Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Thank you, Sweetie
I know, I know. Two posts in a day. Has the devil called for a sweater yet? Anyway, just wanted to shout out to my DH, I., for his wonderful graphic design. He created the new banner at the top of my blog. Too cool! Thank you, Sweetie. I love it and I love you.
Free Rice
If I had been paying attention I would have noticed that in May Blogger added the capability to link a picture in the page layout to a URL. I had been trying to do this a couple of months ago and couldn't figure out why I couldn't do it. Well, apparently it was not a capability at that time. But now it is so I've added a picture with a link to the Free Rice website. It's a really cool word game, the more you win the more free rice is distributed to hungry people around the world. It's a lot of fun and I'd love it if you'd play a game or two. Educational and philanthropic all at once! Doesn't get better than that, does it?
Well we took Bear back to the ophthalmologist last Saturday. From our first visit I had understood that the hope was that his tear glands would repair themselves once we stopped the sulfa medication and started giving him the cyclosporine. I misunderstood, though, and found out this time that this repair is highly unlikely. The hope really is that the cyclosporine will do the job of stimulating his tear ducts enough so that he won't need the other medication he's on and won't need to switch to another type of medication. I had run out of the cyclosporine the day before the visit so didn't give him his dose the morning of his visit so really we weren't able to tell if it was working or not. Disappointing. We go back in July and I'll be sure to give him the dose that morning. To be honest, I'm also miffed at our regular vet. On the whole I like them very much but I'm frustrated that we took Bear to them twice with dry eye symptoms (at the time we didn't know what the problem was) and neither time was the possibility of dry eye mentioned. It is not an uncommon side effect of the sulfa drug so I would have hoped that 1. before we started the sulfa med, the vet would have told us to watch out for symptoms of dry eye and 2. once we brought him in with symptoms, that would have been the first thing they considered. Neither happened and now it looks like Bear will have to be on some sort of medication for the dry eye for the rest of his life. Frustrating.
The lesson learned, though, is that you can't be too careful when it comes to doctors and vets. I'm not saying that you should be paranoid but I think it is our responsibility to investigate and ask questions. If we had asked the vet if there were side effects to the sulfa med or had looked it up on line ourselves, we might have avoided this trouble.
Raining today. It's a nice gentle rain which the ground will love. The grass seed we planted in the front yard is germinating and is almost as tall as the other grass. With all the snow we had this winter our front lawn took a little bit of a beating. Not bad but in the spots where a lot of salt and sand was mixed in with the snow piles some of it died. This rain will really help the seed we planted fill in those spots.
My first roses bloomed two days ago and the wild iris down by our stream are out, too. I'll get out there and take some pictures when the rain stops. It's supposed to be almost 90 degrees this weekend and I think that will really make the roses pop!
The Sunday before Memorial Day, I. and I went to a former Army base in the area. There is a small military cemetery on the grounds that I've wanted to walk through on a Memorial Day. We took advantage of the perfect weather this year and made the trip. Most of those interred there are family members of service men and women who were stationed at the base. We noticed a number of twin infants from the 1950's and 1960's buried there, from before the time of the NICU and other methods of saving tiny babies. There are also several graves of POW's from WWII, mainly German but one Italian. I wondered if there families knew that they were here. Also, graves from former outposts in Boston Harbor were relocated to this cemetery and so there are Civil War veterans buried here as well. It was meaningful to me to remember all of these people - family, former enemies, and unknown soldiers from ancient wars - who make up the warp and weft of the textile of our country. Their sacrifices are meaningful and are worth honoring.
Well we took Bear back to the ophthalmologist last Saturday. From our first visit I had understood that the hope was that his tear glands would repair themselves once we stopped the sulfa medication and started giving him the cyclosporine. I misunderstood, though, and found out this time that this repair is highly unlikely. The hope really is that the cyclosporine will do the job of stimulating his tear ducts enough so that he won't need the other medication he's on and won't need to switch to another type of medication. I had run out of the cyclosporine the day before the visit so didn't give him his dose the morning of his visit so really we weren't able to tell if it was working or not. Disappointing. We go back in July and I'll be sure to give him the dose that morning. To be honest, I'm also miffed at our regular vet. On the whole I like them very much but I'm frustrated that we took Bear to them twice with dry eye symptoms (at the time we didn't know what the problem was) and neither time was the possibility of dry eye mentioned. It is not an uncommon side effect of the sulfa drug so I would have hoped that 1. before we started the sulfa med, the vet would have told us to watch out for symptoms of dry eye and 2. once we brought him in with symptoms, that would have been the first thing they considered. Neither happened and now it looks like Bear will have to be on some sort of medication for the dry eye for the rest of his life. Frustrating.
