Wow. Almost December? Really?

Time is flying by!  I've neglected my little blog terribly this year.  I post pithy little comments on Facebook all the time, but completely ignore my special place.  Got to do better about that!

Here is a quick catch up on what we've been doing for the past 5 months.

July
1. As I posted before, we put Sophie to sleep on July 2nd.  It was a horrible, hard day, followed by very hard weeks.  We miss our girl terribly.  Carmen was very depressed for a long time.
2. Went to see Cats
3. Did PT on my knee
4. Did my annual mammogram
5. Went to a party to say good bye to Der Mad Stamper who is moving to Kansas.  Yes, on purpose!

August
1. Dad had heart surgery to repair a valve.  All went well, he was a model patient and was up and around in no time.  We are all very relieved it went well and nothing more needed to be done.
2. More PT
3. Had an MRI on my knee.  Determined I have a torn medial meniscus and arthritis in my knee.  They can do surgery to fix the tear, but said it most likely won't fix the pain because of the arthritis.  I have chosen to continue with exercise and weight loss to see if I can get it under control.  
5.Attended the Are We There Yet? letterboxing gathering.  Awesome! (and Der Mad Stamper was there.  Still hasn't moved as far as I know).
6. Saw Greater Tuna
7. My Auntie Jan, cousins Debbie, Doug and Susan and their various assorted friends came out to visit for a few days.  Had a lovely, but short, visit with them.

September
1. FMS/IT/BFP retreat.  Had last minute changes because of the weather, but we had fun.  Hmm, still need to finish that photo book.
2. Got a surprise invitation to see Chicago from Julie and a group of friends of friends of people with season tickets.  Woo hoo!
3. More PT
4. I joined LA Fitness and signed up for a personal trainer.  I know!  Who'da thought?
5. Ritha & I started going to aquafit classes every week.  We committed to each other that we would go once a week until the end of the year.  We've been doing pretty good, too!
6. G & I went up to Trout Lake to go camping at the ECETI (Enlightened Contact with Extraterrestrial Intelligence) homestead. Very interesting people there.  Horrible weather, didn't see any UFOs, but managed to have fun anyway.
7. Graduated from PT. 

October
1. Rinda had to have Raz put to sleep.
2. Saw Spamalot
3. Had a tooth filled - yay, no root canal needed!
4. Camped at Stubb Stewart State Park for the Night Boxing with Zombies letterboxing gathering.  Too much fun!  Great park.  I think we ended up with over 50 boxes that night in just a couple of hours. 
5. Renewed my notary license.
6. Spent a few hours searching for Tigger, the runaway whippet here in Gresham.
7. Had the annual eye appointment.  Had to up the power of the close vision part of my contest so I can actually read stuff without reading glasses again.  Sigh.  Getting old sucks.
8.  Went to the information class for Weight Loss for Life (more about that later).
9. Went cider pressing with Mom and Dad at  the Cedar Creek Grist Mill.
10. Got my hair cut.
11. Had a pumpkin carving contest at work. I'll post pictures later.
12. Workout with trainer and aquafit every week.

November
1. Silent auction at work.  Spent too much money, but it was for a good cause.  Won the basket for the dog goodies, some earrings, handmade cards, some beaded thingys that are barefoot decorations.
2. Started Weight Loss for Life.  Starting weight - 266.
3. Went to Ritha's house for a scrapping party.  Worked on my secret theater project.  Only got the stuff prepared, but that was a big step up from where I started, which was a stack of playbills a foot high.
4. Went to the Pretty Kitty Craft Bazaar.  Bought some fun stuff and won the dog basket in the silent auction.  Lots of goodies for $30!  Again, all for charity.  This time for House of Dreams, a shelter for abandoned and homeless cats.
5. Got surprise theater tickets to see American Idiot from another friend of a friend that has season tickets they couldn't use.  I need more of those friends!
6. Saw Inspecting Carol.
7. Picked up Ochenta for a trial run (more about that in a separate post).

