New Years Eve 2008

We went bowling (the family, and Grandpa K, Jeana and Dani, and Ethan's friend Danny) to bid farewell to 2008... it was a great year!

Here's a list I had posted in January 2008 with some of my goals for the year. Let's see how we did:

1. Get my hair cut - Did it! A few times since then, actually.

2. Have an invisible dog fence put in. Did it!

3. Remodel the upstairs bathroom. Did it!

4. Remove the family room paneling (with its 13 coats of paint) and replace with sheetrock, and have the wall between the family room and kitchen taken down. Did it!

5. Remodel the kitchen. Did it!

6. Replace the garage doors. Nope, didn't make it, maybe in 2009.

7. Take a trip to Seattle with Dave. Nope, unfortunately we never found the time for this. Maybe in 2009, I hope!

8. Take (and pass!) the UANJ baseball umpire exam and become certified to umpire high school varsity baseball! Did it! This was probably my favorite completed project of 2008.

Now for 2009, here are a few of my goals:

1. See Sara get into the college of her choice, along with finding a way to pay for it.

2. Re-pave the driveway, and replace the garage doors.

3. Pay off all our credit card debt from our (greatly over-budget) kitchen project.

4. Remodel the blue bathroom downstairs - the last vestige of the "original" house.

Here's to 2009! I wish all our family and friends a happy and healthy new year.

Christmas Mayhem 2008

T minus 4

We got our tree up, 4 whole days before Christmas! Yay us!

Results

It's a major PITA, but here's how the grout came out. I only got the pantry done so far - this weekend, it's a groutfest for Dave and me.

Plus we haven't gotten our Christmas tree yet! Hopefully we'll get it today, although supposedly we're getting some kind of wintery storm this afternoon...

backsplash

Dave and I put in the tile backsplash last weekend. We used Marazzi Montagna Belluno 6x6 tiles from Home Depot. We got it all done in one 12-hour day. Grouting comes next. I'm a little aprehensive because we used a porcelain tile with "pits" and a stamped design, and I don't want to get grout in the depressions. I have been googling for various techniques, but we will just have to see how it comes out.

ETA: Dave pointed out that I spelled "backsplash" wrong in the title. .. had to fix it!

catch up

We had a very productive weekend - got the tile bought for the kitchen backsplash (new project in the works), got the Christmas lights up - and while downloading the christmas lights picture I came across two other pics I had meant to post: one of my jackolanterns on halloween (ok, a couple months late) and a pic of sara that I stole from her facebook page, that I thought captured her really well. So that's it... nothing exciting going on here. But I am hoping to steal some of my sister's pictures to post from when Jeana and Dani came down for Thanksgiving. But I'm still waiting for her to send them. Still waiting...

Still waiting...

We three

My sisters came over this weekend, and we had a great time catching up. But we did not spend nearly enough time together. We need to make this more of a regular thing, rather than an every-15-year thing.

Bus stop ghouls

Hannah and her cronnies at the bus stop this cold Halloween morning...

First Snow

It's not yet Halloween, and we haven't turned the clocks back yet, but it's snowing anyway.

children of the corn

Every year at this time I say, "you know, I'd really like to go to a corn maze..." but it's always either raining, or we're too busy, or I am disgusted by the ridiculous price, etc. But today, the weather was perfect and it was just a corn-maze kind of day. So Dave, Sara and I went. And of course we had to take the hayride to the pumpkin patch and pick pumpkins, which will be turned into Jack-o-lanterns on halloween day.

baseball milestones

Last night, I umpired my 100th game of the season - the second game of a senior double-header, under the lights on a 50-degree October night. Solo.

Oh, and in other important baseball news, the Red Sox won the ALDS, thanks in part to a controversial squeeze-play-foiling tag by Jason Veritek, who apparently held on to the ball "long enough."

All around, it was a good baseball night.

There's only one October

It's a little disturbing that the man has his own blog (http://jacobyellsbury.mlblogs.com/) dedicated to himself... but then again, so do I! Anyway, nice catch, Jake.

And the RedSox get a jump start over the Angels in the ALDS.

Connected

I had to steal this picture from Tracey's blog, since I forgot my camera... Here's my sister Joanne and her husband Ira, and my little nephew Noah.

It was an inspired gathering of separated souls, whose lives had repeatedly crossed over the decades, just out of reach, until they eventually recognized each other. It was inevitable that they would do so, as though the universe would not rest until they had.

Week at Camp Nonni-Nonno

Here's what we did last week. We beached, we pooled, we rollercoastered.... and Dave and I saw the Red Sox beat the Rangers 19-17 in a 4-hour game (that's a run scored every 6.7 minutes!).

Update on Bourbon

After spending over $4000 to find no explanation for the vomitting and GI bleeding, Bourbon seems to be doing better. After he started vomitting again on Sunday, we witheld all food and water for almost 3 days (we gave him subcuntaeous fluids at home), and now we are very slowly increasing his food and water. He's still on a bunch of different meds, and it's gettting harder and harder to fool him into taking them. He now sucks the liverworst off the pills and spits the pills out.

But his PCV was up to 30% on Wednesday (from his low of 17%; normal range is 37-55%), so the GI bleeding may have stopped. I took him in for another shot of Cerenia on Wednesday to stop the vomitting, and he's been on oral Cerenia since then. It seems to be working.

He's mostly on a diet of rice and egg whites (a quarter cup at a time), and I'm a little afraid to introduce real dog food too soon. If he goes a few more days without vomitting I might sneak a little dog food into his diet and see what happens. Since we don't know what is wrong in the first place, we don't know if it will get better or worse.

So we'll just wait and see.

Bourbon

This is an old picture, but it shows Bourbon at a happier time.

About 2 weeks ago he began vomiting, and having blood in his stool. It is likely that he has an upper GI bleed of some kind, but no cause can be found. He has had x-rays, ultrasound, and an endoscopy, and his PCV continues to drop. At this point his PCV is 17% (his baseline value at his last check-up was 44%). Today they gave him a transfusion but there is nothing else we can do.

We are picking him up from the critical care center tonight, and bringing him home. We are not planning to pursue it further. He is on a few medications for ulcers and upper GI diseases, even though we don't know if he has an actual disease, or got "into something" around the house that is not showing up on the tests.

And, as if that's not enough, the vet confirmed yesterday that Bourbon has progressive retinal atrophy, a genetic condition that causes complete blindness in a matter of weeks or months. It strikes between the ages of 1 and 6 - in the prime of adulthood. If Bourbon survives this mysterious bleeding, he will be blind.

I don't even have the words to describe how very sad we are. Bourbon, however, is happily licking and cuddling up to everyone he meets. He is the sweetest dog, oblivious to his future.

To a dog, today is all that matters. Sometimes we could learn a thing or two from a dog.

And now for something completely different...

Kitchen is done!

Well almost done.. still have to do the backspash. But that's another project altogether. Here are the "after" pics, and a few "before" pics for comparison.