dogs....

they are bound and determined to drive me crazy...
Last weekend Gobo broke out in a bad case of the itches. He seems to have a bad reaction to bug bites. Not sure if it was mosquitoes or if a bee/wasp got him, but he wasn't doing well. He scratched and chewed himself raw in a few spots. We dealt with it and he is doing much better, though is likely to stay shaved down and in pj's for a while while everything heals up.
This weekend, being a holiday to boot.. Willow decided that it was her turn to have some fun. I gave them some treats to distract them while I went around putting fertilizer spikes out for the veggies. The ones in the garden were fine, but there were a few pots of tomatoes on the back porch. She decided that I must have buried treats for her and dug one of them up and ate it.. I managed to stop her before she got more of them (she thought they were delicious..) and luckily they were organic spikes and non toxic, but I still had to keep an eye on her. She threw up a few hours alter and left some messes over night. All to be expected, and thankful it wasn't much worse. She's all back to trouble making normal now.
Just hoping there will be a nice long break before the next dog related excitement...

Why is it always weekends??

I was planning on trying to get a bunch of things done yesterday. It was warm and sunny, there were things I could do in the yard. We have a neighborhood meeting Tuesday night that I need to get paperwork ready for. I was trying to clean my desk and the kitchen. Laundry would have been nice to get done. Gotta start getting things ready for my step daughters to arrive in a month. Lots of things to do...
Nope. Instead we had a crisis. A small, furry crisis.

The big baby of the weekend has been our little 3 year old Pomeranian, Gobo. He was born with several birth defects and has had ongoing problems of one sort or another it seems. Last year he started having all sorts of skin problems and fevers. Vets couldn't figure out what was going on, because he'd always clear up the day before his appointment. We thought we'd figured out that he was having a food allergy, and after a few changes, she seemed to be all clear again. Yesterday something set him off and I discovered that he had chewed a large strip of fur and skin off his back. Not good. So I gave him a good shave and rubbed him down with some ointment and gave him some benedryl (vets had said it would help with the itching and fever) and put then he got all dressed in his little purple pj's to keep him from getting to it.
He was still all jumpy and itchy and the only thing that would calm him down was if I was holding him. So I spent most of yesterday with a little dog pouch strapped to my chest.
This was not the first time, and probably won't be the last time with him. I actually managed to get a few things done, (ok, I got my desk partially cleared and watched a bunch of Doctor Who online while he napped) so I was happy. Even though I didn't get all the things done that I'd really wanted to do, I simply can not feel as though I "wasted" a day being tied to the dog.
He is feeling better today and is currently napping on the other side of the room, though I suspect he will come over soon and want me to pick him up. Now that the swelling and redness have gone down, it looks like this round might have been due to some sort of bug bite or sting, which is much better then the other options for what might have caused it and it should start healing soon, though he will be in the pj's for a while.. (The bare patch is about 1 inch wide and nearly 3 inches long, so gonna have a big, itchy scab for a while..)
And yes, yes, he was named after Gobo Fraggle, though if people ask who are not familiar with our weird Muppet ways, we tell them it was a contraction of "good boy".. it just saves the headaches of trying to explain the entire history of Muppetdom.. and, honestly, that is kinds of how I got the idea for his name.. we couldn't decide which Muppet to name him after and once when I was telling him he was being a "good boy" it got kind of slurred into Gobo and it just kind of went from there.. though he's not much of a brave explorer... unless mommy's there to protect him. lol

weekend...

We got home just a little while ago from a 3 day workshop on adoption. I think that we are finally ready to move forward on this. There are a lot of apprehensions and fears, of course, but this workshop really helped work through a lot of those. I've been doing research into this for several years, but every time we thought we were at a place where we could start anything, something would always come up and put plans on hold. First it was our move and changes in Tom's employment, then my car accident, then Tom's deployment... It has been crazy making.. But we had this opportunity to go to this workshop this weekend and we jumped at it. If nothing else it got Tom up to speed.
There are still many things we have to decide and figure out, especially funding (anyone got about $15,000 I can have?? heh) But we will get it all sorted out. Next step will be setting up an interview with the case worker and getting all of our paperwork. That won't be for another month though as Tom will be doing his National Guard training this week (to make up for missing it this weekend for the workshop..) and then goes back up to work at the end of the week.. but, that will give us time to let all the info settle and decide how we want to proceed.
I am starting a separate blog just to cover our adoption journey, though things will likely get mentioned here as well. if anyone cares to follow it from here.
Sadly this weekend also saw a terrible, terrible sickness hit us this weekend, though Tom fared much better then I did - he didn't get all the vomiting, lucky stink.. We are getting better now, but it was not fun. Whatever we had seems to be what Bailey and Gaia had last weekend. We thought it might have been food poisoning for them, but this appears to confirm that it wasn't that... ah well, at least we all survived. Might have made us seem a bit anti social though.. we didn't want to spread this to anyone else if we didn't have to...

recovery.. is this what normal people feel like?

