This is the last pic I took of Ramona and one of the best.
Our dog Ramona, has just a few health issues at her ripe old age of fourteen years. She is missing quite a few teeth from her years of misadventures with her dental health. She has the sugar-beetis and gets insulin twice a day. She has a narrow trachea that makes it difficult to breathe when she gets too excited (when you're a million years old...peeing can be exciting) This makes her snore like a freight train even when she's just "cat-napping", grunt when she's walking, and makes eating so taxing that she now sometimes lays in front of the dish to feed her piehole. In addition to her 2 daily shots, she gets a total of 4 pills. BUT WAIT!! If you call in the next 90 seconds, we'll throw in a quart of noxious dog gas that could make even the most heinous beg for mercy.
After taking all of this into consideration, my husband has decided that she is part zombie. Parts of her have died and the rest of her body just hasn't received the message yet. The first really dead part of her has been determined to be her underbelly. It is hairless and pinkish-grey. It has lumps, bumps, anomalies, scabs, dry skin that peels off in large sheets, superfluous nipples that have grown in since we got her....it's just gross. No doubt about it, it has died at some point along the way.
We also have a new call for her...not the regular whistle or tongue click...we just moan "BRAAAAAINS". She always comes a-runnin'. (Well, not really. She's all but deaf and has cataracts and can't see for shit.) Despite all these seemingly terrible things, we love her to death and would hate for anything truly terrible to happen to her.
I won't claim this post was my idea. One of my fellow twitterers @karlerickson of Secondhand Karl posted it on his blog and I liked it so much I decided it had to be on my blog too. But I was at least nice and asked if it was okay before I stole it because I am unoriginal and uninspired at the moment. So anyway...here's the deal. I open my iPod list, hit shuffle and tell you my 1st 20 random songs that come up. Keep in mind that while I have edited my playlist, my husband added most of the songs to begin with because I am technologically challenged and generally lazy. I swear to God if Fleetwood Mac's 'Tusk' comes up in these 20 random songs, I will puke. I hate it. Jeff loaded it. I have unchecked it in my iTunes list, deleted it, had a Catholic priest come exorcise it from my iPod to no avail. It is evil. It keeps coming back!!! (I am also editing out all the lullaby music I added for the baybee because it does not represent my musical choices although it does rock the casbah because we're cool parents and don't pick no sissy lullabies!)
1. I Gave You All-Mumford & Sons (my new fave obsession)
2. Long Way Down-Guster
3. Other Side of the World-KT Tunstall
4. Modern Love-David Bowie
5. Assassin-Muse
6. Around the Way Girl-LL Cool J
7. First Love-Adele
8. Cosmic Girl-Jamiroquai
9. A Day in the Life-The Beatles (Love soundtrack...awesome show. Go see it!)
10. Tired-Adele
11. Unnatural Selection-Muse
12. Take a Walk-Edie Brickell
13. Viva La Vida-Coldplay
14. Life in Technicolor-Coldplay
15. I Am the Walrus-The Beatles (Love soundtrack)
16. The Story-Zee Avi
17. Hunter-Dido
18. Come Downstairs and Say Hello-Guster
19. We Never Change-Coldplay
20. Saturday-Josh Rouse
Bonus Track: Give it Away-Red Hot Chili Peppers
In conclusion, it looks like I have a very unoriginal taste based on this list, but my iPod shuffler is a dirty whore and likes to play the same artist incessantly. Don't judge me!!
I mainly use this blog space to blog about my Etsy business and my craftiness with occasional personal entries interjected. (although I've been a terrible blogger over the past year!) So many of you don't know about our struggles with infertility. It just seemed a very emotional and private part of our lives that I didn't feel ready to share with the world. I'll spare everyone the details unless there is someone out there that has a burning desire to know the specifics. I'll just say that we tried to conceive by not preventing pregnancy since 2004, casually sought answers in 2006-2008, got tired of it and took a break for a while, and then really hit things hard with full infertility work-up and treatments starting in Nov. 2009 until Feb. 2011 with one failed pregnancy in Mar. 2010.
After the failed pregnancy in 2010, we sought information on adoption. We were ignorant. So we met with a social worker that helps families through the process by completing the home study and assisting with all the work that goes into adopting. It sounded like something that was definitely an option for us, and I felt good about it after the meeting. But the mom inside of me just wasn't ready to give up on the idea of being pregnant. So back to the treatments we went. Then in December of 2010, I did laparoscopic surgery thinking my issue was endometriosis and all would be right with the world after that. Well, it wasn't endometriosis and all did not magically become right with the world, which we discovered after 3 more agonizing months getting to know our reproductive endocrinologist on a first name basis. It was especially romantic when I was inseminated on Valentine's Day. It's just every girl's dream!