Huh. If you asked me I would have said we haven't been doing much, but when you write it out, things look more interesting!

I promise to do better with my little blog.

Goodbye Sweet Girl

On July 2nd, we said goodbye to  Dreams on the Sofa, Fch, OTRM, SRM, SC.  It was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

Sophie had been having tummy trouble more and more often in the last year.  She'd been to the vet several times for vomiting and the fact that she was losing weight.  We tried all kinds of food and finally found a raw food that she could keep down and liked, but she wasn't putting weight back on.  She had tests and x-rays, but nothing was coming back with anything that pointed to one diagnoses.  Dr. Tracy thought she might have pancreatitis, but nothing was significantly pointing that way with her blood work.

Finally, on June 18th, we took her to have an ultrasound done.  This was the assessment from the vet:

CLIENT INSTRUCTIONS:Sophie presented for abdominal ultrasound because of weight loss and on-going vomiting. Chest x-rays were taken and were clear.

Abdominal ultrasound showed an intestinal mass. This is relatively small, but it appears to be actually somewhat blocking the flow of food/fluid through the intestines. This is likely causing the vomiting and weight loss.

Sophie's left kidney is blocked, stretched and damaged. The ureter (the tube between thekidney and the bladder) appears blocked close to the kidney. I suspect that the inflammationand damage of the intestinal mass is impacting this tube and blocking the kidney.

There is a small amount of free fluid in the belly, this is likely secondary to one of the aboveissues.

Both of the above changes are felt to be extremely painful processes in humans with similarchanges.

Sophie is uncomfortable in her belly at least. In addition, she is in mild kidney failure and herpancreatic blood value is mildly elevated.

I have provided to options for Sophie;1) Surgical exploratory. See if we can get the mass out. See if the surgeon can relieve thepressure on the kidney and allow drainage. There are tubes we could potentially place to help hold open the ureter. However, scarring and long term damage are a concern. Removing the kidney is another possibility. Removing the kidney of a dog in renal failure carries a poorprognosis. This would be an aggressive and invasive surgery. This surgery would be relativelyexpensive (rough estimate $5-6,0000) with poor odds of survival and poor long termexpectations.

2) Humane euthanasia. We discussed quality of life and I gave some rough advice on things to monitor. I suspect that Sophie is painful but that she is hiding this pain, for the most part.Mr. Leibrand elected to take Sophie home, discuss with his wife and family.

 At this point she was still acting like her normal self, just skinnier.  She was still eating and eliminating, staying with us, poking her head into any bag we brought home, and all the other normal stuff she does.

We talked to our vet, who agreed with the other vet's assessment and advised us that we wouldn't have much more time with her.  We chose to bring her home and provide palliative care as long as her quality of life was good.

I had the last week of June off and was able to spend it with her.  As the days went by, she started to get weaker and pickier about what she was eating.  Pretty soon she wouldn't eat her expensive raw food, but was still eating the yummy tripe.  Then tripe wasn't doing it for her, but scramble egg was good.  On Saturday the 29th she hit a turning point.  She threw up in the late afternoon and didn't really bounce back.  We gave her some anti-nausea medicine and kept up with her pain pills.  She wasn't interested in eating much, though.

Things continued to go downhill for her the rest of the weekend.  By the time I got home from work on Monday, July 1, I knew the time had come.  She was very weak and not interested in eating.  She had no energy and the life had gone out of her dark eyes. She sat with me in my chair with her head on my shoulder just resting.  We made the appointment for 12:15.

She slept with me one last time on Monday night.  I think I was touching her all night, but she hardly moved.  I kept looking at the clock, knowing that I only had a few more hours with her.

Tuesday was really hard. Somehow knowing we had a time set to end her life seemed weird.  We left about 11:00 and took her up Morgan Creek Natural Area, which is one of my favorite spots to take the girls.  She walked around and sniffed, peed a little, and mostly just looked around and seemed to enjoy the sights.  She was too weak to walk far, so we didn't go down to Carmen's Beach, which is about 1/2 a mile in.  That was her favorite place there.  She always liked to stand in the creek and drink the water for some reason.