The lesson learned, though, is that you can't be too careful when it comes to doctors and vets. I'm not saying that you should be paranoid but I think it is our responsibility to investigate and ask questions. If we had asked the vet if there were side effects to the sulfa med or had looked it up on line ourselves, we might have avoided this trouble.
Raining today. It's a nice gentle rain which the ground will love. The grass seed we planted in the front yard is germinating and is almost as tall as the other grass. With all the snow we had this winter our front lawn took a little bit of a beating. Not bad but in the spots where a lot of salt and sand was mixed in with the snow piles some of it died. This rain will really help the seed we planted fill in those spots.
My first roses bloomed two days ago and the wild iris down by our stream are out, too. I'll get out there and take some pictures when the rain stops. It's supposed to be almost 90 degrees this weekend and I think that will really make the roses pop!
The Sunday before Memorial Day, I. and I went to a former Army base in the area. There is a small military cemetery on the grounds that I've wanted to walk through on a Memorial Day. We took advantage of the perfect weather this year and made the trip. Most of those interred there are family members of service men and women who were stationed at the base. We noticed a number of twin infants from the 1950's and 1960's buried there, from before the time of the NICU and other methods of saving tiny babies. There are also several graves of POW's from WWII, mainly German but one Italian. I wondered if there families knew that they were here. Also, graves from former outposts in Boston Harbor were relocated to this cemetery and so there are Civil War veterans buried here as well. It was meaningful to me to remember all of these people - family, former enemies, and unknown soldiers from ancient wars - who make up the warp and weft of the textile of our country. Their sacrifices are meaningful and are worth honoring.
Monday, June 2, 2008
Just a quick post for now
I finally, after much trial and error, have figured out how to make my own favicon, which is the little picture to the left of the URL in the address bar of your browser. Too cool! Let me know if you don't see it, please, OK?
Talk more later.
Talk more later.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
My Bee Corner
We have a raised garden in the backyard that I've planted as a garden for a couple years or so. The first year I went a little crazy with tomatoes, both regular and cherry. We had more tomatoes than we knew what to do with. This year I've decided not to plant anything but instead to focus on building up the soil so I'm leaving most of it unplanted. Last weekend we weeded the small section we're keeping planted. Of course, there were many, many dandelions among the weeds and they were buzzing with bees. I felt bad tearing up their food (although I'm sure with all the dandelions in the lawn they would have been fine) so I saved a small corner of dandelions that I call my Bee Corner. Bees are undergoing such a bad time that I wanted to do even a little something to help. Let me present my Bee Corner.
I also want to thank Andrea for her beautiful RAK thank you card. I LOVE the Little Lady set from Paper Trey Ink. I think it was the first set I purchased from them and it's still a favorite of mine. Thank you Andrea.
I also want to thank Andrea for her beautiful RAK thank you card. I LOVE the Little Lady set from Paper Trey Ink. I think it was the first set I purchased from them and it's still a favorite of mine. Thank you Andrea.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Dry eye
You may remember that I had posted previously about Bear having some greenish drainage from his eyes. We'd tried the liquid and the ointment version of treatment for it with no results. Last week I noticed that he was squinting frequently and that made me call the ophthalmologist that we take Poochie to see, just to get it checked out. Well, turns out, he has dry eye caused by the colitis medication he was taking. The ophthalmologist is hopeful that now that he's off the medication his tear ducts will start working normally again. If not, he will need to be on medication for the rest of his life. I am frustrated that we took him to our vet twice with the same symptom and neither time was the possibility of this being an effect of the medication mentioned but at the same time I'm thankful that we caught it when we did. It's a good reminder of how important it is to know what your pet's normal behavior is like and to act on any changes that seem suspicious.
