Fixer-Upper

I just switched from Geico to Progressive for my car insurance this summer because Geico's policy wasn't getting any cheaper even though we had no tickets or incidents on record. Progressive's quote was significantly cheaper for better coverage. It could just be a "new customer" quote, so i guess we'll see soon because it'll be time to renew my policy in a week or so.

Anyway, after my car accident the other day I had my first experience with actually having to *use* my insurance. And it was great! After i reported the accident (which you can do online, how nifty is that?) they called me the next morning, got my story and immediately started working on the claim. The adjuster would call me with updates. She got the info about the at-fault person's insurance. (That may be because one of the other cars involved was also a Progressive insured and so that driver may have supplied them with the police report because i never picked it up.) Anyway, so the adjuster called me and set up an appointment at a collision center to get my car inspected. I was expecting to have to leave my car there all day or something, but I just showed up, the Progressive guy came out and took some pictures and inspected the damage. He went inside and wrote it up....and within 15 minutes of my arrival he handed over the estimate and a check to get it repaired! I was floored. I thought insurances were supposed to be difficult. The only thing i didn't really understand is that even though i'm *not* at-fault, Progressive paid the claim through my policy. The check they wrote me was less my $250 deductible. But now the adjuster is going to subrogate against the at-fault insurance to get repaid and when they get repaid they will then give me back my $250 deductible. All i know is that i didn't have to do a damn thing and that's really nice! I don't know yet if i'll get my bumper repaired because the paint already has some scratches and things on it. A shiny new bumper would look out of place!

Black Friday

I have a confession. I'm a total Black Friday shopaholic. I start stalking the "hush-hush" black friday deals in October (bfads.net) and as a complete Amazon devotee I watch their sales every day the week of Thanksgiving. This year i was on a hunt for a laptop and finally got my first one! So far it seems very nifty. The whole week of Thanksgiving Amazon had lightning deals every hour. And yes, i checked them constantly (even at work). I bought almost all my Christmas gifts from Amazon the weekend after Thanksgiving and the UPS and Fedex guys have been to my house *every* single day this week and will be back for more next week. They probably hate me. Amazon Prime is by far the best investment i've ever made. I really should buy some of their stock.

Thanksgiving

Wow, i've never been so tired in my life! Since Grandmom just had a hysterectomy i had to cook a bunch. Then i stayed for *hours* afterward cleaning all her special dishes. It took forever! Then i came home and started cooking again for Dad's Thanksgiving. It was good food but so, so exhausting. Anyway, Grandmom got sick (of course). Probably from trying to do too much stuff. She had a really bad stomach flu and had to go the hospital and get IV fluids and couldn't eat anything but broth and jello for 4 days. That was the day after Thanksgiving and she's still not completely better. In the meantime she found out that her liver biopsy showed some cirrhosis. So now she's gonna get an MRI of her liver to see what's what. I hope it's not too bad...

In the meantime i had the honor of dog-sitting. Teddy needed a haircut something awful so i took him to the Muddy Mutt and got him groomed. He was sooooo cute! He came out with a little bandanna and all fluffy. He really did look like a little teddy bear. Grandmom got to come home from the hospital that day and he just went absolutely nuts when he first saw her. He came with me to the hospital to pick her up and when he saw her out the window his tail started wagging 90 miles an hour. Then he jumped allllll over her when i opened the door. It was so cute! Grandmom kept saying she wishes she'd told me to bring my camera so i could have taken pictures of Teddy with his spiffy new cut. I'm trying to decide if she'd be ok using a digital camera if i got her one for Christmas. Would that be too advanced? She can use a cell phone fine but not so much with the computer.

Car Accidents Are No Bueno

On the way home from Grandmom's i got in a car accident. It totally wasn't my fault! I was completely stopped and got rear-ended by two other cars. The one that hit me was a little dented and scratched but it was driveable. The car in the back, however, was completely totalled. We had to wait an hour before the cop showed up. It was dark and rainy and i didn't have my coat or umbrella with me. Plus i had to pee! The girl who totalled her car had called her mom. Her mom's suggestion? "I have some toilet paper in my car if you want to run into the woods. You can pretend you're camping." Somehow i managed to hold it.

At one point i texted Jake "The cops still aren't here!!" His response? "Call them and say the accident was with a donut truck"

Kristie was on the phone with me when it happened. She said she heard the screeching brakes and the collision. She said it sounded bad but my response was a calm and confused "What the hell?" That's probably because i had just watched the car in front of me take a fast left turn and i thought it was that car that i heard screeching. Until i got hit of course.