I don't know why, but lately I've been noticing how different my life is then it use to be. About a year ago (March 2009) I went to see the doctor for some respiratory problems I'd been having. I thought at the time that they were related to the volcano that had gone off earlier, and really only went to seek help after I literally couldn't breath while at the chiropractor's. (Still occasionally go there after 2007's car accident.)
Anyway, when I walked in, they did the usual weight, height, blood pressure thing. And then they sat me down in a bit of a panic and tested for blood oxygen levels, which then seemed to panic them even more and they drew blood to test for iron levels immediately. I left that day with an appointment for more blood work, a prescription for blood pressure meds and some inhalers, and a seriously high dosage of iron.
My blood pressure was somewhere around 240/120.. level 4, super high stroke risk levels. My oxygen levels were bordering on my coming home with an oxygen tank, and apparently somewhere along the way, I've become seriously anemic.
After a summer of lots more testing at several specialists, it was determined that I have an enlarged heart, a murmur (no surprise on that one, my mom has one, too), and severe sleep apnea. The Apnea may be responsible for a lot of the other things that are wrong, so hoping that after a few years, if I'm careful and lucky, I might be allowed to come off some of the meds.
Back then I was sleeping for 10-12 hours a day, or more. I was always tired, never had energy for much of anything. It had all come on gradually, and some of it wasn't noticeable until after the car accident, and that was likely why it wasn't noticed sooner. After the accident there was lots of pain, my weight went up again due to the inability to move much and decline in my diet, and i really thought all of what was going on was a normal part of the whole "hey, your car was accordioned, be happy you weren't" experience of the accident recovery.
But this year, this year I am really seeing a difference. The sleep apnea may have been a problem for me for most of my life, it would explain a lot. Most days now I can get up around 6 in the morning and have no problem going all day til about 11 at night, and even then sometimes I'm just not tired enough to fall asleep right away. True, every once in a while I still feel like a short nap in the afternoon, but those are the rare instance now, not the norm. I have energy, I can do stuff in the morning and still have energy to do stuff in the afternoon and evening as well! This is new territory for me again. I vaguely remember being able to do that years ago, but it all seems so long ago now that I'd forgotten what "normal" was.
It's kind of like when I was in 5th grade and got glasses. I didn't know what it was like to actually see things before then. I thought the blurry, fuzzy world I'd always seen was what the world was like. I didn't know any better. Then I got glasses and the whole world opened up and became new and wondrous. It was great, and so is this.
I am sincerely grateful for this second chance to experience the world with vigor and energy that I've been given. I've always commented on how much of a miracle it was that I wasn't injured more in the accident. As bad and painful as it was (and still is at times) I know that it could have and, based on my x-rays maybe should have been, worse. But that visit to the doctor's last year was just as important. Without it, there is every chance that I wouldn't have made it to be here today, things were that wrong with me. But I am well on the mend now, just need to get the blasted weight back off.. :)

And I'm going to need all this energy. This week my oldest stepdaughter and the 2.5 year old grandbaby moved in with us! (The defacto SIL was already here, he came up and started working while she packed everything up) They will be with us until further notice while they save up to buy a house, and we're so excited to have them here. It will be good practice.

Down with TV.... (ok, not entirely.. just Cable..)

Well, we did it.. we once again are sans cable. (well, ok, Dish..) We went years without it then back in 2007 after my car accident hubby got it so I'd have something to help keep my mind off the pain and all. Was nice while it lasted, I got introduced to some cool shows, and now we are done with it again. When you have over 100 channels and there is maybe 5 shows on worth watching at all in the first place, it's time to dump it.
But there are still things we would like to see from time to time.. (Ok, I will admit it, I love the new Dr Who.. I haven't yet seen this new guy, but I've loved the first 4 seasons and am looking forward to more.. I also Like Eureka.. and Glee, and Bones.. and Castle, cuz, ya know.. my fav Browncoat and all... Sorry V, I'm trying, I really am, I loved the old one, love Morena.. but I really don't much care what happens every week...) Anyway. Where was I?? Oh yes.. so We are no subscribed to Netflix (love it!) and Hulu, between the 2 I can watch pretty much everything I want to.. Ok, some things I have to wait a while for, but I can deal with that. We did have to upgrade out internet service, but it comes out to about what we were paying for Dish.
We do still have over the air stuff, at least a few channels. Hubby's going to reconnect the big roof antenna when he gets home in a few weeks and hopefully that will give us a few more channels (CBS and fox are currently the main missing ones.. I'm missing NCIS right now, and that is sad for me.) And he might just use the excuse to mount a bigger one, in which he can "hide" his HAM radio antenna..
But we are happy, this gives a little more control over what sorts of programs and messages get brought into the house. yay!

and as for the cheese... well, first batch of mozzarella didn't turn out very much like mozzarella.. but it was still pretty good. Made a nice cheese spread. Is one hobby where, at least most of the time, even if things go wrong, you might still end up with something yummy... but main problem seemed to be that my digital thermometer didn't work like it should have.. hubby thinks he might have broke it a few weeks ago.. what he was doing shouldn't have been a problem, but, who knows, so am looking for a new one.. as well as a new dehydrator as that died this last weekend as well.. *sigh* would really like a nice big one like the sell at Cabellas, but there is no way we could afford it and the shipping to get it to Alaska.. hoping I can find a decent one like it up here somewhere.. otherwise it's going to be another cheap one that will likely burn out in a few years again.. wish me luck!

Cheese!