We got to the vet at 12:00.  Greg and I waited in the car, talking little.  I think I was already crying when we took her in to the vet.  The staff there was so great.  They lead us into a room right away and we were able to set her down on the futon couch.  Dr. Tracy came in and did a quick assessment of Sophie.  She agreed that it was time for us to put her to sleep.  She did more tending to Greg and I at that point and explained each step of the process.  I had to sign a release that said I was the owner and gave my permission to terminate her life.  Dr. Tracy gave us plenty of time to say goodbye.  We both cried and told Sophie that we were sorry we couldn't make her better and that we loved her.

We chose to have the vet give a sedative first, and then once Sophie was asleep she would inject something to stop her heart.

I was holding her the whole time across my lap with her head in the crook of my elbow.  She was so still and quiet and didn't even flinch when Dr. Tracy gave her the first injection.  That more than anything, helped me know that we were making the right choice for her. I kept my hand on her chest and was able to watch it move with the beat of her heart and every breath.  

She almost immediately was asleep after the injection and after about 5 minutes was breathing very slowly and her heart beat was slowing down.  Dr. Tracy came in and gave her another shot and I started to feel her heartbeat slow down.  After a couple of minutes, it just tapered off until I felt nothing.  Dr. Tracy listened with her stethoscope and told us she was gone.

It was all very peaceful and seemed very painless for Sophie.  Dr. Tracy was stroking her leg the whole time, Greg was petting her, and I had my hand on her chest and we were telling her that we loved her and would miss her.  It was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life.

The house seems so empty without her.  Carmen seems depressed.  I know I'm depressed and prone to bouts of sobbing for no apparent reason.  The cats are very solicitous   Whenever I start crying, Cleo comes up and makes me hold her and purrs.  She is such an empath.  If I'm somewhere where she can reach me, Carmen will lick my face and wag her tail.  Zinger has let me pet him a lot more  lately and we've played with his mousie.

We had her cremated.  Today we picked up the remains.  They had put them in a nice wooden box and gave us a paw print and some nice messages to go with them.  I couldn't even read that stuff.  I know I'll appreciate it later, but not yet.

I wanted to get this all down in my blog so that I would always remember how peaceful it was for her.    I've been crying most of the time I've been typing it, but it is a good thing to remember.

These are some of the last pictures I took of her.  I couldn't bring myself to take a picture that last day.  She was just so skinny.  These pictures are from late May, I think.  She's pretty skinny here, too.

Goodbye, sweet girl.  Mummy misses you.

Long Time No See

So did any of you notice that I haven't posted on here since my birthday?  I started a blog for the Iditarod and did a bunch of posting on there, but once that was over, things got complicated.  I'll try for a summary of the last few months here.

January
Boxing with Maiden in Wilsonville
Root canal (that's what I got for my birthday.  And was super glad to get it)
Got new fishy at work.  His name is Eragon.

February
Puzzling Christmas LB gathering
See Grand Hotel with Julie
Sophie's teeth cleaning
Finance Committee meeting
IAAP meeting
Beach boxing with the Mystery Machine Group
See The Great American Trail Park Musical with Leah
Game On! diet starts

March
Administrative Assistance conference
Game On diet ends - lose 12 pounds (248.8)
Finance Committee Meeting
Greg has kidney stone surgery
See Rumors with ulie

April
Lucky Box LB gathering
Pet and Companion Fair
Budget Committee meetings
Greg in hospital for infection for 5 days.

May
Spring Flinger LB gathering
Camping at Lewis & Clark State Park
Greg goes to the Centralia hospital via ambulance
Greg has second kidney stone surgery
See La Cage Aux Folles with Julie

June
Finance Committee meeting
See Somewhere in Time with Leah
The Big Goodbye LB gathering
Midsummer's Nights Dream LB gathering
To doctor for my knee
See Avenue Q with Julie and Melanie

So there are the highlights.  I'll talk about July in another post.

