Two aren't better than one - and when it rains it pours

We were foster parents for a sweet dog this weekend that is looking for a new home - ours just doesnt happen to be it. Cooper and this dog (who had been called Nuni (noo-nee) but who is now apparently going to be called Max) they got along great and could have been twins - creepy almost except that we shaved Cooper and this dog was soooo underweight... but look how cute:


We would have kept him had it been another stage in our lives but we have WAY too much going on and it's not fair to him since he needs so much love and training - he doesnt know his name, the word "no", well he basically only comes when you say "come here" and make a bunch of noise. He's already found 2 families that want him... have a great life Max.

And cut to this morning...

When it rains it pours… and then it apparently leaks into my living room!!!! After the bad rains that came through last night Tim got up around1:30 and walked through a puddle in the living room… he thought maybe the dog had an accident so he cleaned it up and came back to bed. Got up this morning to realize it wasn’t the dog (though I wish it had been!) there were water spots on the ceiling, the pillows on the sofa were SOAKED. Thankfully we have leather so the sofas themselves weren’t a mess (yet)… the roof is under warranty but the company says it might be a week before they can come inspect it… lovely. Guess Tim will be up there tarping soon enough.

Sigh – homeownership can be evil! I just hope the ceiling is still standing when I get home and that there is no more water damage... guess this is why we have home owners insurance?

What a difference a day makes!

The new floors are in - one day - 4 installers... 10-5 workday, tons of sawdust still left to clean but how great does this look!!

Before (as a reminder of the nasty tile) with terrible grout and sealer with who knows how much wear and tear:

And the new -- looks like it's always been our flooring...

What happens when you shave a Golden?

You realize the undercoat is much lighter than the hair you're used to...

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Back to normal

Thank you all for your prayers and words of consolation... the service for my grandfather was very sweet - bitter sweet really because it was nice to see my family but obviously the circumstances were not desirable.

I had a nice visit with my mom and sis as well which included being stuck in Target during a terrible storm, a leaky roof dripping on my head in a Chinese restaurant, lots of laughs, being stuck on the turnpike for 2.5 hours without moving, an evening of line dancing, having to hear "are ya'll twins?" more times than I could count and abut 5 trips to and from the airport....

Here are some photos from last week:


a Jen burrito
A night out - line dancing.

Good News and Bad News

It doesnt seem right to start this post with "here's the good news" - because the bad news is so sad. My grandfather, Russell James Crouse, passed away yesterday. He had a history of heart troubles and in an emergency surgery yesterday his heart was too weak to recover and he passed away in the operating room. He will be so sorely missed but all of us who knew him - he loved Christmas time, collecting Hess trucks each holiday season. He restored and built wooden boats and was married to my grandmother Doreen for more than 50 years. He entered every contest and never wasted a chance for a mail-in rebate.


His service will likely be in the next few weeks - he loved the Mt. Dora Antique Boat Festival so the family will gather and give him a water farewell in Mt. Dora.

In other news - we ordered new flooring. Anyone who has visited knows the nightmare that is our floors. The previous owner did something to disguise the nasty conditions of the actual grout of the tile - and his temporary fix apparently had an expiration date of more than a year ago. My breaking point was on Sunday when I spent 40 mins back-breakingly mopping the tile floor only to look back and see it didn't look any more clean than when I started. I physically can't tote a mop and bucket and scrub like that anymore and I sure wont do it anymore for a floor that doesnt look clean.

We decided to lay laminate over the old tile - no mess, installed next day (though we cant actually be there to supervise until the first week of July so there is some delayed gratification). But it will be lovely. We're doing the common areas and the kitchen - the bath room will have to be tackled in another manner but it's small so that's a DIY job.

What it looked like when we moved in:


What it looks like now - chipped and cracked sealant:

What it will look like with the wood installed... the Latte color will match the dog!

Speaking of the dog - he got a new school spirit dog collar. Go Bulls!