Ok, so this month I've been working on getting seedlings going for the garden and other things to help us be at least a little self sufficient. seeds are all planted and most have sprouted and are doing well. we built a little greenhouse for our front window so i can get a lot more in there right now. will be building another one this weekend to put on the back porch and will take pictures of the process for that one for you. real simple though. works pretty much like the little ones they sell in the garden section at the local box stores, but much cheaper and sturdier.
Anyway, the other thing I've been working on is learning how to make my own cheese. I've done 2 small batches so far using the simplest recipe I could find online.
Basically it's just 2 cups of milk, 4 teaspoons of vinegar and a little salt. boil the milk, add the vinegar, strain, add the salt and chill.. voila, you have cheese. very basic, fairly bland.. but it's cheese.. so the second batch I did I used malt vinegar and added freshly ground pepper. Better.. am going to be working on several different mix ins and see what we come up with, though most of that will have to wait until hubby and/or the kids get back so I've got someone to eat up all this cheese. :)
Luckily this recipe doesn't make more then half a pound, if that, so it's good for playing with. This weekend or early next week I will be venturing into a more complex recipe and will be attempting mozzarella!

St Patrick's Day

So yesterday was St Patty's day.. It was a great excuse for me to do some really good cooking. In a few places I've mentioned the menu and had a bunch of people asking me for the recipes and/or amazed at how labor intensive it sounded. Here's the secret.. it's not as hard or as impressive as it sounds.. hehehe
it was all really quite simple and pretty easy. So, to show just how easy it is to cook a nice "proper" Irish meal for St Patty's day, I'm posting the whole lot, step by step.

First, a proper Irish Soda Bread... Now, if all you've ever had is the stuff they sell in the stores this time of year, with the raisins and whatnot.. then you've never really had proper soda bread. Your typical Irish peasant didn't have raisins and yeast, and wasn't going to waste good eggs on bread what doesn't need em...
Proper Irish Soda bread is very simple. If you can make baking powder biscuits (heck if you can make the "add water" kind of biscuits) then you can make this.

4 cups of all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
14 ounces of buttermilk

In a large bowl combine all of your dry ingredients. Add the buttermilk to form a sticky dough. (I do all if this in my mixer. Bosch or Kitchenaid with the dough hook, but wouldn't be too hard to do by hand.) Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead just enough to form a round, flat shape.
You can put this in a round greased cake pan, a large cookie sheet or stone. I have stones, so I use them for just about everything.
Cut a cross on the top of the dough (to let the fairies out)
Bake at 425 for about 45 minutes depending on your oven. It is suggested that the bread be covered for the first 30 minutes, but that is optional.
When the bread is done it will have a hollow sound when tapped on the bottom.


Colcannon
There are recipes out there that will give you measurements if you absolutely must have them, and there are many variations. Most of my cooking is done freestyle unless measurements are absolutely necessary, so this is what I did for last night's batch. (made about 4-6 servings)

4-5 potatoes, russets are best for this, or another mealy type. do not use waxy ones, they don't mash up proper.
1 bunch Kale
1 large dollop butter
milk/buttermilk
handful of dried green onions
Fresh ground pepper
dash of salt

Ok, peal and chop potatoes into large chunks. I leave about half the peals on, but that is personal preference. Put into a large pot of water with a dash of salt and boil until potatoes are soft.
When potatoes are nearly done, set a second pot to boiling and add kale. You can also steam this if you prefer. DO NOT OVERCOOK. You just want to soften the leaves and get them to turn a nice vibrant green color. Drain kale and remove the large stem from the center of each leaf. Chop kale and set aside.
Drain potatoes and return to pot over low heat. Add dollop of butter and a little milk and/or buttermilk. (I like the extra flavor the buttermilk gives) Mash the potatoes to the consistency you like. Add in a handful of green onions (I used dehydrated cuz I had them - and yes, i did that myself too, again, not hard, and handy up here when you can't always get fresh stuff.. if you have fresh green onions available, use em! just chop finely) and freshly ground black pepper and fold in the kale.


Slow Cooker Pot Roast

For this I did use a brisket cut, but feel free to use whatever cut you prefer or is on sale that week. Tough cuts are fine because they will have a long time to cook at low heat which will soften them up.

1 roast
1-2 turnips
6-8 carrots
1/4 onion
1 can low sodium reduced fat beef broth
pepper corns
green onions
mushrooms
bell pepper
garlic *
Cabbage

2 days in advance, place your roast in a large, sealable bowl or large bag along with the broth. I added the green onions and mushrooms to this as well. In my case, both were dried and powdered, but fresh would work just as well. this would also be a good time to add garlic, which I will admit, I completely forgot about this time.
Seal this all up and let marinate in the fridge for about 2 days.

Day of:

Place the roast and all the stuff from the bag into your slow cooker. Clean and chop your turnips and carrots into nice big chunks and add them as well. Add in your onion, bell peppers, more mushrooms if you like. Season with whole peppercorns.
Turn your slow cooker on low and leave for the day. If you haven't got all day you can cook on high. It will still take several hours, but will be worth it.
About an hour or so before it is done, Loosely chop some cabbage and add on top of roast. This doesn't take long to cook.

If you don't have a slow cooker, you can do all of this in a roaster in your oven (though I wouldn't recommend leaving the house for too long with the oven on...)
Just turn your oven down to about 250 and let it do it's thing. Times will vary depending on your oven, piece of meat, etc.