Birthday Wishes



Happy birthday to my dad and Greg (January 27) and ME (January 29)!

Isn't this the cutest graphic?  My friend Rita sent it to me.  So ADORABLE!

Jammin' Whippets

This is a picture my friend Laurel posted of her dogs.  Can you find them all?



Left to right: English, Chili, What, Tick, Casabella, Halo, Dude, Irish, Beast, Panic and little Cayman in the front.

The Theater Gods Smiled on Me

Wow.  Did this day take a different turn than I expected.  In a good way.

You might remember my post earlier in the week whining about being sick and missing out on everything.  Well, the rest of the week didn't change much.  I've spent the last week in bed with my Kleenex and cough meds.  I've watched the rest of Dollhouse Season 2, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Season One of Psych.  I worked a half day on Thursday, and pretty much slept away the rest of the days.  This morning I decided I should attempt to join the land of the living, so I got up, took a shower and went to check on the trailer.

In the early afternoon I was playing on my computer when the home phone and then my cell phone rang.  Since it was right there, I actually answered it.  And what a good thing I did, too.

My theater buddy and best friend Julie, happened to get her hands on tickets to the 6:30 performance to Book of Mormon. A friend of hers had four FREE tickets and she was looking for someone to be her "plus one."  Squee!

So I totally got to see a musical that I didn't think I was going to get to see because the tickets were so expensive and I couldn't get cheap ones.  Not only were the tickets free, they were 11th ROW ORCHESTRA!  Can you believe it? 

Anyway, the performance was really good.  I'm feeling so lucky and thinking that 2013 might just be looking up. 

A New Year, A New Look

Well, 2013 isn't starting off like I wanted.  Let me just get the whining out of the way and I promise to move on to something else.  I had planned to go letterboxing with Maiden, Thunderbird, and Buzzin' Around up at Wildwood Park in Puyallup.  There are a zillion boxes in that park, and I would have picked up a good 50 of them.  I even have a new Camelback that I just bought myself for Christmas to use.  I was super excited.  Then I got this cough a couple of days ago.  Just a little tickle at first, then a little cough.  Then a little more cough, and now it's a sea lion worthy bark.  Along with the cough came a temperature of about 100.  If I stay still I can keep the coughing under control, but moving around kicks it up.

So here I sit, on the first day of the new year, in my bed, NOT out letterboxing on this beautiful sunny day.  I'm pouty and feeling sorry for myself. I can't even really do anything around the house on The List because too much moving around makes me cough more.

Sigh.  And I was really hoping 2013 would be a better year.

Okay, whining done.

So you might have noticed I changed the look of my blog.  I do this from time to time, which makes reading older posts weird.  I like this look for now.  What do you all think?

I suppose I should do a year in summary, shouldn't I?  A look back at 2012?  I'll work on that.  It can be my next post.

For now that is all.  Happy New Year, Dear Readers.

Friends

Greg just sent me this video.  I thought I'd share it with you all because you just can't watch it without saying "Awww."

This is All I Have to Say About This Week

I Wanna Wear Pants

I've been complaining about how tired I am of all the political ads and campaigning and media coverage this whole election.  Until a friend posted the video below, I never once thought about voting being a right that women have had for less than 100 years.  I didn't think about what it took for women to get the right to vote.  I wouldn't have been able to vote in my state until March 22, 1920.  I'm rather ashamed that I didn't think about this. 

I did a little research and found some interesting and surprising information:

*the constitutional amendment  (the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution) was first introduced to the Senate in 1878
*that amendment was drafted by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
* in 1915 a proposal to amend the Constition to provide for women's suffrage was brought before the House of Representatives and was defeated by a vote of 204 to 174.
*the issue came up again in 1918 in the House and was passed with ONE vote to spare but failed in the Senate by only two votes.
*in 1919 it was again voted upon and failed by one vote.
*Can you believe that the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution was not passed until 1920?


