I'm not moving a whole lot this morning. Yesterday did me in and my back is done and will be for the next couple of days. There's a reason I no longer do manual labor and it's called an L5/S1 left sided herniation. I'm debating as to whether or not to call my PCP and ask for a Medrol dose pack. It's a 5 day prednisone cycle and it's the only thing that can reduce the inflammation, aside from time. I haven't done this is a few years but I may cave in and make the call.

I'm completely exhausted and going to bed a couple hours early. Before I do that, I wanted to share some pictures from today's storm damage clean up and say thank you for the help we received today. First of all, thank you to everyone who showed up today to help with what turned out to be a monumental undertaking. Everyone who has seen the tree in person was shocked because the photos simply don't do it justice. The boys and I began cleanup around 11 am and my Dad, sister, a family friend, as well as my aunt and uncle came over to help. We finally finished up around 5:30 pm and everyone was completely exhausted. The kids were a big help. There were a few hiccups but they did…

About noon tomorrow, we're going to be picking up a chainsaw and getting the tree in our yard cut up. This has been a frustrating process because we don't have enough of a payout to take care of everything that needs to be done and we've had so many distractions. My Dad and I are going to get this part done, so State Farm can come back out and evaluate the damage to the house without the tree being in the way.. At the end of the day, the bottom line is that we will fall well short of the funds needed to get everything done. As a result, we're going to focus on the absolute most crucial repairs and that will be the damage to the side of the…

Today was a really difficult day for many reasons. Some of those reasons are obvious and some I won't be talking about right now. Perhaps someday, I'll have the courage to open up more than I have previously. As for the many things I will talk about, it was rough. The funeral went about as well an any funeral could go. It was sad but handled beautifully. It was heartbreaking but there was celebration at the same time. I picked the boys up from school after the cemetery, while Lizze rode back to the church with her cousin. The boys ended up having a fun with their cousins and we spent a bit more time with family before heading our separate ways. This whole week has taken its toll on…