There ya go.. That wasn't too hard now was it? I know.. "Isn't corned beef traditional?" ok, yes it has become so, but a good pot roast with turnips and carrots was just as common, and because of some health concerns, I can't be having with all the vast amounts of salt in a proper corned beef, so this is my compromise.. If members of your household decide they don't like colcannon.. (I only make it when hubby's not home as he can't stand it.. weeds ruining perfectly good potatoes and all..) then skip that and just add some small potatoes (or cut up some large ones) to the roasted veggies.. though in that case I would say that you'd be better off with the waxy type instead of the mealy.. waxy (such as red or gold taties) hold together better for that sort of thing...

there ya go.. next year you can impress all your friends and relatives...

Pepe

This is a hard post. Our sweet little Pepe has passed.
Pepe was the first dog that Tom and I got after we were married. I was having a hard time dealing with the initial stages of infertility and desperately wanted a little pommeranian to absorb some of that. Would have settled for another small breed, but I got lucky and we got connected with a breeder who had one she was eager to "offload." Pepe had some problems when we got her, but we didn't care. The woman we got her from was not entirely upfront about her age or her medical condition, and getting her papers after the fact was like pulling teeth. (She had said she'd get us copies of vet records as well, but then later claimed that she never took her to the vet so there were no papers...) Anyway, we picked her up on 18 August 2003. We met her previous owner in a parking lot where she shoved her through her car window to us and told us that if there were any problems just call and she'd keep her in her garage in a cage for the winter. We vowed right then and there that there was no way "Baby," as she was called then, was going back unless there was a large pile of dead bodies over our dead bodies.
We brought her home and got a good look at her. She was scrawny, nearly hairless and covered in sores and raw patches of skin. Once we got the papers (eventually, several months later) we discovered that she was 3 years old, this was a good bit older then we'd been told (under a year) but we didn't care. We knew "Baby" was not her name. She didn't respond to it, had not connection with it, and really, it's a terrible name that everyone uses.. It was not for us and not for her.. So we started getting to know her and looking for a good name that she'd respond to.
But while we were doing that, there were other things to be done. At first, she was very wary of being touched. She would freeze up whenever anyone went to pet her. And she had a severe case of separation anxiety. It took us 6 months to deal with that and get her to understand that we were always coming back and she wouldn't be abandoned. She would bark and howl the entire time we were gone if she was left alone. We video taped it once to confirm. But we did get her comfortable with all of that and she went on to become utterly fearless...
But, back to her name. Because of her hairloss and her coloring, and her gradual diva-ness, she reminded us greatly of Pepe from the muppets. We had tried all sorts of names, trying to find something she would respond to right away. Pepe was the first name she took to, and it suited her perfectly, so she had her name. And she lived up to it.. She would also respond, later, to silly variations on it, but she was our little queen of the universe..
So next step was the Vet... We took her in soon after we got her to have her looked at. She was healthy except for her skin problems which could have been due to a number of things, some could be very bad, some could be easily dealt with. They ran some tests, all of which came back normal and said that they wanted us to try changing her foods as it could be as simple as an allergy, otherwise there were some more tests they'd run, but they wanted to try this first as it was easier and cheaper. Turns out it was a food allergy and once we got her on a simple Fish based diet, she started healing right up and eventually got all fluffy again. It took about a year and a half for her to really look like a "normal" pommie again, but she did.. we have the pictures to prove it!
She would occasionally have other flair ups and loose some of her hair again if she'd get treats or meds that had other animal proteins in them, but we tried to avoid those as much as we could. (which is hard, btw.. she couldn't have any animal protein that wasn't fish based.. and so many dog foods and treats, and don't get me started on the meds... have some component of chicken or beef in them...)
we have so many little stories about her from over the years. She was with us for 6 and a half years, and she was our darling.. she loved yogurt cups (before we knew what her food allergy was anyway, afterwards she wasn't allowed them..) and running off with the feather duster. She would go up to anyone on the street and demand that they fawn over her. She wasn't afraid of wheelchairs or canes or anything, she was perfectly safe around the youngest of children.. if she'd been able to pass the obedience part of the testing we'd have had her licensed as a therapy dog and been doing hospital and nursing home visits. She'd have been perfect and would have loved it to no end. She was the first of the dogs to get a voice.. Tom does it perfectly, slightly high pitched and spoiled, not too bright. She would tell us of her exploits in killing "antelopes" (small bugs) and the time she crawled into Tom's lunchbag trying toget to his sandwich, but couldn't chew through the plastic bag. She once hoarded a whole bag of halloween candy under the computer desk, but again, couldn't get through the plastic, so it was all safe. She loved to be under beds and would somehow manage to surround herself with a fortress of shoes.
She was more then just a dog, she was our baby. We used to joke that someday she'd grow up to be a "real girl," kinda like Pinocchio.