This is the THIRD time my Civic's bumper has needed replacing. The first time was when i took it to Brake-O. The attendant guy backed it out of the workshop without re-engaging the brakes and slammed it into my brother's car in the parking lot. The second time i was in the dentist's office and when i came out there was a "my bad" note on my windshield. And this wreck would be the third time. And this is on top of how my Mazda 626 got totalled. I was parked in my dad's cul-de-sac and a truck with a cherry-picker bucket backed into it and smashed the driver's side to pieces. How can my poor cars have so many accidents without it being my fault??

Week in Pictures

How you know your cats are spoiled.

Dala's thoughts on her special allergy food.

She just lay down in the leaves like it was a comfy blanket.

And then she discovered my new quilt.
Of which she approves.

The bat that lives in my attic. His name is Fangs.

Yellow-eyed demon. Or my cat?

Frustrations

1. So sick of cycle stuff.
2. Jake is helping his sister move to California so i may not get to try for a baby this month. Plus i'm scared of planes and nervous about him flying back.
3. My hairdresser moved back to Chicago. I've tried using other people at the salon before when she wasn't there a time or two and it was a big mistake.
4. Ally and i are trying to volunteer at a charity but they won't email us back!

Birthday Presents So Far

1) A letter from the court:
"Our records indicate that you are currently eligible for jury duty...review information. Again, Happy Birthday!"

2) A letter from the DMV:
You get to pay money for you car for your birthday!!

3)An email from Kroger:
"On behalf of the YourKrogerBenefits team, we'd like to wish you a very happy birthday month. We also want to remind you about the importance of Pap smears, a recommended preventive screening for women in your age group."

All this, PLUS i get a year older? What exactly is there to celebrate?

"Lauren's Momentous Failure"

Amazon has a new security feature where you save your shipping and credit card info and it's only identified by a payphrase when you checkout. This was my pre-assigned pay phrase. Really?? I reloaded the page and got "Lauren's Glorious Costumes" and "Lauren's Realistic Reportage" as options...

Scorpios Hate Scorpions

So i know i'm a Scorpio and all but i *hate* creepy crawlies, most especially scorpions! For some reason this is the first time i've ever even seen scorpions in Georgia, but they've decided to venture into my basement when it gets cold outside. I haven't been stung by one (yet) but i'm incredibly clumsy and don't see things that are right in front of my face (as evidenced by the 4 broken toes). Jake has pushed me out of the way from almost stepping on one at least three times (probably more) and when i just went to get something out of my car (in bare feet) i almost stepped on two. I figured i should probably be prepared because i don't know anything at all about scorpions except that i detest them.

Well the good news is that scorpion stings generally don't kill you, they're more like bee stings. However, the nifty way to find them (suggests the creepy crawly website) is with a black light. I happen to have one, so i tested the theory. Scorpions totally glow in the dark and now that i've seen green alien bugs from hell in the pitch black basement i'm scared to turn the lights off. Why do they have to glow in the dark? It's totally creeping me out....and it really sucks that Jake went to bed early.

Cats Feeding Themselves

This morning we woke up to find the cats had decided to feed themselves. This is nothing new, they've done it before, however this time i just can't figure out how they did it! Due to their past attempts, we have not one but TWO closures around the cabinet to keep it from opening. So this morning we found the food bag spilled all over the floor about 6 feet away from the cabinet.....but the cabinet was closed and still locked. I can only surmise that a burglar broke in the house and was so annoyed by the hungry cats following him around meowing that he grabbed the food (and being courteous, locked the cabinet back) and threw it down before running out the door with his ears covered and no loot. It's the only plausible explanation.

Hillcrest Orchard and Yahoo Farm

Picking the perfect apple

Feeding the goats

They would eat *anything*, including my jeans

Me and the baby cow

My favorite farm animal!

The Three Musketeers

Milking Buttercup wasn't as hard as i thought it would be

The pig race...go David Beckham!

Finally found some gloves after searching at 3 different stores!

Heading into the corn maze with a teeny flashlight

All bundled up on the first freezing night this season

I got kissed by a skeleton! And then he gave me some beads

Yes, that's a pig butt

Lauren, Ally, and the Giant Pumpkin

Mmmm....hot apple cider!

The end to a very fun day!

