Today is Friday. It should be the best day of the week, right? Right?!

Woke up to find Cars on day #3 of fever but now it was not just a measly 101.5F fever but 103.4F! So for the third day in a row he crawled under a blanket on the couch with plans to doze on and off.

At 6:45am, just as Dex and Jax were getting ready for school, and DH was getting ready for work, our power went out. I checked outside but could not tell if any of our neighbours were without power so I texted my next door neighbor who said that yes, hers was off too. So I called the power company and they reported that 2900 customers were without power and they did not know the reason why. Since dawn was breaking and it was relatively mild out, we decided not to set up the generator and everyone left for work/school.

Made an appointment for Cars at the pediatrician's office and of course the time conflicted with my (pre-paid) class at the gym. Then I noticed a funky smell in the house. It was worse by the front door so I bent down to take whiff at the heating vent and almost fell over! OMG! Something was dead and rotting in my crawlspace. I put on my rubber boots and went next door to my other neighbour's house and told her I needed some support while I crawl under my deck to access my crawlspace. She is awesome and came with me and I struggled to get under the deck and get that door off. I saw nothing in the crawlspace but beautiful (dry - I did think for a min that our septic tank might have backed up) crawlspace. However, there was no way that I was actually going to crawl INTO it. I had her come take a whiff (see, didn't I tell you she was an awesome neighbor?) by my front door and she said yes, it was definitely a dead, rotting animal smell.

Just great.

I called a company that specializes in making your crawlspaces clean. We had hired them about 5 years ago to replace the vapour barrier in our crawlspace and to add more insulation and wrap the pipes and vents in insulation. They said they'd send someone out at noon.

I jumped into the shower and threw on some clothes and took Cars to the doctor for his appointment. The nurse took his temperature and it was now 103.8F! Yikes!! She left to go get the doctor and Cars asked me if he might have Ebola. I asked him when he was in West Africa and he realized he was being silly (although he was dead serious when he asked). The doc came in and after listening to his lungs she said he probably had pneumonia and an X-ray would confirm. She left to get the nurse to set up the X-ray and Cars shot me a look that could kill and said that I had told him that her probably did NOT have it. It is true, I figured he might just have a virus but with the high temperature, I wanted to be sure it was nothing else. Anyway, the X-ray confirmed pneumonia. Rx for Augmentin and home we went.

The crawlspace guy arrived and took one whiff and said there was something dead. We walked around the house outside and inspected to make sure all of the crawlspace screens were intact (they were) and then he crawled under the deck and into the crawlspace. He emerged a while later with lots of photos of rat droppings near the front of the house (which is why I could not see anything because the back of the house is still immaculate) and said he could not readily see any dead bodies but there is rat poop that is green which indicates that it ate poisoned bait and then probably died in the crawlspace.

So...what's next?  Total removal of all insulation in the crawlspace,  the vapour barrier, sanitize and deodorize and reinstall all new stuff at a lovely co$t. OMG! He thinks the rats were getting in under the insulation at the front of the house (probably a broken screen) but they won't know for sure until they remove it all. Fortunately they can do it tomorrow. I cannot wait any later because of the stench in my house!
I need a do-over today.