Thank you to all the women before me that fought to give women the right to vote.  I can't imagine what you all went through and the hardships and scorn you faced.  I promise to remember this in the future!

Quit with the Christmas Stuff!

Simon's Cat Box Guide

The Verdict

Well, the verdict is in.  Throwing my computer down the stairs apparently creates too much damage to be repaired.  My IT guy pulled the life support plug and removed the hard drive and memory and is recycling the rest.

RIP Dell computer. 

Now I have to research getting a new computer and deciding if I want a desktop, laptop or just an iPad.  Poo.

Goodbye Kitties

Sigh.  The Seven Kittens webcam is going away this weekend.  All the kitties are adopted and ready to go to their new home.  What a great success story.  One of the fans put together this great story about them.

I'm going to miss their sweet little kitten antics.  Somehow it was so soothing to check in with them throughout the day and watch them playing or more often, sleeping.

Good luck in your new homes, kitties!  I'm going to miss watching you guys.

The Damage

So here are some pictures of the damage from the fall down the stairs.

 This is the computer on/off switch.

 The pieces I found the computer in and was able to pick up. (I'm saving this one to show to all other computers that give me grief. )

 The goudge in the wall from going down the stairs.

The goudge in the vinyl flooring from going down the stairs.  I'm assuming it hit here first and then hit the wall.

Nice, huh?  My IT guy hasn't had a chance to look at it yet to see if it is fixable. 

5 Things I'd Tell the Teen Me

1.  Go to college.  It doesn't matter that you don't know what you want to do and are being all practical and not wasting money going without a goal in mind.  Just GO!  It will be a lot harder to get your degree when you have a car payment and a house payment and a 40-hour per week job.  And go out of state.  Get the full living on campus experience.

2.  Don't wait for the perfect guy and the perfect "spark."  There are some great guys out there that like you.  Try them out.  You may be surprised. You don't have to marry them.  And that romance novel stuff?  I haven't seen much of it yet, so take it with a grain of salt.

3.  Start an exercise regime now.  Good habits go a long way!  I know you hate to sweat, but you'll hate it a lot more when you are 42 and facing the daunting task of losing 140 pounds.

4. Major forks in the road of life do not come with a road sign.  You will be presented with choices that will change the path of your life and won't recognize that fact until years later. 

5. If you volunteer for stuff early on you get to pick the job you like (or hate the least).  If you wait, you'll get stuck with the sucky jobs.

To quote Brad Paisley, these are nowhere near the best years of your life.

Oh! This is Where I Went Wrong!

This is an excerpt from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.


How To Fly

© by Douglas Adams

There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] suggests, and try it.

The first part is easy. All it requires is simply the ability to throw yourself forward with all your weight, and the willingness not to mind that it's going to hurt.

That is, it's going to hurt if you fail to miss the ground. Most people fail to miss the ground, and if they are really trying properly, the likelihood is that they will fail to miss it fairly hard.

Clearly, it is the second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties.

One problem is that you have to miss the ground accidentally. It's no good deliberately intending to miss the ground because you won't. You have to have your attention suddenly distracted by something else when you're halfway there, so that you are no longer thinking about falling, or about the ground, or about how much it's going to hurt if you fail to miss it.

It is notoriously difficult to prize your attention away from these three things during the split second you have at your disposal. Hence most people's failure, and their eventual disillusionment with this exhilarating and spectacular sport.

If, however, you are lucky enough to have your attention momentarily distracted at the crucial moment by, say, a gorgeous pair of legs (tentacles, pseudopodia, according to phyllum and/or personal inclination) or a bomb going off in your vicinty, or by suddenly spotting an extremely rare species of beetle crawling along a nearby twig, then in your astonishment you will miss the ground completely and remain bobbing just a few inches above it in what might seem to be a slightly foolish manner.