Ally *Really* Needs to Be a Veterinarian

I took Dala to the vet yet again. Her chin is just awful! She has really bad red bumps (just like people acne but bigger) and the vet said it's a really deep infection. We clean her chin twice a day, clean her water bowl every day, use a clean paper plate every meal......Argggg! So today they gave her an antibiotic injection that lasts 7 days. The only thing that has changed at about the same time as the acne appeared is that we started using Pill Pockets. So we're going to stop using those to give her the medicine (which sucks because she looooves them) but she'll eat cream-cheese-coated-medicine just as good. The vet said if it isn't getting better in 2 weeks that we'll have to start looking for possible allergies. Which would most likely be a food allergy, except it's the same food she's eaten for years.


Dala trying to get out of going to the vet by "helping" Daddy clean windows.

The Pinecone Theory

Jake insists that animals don't *really* know their names. They instead respond to the tone of your voice. To try to prove his point he now occasionally calls the cats Pinecone. Just randomly. He'll be saying "Daaa-la" and then will call her again "Pineeee-cone". I, on the other hand, think my kitties are perfectly smart. Of course they'll respond to your tone, because it's almost like baby talk; it's totally different than you talk at any other time. This is, of course, when you're talking directly to them. (I dare you to look your cat in the eye and talk to him/her for 2 minutes without defaulting to the baby talk) So anyway, yes they'll respond to the baby talk because they obviously know that even though you haven't said their name you're still talking to them. But i've noticed plenty of times i'll be talking to Jake about the cats and when i say their names they either look at me or at least give me the obligatoy ear turn. But either way, Jake has now decided we need to get another cat and name it Pinecone.

Dala

My poor kitty! I don't know what the deal is but she *still* has kitty acne and it's a lot worse. The stainless steel water bowls didn't help. I'm going to try to wash her chin every day and wash her bowls every day. But should i go ahead and take her to the vet AGAIN? She still has some fun, though.

Dala looooves listening to the IPOD

Kittens get super excited when we open the windows. It's like being outdoors--but without the hassle!

Dala is always mesmerized by water. Apparently it's very, very interesting when it moves.

Dala's acne. It's awful!

Oops and Other Updates

1) I aggravated Jake so much that i made him break his cell phone. Ooops! He should probably just take anger management instead of breaking phones. Anyway, he's getting a new one Wednesday and will finally have text messaging! (Ooooh! More ways for me to pester him...)

2) Even though i told him and told him it was pointless, Jake still started playing some new MMORPG. Aion. Ugh! He always comes back to wow, it's such a waste of money!! John, you better sleep with one eye open for pushing him over the edge.

3) My baby sister is turning TEN on Monday! I'm so freaking old.

4) I think i may be getting sick. My throat was sore today. Let's hope it ends at that.

5) I tanked heroic TOC and everyone lived!

6) The chilly nights feel awesome. I love cold weather.

7) Time to start planning Fall and Winter activities!!

Funniest Door-to-Door EVER

I really need to get to know my neighbors better. I love that my neighborhood is very friendly, everyone i've met is really nice and waves and talks to us when we're walking and stuff. But we have some of the funniest door-to-doors! Not too long ago was the guy that asked Jake if his parents were home. Today takes the cake though.

I hear a knock on the door and go answer it. There's a kid (about 11-12 years old i'd guess) standing there that says "I'm raising money for a game. Could i mow your lawn for $15?" He wasn't with any parental figure and wasn't wearing any type of uniform or other fund-raising gear. Not really thinking about it I told him we already has someone. I felt bad afterward, for not supporting the poor kid's little league team or whatever it might have been. So when Jenn came over tonight i asked her if he'd come by her house. He had. And he had been more specific. He's raising money "for a video game" What?! LOL He's probably getting a month's subscription to Warcraft for every lawn he mows. :P

Furbabies

I've been looking at all the pictures i've taken on my new camera. At least 90% of them are of my furbabies. I haven't posted pics in awhile so i thought i'd do some "life in pictures".

This is one of our first attempts at Chicken Pot Pie (before it was baked) It was soooo yummy!

Dala apparently didn't receive the memo that cats don't like water. She's enjoying a summer shower.

My typical WOW playing position. The cat is just trying to be cute to show off

We're teaching Dala to play D&D. Here she's rolling a D20 dice. (She got a 19--critical hit!)