My breaking point was when my husband and I decided on one last try. An end point was in sight. Either it was going to happen or we moved into the adoption route. The thought was comforting in a way. I went in for my baseline ultrasound and had a large cyst in my ovary. The options I was given were to take a month off or go on birth control pills and try again in 2 weeks. I chose option 3. Put a fork in me, I was done. It was too hard emotionally to deal with month after month. So we talked about it and decided it was time to have our 2nd meeting for our home study (10 months after our initial visit). We had already done our fingerprinting for our FBI and state clearances and had our child abuse checks done. We were on the road!
We had meeting #2 on Saturday, Apr. 2nd (oddly enough, 1 year to the day of my miscarriage in 2010). We discussed all the possibilities, options, etc. We chose an agency, started making calls to ask questions, and working on our application. We told our friends and family what we were doing. We called to get references written. Jumping in with both feet. We wanted to get the process rolling as soon as possible. I was just finishing up our application for the agency on Thursday evening (Apr. 7th), putting it in a priority mail envelope, and was sitting at the computer typing a cover letter to let the agency know that our home study was nearly complete and would be following our application shortly................
and the phone rang. It was 10 pm. It was our social worker. She wanted to know if my husband was home and asked me to put him on another line so she could talk to us both. There was a baby. He needed a home and he needed it tonight!!! We were both shocked and overwhelmed. We have no children...we have no nursery, no crib, no diapers, NOTHING!! Yes, we wanted him. Bring on the noise, bring on the funk!
We spent the next 2 hours glued to the phone calling our parents, our friends, our employers, random people from the phone book, and customer service lines to tell them the good news. Jeff ran out to Wal*Mart to get some essentials to get us through. A little after midnight on April 8th, our son, Cole, arrived on our doorstep and he was perfect! We became parents in the blink of an eye. So from start to finish I guess you could say our process was 10 months. Truthfully though, from the time we decided to be "in it to win it" until our son was placed with us was a whopping 6 days!!!! What a ride!
Happy Festivus, Christmas Eve, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, belated Happy Hanukkah, and any other holiday out there that anyone may celebrate!
Santa was very good to this chica this year! Very blessed for the family and friends in my life! I hope everyone is taking time to enjoy their time with family and friends.
Angie
Yes, I have been noticeably absent in the blogging world lately, but there have been some stressing issues in my life. I blogged about my experience briefly with my bout of appedicitis back in the middle of December. Then the holidays descended upon us all, which is a "get out of blog free card" in my book. The holidays lasted longer than normal due to my illness and having to reschedule Christmas with my family out of town.
After all the hustle and bustle of the holidays, I planned on things getting back to normal, but my grandmother unexpectedly had to have a quadruple bypass. That ended up going very poorly and, very sadly, she passed away on January 15th. I spent the first three weekends in January traveling back and forth between WV and PA to be with my family during that difficult time.
While all of the medical issues with my grandmother were going on, my husband's grandmother was also in the hospital. She had a stroke back in November and was in a nursing home/rehabilitation center. She went into the hospital on January 5th for respiratory problems, was diagnosed about a week later with colon cancer, and had a bowel resection that was thought to be successful. This Friday, however, she had to go back into surgery where her bowel had come apart at the incision and is currently totally out of it on a ventilator in the ICU. We're not really sure what is going to happen with this situation, but she has been through a lot. We'll just keep praying that whatever is best for her is what happens.
Earlier in the year, I posted about giving 2008 a stink eye due to all of the crappy events that had occurred. Little did I know that I was only jinxing myself by posting that back in.....June?, I believe. 2008 continued on the path that it had set for itself during the 1st few months, going out with a bang on December 14th, when I required an emergency appendectomy spending 5 days in the local hospital. Not a great Christmas gift, if you ask me, but at least I won't have to worry about my appendix every again as long as I live.
So for 2009, I have decided a few things.
- I will not have any unnecessary surgical procedures requiring time off of work. Total time off work in '08 was 6 weeks. Four when I had my foot nearly chopped off for a plantar wart issue, and then 2 for the appendix going rogue.
- I am going to continue to move toward my goal of being more healthful by renewing my motivation in my Weight Watchers group and being more active.
- I am not going to dwell on negative situations or people and strive to be happy with my life and my choices every day.
Okay, so I realize this is a super serious, semi-sappy post, but everyone is entitled to one once in a while right? I should be posting very soon with some fantastic Christmas and New Year's pics.
This is the last pic I took of Ramona and one of the best.