This is a moment for superb and delicate concentration. Bob and float, float and bob. Ignore all consideration of your own weight simply let yourself waft higher. Do not listen to what anybody says to you at this point because they are unlikely to say anything helpful. They are most likely to say something along the lines of "Good God, you can't possibly be flying!" It is vitally important not to believe them or they will suddenly be right.

Waft higher and higher. Try a few swoops, gentle ones at first, then drift above the treetops breathing regularly.

DO NOT WAVE AT ANYBODY.

When you have done this a few times you will find the moment of distraction rapidly easier and easier to achieve.

You will then learn all sorts of things about how to control your flight, your speed, your maneuverability, and the trick usually lies in not thinking too hard about whatever you want to do, but just allowing it to happen as if it were going to anyway.
You will also learn about how to land properly, which is something you will almost certainly screw up, and screw up badly, on your first attempt.

There are private clubs you can join which help you achieve the all-important moment of distraction. They hire people with surprising bodies or opinions to leap out from behind bushes and exhibit and/or explain them at the critical moments. Few genuine hitchhikers will be able to afford to join these clubs, but some may be able to get temporary employment at them.

I've Got a Case of the Monday's

Sometimes you do use information you learned in high school that you never thought you would use. I didn’t take physics, focusing more on biology, but I proved one law this morning. Well, several actually.
1. I can’t fly.

2. Gravity is real. Respect it.

3. My computer can’t fly.

4. I need to keep up on the dust bunnies on my stairs better.

5. It is a really good thing we didn’t use laminate flooring on the steps.
Yes, I took a spill down my stairs this morning. While carrying my desktop computer to work for one of our IT guys to repair it. I missed a step on the first flight and before I knew it I was face down on the landing and my computer was at the bottom of the stairs in pieces. I’m okay; just sore and bruised. We aren’t sure about the computer. IT Guru Don is going to see if he can do anything to revive it. Since it wasn’t coming on already (the reason I was carrying it in the first place), it may now be a lost cause.  It now has many small loose pieces that once were attached, but I don't know how important they all might be.

I also managed to put a gouge in the flooring at the bottom of the stairs and a good sized chip in the wall. So now I can add fixing that to my to-do list.

Don’t you love Mondays?

Guest Blogger - Got the Trailer!

I stole this off of Greg's post on the Montana Owner's Forum:

Well, we finally have our new trailer. Went up last Saturday night, started our PDI on Sunday and finished it on Monday. They started the punch list Monday and worked on it until Wednesday. We stayed in it Monday and Tuesday nights on the lot. We headed home Wednesday and decided to stop in Lacey and overnighted at Cabela's and just got home yesterday afternoon. If it tells you anything about how tired we were, we didn't get ANYTHING at Cabela's - how sad is that? Generator was very nice to have to do a couple quick breakfasts using the microwave :)


PDI went pretty well. I will post a list later to give you some ideas of what to look for.

The unit looks great and after the first couple nights of having to vacate it so they could work on it, finally feels like it is ours.

First time ever towing a fifth wheel, and first time with the new diesel... WOW is all I can say. The truck was hardly working at all to tow the Montana. I could go 65ish and it was barely doing 1600 rpms - that was nice. Could accelerate uphill with ease. Even had to pass a few semis going up hill and the pickup just cruised up the hills with little effort. Anyone even REMOTELY debating getting a diesel - DO IT!

Kris and I wanted to give a big thank you again to everyone who has helped us out on here. Just reading and listening gave us so much information to use on the walkthrough and made it seem so easy as we had heard a lot of it already here on the forum. Just little things even, like we couldn't get hot water with the electric side of the water heater. Thought hey, they've talked about that on the forum. Go out and see if the switch is on at the water heater - voila, switch was off and we felt smug as we "fixed" our first "problem" with the trailer :)

Will post more later as we get acquainted with the unit, but so far it seems to be in good shape!

New Addiction

This is the cutest thing on earth.  But be careful!  It is very addicting.  Don't you just want to pick them up and snorgle them?