What cat acne looks like. (Click to see bigger picture)

I've discovered that Anakin is actually worth a ton of money! He's the very first male calico. If you look closely you can see he has a white patch on his belly (and a white armpit, not pictured), tons of random white hairs, and if you enlarge the picture of him on the chair his hair is actually a dark reddish-brown-orangy color, and just black at the ends. He's totally a calico!

How Ally and Paul reacted to getting their flu shots.

Jake Are Evil

He won't quit the kitten talk! It's so cruel because i was perfectly content having my two kitties, but now he's planted the idea in my head and i can't stop thinking about kittens. And since i'm imagining them, i figured i might as well get some real pictures. So i spent the past hour looking at all the tons of millions of trillions of kittens in the area that need a home. They have the cutest little faces! I just have to keep reminding myself how upset Dala and Anakin would be. And how they'd hate me for "replacing" them. And i couldn't get just one because it wouldn't have a playmate and would aggravate the grumpy old kitties. I don't need more cats! (Do i?)

Today was flu-shot day. Jake refused to come to the pharmacy so i brought his shot home and stuck the needle in his arm to the hilt and then twisted it. He cried like a little baby!....Not really but it just sounded more dramatic that way. He just sat calmly in the chair and didn't even shed a tear. It was lame.

Kittens

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens

Brown paper packages tied up with strings

These are a few of my favorite things"

My evil (warm & fuzzy) plan has worked! I have officially turned Jake into a cat lover too. My goal is to enact my evil-warm&fuzzy-plan one person at a time...

Dala had yet another checkup at the vet yesterday. As soon as we arrived Jake stepped in front of a cage in the waiting room and told me to look away. Of course i pushed him out of the way only to find four of the cutest kittens ever! We spent the next 15 minutes playing with them. For being a cat lover i'm actually pretty particular about what kitten i'd choose (female, short hair but soft and thick like Anakin and Dala's, preferably Calico) so right away i knew these weren't for me. Dala gave her 2 cents by hissing from the carrier box. There were 3 boys and 1 girl. A solid black boy that looked just like Poptart when he was a baby, 1 boy and 1 girl black and white, and a striped little tabby named Oliver. I would definitely have taken home Oliver but Dala vetoed my idea. Anyway, how do i know Jake is under my warm&fuzzy spell? Well he kept talking about the kittens long after we'd left. He told John and Jenn all about them. He kept saying how we have the cutest cats ever. He sat in the back seat with Dala so she could come out of her crate. AND he asked me on the way home: "Do you think there's enough cats in the world for every person to have one?" and i told him probably, since they have to kill so many at shelters. His response? "I think everyone should have a cat" I'm so going to be a crazy cat lady :)

I just heard back from the vet and Dala's thyroid is finally in normal range! We got Pill Pockets and she has no idea she's even taking medicine she gobbles them up so fast. So, since giving her the medicine isn't an issue i think we're going to wait on the Radioiodine treatment until after i have a baby just to be safe. Her kidney values look good as well (yay!) but she has two new problems. She has cat acne and possible high blood pressure. The vet told us to change her water bowls to stainless steel (apparently bacteria can linger on the rim of plastic and ceramic ones and get on her chin) and to use a Stridex pad once a day. Yes, those are the same acne pads that teenagers use. Hopefully this will help because she's had it for 3 weeks now. As for the high blood pressure: They took her blood pressure 3 times in a row. The first two were high (153/93, 180/102) but could be explained because she was at the vet and freaking out. But the last one was really high (212/111) and the vet was concerned. She said it could be that she was tired of being messed with and she moved around and messed it up, but at any rate they want to recheck it in a couple weeks and if it remains high she'll have to have high blood pressure medicine. Oy vey! I really think it was most likely because she was freaking out at being at the vet, plus they had just drawn blood and been messing with her so she was probably pissed, plus she was in the back and was thinking "Oh no! They're giving me away to the mean people with needles!" since we weren't anywhere to be found. I guess we'll find out!

Snail Mail

With everything "at your fingertips" in today's world, i get extremely impatient with snail mail. So explain this to me: On September 2nd i ordered an authenticator from Blizzard that was shipped USPS. Today is the 15th and it still hasn't arrived. Last Friday (the 11th) i ordered my Directv access card. It was also shipped USPS and arrived just 2 business days later, on Monday. I wish UPS would just take over. They have awesome shipping and the tracking is actually current. With USPS *if* i even get a tracking number i usually have the package before any tracking ever shows up on the website.

