milliondead

Will this cold ever go away? My nose has been dripping for weeks now.

I'm planning on remodeling my house some time in the coming months . Right now I'm drawing up some plans and looking up some prices, before I go have a talk with my bank to discuss my mortgage. Hopefully I can raise enough money to do all the things I want.
There are basically 2 things I want to do with my house: I want to install a new kitchen, and I want to build an extension to the back of the house of about 5-6 feet. This will extend my diningroom area, and will make room for a mudroom/laundryroom next to my kitchen. It's about time I can do my own laundry, and not go to my parents for that.
I've already decided on the cabinets for the kitchen and laundryroom, and most of the appliances. Like my current kitchen, it's from IKEA, so I can re-use a lot of the cabinets I already have. I just have to replace the doors that are on there now. And I can put it together myself, which saves me a lot of money. I installed my current kitchen myself, too, so why pay someone a lot of money to do something I can do myself? The only thing I might have someone else do, is moving the gaspipe, my stove is going to be on another wall. I *could* technically do it myself, it's the same as plumbing (exactly the same pipe and fittings), which I have experience in. But I'd rather have a professional do it. Because if I screw up plumping, the worst that's going to happen is some water spillage. If I screw up gasfitting, I could blow up my house. Slight difference there .
Regarding the extension, I've already drawn up some rough blueprints. I just have to check a few measurements of appliances and building materials et cetera to determine exactly how much the extension needs to be. After that, the floorplan will be done. Then it's just a matter of deciding what cladding I'm going to use on the outside. I'm nudging towards red brick, because that's what my house is made of. But I could also go with wood panels, since the shed in the back yard is brick with a wood panel facing, too. And wood is probably less expensive. What do you guys think?
Once I've finished my sketches, I'll put them online, together with a few pictures of what my house currently looks like .

Tomorrow morning I'm taking Oz to the vet again. It's time to have his stitches removed. It seems to have healed nicely . I took his cone off the other day, he was so happy! He really hated that thing. Especially since it was the same size as the door in his litter box, so he had some trouble getting in . He had to aim just right to get the thing through the door . It was kinda funny to see him bump into things, but I also felt bad for him.

In other news, I've bought a scale the other day and weighed myself. Last time I weighed myself was at the dr right before I started my meds, and I was just shy of 230 lbs (100 kg). Now I weigh a whopping 250 lbs (112 kg). So since I started my medication about 10 months ago, I gained over 20 lbs! I've been stable at around 100 kg for years, and my eating habits haven't changed much the past few months. Granted, I haven't always been eating quite as healthy this year as I'd normally do, but certainly not 12 kg worth. I still eat healthy at least 4-5 days out of the week. So (by far) most of it must be due to the medication.
Combined with the fact that I'm doing a lot better lately, and am starting to feel I might be able to get by without my meds, I'm thinking about starting to ween off them. December 1st sounds like a reasonable date, since that's when I started taking medication first. I think I'm going to schedule an appointent with my dr some time within the next few weeks, see what he thinks.
Once I'm off the meds, I'm going to try and shed a few pounds. If most of my weight gain is indeed due to my meds, I should be starting to lose weight anyway, and that would be a good motivation to start dieting.

That's it for now . Time to clean up this place and start dinner, my parents and brother will be here in a little over an hour.