Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Day 196

Good morning, friends and family!

It’s Tuesday Taxes! I genuinely look forward to these days. I know that sounds strange—maybe even downright bizarre—to most of you, but I actually enjoy this type of volunteering. As they say, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it! Then again, now that I think about it, everyone reading this is going to be involved in taxes one way or another. Good luck! ✏️🍸🍸🍸

The bedroom floors are finished, and they look fantastic. I’m thrilled with the hickory flooring we found—it makes me want to rip out the other hickory upstairs and start over. The old flooring has a glossy sheen and way more insect marks than this new batch, which is pristine. But that’s just crazy talk…right?

Our installers, Tim and Tom (my brothers from another mother), were great. They humored me, and we even took a photo together—in the correct order, of course. They were personable, chatty, and did excellent work.

Since we widened the doors to 36 inches for wheelchair accessibility, they needed a replacement transition strip from the original hickory flooring. Cindy found some extra pieces in the basement, they picked the best match, and set one aside. Fast forward a few hours—one of them accidentally installed the wrong piece and locked it in place. At night, under the lights, that rogue board practically screamed, “Look at me!” When we pointed it out, there was no pushback. The guy admitted he noticed the mistake on Saturday and had already brought the tools to fix it. I have no idea how they removed that one board without wrecking the rest, but you’d never know it happened.

Change of topic card. __ Since my diagnosis in August, I’ve seen and talked to all my siblings—except my middle sister, Sarah. She lives in Seattle, and honestly, we haven’t spoken much. More than 10 years, if I’m being truthful—and that’s on me. Over the weekend, she reached out, and we finally caught up yesterday. It was nice to hear her voice and feel her compassion. She had the same initial reaction as Lis when she first heard about my ALS: “That’s shitty, shitty news.” Yep… it is.

We had a great conversation, but after about an hour, I could hear my words starting to fail. When my tongue gets tired, I feel like Otis from The Andy Griffith Show—I probably sound like him too. If I ever get pulled over, the first thing the officer will ask is, “Have you been drinking?” Next thing I know, I’ll be walking the line, and knowing that I’ll fail that test… the situation will spiral out of control. I’d rather avoid all that. Anyway—before we wrapped up, Sarah offered to fly in for a week to help put the house back together and clean. She has the clean gene, and she’s good at it. I thanked her but told her that decision was out of my hands. I passed that one on to Cindy for her to chew on. No decision yet. One potential issue—Sarah’s bedtime is about the same time I wake up. We’d have to navigate that mismatch.

When I hung up, Cindy and the flooring guy were gone. Instead of doing nothing, I glanced at the bed and saw a mountain of my clothes staring back at me. I decided to tackle it and hung up what I could. I’ll be honest—so far, nothing has made it to Goodwill. The longer we wait, the more likely we’ll end up right back at status quo.

Donna and Joe came over with Italian beef and salad for dinner. I stuck with the beef—two sandwiches—and skipped the salad. Not enough protein in lettuce to justify the effort. Although… I did inspect a bag of Twizzlers and discovered that three pieces have 110 calories and less than one gram of protein. Given that I ate about five servings, that’s roughly five grams of protein toward my 60-70 gram daily goal. Clearly, I’m a nutrition expert.

Before they left, Joe popped open his SUV and loaded up two weeks’ worth of garbage from the garage. It’s such a relief to see it all disappear—we may even be able to park a car in there soon. Very soon. Thank you, Joe!

Need to repeat last Tuesday and get started with my shower.

Have a great day!

Love you guys!❤️