I had previously tested my dad's old tivo to make sure everything worked before i ordered the access card. I had restarted it several times and checked out everything and it was in great shape. So i was really excited to find the Directv access card in today's mail. But when i plugged in the Tivo i got the green screen of death! (This usually means your hard drive is damaged and you're screwed) I was sooo mad. The screen said not to unplug or restart it (I did, twice) and to leave it alone for 3 hours (Obviously not designed for me, my middle name is Impatient). So since the restarting/unplugging didn't help i let it sit and went and hooked up the other tivo i stole from Dad. It worked fine so i called Directv to activate it. But....they said it was still active on Dad's account! I frantically called Dad to tell him to deactivate it so i could use it. (It was almost 7pm and One Tree Hill was starting in an hour!) When he called me back to let me know it was available to use i decided to check one last time on the Green Screen of Death. It had fixed itself! I was excited because the Green Screen tivo can hold 70 hrs of tv while the other one could only hold 35 hrs. Now if these can just hold up a few more months until the new Tivos come out i'll be elated.

Life Without Tivo?

I had a mini-crisis. My Tivo is going on the fritz! It kept glitching like it does when there's a really bad storm....only there was no bad weather and it has been doing that for 3 days straight. So apparently one of the tuners is going out. Luckily my dad has an old tivo that (hopefully!) still works. I drove as fast as humanly possible to his house and snatched it...only to find out that i now have to wait "3-5 business days" to receive an access card so i can use it. I find it insanely stupid that i can't just use the card i already have in the failing tivo, or even the one that's not being used in my dad's old tivo. "So let me get this straight....I have two cards but i can't use it until i get a third one, AND i have to pay a $20 activation fee?!" Those were my words to the rep i was talking to. Whatever, this better work!!

On a happy note, one of the reps i talked to actually had some new info for me on the HD Tivo that Directv is making. They will be available at the very beginning of the year "right after Christmas"!! I think i know what Santa is bringing me... :)

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

It all started when I decided to accompany Jake on a raid last night. His warlock had just turned 80 and he wanted to do a dungeon. Too bad i was only 78 and in awful gear, and the healer was barely 79 and hadn't played in almost a year. We beat our heads against ToC's walls for about 2 hours before Jake finally gave up and switched to his uber mage. Then it took 2.3 seconds. Anyway, so at 2am I get done with that and go shower. I decide i might as well watch a show while i'm combing out my hair and brushing my teeth. When all was said and done i didn't fall asleep until 5 something.....and my alarm went off at 6:45. Fun times. Work was insanely busy. I didn't have time to eat, potty, etc. I was basically confined to one area standing at a computer for 11&1/2 hours. I was in *such* a bad mood.

Thankfully my kitties cheered me up, i had some yummy leftovers from feast, and watched some tv. Now i'm much happier! Plus i just saw a preview for Vampire Diaries and it looks AWESOME. I'm so excited tv starts next week!

"A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes..."

Well....i kinda hope not! Last night i had a crazy dream. Apparently i am an undercover spy. I was at home and suddenly had the knowledge that an assassin was coming to kill me....only i couldn't find my gun *anywhere.* I was frantically running around the house looking in all the closets, under the beds, under couch cushions. All the completely normal places a spy would put their gun. Perhaps it fell between the couch cushions alongside my Tivo remote? At this point the assassin has shown up because he's shot at me a couple times but for whatever reason is preoccupied and hasn't actually been able to kill me yet. Maybe he's waiting for me to find my gun so it'll be a fair fight. Nice assassins do that, you know. I yell across the house to Jake, "Where's my gun?" (hey i didn't say this was a logical dream) and he tells me it's hidden in the fridge. I rip open the refrigerator door and am throwing things all over the floor desperately trying to find my gun, but it's nowhere to be found. I yell "I can't find it! Where in the fridge?!" and he responds (in an annoyed voice) "It's in there! Just look for it." I assume that's about the time the assassin decides i'm taking entirely too long to retrieve my gun and i get shot because then i wake up. I can't believe Jake let me die because he couldn't be bothered to tell me where he hid my gun!!

I'm guessing the Jake part came about because whenever he's playing Warcraft and i ask him a question he either ignores me or gets all annoyed and makes a grand gesture of taking his headphones off so he can hear me. But why was i a spy with a bounty on my head? I haven't watched Burn Notice recently...

