Hi! I'm back for an update. It's been almost a year since I posted this asking for advice and so much has changed. The property that my grandmother owns is now in litigation. One of those 'golden' children is suing because they say it was 'promised' to them. So now grandma even has more of a headache because she has legal fees, depositions and an upcoming trial that she is having to prepare for. Of course her lawyer says that there is no case and that they will not win. However it cannot be sold until litigation is complete. My relationship with my grandmother has gotten much better AND she is actually enjoying spending time with me and my family to give my mom a break. She comes over and sits and watches tv with me and the kids make her feel like a million bucks with all of their coloring and 'gifts' that they make for her. My older daughter enjoys helping to fix grandma's hair and likes to help her open doors and things like that. Smothering my grandma with love has seemed to work in the last few months. Her relationship with my mom has gotten better. She is still pretty mean but she no longer calls the other siblings to complain about my mom. She will snap at my mom but quickly apologizes. She has seen the devotion that my mother has for her and I think that has really changed her. As the weeks and months go on, my grandmother becomes even more confused about things and that is very frustrating for her but she leans on my mom where this time last year she would lash out at my mom. She actually enjoys being around my dad too. Our family dog passed a few months ago and my grandma took it pretty hard. We didn't realize how attached she had become to the dog but she tells us that in the afternoon the dog would go in and sit in her room and watch the kids walking home from school through the window. They bonded which is not something my grandmother is good at. The passing of the dog seemed to bring her closer to my dad which has really surprised us all. She says I love you a lot. She says thank you to my mom. I've caught her calling my mom honey and sweetie which are not names my grandmother ever uses. One sibling has stepped up. Well his wife has stepped up but at least my mom has help now. My parents have been able to travel on three vacations which they had not done in over a year and they were travelers before my grandma moved in. My grandma stays with my uncle and wife for several weeks and actually misses home. That's right she calls it 'home' now. The situation is not perfect but it seems to have gotten better. With her acceptance of how her life his now, she seems to be much happier. She doesn't want to go to a home and so I think with the fear of that happening she has straightened up a bit. She still has those moments but she seems to realize when she has been ugly and shows remorse. She actually sits in the living area with family instea of shutting herself off in to her room. The dr's say she is doing well. She had a scare not that long ago but seems to be much better now. I'm not sure what changed my grandma but she is not the miserable old lady she was last summer. She is a much nicer person who allows her family to love her and help her. Just wanted to give an update.

It is with absolute sadness that I am back here, Bill, to tell you that all three of my showers have been tiled incorrectly. Yep, big grout lines, sanded grout, and the wrong colour to boot. I've shed some tears, gotten angry, and feel terrible about it. I don't know if anyone is going to read this, but I've learned a HUGE lesson. I asked for 1/16" grout lines and unsanded grout - and the guy did what he wanted. He was nice enough but I should have pushed for what I wanted instead of listening to him. I should have watched him like a hawk and gotten someone else to do it if he didn't want to do it the way I wanted. Now I have to live with three showers that aren't quite right. I know that life is too short to agonize over shower tile (!) and that there is nothing I can do but basically rip everything apart but it still makes me mad. Really mad. My poor husband is taking the brunt of this. :) Thanks, Bill, for all your help and maybe when everything is done I'll be brave enough to post photos - with the disclaimer that I'll never be perfectly happy with my 1/8"+ grout lines.

Well, I called the service company again this morning. The smell of raw fuel oil was spreading through the house yet again. The nice young man who came out seemed very knowledgeable and very business-like. He removed the side panel and I asked him what was behind there -- it is the flue collector for the boiler. It was completely clogged with dry black gunk in less than 2 days. If I hadn't seen, with my own eyes, how clean they were this past Friday, I wouldn't have believed it. He cleaned that area out. He said it was getting waaay too little air and he could tell that by the sound alone. He set the air intake up by several multiples from where they were originally set by his predecessors (and my friend, who opened it up a bit more but was afraid to open it up too much, figuring it was set that low for a reason). It was originally set at about 3.5, my friend set it to 4, and this guy turned it up to 11. Then he opened up the chamber door to check the flame and made some adjustments there. He suggested that the chamber be replaced. He checked the draw to the chimney and said it was excellent -- no problems there. The black smoke we were seeing on occasion was from an incomplete burn and the clogging in the flue. Then he read the previous service orders and said "Three visits and no one changed your filters?" If they did change the filters it wasn't on the service orders. He went outside and checked the smoke from the chimney. It was back to being white. This service guy opened up the part where the nozzles were located, took them out, looked them over, and said they looked good. In fact, they looked new, so they may have been replaced but not written up on the previous service slips. According to this guy, I should call the office and get a price on a new chamber and have someone come back in a day or two to change the filters and check everything again. Oh yeah, and leave the basement windows open to let it air out for the day. :-) Baymee and Paulbm, you guys rock. Thank you. I've learned a lot. Let's hope these corrections "take". I will be calling the service company in the morning for a follow-up. I'm still wondering, since this unit is about 12 years old, if it would be better to get a new boiler altogether. Are they more efficient now than they were back in the late 1990s? I know that 12 years is not that old for boilers, but if newer ones are vastly improved, it might be the way to go.

I'm pretty sure that's what it was. I took her in to the drs. office to be weighed and measured today (2 weeks, 4 days old) b/c I wanted to make sure everything was going well. She's been pretty fussy/gassy the past few days and has been having projectile spitting every couple of days where I swear the entire contents of her belly comes up. Well, she was 9 lbs 9 oz and 21 inches long. Last Wed, she weighed in at 8 lbs 13 oz. Not sure of the length b/c they didn't measure her but she was 19 3/4 inches long when she was born. So it must have been a growth spurt. Thanks everyone! It's always something isn't it? Every time I start to think I'm getting things under control, something new happens to send me into panic mode!!! I guess I should get used to it, huh! :-) Jen