Sunday morning, I'd overslept (stupid daylight savings...) and was running late for church, but before I could worry about that I had to get Pepe's food ready.. She'd lost most of her teeth in the last few months and was now on wet food and was on heart pills as well, so first priority in the mornings is getting her fed and medicated (then worry about getting me fed and medicated..) the last few days she hadn't been eating much and I thought she had a cold or something and we were going to be going to the vet this week anyway, so didn't worry too much about it. Sunday, as I was trying to get her to eat, she appeared to have a small stroke. She seemed to recover a bit, but was still tired and confused. So I heal her for a little bit to help her calm down then put her in her basket to rest. I was concerned, and decided that Church was just going to be a miss that day in case she had another episode. Within the next hour, she was gone.
I have not handled it well. It has hit me very hard and I am still a bit of a mess now two days later. She was my baby and now she's gone.
I've put together a little photo album for her online and am linking to it here hope that works :)
I'm still trying to adjust to the changes in my morning and nightly routines now that I don't have her meds to see to. And the other dogs are still a bit subdued as well, we're all waiting for Pepe to come back. They've all tried out the basket, "her" basket, for short periods of time, but, so far, no one has claimed it yet. We will see if anyone does. It's the same basket Rocky had and passed away in as well a few years ago.
anyway, i'd better get off the computer and go do something before I start getting too maudlin, but i just needed to get this tribute page up while I could. She was loved, spoiled entirely rotten, and will be missed for a very long time.

adventures in unplanned remodeling

Ok, so a few weeks ago, the old dishwasher that came with the house decided it wasn't going to work well anymore and we ordered a new one. It came in and Monday we decided to install it. It was supposed to be fairly simple, though we were afraid of what might be lurking behind the old one. We had previously removed a washer and dryer from the kitchen (and put new ones downstairs in the basement laundry room where they should be..) and had not been pleased with what was found.
We live in what is basically and old farm house, without the farm, in semi-rural Alaska. There are a LOT of wild mice everywhere. It is extremely hard to keep them out of the house, especially since the old guy who built the place did lots of little screwy things and didn't always seal things up properly. We are trying to fix all of these as we go, and have most of the mouse traffic into the house confined to 2 areas, the basement entryway and the garage. We are working on those as well, but they are going to require some structural changes, so meanwhile, we cope as best we can.
Anyway, mice have had access to the house for pretty much it's entire existence back in the early 1980's, and they have made good use of the kitchen and they had been quite active behind the sink and dishwasher area, so we had expected there to be much scrubbing and some flooring issues to be dealt with. What we hadn't planned on was the mold. Luckily we had lots of bleach on hand to douse the wall with and the plastic over the insulation behind the wall had kept it from getting into the studs. We bleached everything good and put in some temporary measures to help prevent this from happening again, but we are going to have to do some serious demo and redo the entire kitchen at some point. And we still have no idea why there was mold behind where the trash compactor was. There was no steam, nothing that should have leaked over there, yet there the mold was, and the wall was falling apart back there, too... so we did some quick repair there.

Then we thought we were done. We started discussing other remodeling projects we wanted to work on next. There is a nice long list, and some of it needs to be done in the next few months if at all possible when my oldest step daughter and her family will be moving in with us for a while. She has a 2 year old so there are some things we would like to see taken care of before she gets here.
Then we open on this evening... Friday night, a little after 8 pm.. Hall bathroom shower. Ya lean against the wall a little while turning and, oh look, the wall just caved in... *sigh*
Little old man had used regular dry wall in the bathroom.. this does not work.. they make stuff for use in there and other moist areas that is waterproof and prevents mold.. he didn't use any of that, and after probably 20+ years (cuz the tile.. ooh.. old pattern, but i actually like it and we had found a way to make it work.. is going to be hard finding something it will work with now.. but I'm really hoping we can save some of the tiles...) anyway, after 20 years, the drywall just had disintegrated back behind the tile and there wasn't really any drywall left.. just mold and bits of cardboard...
so all other projects are on hold again while we take the bathroom apart and repair the mess that is in there... We were actually planning a bathroom remodel.. just not that bathroom.. makes me worry what we will find behind the master bathroom when we do actually get to it...
Please pray that we get through this project without being forced into 3 others.... :)

update.. late as usual...

Ok, so I was looking over posts and realized that I haven't updates this blog in a long while...

Well, Tom did make it home, about a week later. Yay!! They managed to get a plane and make it home safely and he was, in fact, home in time for Thanksgiving. (of which we had 3... dinners...)
And the girls came up for Christmas (another yay!) and we had snow and fun. We took a trip down to Seward the week after Christmas for a few days. That didn't turn out quite as fun as we had hoped, but it was still pretty enjoyable overall.
Tom has gone back to work and looks like he's got pretty stable worked lined up for a good while, so we shouldn't have to worry too much about making sure all the bills get paid and all :)
Today is actually our 7th wedding anniversary. Sadly, he's not home for it (sigh) but then that is becoming pretty common. Ah well, he will be back here in a few weeks and home for Valentine's Day and we will be attending a couple's retreat that weekend, hosted by the military, but, even better, the traveling Star Wars exhibit is going to be at the local museum during that time too (woot!) I know.. I am such a geek-ette... I am so looking forward to the "full scale replica of the Falcon's cockpit...
And in other news, Tom has been inspired that my health problems are finally on the mend enough that we can move forward (at long last!) with ours plans to adopt. So the next few months we will be getting started on that!!! yay!! So, if anyone has any suggestions or info that might be helpful for us up here in Alaska, we'd be very grateful. And if anyone knows of anyone looking to place, we'd love if you'd pass along our information :) we are more then willing to travel if needed.

just whose head do I need to chew off???