I would totally suck as a spy, and there was probably good reason for Jake to hide the gun because i would be more dangerous to myself than to an intruder with one. But i was like Sarah from the tv show Chuck...only a little more clumsy.

Why Is Everyone Sick?

There's a lot going on medically this week. My friend Jenny is 31 weeks pregnant and is currently in the hospital. She's been having high blood pressure and low platelet counts. The doctor suspects Abigail will make an appearance this week, but we're praying she can stay in utero as long as is safe for mommy and baby! I can't wait to meet her though.

Tomorrow we go for Dala's thyroid checkup. They'll have to do bloodwork and stuff so i doubt we'll know anything for a couple days. I'm still conflicted about what treatment to pursue. And now i'm wondering if i need to get Anakin checked. Now that Dala is eating "normally" (i guess?) i've noticed how much more Anakin eats and how he begs for food so much more. He's definitely not losing weight though; if anything he's packing on the pounds! Dala also seems a lot less active now...she lays around and sleeps a lot more. I'm trying to figure out if she was more active before due to the hyperactive thyroid and is therefore now normally lazy, or if this lethargy is excessive. I really need a veterinarian friend....

Tuesday I go with Grandmom to find out what's going on with her enlarged ovary. They did an ultrasound last week and we're meeting with the doctor to find out the results. I'm praying it's nothing bad. To add insult to injury the appointment is at 9:45am. And we all know how much i just love mornings.

Bad Mood

This is just not my week. After enjoying a week of vacation i started back to work. Nothing especially bad at work, i just have the my-vacation-is-over associated depression. It just seems like all the stupid little things *really* annoy me easily at both work and home. So in the midst of my foul mood my Grandmom went to have the CT scan she gets every 3 months. She's been in remission from pancreatic cancer for a year and a half now, which is virtually unheard of. Pancreatic cancer has almost a 0% cure rate (hence the scans). Well everything is still looking good as far as that is concerned....except that now the doctor noted that she has an enlarged ovary. And the most likely cause for this in a postmenopausal woman? Ovarian cancer. First she had those fever and chills "spells" that sent her to the hospital over and over. She recovered from that. Then they discovered she had HepB. We just got that under control. And now this? She goes for an ultrasound tomorrow and will find out next week what's up. I just hope it's some weird fluke or something completely unremarkable. We can't take much more of this!

Dala is doing really well on her thyroid medicine. We've discovered that her chewing off her belly fur was most likely related. Ever since we've got the thyroid issue under control she's stopped chewing it and the fur is growing back. But the food! She's gone from eating and eating and eating....to not eating enough! Now when we feed her the little Fancy Feast can she'll barely even eat half of it. We're going back for her checkup at the beginning of next week. I'm really stressed about the stupid radioiodine thing. I keep flip-flopping about what i want to do since she's doing so well on the pills and why fix what's not broken? But they aren't a cure like the iodine...

Anyone want to go for a spa day? :P

A Picture of Ally and Lucas

Things That Make Me Giggle

Jake is constantly complaining about my OCD habit of *always* having to have a bite of what he's eating or a sip of what he's drinking. Seriously, it's so bad even *i* notice it. And i do it every day, all day long. But it's ok because he's my husband and knows this quirk so he just pours extra drink or whatever. Well tonight he made me my own piece of toast while he was making his midnight breakfast....only *he* took a bite out of mine for once. And it was the best part! I love the middle :(

Dala's thyroid medicine is definitely working. She's gone from eating a whole can of food and begging and begging for more.....to eating only a half can of food and begging for more. She now knows that she gets a tuna snack (a spoonful of tunafish) to take her medicine, so she just stops eating canned food when she's full enough and starts begging for her tuna! So tonight i picked up her plate and kept it. An hour later when she was begging for tuna i put her canned food in front of her...and she turned up her nose at it. But since she needed her medicine i made her tuna and she ate it right up. THEN she begged for more food. So i gave her the canned food again, but she snubbed it again. She wanted dry food this time! *sigh* I had forgotten that she's picky when she's not starving from an over-active thyroid. We go next week to see where her levels are at and discuss the radioiodine.

Tonight was also play time.

Here's my version of playing:

And Dala's version of playing. (She looks bored but that's just because of the flash. She actually shredded my invoice paper and attacked the invisible bugs in the box.)

Are Toes Really That Important?

