There were two potentially life-changing events last Wednesday. The first happened in the afternoon when I signed lots of bits of paper and then became the owner of a house over four thousand miles and an ocean away from where I was born. The second was the period between 20:00 and 22:00 where I was running a high fever and we were wondering whether I would have to be rushed into the hospital on a suspected MRSA infection.

Thankfully, the latter, while stubborn and annoyingly impervious to the first round of drugs, doesn’t seem to be MRSA. Hurrah for keeping a foot. Still, I’ve spent most of my first week of homeownership confined to bed, with incidental trips back to Urgent Care and then Duke ER when it looked like the infection was spreading up my ankle. I haven’t quite got over the craziness of handing over a credit card whilst laid up in a hospital bed (this past week has cost me over $300 so far), but thank goodness I have health insurance, I guess. Also, I don’t think I’d have got through the week without Tammy watching out for me - even if her medical diagnoses were somewhat hampered because she couldn’t simply cut me open like her normal subjects (she’s a pathologist’s assistant, so most of them tend to be on the dead side, too).

In my absence, work has begun on the house - contractors started today on the foundations and the fireplaces, while on Thursday, the entire roof will be ripped off and replaced with shiny new energy-efficient shingle. And apparently, it’ll take at most two days unless they uncover something hideous under the existing roof. After that, it’ll be pretty much done. We have a few shinies that we’re splurging out on, but we’re not trying to go too crazy. Indeed, our new couch didn’t cost us anything except the petrol between Durham and Cary.

We hope that after we’ve got things set up (and the water gets turned on!), you’ll all pop by @314Driver sometime soon…