Jack has found a friend. We have a Cairn Terrier who lives at the end of our dead end road. When he is out, he and Jack have a great time sniffing each other, leaving pee-mail for each other and running to the extent Jack's leash allows. Now when we walk Jack down to that area he will turn and look at the door of the Cairn's house to see if he's coming out to play. He'll do it a couple of times before he gives up. But you should see the tails wagging on both ends if they happen to meet up.
Jack has found a friend. We have a Cairn Terrier who lives at the end of our dead end road. When he is out, he and Jack have a great time sniffing each other, leaving pee-mail for each other and running to the extent Jack's leash allows. Now when we walk Jack down to that area he will turn and look at the door of the Cairn's house to see if he's coming out to play. He'll do it a couple of times before he gives up. But you should see the tails wagging on both ends if they happen to meet up.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Remembering what you love
I wish I could remember which blog or web page I had read this on, but somewhere I saw a post that recommended photographing what you want to remember. So many of my pics are of what I think I should be photographing, like beautiful scenery or a special event. And that is important to document, too, I think. But that piece of advice really rang true with me and so I'm trying to incorporate it into my thinking when I reach for my camera. What do I want to remember in this moment? I took this photo of Poochie's back paw because it is something I want to remember of him. Several of our dogs do this, lie with their back legs stretched straight out in back of them, looking like turkey drumsticks. Poochie is different because his legs are so short. You can hardly see leg for his body. So this is Poochie's paw- I will remember it always.
I had a creative spurt over the weekend. I've decided that I'm going to try clustering my card making, to the best of my ability, into a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. When I try to make them during the week I feel rushed for time. When I set aside time on the weekend, though, I open myself up to try more things and embellish with more relish. ;) The luxury of time fuels my creativity, I guess. Two Mother's Day cards (for my mom and MIL) and a card for a PTI RAK friend in MI. Her first name is the same as my sister's, spelled the same too which is unusual. The idea for the dragonfly card came from Nichole's post. Her work is just exquisite and is such an inspiration for me.
I had a creative spurt over the weekend. I've decided that I'm going to try clustering my card making, to the best of my ability, into a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. When I try to make them during the week I feel rushed for time. When I set aside time on the weekend, though, I open myself up to try more things and embellish with more relish. ;) The luxury of time fuels my creativity, I guess. Two Mother's Day cards (for my mom and MIL) and a card for a PTI RAK friend in MI. Her first name is the same as my sister's, spelled the same too which is unusual. The idea for the dragonfly card came from Nichole's post. Her work is just exquisite and is such an inspiration for me.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
A title change and a RAK thank you
Well, here we are at the first day of May. Happy May Day to you all.
After I have been away from this blog for a little while and come back to it, I realize how much I enjoy being here in this space. Day to day, just sharing what's going on, if anything is. It's one of those things I need to make space and time for in my life but because it feels like I'm taking time away from doing other things (that I've determined "should be" priorities), I don't take the time to just blog. I would like to say that I will make a commitment to blog more frequently but, not trying to make excuses, there isn't always something that interests me enough to share. What I need to remember, like a muscle memory, is that it feels good to be here right now.
Some things to share. A lovely RAK thank you card from Lynn. A cool website where you can learn how to better use your digital camera. A dirty dog who was having such a fun time barking at everything meandering down the stream. A great long weekend in Burlington, VT. And new hair!
Night, everyone.
After I have been away from this blog for a little while and come back to it, I realize how much I enjoy being here in this space. Day to day, just sharing what's going on, if anything is. It's one of those things I need to make space and time for in my life but because it feels like I'm taking time away from doing other things (that I've determined "should be" priorities), I don't take the time to just blog. I would like to say that I will make a commitment to blog more frequently but, not trying to make excuses, there isn't always something that interests me enough to share. What I need to remember, like a muscle memory, is that it feels good to be here right now.
Some things to share. A lovely RAK thank you card from Lynn. A cool website where you can learn how to better use your digital camera. A dirty dog who was having such a fun time barking at everything meandering down the stream. A great long weekend in Burlington, VT. And new hair!
Night, everyone.
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