I am really, really frustrated today, and it is doing nothing for my health.... I know my blood pressure is really high again and there isn't much i can' do about it right now..

After telling us all that our soldiers would be home this week, it turns out that they forgot to schedule a plane for them to all come home on. Which means that no one knows when they will now be coming home. could be next week, could be 3 weeks...
this is NOT acceptable!!!!!
i have scheduled time off from work, and really can't push those dates around at this point. And I know i am not the only service member family that is being screwed with because of this. it's all just really frustrating and upsetting at this point. I am really hoping that they can pull off some sort of miracle and still manage to get them home this week. This is all starting to take a toll on my health again and i really can't and shouldn't be dealing with all this stress right now.

sorry, but i just had to get some of this out before i started banging my head against the wall... If anyone actually reads this. please keep us in your prayers for a speedy resolution..

Thanks for letting me whine

stress!!!

ok.. so, hubby is due back at some point this week.. or at least that's what they said... we thought we'd have actual information on details last week.. we're still waiting, and this is starting to really stress me out.. my blood pressure is getting out of hand again and i know this is all due to the stress of not knowing and all the crap they are putting us through right now... this is not good for me, however and i am trying to really stay calm, but it is getting harder and harder.. *sigh*
i want him home!!!! darn them...

oh,, and we finally got snow last night.. yay... not much, (about 2 inches..) but it's a start, and not so much that it will make travel hard or stop Tom from getting to ride his motorcycle when he gets back..
anyway.. keep me in your prayers.. my health needs all the help it can get right now.

uhm.. not my fualt.. I swear....

Ok, really, this last big gap was not my fault... at least not entirely.
Early last month, the fan in my computer died.. but I didn't know it, at least not at first.
Then the system started overheating and it would shut itself down, which was really my first clue that something was wrong.. but, it was just a fan, no problem, I've changed fans before, heck, we've built several machines from spare bits over the years, so there shouldn't have been any problems..
except, apparently there were.. Somewhere in the mess of all this, the dead fan caused some sort of fatal error and seemed to have fried my motherboard or some such.. anyway, the computer was dead. Dead, dead, dead....
*sigh*
I got by for a little while using my step daughter's computer and my husband's really old laptop (ie really really slow..) But I really needed a new computer, so we started looking and hoping to find something. I was in town for some National Guard stuff and, as luck would have it, Best Buy was having a really great sale on something that would do for me. Not top of the line, not as expandable as I'd have liked, but it would do, and I could afford it on the small budget I had to work with. So I brought it home, hooked it up and hoped for the best.
It ran Vista, so hoping was for a lot of things. I really like XP, I don't recall ever getting the blue screen of death with XP, however, I got very, very familiar with it again that first week after bringing home my new computer...
After a week and a half, I'd had enough. The stupid thing was just terrible. Apprently I'd gotten a really bad install as all it did was crash, crash, crash, and crash some more. Eventually it got itself stuck in a bootloop that I couldn't get it out of so I just boxed the whole mess back up and took it back to the store. Thankfully they exchanged it with no problem and the new NEW computer has worked just fine.
So now I'm trying to piece things all back together. My old hard drive seems to have survived (though odd things seem to have disappeared from my bookmarks folder when I moved that over...)

And, in other news.. we actually have an expected return date... yay!!!! I'm still not supposed to give out "too much information," but I think I can safely say that he will in fact be home before Thanksgiving :)

yikes!

I didn't realize it had been so long! Lots of things have happened this summer. Okay, mostly lots of doctor's appointments keeping me busy and all, but, stuff has happened.. :)
Oldest step daughter came to visit with the grandbaby. The three of them were here for about a week. Was good to see them all, the baby has grown so much! Can't wait to see them again next spring.
The girls have been here all summer as well. They've been running around all crazy, dyed their hair, had sleep overs, played games.. all the usual stuff. They had fun and we all hate that they have to go back this weekend.
As mentioned, I've had lots of appointments this summer, but it seems we have finally figured out what is wrong with me this year :) (Ok, has been wrong for years, just got worse this year...) I have SEVERE sleep apnea. Docs aren't sure how I ever got any sleep at all, it was that bad. 5 sleep disturbances an hour is "normal".. I had 130 +.. so apparently i've only been power napping in short bursts of less then 30 seconds at a time... no wonder I've always been so tired and never had any energy.. They wonder how I ever functioned at all.. This is apparently something that has been on going for years and years and has just progressevely gotten worse and has given me really high blood pressure, an enlarged heart, cause weight gain, and really a whole slew of other problems.
It is now being treated. I have a nice little cpap machine that I use at night to help me get actual sleep and I just love the thing. I noticed a difference the first night, and now at just over 2 weeks with it, I have energy again. I can do "normal" tasks without getting winded or wanting to take a nap all the time. It's just great. I can't wait to see how things will feel after I've been on it a while. If I'm lucky, there is a chance I could eventually come off of most, if not all, of my meds eventually. But i'm just happy right now to be finally sleeping and getting some energy back. I should be able to finally start loosing weight again too (yay!!)
Did I mention that I love my cpap macnine?? :)

