Ok. So. The ceiling in our living room began leaking over the weekend. Just over the Christmas tree that I was supposed to have taken down, like 10 days ago. And I was home alone-Nels was gone for 48 hours. It turned out to be a leaking drain in the upstairs bathtub- which was better than last years when our living room ceiling fell in after leaking for 3 days. That time the upstairs bathroom water pipes froze and exploded due to the lack of insulation in the exterior wall.

So, like last year, we have a big hole in the ceiling that we are patching currently. But at least we have heat -which I did not have over the weekend. It was too cold for our heat pump to work effectively and we ran out of our propane back up. A few mornings our thermostat would not even register- and it starts at 50 degrees. We sold my right arm and bought 150 gallons of propane, and attempted to reheat the house. We had been using electric and kerosene portable heaters for the past few days- and our kitchen oven.... One of our portable heaters had survived an attack from our dog. Blaze was in a vengeful mood one day when we left him in our garage so he chewed through 2 electric cords. One was an extension cord and the other was the cord and plug to an electric heater. So Nels stripped the cords, wired them to each other and we plugged it in. I know. It is a miracle that we didn't burn the house down. We had to keep turning the heater down since the cord would get hot. Again, I know. And we are firefighters.

But, our house is now 70 degrees. We have almost defrosted.

I am SO not used to this grown-up stuff.

But, I have some new CDs to listen to. Life is good :)

Ok, so I forgot that I had this account- until tonight. Or this morning (it is 157am). 

So, I will try to catch up.

I have been married 4 years. Time goes by. It has been the best 4 years of my life :) Contrary to popular belief. It was the single easiest transition ever.

I am finishing nursing school in a few months.

I am very sleepy right now. Will post more later.

Back to Ratt training- and dropping out of windows. The hardest part is that you go out head first. I had never gone out of a window head first until that day. I actually liked it. After the day of jumping out of windows I was a little bruised, but not too sore.

The soreness came about 2 weeks later- we had to practice the Denver Drill and Nance Drill. The Nance drill consists of setting up a 4 to 1 pulley system to rescue a Firefighter that has fallen through a floor/roof. It is done with only a rope and 4 Firefighters and two handcuff knots, not an actual pulley system- and works very well. It is most painful if you are the victim, not the rescuer.

Not so with the Denver drill. I thought I was going to die, and I was the rescuer, not the one being pushed out the window. Let me explain this. There is a downed FF inside the building by the window. The area is too small for more than one rescuer to bring him out. You climb in the window, turn the victim so his head is nearest the window, sit him up, move him towards the window until his back is straight up against it, push his knees up and his feet under him as far as they will go- this is key since they will become your pivot point. Bend down grab his pack straps, pull him up and step back until his legs are completely straight and his weight is leaning on you. Then you carry him to the window pick him up and push him out on to the ladder.

I was able to lift a 170lb man with 40 or so lbs of gear. And it almost killed me.

I survived RAT training ;) we are all pleased about that. I am bruised and sore, but alive. , and alive is what RAT is all about. The first class was all "classroom" actually. We learned about how the maneuvers originated, who they were named for, what went wrong, etc. The next class was self rescue. We set up a ladder to the second story and practiced bailing out head first. There is a neat technique to this, though it is hard on the shoulders and chins. We did flip around once we were on the ladder and slid the rest of the way down on the ladder beams, or rails. Pretty simple. Even I could do that. my biggest feat was actually getting out of the window which came up to my chest- (since I am short). but once I had my head out, the rest happened very quickly.

The next drill was learning to bail out with a rope and your tool or a magazine, or anything that you can find to use as an anchor. We used whatever tool we had brough with us. In this case a halogen bar. if you tie a "clove hitch" knot to the bar and place the bar at a diagonal angle against the inside wall and inside bottom sill, it holds nicely. Well, as long as you hold tension on the rope  that is going out the window, with your right hand. Then you simply wrap the long end of the rope around your back so that it bights into your air bottle (otherwise you will get a painful rope burn on your back. So, after you wrap it behind you, you hold on to that end as well, in your right hand. then you simply drop out the window carefully, as soon as you are head up you ease your grip of both of the ropes and slide down. it is simple, as long as you KEEP TENSION ON THE ROPE THE WHOLE TIME. We did accidently drop a firefighter on this routine. Or he dropped himself. He was fine, no real injuries, only to ego.

Then we did carries up and down stairs, which was basic.

Oops, I need to go. I will finish this blog later.

so, anyway, to pick up where I left off... we have gone muddin 3 times. Which was great! We put over 100 miles on it the last weekend that we were home. Which makes up for the 2 weeks that we have been in Cincinnati not able to do much of anything.

Tomorrow I have my first day of RAT training, which is basically a fire-fighter self rescue course. It runs for a month, and everyone says that it is a killer. I will write about how it goes- if I am not too humiliated. I finally got to where I can do 2 pull ups  it only took me most of my life. Add our turnout gear and SCBA- and I don't even walk very well.

I am in a competition at work- we are trying to get in shape for the summer.... so.... we are trying to see who can build up the best 6 pack abs by June 1st. There are about 5-6 of us in this competition, we are all girls of course. No guys allowed. We have been furiously doing crunches and sit ups, any exercise that we can create to make a 6 pack. We also offer the others snacks and chocolate, and a variety of other temptations. We will have a panel that will judge the anonymous photographs, also an only girls event. The winner gets a trip to the spa. Something that I have never done. I have never even had a manicure, pedicure, nothing. OK, so I did break down a visit a tanning bed, and I had sworn that I would never do that.

Back to exercising...I generally exercise by myself- because usually I do not have anyone else around that would come with me, and mostly because I look way too funny. But probably not as funny as the few firemen at work who have taken up pilates. But you know, "the lady that teaches is great!" uh, huh. I know. They even work out with their video-pilates instructor in the sitting room at the firehouse. Way too brave for me. Especially since the officers from the police dept across the hall have unlimited access to our side of the building. That could be dangerous.