, she greeted me and I petted her, but it was hard
getting back to sleep. The way she's losing weight and not eating, I
can't see that she can last much longer. The vet offered me an appetite
stimulant for her, but pills make her hide under the bed and pull her
fur out, and I just don't want to make her last days that miserable.
Maybe it would just cause her to live till the pain got a lot worse,
anyway. It is so hard to think of the tailspin she's probably entering,
though...and then Bob and I talked tonight about whether she should be
buried here or on the new property, and I just totally lost it... 
Jenny's eaten a little bit tonight, but that's hardly going to make up for the fact that she hadn't eaten for the two days previous to that. She is definitely getting weaker, but still making it around and up as far as the bed and couch. She's been meowing at us a lot - I think she's hoping we can fix it, after all her meowing has always produced everything else she wanted from us. She has always been a real talker, and her voice hasn't weakened a bit. I told Bob that I was picturing her like the Cheshire Cat, slowly fading away, only the last thing that would be left would be her meow. This is so hard to watch.
Jenny hasn't been able to eat anything else for days. She asked for
some food this morning, but didn't eat any. I'm astounded at how well
she is still functioning given that she probably hasn't eaten an entire
can of cat food in the last week. Last night I heard her jump on the
bathroom sink and I was sure that was going to be followed by a
thud as she fell back down, but it wasn't! She jumped down a couple of
minutes later. And she has made it up and down the stairs a few times.
Nevertheless, if you don't eat, you don't live. Bob thinks she won't
make it past tomorrow, but given how well she is still getting around, I
think it will be closer to the end of the week. But in any case, it's
not going to be much longer...
We had Jenny put down today. Unlike when we lost Fuzz in 2001, nobody
from our vet's office was willing/able to come out, but they referred me
to someone who has made a specialty out of making house calls for
geriatric kitties, and so Jenny died in her favorite place next to me on
the bed today. She had gotten to the point where she could barely stand
and had stopped even drinking water, so it seemed like it was time - a
better choice than having her die of thirst. But we are so sad
tonight...it's the first time I've not had a cat since I was two (we'll
get another, but we figure it doesn't make sense to do it till after we
go on vacation and move)...
Pictures from the last three weekends...
Not all of them of the house, actually - here's one of the annual 4th
of July Parade that our friends put on:
But we did go over after the parade and visit the house. When we pulled
up, we noticed that we now had a chimney and some gutters:
Also a stairway leading to the side door:
Some grading had been done too, and the fallen trees placed in a pile
(the truck is parked on one side of the driveway, the logs are on the
other - I counted 88 rings on one of the logs before I got to the dense,
dark part from when it was a sapling):
But the big news was that the hardwood floors were in!
Besides the living room, we have them in the foyer, hallway, and
Laurel's room - all for the ease of travel of Miss Thing:
The next time we came back was Saturday the 12th. Not much had happened
that week - we could see that the electric had finally been run in, and
the kitchen appliances had arrived and were partially installed:
So we weren't sure what to expect when we went back this last Saturday.
First thing, though, we FINALLY got the right harness to use with Laurel
in the car (this took three tries, after we got the one with the wrong
closure, and the one that would work if we happened to drive a yellow
bus...). Thing is, Laurel hasn't been able to tolerate her Britax
Marathon for more than half an hour, we think because her legs hang so
far out (we tried things like putting a box under her feet, but it
didn't help as much as we hoped). After consulting with the folks at the
children's rehab center, we decided to give this harness thing a shot -
with it Laurel would be able to sit directly on the car seat itself.
Little did we know that we'd be trapped in town for weeks and weeks as
we tried to get the distributor to send us the right thing. Anyway,
check this out!
(I tried to get her to look at me for the picture, but no luck there.
But can you believe, her right leg touches the floor! [Not her left leg,
though - unfortunately, that's permanently shorter from her surgery. 
]) Duly equipped, we set out for the house. Lots to see this week! The
driveway was in (this is looking back down the hill toward the access
road):
The yard has been graded and seeded (not, mind you, that anything is
growing - it hasn't rained here for a while), we have a sidewalk, the
railing on the ramp is finished, and if you look closely, you might be
able to see that the light by the side door is on! (Although not all of
the electrical stuff was working yet.)
Here's a shot from the edge of the woods in the backyard, looking
towards the back of the house:
And here's a shot of the front yard from the front landing:
We could finally get to the basement from the inside, too!
They had also done some painting. Bob talked to our contact person this
morning and he said they wanted to be out this week. I could see how
that could be possible, but there's one problem with that...the tub that
we ordered (we ordered a tub separately for the main bathroom, because
we'd been toying for a while with the idea of getting one of those tubs
with a door on the side, till the folks at the children's rehab center
talked us out of it) has been manufactured but is stuck in a big
shipping backlog. The manufacturer has told the folks we ordered it from
that they can't predict when they might ship it. (We were originally
supposed to have gotten it last week.) So, I'm not sure what the upshot
of all that is going to be. The builders want to close by the end of the
month, and closing is currently set for the 30th. Not that we are really
in that much of a hurry, since there is still no sign of us ever selling
our current house and we're not dying for two mortgages. We can do it,
for a while, thanks to the money I inherited from my mom - but it's not
exactly how we wanted to spend that. We are starting to wonder if we
will have to rent the current house for a while. Anyway, we're not
planning to move till after school starts - we're just not ready enough
(or, well, much at all) to get it done before we leave on vacation.
Still, I've been shopping for stuff it would be good to have in before
we move, like blinds and ceiling fans/lights and a rug for the living
room (important because we sometimes put Laurel on the floor). I never
thought I could get sick of shopping, but I'm really getting there! I'm
slowly plowing through my giant to-do list, though - now I can cross
posting an update off, at least until next week... 