latest update... progress

Well, probablly should have done this a few days ago, but i came down with a nasty head cold right about the same time as I got results back from the blood tests, so things got delayed.. though updates were somewhat sent out elsewhere..
anyway.. blood test show everything is more or less fine. I have plenty of iron receptors in my blood, the iron just hasn't been sticking for some reason. My numbers were up and I am now at the very low end of normal.. but "normal" is much improved from where I was, so I am continuing with the iron suppliments. My blood pressure was better, but still not quite where they wanted it, so they've tinkered with that some, and the last reading I just took was 107/67.. pulse is a bit high at 105, but i've been doing a lot of coughing (thanks to that head cold..) so will see how that goes in the next day or two as the coughing clears up. Nothing in the tests give any indication as to what caused any of this. Chest x-ray confirmed that my heart is slightly enlarged, which could be caused by the high blood pressure, or could have caused the high blood pressure.. or.. well, it's one of those evil circular things... gotta figure out what started the whole mess..
I have an echo cardiogram scheduled for the 29th and hopefully that will shed some light.. after that, will likely have a sleep study done as well.. just going to be the summer of tests for me this year :)
but otherwise, I'm feeling pretty good. I know now that there really is a reason for me to feel tired, so don't push through it like i was, am willing to go take a nap if i need to, and because of that, I'm feeling better, am sleeping through the night again now and have actual moments of real energy! :) Still not willing to do anything too hard yet, but I am starting to get there. Light exercise has been allowed back into my routine, in small doses, which is about all I can take right now anyway before i wear out.. but it's a start.. (ok, one i've been forced to take more times then I would like the last few years... but, there we are...)
and while this whole mess has pretty much put an end to some dreams (IVF in the next few years is definately out, and not likely to even be an option beyond that..) it at least has provided some answers to a few things and was caught in time to keep me around for a good deal longer, which will be even more important for the whole adoption process.

ALWAYS PAY ATTENTION...

... Cuz things may not be meaning what you thought they meant....

Ok, so as mentioned previously, I'd injured my hip. I made an appointment for last Monday with my chiropractor to have that worked on.. I've seen him twice now and hip seems to be more or less all better, I go in again next week to make sure...

But, Sunday at church, I was in a good deal of pain and asked for a Priesthood blessing. In this blessing I was told a few things. Most important to this story is this: That I was definately in need of medical assistance, that that if I wanted to improve, I would have to follow the doctor's orders carefully. This seemed a bit of overkill for the hip, but things then started to worry me... I started going all paranoid that there was something else wrong that I wasn't seeing. Well, at me second appointment yesterday with my chiropractor, this cough i've been having for a while popped in and it was brought to my attention just how long i've had the thing and that i should see someone for it..

There was the nudge I needed to understand the blessing, so this morning I called a local doctor's office and made an appointment. Managed to get in this morning, which really shocked me, but has turned out to be a very good thing.

The good news... I'm alive.. and moving and alert.. these are all apparently options for not happening...

Turns out that I'm seriously anemic (as in why havne't I started turning blue aorund the edges yet??) my blood ox level is down right around where they start passing out O2 tanks, and my bloos presure is up near stroke levels.. so... I was sent home with a slew of meds to take and am to go back in a week to see if anything is helping.. once we get all of this under control then we can start digging for a cause. It is possible that this is just some nasty cyclical thing in response to the local volcano, and we're really hoping for that one.. at least I am.. as it would mean that once we get that cycle broken, this will all go away and I won't need all these extra meds.

This does at least explain why I haven't been able to loose weight though.. at least somewhat... so I suppose that's a good thing. the knowing why that is...

Anyway.. any and all good thoughts, prayes, positive energy vibes, etc that anyone wants to send my way would be greatly apprechiated.

grouse on the nature of pain

ok.. I will admit it now.. I'm a bit medicated at the moment...
I'd been having problems sleeping for a while anyway, probably due to stress, who knows...
But I'd gotten through that lousey bout of insomnia and was getting back to a fairly normal routine.. and then the pain returned...
I've apparently been doing more then I should be doing, but really don't have any choice but to do cuz it's got to get done sort of stuff and had managed to get my back and shoulders all knotted up.. and then earlier this week I managed to do something very painful to my lower back and left hip.. apparently my hip has slipped a bit out of place or something.. I do have an appointment with my chiropractor on Monday, which I am very much looking forward too (and hoping the lady who does the massages is in and has time to fit me in as well....)
Tuesday I had some errands to run and wound up coming home in tears from the pain in my hip.. thankfully it has settled down and isn't nearly as painful now. Now it's just a low grade dull ache that is almost worse as it tends to just sap strength long term, so I am absolutely beat and tired well before the day is out, but have to try to prevent napping or i have even more trouble sleeping at night... and i've enough trouble there all on my own, thanks all the same...
*sigh*
hoping I can pin someone down at church and get a blessing, that would be great...
right now anything would be good.. i'm really really tired right now, but am finding it very hard to get comfortable enough to actually get to sleep. i took some ibus and half a sleeping pill earlier, so hopefully those will all kick in soon and knock me out...
*sigh*

Moose on a school yard

Ok, so earlier this week there was an incident at a local middle school involving some students and a young bull moose. The local media and school would tell you that it was 2 children throwing small pebbles and sticks at a sick moose which then fell over and died and the teachers were just right behind the kids and put an end to it immediately..