I hope not because i can't seem to stop severely injuring them. It's not like i've suddenly become clumsy...i've been that way my entire life! Anyway, this time my pinkie toe is all black and blue from slamming it into the cat scratching post. I know when i was an intern on rotations i got a bone density test and it was really bad....i guess maybe i should take a calcium supplement or something.

My computer has driven me nuts with it's slowness to the point where i finally broke down and ordered a new video card and power supply. My old card (a Nvidia 7 series) is outdated but i didn't think it was *that* bad. I hope this fixes the problem because it's about the only thing other than RAM that i know how to change. It arrives Thursday and i can't wait!

TV's new fall season starts in less than a month! There are some really good new show prospects and i can't wait. If only i had a new tivo...

Vacation

I am officially on vacation for a whole week! We don't have plans to go anywhere so i'm taking this time to clear my Tivo, read some books.....and get addicted to Warcraft again thanks to Ally. I'm also staying up way too late, but that's nothing unusual.

I think we're going to pursue the radioiodine treatment for Dala. From everything i've read it's the best solution. We'll do the pills for 3 weeks to get her thyroid levels down to normal and make sure she doesn't have any kidney problems, then we'll take her to get the treatment. I called the specialist vet and found out that they'll only have to keep her about 4-5 days, so at least she won't have to be gone so long. BUT.....i also found out that for 2 weeks after we bring her home i have to stay at least 3-6 feet away from her at *all* times because i'm of childbearing age. Does that mean i can't even pet her or hug her when she comes home?? I'll have to research that more. Anyway, because of this and in combination with the whole swine flu thing, i guess i'll skip a month or two of trying to get pregnant. And by "skip" i mean i'm not doing all the craziness of ovulation tests and saliva microscopes and stuff. I'll track my temp just to see if my cycles are getting any more normal, but that's it. Watch me "accidentally" get pregnant now, that would just figure.

Little Brothers Are Engaged!

So Jefferey got engaged a few months back and I just found out that Phillip proposed to his girlfriend (and she accepted) yesterday! Awww, they're growing up so fast. Here is Kristyn's new ring...he did a great job picking it out because it's gorgeous!

Vet Visits Suck

I hate taking my poor kitties to the vet. They know as soon as the cat carrier comes out and they put stick all 4 feet out in every direction to avoid going in it. Lately Dala has been eating....and eating...and eating! She'll polish off an entire can of cat food and then immediately beg for more, yet she's losing weight. I suspected she might have a thyroid problem so we took her to the vet and sure enough my suspicions were confirmed. She most likely has a benign tumor on her thyroid gland that's the source of all her problems. I'm conflicted on which treatment to go with, though:

1) Medication that is very cheap but I have to give her a pill twice a day every day for the rest of her life, plus periodic blood monitoring.

2) An injection of radioactive iodine that requires no surgery or anesthesia and has relatively no side effects. This is (95% of the time) a cure and only has to be done once. The drawbacks? It's really expensive and she'll have to stay at the hospital for 1-2 weeks and we can't visit because she'll be radioactive.

My vet recommends the radioactive iodine. I have to say i'm leaning toward that option but the thing that bothers me the most about it is having to leave her alone for that long. When Anakin got his first urinary blockage they kept him at the emergency vet for about 36-48 hours. When we visited him less than 24 hours into it he looked so awful it scarred me for life. He had a cone around his head so he couldn't pull out IVs, and he was sooo sad and depressed looking. He wouldn't eat anything (and he lives for food...it's his favorite thing in the world). I guess he thought we had left him there because he perked up the second he saw us and ate his food. I felt so awful i made them release him early and told them i'd monitor him at home. Leaving Dala with a bunch of doctors and needles for a week or two while she's radioactive and not being able to explain (obviously) why is going to be ten times worse. And i can't even visit or negotiate an early release? Man this is going to suck...

Gray Hair

"By age 50, most people can expect 50 percent of their hair to be gray..."

I get all my news and other information from AOL's welcome screen. Today i just read an article on the Facts and Myths of gray hair. Did you know that white people start getting gray hair in their 30s?! That's entirely too soon for me! I thought gray hair didn't come until waaay later. And i've never really thought about it, but the article also says gray hair is harder to dye. This news is no bueno.

