all week long

well, we've had quite the interesting week.

monday morning at five o'clock, i woke up to janelle yelling, "patrick, patrick!" from the bathroom. being the kind and sensitive guy i am, i yelled right back, "what!?" and she said, "come here!" so i clambered out of bed and made my way to the washroom, squinting because i didn't bother with my glasses that early in the morning, and very grumpy at being woken up so early. when i entered the washroom, janelle was sitting on the toilet. "look!" she beamed, pushing something at my face.

it was a pregnancy test. the display read "+1." i could feel my face splitting into a grin.

janelle wanted to call everyone right away. as excited and happy as i was, i wanted to get back into bed. we went to bed and, when we woke up later in the morning, like around a quarter to eight, we tried to decide if we should tell everyone yet or not. we decided to tell everyone, so janelle called her parents and i called my parents and everyone was really excited. then we went to the office, again we couldn't decide wether or not to tell everyone. we decided to tell our coworkers because they might celebrate by giving us time off, which would be stellar.

so, around ten o'clock, i made some coffee and brought it down to the office and when joy got down i told her, "hey joy, janelle's pregnant." and the news spread from there. henry thought we were kidding. jane screamed and danced. there was some belly touching and hugs and things like that... it was a unique experience. at least, for me.

no such luck as getting a day off though, with the tour coming the next day there was plenty of work to do and we were very busy.

at lunch we called most of our family and friends and informed them of the good news.

i had to work late, to help get ready for the tour and janelle went to the hospital to get some bloodwork done. afterwards we got invited to rebekah's for supper and we went, we borrowed mom and dad's swan's car.

we stayed quite late, and afterwards stopped by the superstore for some dried prunes: janelle's first pregnancy craving. she used to hate dried prunes, now she eats them all the time.

tuesday morning we started early, but not as early as joy, jane, and henry. they started at five o'clock. we started at around seven. the tour arrived at eight o'clock. what a waste of time getting those apartments cleaned, they didn't even look at them.

and i thought that we'd get to do nothing the rest of the day because the building was all cleaned and looking great. but mary ann decided that she wanted all of the empty units market ready by the end of the day. there was one really, really bad apartment and joy and i spent most of the day cleaning it. we sprayed oven cleaner all over the place, we used up about a can and a half of that ... and we ran out of all purpose cleaner, so we mixed water and bleach and sprayed that around for a while. in the washroom, we used straight bleach to clean the mildew off the shower tiles and floor and i sprayed the inside and outside of the toilet and sink with toilet bowl cleaner. as you can imagine, after a while, the fumes started getting to us and we developed terrible headaches and sore throats.
later in the day janelle told me that if we had read the label, it would have told us not to use bleach and oven cleaner at the same time because the fumes combine to make some kind of poisonous vapour. but by then i'd already developed a nasty bleeding nose that bled intermittently for a few days.

on wednesday we found out that there was going to be another tour the following tuesday. we were too exhausted to do much of anything and after hastily tidying the building, we spent the rest of the day doing very little.

thursday was the staff party at bowlerama, so we closed the office early and headed over with mom and dad swan. it was pretty fun, we bowled. henry is the best bowler, but he hurt his shoulder and stopped playing. our team didn't win at bowling, however, i did win $250 in gift certificates from sobeys in a random draw. so we went home happy.

on friday, some guy from waste management came and put up some signs in the building, at first joy and i helped him, but joy abandoned us and then it was just me and him. we put signs all over the building, showing how to separate garbage and recycling. afterwards he praised my resourcefulness and initiative to mary ann and she was very impressed. i patted myself on the back. now janelle is at a potluck party or something and i have to go to the washroom... so that's all.