This is a lie. I have heard from one who knows more about what happened that there is a bit of a cover up going on. Here is what I understand of the situation: 3 PE classes were let out without anyone checking the grounds for moose, which are common this time of year and it is common practice to check for them before letting kids run loose. This was not done. The kids were supposed to be running laps, some of them were. Most of the students were doing more or less what they should have been doing. But there were many who were not. And teachers were not a mere "minute or two" behind the children. I have heard that they were left basically unattended for upwards of 20 minutes.

The moose was loose in one side of the yard and after initially being startled by the kids (with the rocks and the sticks..) it charged towards one of the kids who was running laps. This child, and others could have been seriously injured or killed. But the moose got caught in the fencing. He thrashed around so badly that he got his antler caught and eventally ripped one of them out of his own head. Even this was not enough for these children, however, as they continued to torment it. (Others did go off to look for teachers at some point.) The moose then threw itself severa times against another fence or building until it died. It's death has been ruled "winter kill" (a common thing up here in early spring when young moose who haven't had enough food over the winter just die off at random...) and the "next in line" for the moose kill list were called and the moose was butchered for food there on the play ground.

This moose well may have been sickly due to poor diet, and may well have eventually died on it's own. But it might also have lived if it hadn't had to deal with the torment and torture it went through that day. There were supposed to have been 3 teachers out in the yard with the kids that day. They were not providing the proper supervision for these kids. It is my understanding, as mentioned, that these kids were basically unattended for about 20 minutes. That is enough time for all sorts of things to go wrong. These kids received a "talking to" and the "2 ringleaders" have apparently been suspended, though who knows for how long.

Part of me really hopes that the information I have is wrong. But most of me knows that, if anything, it's only missing details that would make me cry even more. If these kids can do this, be part of this on the school yard, what are they doing that we don't know of yet? These kids have been taught for years that if you see a moose, you go the other way, slowly and carefully. Moose can kill. And they are hunted in the wild by pack animals.. so a pack of kids is just as scary for the moose and it's instincts are going to kick in and make it that much more dangerous.
It's very sad that this sort of thing could happen...

yay plumbing!!

Well, at long last, we finally got the septic pipe fixed this morning!! I am so happy and relieved.. now I can go back to a "normal" routine.. doing laundry and dishes and showers and everything without having to plan ahead and worry that the basement would flood again... now I can finally get to work on getting the basement cleaned up and ready for summer and kids running around all over the place.
now I just have to get hold of the kids' mom so i can actually make plans for them... i can never get through on the phone line and she's not replying to emails... makes me very suspicious... *sigh*

April's news

wow.. it's been a month...
Well, for starters.. I did get the Library job.. woohoo.. am just loving being back at work in a library. I'm working part time and on call, so my hours vary from week to week, but it's enough for me right now.
We've also had one of the local volcano's go off.. it's been spewing smoke and ash off an on for several weeks now, and could very well continue like this for months.. I'm not too happy with that.. While we haven't had much ashfall here (yay!!) it is still putting out enough gases and other junk into the air that I (and anyone else with any sort of respiratory issue..) am having a lot of trouble breathing some days. Really hating that part... It also played a lot of havoc with the local airport.. lots of flights were canceled and mail shipments were also canceled. So things have been a bit of a mess for anyone trying to get in or out of Alaska, or sending anything through any of the local mail hubs..
And we found out what was wrong and causing all the problems we've been having with our septic system.. A pipe has detatched from the tank and has to be reattached, so we're just waiting now until we can get the yard dug up and that can be fixed. Meanwhile, we're just really careful about water usage. Should be able to get that taken care of soon though as it seems we finally have spring on the way, snow is melting and the yard might actually be visable, and digable.. That will be great.
And soon I will be buying airline tickets for the girls to come up for the summer.. yay!! While they won't have their dad to torment and tease this summer, I know they are still looking forward to coming up and we'll have the web cam and everything set up so they should be able to have some day to day contact with him... we've got a few things planned for that..
Some friends of mine sent me a book last month, in honor of my new job. Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson. Really fun book. I ordered a second copy of it (since none of the local book stores had a copy..) and am mailing that to Tom.. so we can read it with the girls this summer.
And our poor little Gobo.. (our 2 year old pomeranian..) took him to the vet last month because he was having some really odd symtems.. he was loosing his undercoat, really itchy, skin all read and hot, off and on fever.. It seems the poor little guy is having an allergic reaction to something, though we havent' been able to figure out what.. Haven't really been any changes to diet or environment, so we don't have any idea what triggered it, but it has to run it's course.. he's lost most of his undercoat and still loosing what little he has left. Most of the time he's ok, but once in a while he'll go all itchy and squirmy, his fever pops up once in a while.. but, he gets some children's benedryl and things seem to settle back down for a while.. Just have to keep an eye on him and check back later if things don't improve after a while.. He just can't have an easy life... (lol at least not according to him... life is so hard for all of our little pooches... plenty of food, daily treats, lots of soft places for their 20 hours or so of daily napping during the winter.. ya know.. all that stuff that makes life so hard for spoiled little doggies...)

anyway, that's pretty much where things are at for now..