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.

Granite's in

Last night, Sara dropped a "time capsule" into a crevice in the cabinets. Her time capsule contained some items from the present (a print-out of msn.com's front page, her facebook page, a tax bill for our house, and a note). Once the granite was installed, her time capsule was sealed in, to one day be unearthed again decades in the future, if/when anyone renovates this kitchen again.

The granite was installed today. And I love it. From a few feet away it looks black, but up close it has specks of various shades of black and gray, and even a few sparkles. I am not too happy about the scratches in my floor, however. More to come on that.

waiting for countertops now

The electrical is done. The fixture I bought from the Home Depot was defective and I have to return it, but other than that, the lighting looks great. The granite is scheduled to be installed on Wednesday. Then we'll have running water and be back in business!

Thanks, T's!

Here's the really cool Mother's day card that the T family sent me, which made my day. Thank you Tracey, Tim, Tyler, Taryn and Terysa! And Tracey, I hope you had a happy mother's day too!

And - Happy belated First Mother's Day to Erica!

Cabinets are going in

Joe and Steve are making excellent progress and they do amazing work. The appliances were delivered today, and I scheduled the granite template for Friday. So we're cruising along!

Busy weekend

Over the weekend, Dave put the floor down, and I got most of the painting done in the kitchen. Today Joe and Steve are here, putting in the cabinets. More pics coming soon...

I gave in

Here's the ridiculously overpriced bar faucet I ended up buying on-line. As usual I waited too long to start looking and found myself in a bind. I need it by next Wednesday when they (hopefully) will be making the template for the countertop. I refused to pay $32 extra for 3-day shipping, so I'm taking my chances on ground UPS.
I really wanted the Kohler version, but that was $400. Who pays $400 for a faucet??

Lots of boxes

The cabinets were delivered today, and the spackler is spackling away.

Dave and I did a little shopping..

Yesterday we went and ordered our appliances and our flooring, and we picked out our granite (well, we narrowed it down to two colors). We also bought our bar sink, but we still need to pick out our main sink, our faucets and our tile for the backsplash (and we'd better do it soon!). Here's what we bought.

Day 2 - Gutted

TicTac is not sure what to make of this new space.