Facts and Myths on Gray Hair

Tivo

They announced in August of last year that Tivo and Directv are teaming up again to make an HD Tivo Directv box. I was sooooo excited! I've been stubbornly refusing to get HD tv because that would require me to no longer have a Tivo and instead have to use Directv's crummy dvr. But now my giddy excitement has turned into months and months of waiting with no new news. The latest? "Sometime in 2010"....I mean, really? It's not like this is new technology, it shouldn't take 2 years to develop!! Anyway, i just signed up for Beta trials on Tivo's website. I have no idea what exactly they beta test, but i'm hoping since i'm one of the dwindling few who still have an old-school Directv Tivo box that i'll get to beta this new one. Maybe. Hopefully. Fingers crossed! Now all i have to do is wait to get an email.....*if* they decide to let me test anything.

I Miss My Fluffy

A lot. :*(

To Be Pregnant or Not To Be Pregnant...

....that is the question of the day. Among other things my paranoid hypochondriac neuroses will definitely not be beneficial if i'm ever able to get pregnant. But what really really *really* doesn't help is when it's a scary reality and not just in my head. Today at work i found out that this whole swine flu thing has NOT declined like i had thought. In fact there are so many cases diagnosed by the doctors across the street that the CDC has told them to stop sending specimens to be tested because they just don't have the ability to do so anymore. Someone I work with just found out they have swine flu, and to make matters worse i came home from work to read this headline:

Pregnancy Ups Swine Flu Death Risk

It basically says that you're more at risk for death and complications if you're pregnant and get the swine flu. So now they're full-speed ahead with making swine flu vaccines, and pregnant women are at the top of the list to get it because there won't be nearly enough doses for everybody. There's only one little itty-bitty catch. It's a completely new vaccine that's never been tested before. Not only has it never been tested before, but they're adding an adjuvant that's also never been made before and doesn't have FDA approval. So the government is going to get an "emergency declaration" to use it. (Adjuvant Info Here) AND when there was a swine flu scare in the 70s they did a rush-vaccine then too....and it caused all kinds of awful problems.

But wait...i'm not done! British and Swiss health officials have even suggested delaying getting pregnant until the swine flu threat passes. This is way bigger than i was even remotely anticipating. And normally I wouldn't be overly concerned (oh who am i kidding, Worry is my middle name) but there is that one little fact...i work smack dab in the middle of it all. These sick people are going to be coming to me for medicine and vaccinations....and their germs will be right there with them. If it's as bad as the news is reporting what are the chances that i *won't* get it?

As i see it i have three options:
1) Seriously consider delaying getting pregnant for a yearish
2) Hopefully get pregnant right as flu season hits and get a vaccine that has never been tested and therefore allow myself and baby to be guinea pigs
3) Hopefully get pregnant right as flu season hits, do nothing, and hope i don't die
[end panic attack][temporarily]

What would you do?

Long Lost Twins

Have i ever mentioned that Dala has a twin that lives right down the street? The first time i saw Lucy i thought Dala had gotten outside somehow. They've met once before but Dala was inside looking through the screen door and Lucy was just visiting the front porch. Today they met in the real world. Can you guess which one is Dala and which is Lucy?

There was no fighting, which is what i was expecting, just some fluffy tails and warning meows. Lucy was on top of *Dala's* sewer so after she wandered off Dala ran back across the street and started rubbing her cheeks all over the spot where Lucy had been. Silly kitty.

Pregnant Women are Smug

I just heard this on the Bert Show yesterday and it made me giggle. I wish i had found it when Ally was still pregnant to make her laugh when she was miserable but better late than never I guess.

Teddy and Katie

I'm keeping Teddy for the weekend while Grandmom visits her sister in Alabama. He's pretty darn cute but I still don't understand some of the things he does. He will not eat anything...ever. Grandmom gave me 3 different kinds of dry food (which i've tried plain, with a little hot water to soften it, and with shreds of cheese) but he won't eat it. So i bought him some canned food and he won't touch that either. I've never had a problem with any animal *not* eating. The only thing he seems interested in is the cat's canned food. He licks and licks and licks their plates when they're done eating. But i googled it and you're not supposed to feed dogs cat food long term because the fat/protein content is so different it makes the dog really fat. He's not even very interested in treats! Any suggestions on how to make a dog eat?

Last night Katie spent the night with me (in addition to the dog...) and we both stayed up until 2am. That was all fine and dandy until she came and woke me up at 7:50am. Needless to say i'm exhausted. In fact i think it's about time for a nap.

After talking to a customer at work I've discovered that you can still do Caribbean and Mexican cruises with just a birth certificate. I have a vacation week coming up in August. Hmmm.....last minute cruise?