The Hannah Family

Happy Birthday, Mom

Mom’s first birthday in Heaven. She’d be 77. We keep passing these “first”milestones as I attempt to process the grief. It’s early days is the thing that makes the most sense to me.

We’re still doing “well baby” visits

Claire and David are old enough to transition to “adult” physicians but they’ve had the same pediatrician (Dr. Bowman at Apex Peds) for their entire lives so none of us is in a rush. Dave kept saying “we were just here a month ago!” but Adderall checkups for ADD are obviously more frequent than the annual visits. 

Dr. Bowman and staff spent about an hour with the kids (separate rooms with me as chaperone) and everything is good. Claire got her Covid booster today, but when he went to authorize David’s third shot Dr. Bowman pointed out we can’t yet because he won’t turn 16 until April. That was my fault; I was thinking kids 15-17 had been approved for the boosters but apparently it is 16 and up?! Regardless, we’ll either get it done in early April or sooner if it’s authorized. All other shots are up to date for both kiddos.

Christmas Dinner was So Good!

Even the picky kids enjoyed it.

12 hours until go time

Mark usually cooks, but this year he “doesn’t have time” so I get to do it. I’m ridiculously excited about my menu although who knows how it will turn out.

Turkey

Ham

Dressing 

Mashed potatoes

Gravy

Mac and Cheese

Green beans 

Corn

Rice

Dinner rolls 

Let’s Go!

 

Trying to figure out the flooring - will it ever be “normal” again

Leaks are weird. You expect water to flow the way it always has - until it doesn’t. Then there’s this huge upheaval.

Our leak is repaired, but I don’t trust anything anymore… I just don’t.

I have the sweetest view

My 8th graders last year painted pickets for the fence in “the legacy courtyard.” 

Teacher workdays today and tomorrow

I feel like a bird in a cozy grading nest.

This makes me so sad

I truly care about what I’m doing as a second year teacher in NC and my evaluations are excellent. My paycheck: Not so much.

Note: I hold a Master's Degree in Teaching English. I work evenings and every weekend, and I never take time off except for one afternoon doctor appointment and a super fun colonoscopy. Mark covers the insurance for Claire, David, and I so this isn't because of deductions for that... This is all of the take-home money allotted for all of my work this year. $31,262.08

 

Happy Birthday, Claire!

The baby who insisted on being in my arms 24/7 (I was okay with it) is 18 today. Honestly, where does the time go?!

The house situation is getting worse

The dining room leak that occurred while Claire was showering was on a Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. So it’s easy for me to keep track - 11/26. USAA is great homeowners insurance. I called them and explained that Mark was downstairs on the couch, heard the water dripping, and alerted Claire right away to turn the water off. We did the back and forth, and they said they would help with the water mitigation ($1,000 deductible), and I would pay for the plumbing and eventually a new shower because ours is tiny and cheap. Okay.

ServPro came out and placed noisy fans above and below the leak. So upstairs bathroom and downstairs dining room. They placed a dehumidifier upstairs as well and I’ve been watching how much water it pulled. Great, thank you so much. They said they would come back each day to check the moisture levels, but that didn’t happen. They did come today to get their equipment and realized they screwed up. 

The upstairs dehumidifier had a hose they stuck in my bathtub (so I periodically plugged the tub to see how much water was being removed - significant amounts). Apparently the downstairs dehumidifier was not set up properly. Instead of running the hose to the downstairs bathroom, the techs accidentally left the hose stuck in our kids’ pumpkin they use on Halloween. So it overflowed for 2-3 days (gallons of water pulled from one side of the dining room to the other) and soaked a whole new section of flooring and it’s wet in the crawl space underneath the house. 

We thought we were done with all this noise but it’s still going with the fans and dehumidifier downstairs. We’re trying to fix this problem and now it’s amplified. It’s just another huge mess.