lead is dangerous, people

Saturday, October 10, 2015

With all the kitchen remodeling and re doing the guest room this past April, we have been doing a lot of trim board sanding. and by we, I mean Mike. Poor guy...he works so hard to make this house the home of my dreams. He's been doing it the safest way we knew how - take everything out in the detached garage, scrape and sand, fill and prime. We then brought it back into the house, nailed it up and 2 coats of our favorite "dove white" finished it off.

Well....

The one step we didn't think about and it was apparently a doosey, was when Mike came in from working, he came in with "contaminated" clothes and shoes on, walked around and sat on our clothes couches. UGH... why didn't we think about this....

So, back in April we had just finished our mini remodel on the guest room, just in time for 1st birthday guests. This was also the same time as Jack's 12 month doctor's appointment. They do a blood test (for a lot of things) and it came back that he had an elevated lead count in his blood. Normal is anything below 5 and Jack's came back at an 8. They had us check it again in a couple weeks and we was down to a 7. No one was really worried at this point. But we knew it would probably have to be checked again at his 15 month appointment at the beginning of August.

And then we started the Kitchen remodel and took our all of the old trim and refinished it....and you guessed it - came in with contaminated clothes and shoes. Jack had his 15 month appointment at the beginning of August, just when we were in the heat of the final touches aka trim sanding and his numbers skyrocketed to 17!!! (FYI, it doesn't get harmful until around 45.) We were told, my heart just sunk...what did we do??? Mike and I then immediately put two and two together. April's numbers made sense all of a sudden. And we just felt like we failed as parents - we put Jack's health in danger and it was all our faults.

And just FYI, if your lead number is above a 15 in the state of Missouri, the doctors office must call the health dept....lovely. We still aren't completely done with the health department, but after meeting with them, it made us feel a lot better and we knew they weren't going to take Jack away. I know that may sound silly, but that was what immediately went through our minds. It scared me to death that the heath department was called.

We have since got rid of all construction dust in the house and we are working on repainting all of our doors. This is actually what Mike is doing on this LOOONNNNGGGG Columbus Day weekend - and what made me think of writing this post.

Also, once we cleaned the house from top to bottom, Jack's lead levels dropped from a 17 to a 7.5!!! This was amazing news we got around labor day. Everyone was so happy with his progress. We were told this may be a slow process - lead lives in your red blood cells and red blood cells live 120 days, so we really weren't expecting a number that low. I just hope at he 18 month appointment in early November, it keeps going down. It makes me nervous trying to fix it, because you have to disrupt the paint a bit to sand it, before you paint it.

Fingers crossed for little Jack, he is what matters in this whole drawn out story. We would do anything to make him the healthiest little boy ever.

our wild land fire fighter

Tuesday, September 15, 2015


Mike's crew - Mike is in the 1st row, 2nd from the left.
Mike was called out for western wild land fire duty on the 1st. His tours normally go for about 21 days. This is his 5th year going out, but I really think this is the worst one on me. Last year, my mom came and stayed with me and Jack. I would not of survived it in a right mind if she hadn't came. Nursing/pumping for Jack took up so much more time than I ever thought it would. So since I was doing that, I would of been eating fast food and not cleaning my house...basically just surviving.

Well, fast forward to this year - Jack is eating what I eat and I have adjusted so much more to motherhood, that I felt like I could do this one on my own. And I think I've done pretty good. I think the reason why this is the hardest on me is that Mike is missing things with Jack - and I just don't have my whole family with me.

Communication is the worst when he goes out. Like I said, he's out for 21 days or so and I really only get to talk to him 3 times - right after he lands wherever the fire may be, halfway through, and then when he is about to board his flight home. UGH! I just hate that part. There is a federal website that is updated everyday on every fire that is currently going, so I at least have that to check and see how big his fire is getting, etc. Well, this year, his fire actually has a Facebook page - I love living in the age of technology! :) And someone is going around take photos of all the fire fighters and the fire. I'm so thankful for that! And just last week they posted a picture of Mike's crew. I was so full of emotion when I saw him; I'm glad I was at work so I had to keep it together. It was so nice to see him and see that he was doing ok.

This is a very proud wife right here and I can't wait until he's home.


It's very hard to comprehend that Mike is actually in this place.



a kitchen completed

Saturday, September 12, 2015

This past June, we started the BIGGEST diy project we have ever tried to tackle - the kitchen. And it's finally complete!

Before. Goodbye 1938
Can you believe that is the entire kitchen?!?!?! Well, the one thing that is not pictured is the refrigerator, and that was located at the other end of the room where the computer is now. So you'll have to visualize that in the after photos.

When we bought this house in the beginning of 2010, I told my husband that I loved all it's character and the house in general but the kitchen had to go... We were actually ready last summer financially, but we had just had Jack and figured we should focus on keeping him alive for a year and then go after this beast of a project.....so after 5 years of planning, savings and little projects that had to be done before this - we jumped in guns blazing. 


We Mike ripped out the original 1938 cabinets that had about twenty layers of paint on them. That was followed by, going down to the studs, new electric, new drywall, mudding and sanding, wood floor refinishing, trim sanding and painting, wall painting... I tell you, my guy is a rock star. I was able to help him with a few things, but with Jack it was sometimes easier if Mike just did the work and I played with Jack.

So fast forward 12 weeks and our kitchen is finally complete. The last stretch was a killer - we had to wait on a garbage disposal flange for our think apron sink to hook up the drains and in turn the dish washer!!!

Tangent - We have lived with out a dishwasher our entire 7 years of marriage...until now. I'm so happy!! I will no longer waste time that I could be enjoying my family on dirty dishes. It's sad to say but the things I was most excited for were the dishwasher and an ice machine in the refrigerator.

HELLO 2015 - so glad to see you!!

view from our living room.



                                  

refrigerator and pantry
                                  
view from the sink
see how far away our refrigerator was!!!

we don't like the look of microwaves, so we hid ours in the pantry!!

view from the dining room

missing in action...for over 2 years

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Hello - My name is Kristi and I blog deserter...

I can't believe it's been over two years since I last sat down and type about our lives. I feel like everything has changed and nothing has at the same time. One of the best life changes that can happen, did. Mike and I were lucky enough to have a little boy, Jack, in April 2014 (my birthday to be exact!!). It was a long road to parenthood for us. Maybe I'll do an entire post on this soon, if anyone wants to hear the story. Really, I need to write it no matter what, for Jack.
our new office space.


While we continue to make changes on our house, we are just now finishing up the biggest remodel we have ever tackled...the kitchen. I'm actually typing this on a brand new iMac on my brand new kitchen "office area".  We've had the plans for this for 5 years. And 5 years it took to save, save, save. It's my dream kitchen. I absolutely love to cook and bake. I hope to start sharing some of my favorite recipes on here as well. I used to be apart of a group cooking blog, but it just sort of stopped about 4 years ago.

I can't promise anything for the future for this blog. But I would love to post one a week - that would be the dream. With working full-time in operations at a bank, Jack,  a very small etsy shoppe, and just life in general; we will see where this blog can be squeezed in...


Anniversary