Decisions, decisions

I've been roaming the house, unable to sleep since 3:45 am, so it must be time to write in the blog again. I've had a Facebook page since November but didn't really do much with it until February when Melissa also got on Facebook. Mostly I use it to see photos posted by family and friends, and perhaps that sort of contact made me not feel the need to blog so much.

I've recently had quite a few nights of having trouble sleeping again. I'm guessing it's because I'm in the midst of an anniversary of sorts. It's now 2 years since we realized something was wrong with Ed and started the rounds of doctoring and testing. I also have had too much time to think because I haven't been working, and the memories come so easily. The good memories come, too, but both kinds still bring tears.

I was very disappointed to learn just days before I was supposed to start on the January SAT essays that Pearson was not assigning me to them. There were far fewer students taking the test than last year (another effect of the lousy economy), and on test day the weather was awful in many parts of the country, so people didn't show up to take the test. As a result, not that many scorers were needed. I have often wondered when my being at the top of their pay scale would affect whether or not I'd be hired for a project, and I think that was part of the reason. About 2 weeks later Pearson offered me a different scoring project, the Standards of Learning test given to 11th graders, and I decided to accept. Instead of working only 12 days straight at a time on the SATs, this is a month-long project. I do the training next week, then will work March 24 to April 23. The compensation for this project is structured differently, so I don't know if I'll be making the same kind of money as the SATs. The prospect of working every day for a month made me think I'd want a break at some point, so I will be going to Iowa April 2-7. I should still have no problem getting in the minimum required weekly hours. Then in May and June, I hope to be assigned again to the SATs since the numbers of test-takers should be higher then, meaning more scorers will be needed again.

Meanwhile, I ended up having to research and get estimates on replacing the heat pump. It was making really loud, annoying noises in February that even woke me up at night, then it seemed like the outside fan would run for hours when it shouldn't be running at all because the gas furnace takes over heating when the temperature outside drops to a certain point. Last Thursday I finally called in the HVAC guy, but there was nothing to fix. The compressor was shot. So after getting several estimates, I decided which company and which heat pump to go with. The new one should be installed next week.

Next decisions to be made are how to get the hairline crack in one of the sunroom windows fixed and who to get here to figure out why there was a really bad leak in the sunroom when the snow and ice were melting off the roof in February. The sunroom seems to have taken the worst hit from the bad winter we had. There was also a day with 60-mile-an-hour winds in February, and this time a tree in the front yard was affected. A small fir tree is now leaning a bit towards my neighbor's yard, yet its roots weren't pulled from the ground. I can't push it upright--it just doesn't budge. I've asked grandson Robby, who works for a landscape company, to come take a look and maybe figure out how to straighten it back up or determine if it needs to be cut down, but he hasn't stopped by yet. So that will be yet another decision to make. I already have one tree stump that needs to be out of the ground in back and another small ornamental tree in the front that I think is dying. Could be a big landscape bill coming up this spring

Starting March 1, I was ready to leave for Iowa at a moment's notice. Will was sick, so I stayed partially packed in case Melissa couldn't make arrangements for someone to be home with him on her Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday work days. Actually, we were supposed to meet up near Cincinnati the night and morning of March 4-5. Melissa, Mark, Will, Mark's parents, brother, and sister were to make a driving trip to Knoxville, TN, for a family wedding. I made hotel arrangements in Harrison, OH, which would have been their overnight stop, so we could have breakfast and spend a couple of hours together. However, Will was diagnosed with RSV and Melissa and Mark had to cancel their trip. He was a pretty sick boy at the start of the 10 days or so till it ran its course, but not nearly as bad as it could have been. He didn't require hospitalization, not even nebulizer treatments like the other kids at his daycare (guess we know where he picked it up). He was back at the sitter's this week, so I never did have to make the trip to help out.