Lastly, a quick update on me with the meds. I've now stuck myself for 4 days with few mishaps (last night I forgot to uncap the needle before putting into the autoinject machine thingie and it was a mess to clean once I realized what I had done. Then another 40 mins before I could try again!)

My fridge is overtaken with the needles and I get some pretty nasty injection site issues but all-in-all I have to convince myself this is for my good. Copaxone isnt something that is making me better - it's design to make it so I dont get worse. I make the analogy that it's like birth control - you know birth control is working if pregnancy DOESNT happen. I know Coaxone is working if I DONT get attacks. In the meantime the injections just kinda stink having to do each night - but what doesnt kill me makes me stronger.

Our weekend was nice and quiet - sort of.

Friday night we knew we needed to stay in considering Tim had a call out he knew was happening at 3am. He got maybe 4 hours of sleep before leaving to go handle that mess - and of course I enjoyed the nice warm bed solo until he got home about 9:30. Days like that are somewhat annoying though, because I'm asleep while he's busy and then he gets home and gets in bed right as I get up with things to do.

The nurse from the drug company had set an appointment with me for between 1-2 on saturday... She called no less than 3 times trying to move the appointment and after freaking me out by threatening to come when the house was a wreck she eventually said she'd be at our house at that same 1-2 hour... Sure ya will... I woke Tim up about 12:30 because I refused to deal with this last alone. I already knew she had no regard for people's schedules and over the phone she sounded either tired or drunk. I was not excited as it was at the prospect of sticking myself (eeek) and then to have this lady as my appointed "coach", I was definitely going to need backup in case she made me cry - it was Tim's job to bounce her from the house if it came to that!

Well, as annoying as she was and she was MORE THAN AN HOUR LATE I still managed to learn how to inject myself. She was less than pleased with my resistance to injecting myself with real meds while she was there - I'm sorry, I'm not letting someone else dictate when I take a medicine that affects me less than favorably. It had been 2 days on the meds, this lady wasn't gonna win that battle. I will administer that when I darn well feel like it - and that was when she pretty much got the "thanks for coming" bounce out of my house!

Later that night while Tim sat at the table next to me I had the courage to jam it into my thigh and overall I was just so proud of myself that I didnt notice how badly it was burning! My method of heat the site with a hot pack, inject, immediately apply ice pack seems to be helping the site reactions. I've not left one bruise or a lasting bump yet. BUT the real test will be next Thursday when I run out of the 7 approved injection spots and have to start repeating the cycle.

Sunday was wild. I had volunteered to help in the church nursery and was told I'd most likely be with the littlest ones. Which was fine with me. Sure it meant diapers and kids who can't tell you what's bothering them BUT it also meant they would sleep some of the 90 mins they have with me. I was first with the 1's with about 5 toddlers and then they needed me with the babies who could crawl and somehow I landed with 4's - and yeah, it was me and 8 of them... with actual cirriculum to teach! Elijah praying for rain.. oh the irony considering how slammed with rain we would be later in the day. I ended the day with a little one combing my hair while we played beauty salon until her mom came - did I mention her weapon of choice was a fork from the kitchen playset

AND I didnt know this... but there is one-sided glass in the room so from the hallway people can look in but from the inside we can't see out - yeah - who knows who was watching me. I'm glad we all got out of there in one piece and i have 6 weeks before i'm on the rotation again. I'm glad the KIDS survived - what were they thinking leaving a novice with NO training with 8 kids? They had teachings and I was supposed to know what time to take them to the playground and to music . ..that is a bit much without anyone telling me what was expected - but we made it. And now I know what to expect next time and to demand a co-teacher!

Now it's Monday - back to work. The rain meant the grass needed to be mowed and thankfully our lawn guy is a mind reader and was cleaning it up when I left.

No turning back now

My night was… um… interesting. Tim’s been acting supervisor of his group this week so he was working until 9:30 pm and maybe I had psyched myself up to thinking I could get out of the injection since he’d likely be late and tired… yeah – that’s not how it worked out. He got home about 9:45 and walked right in and got the needle from the fridge – he was apparently really excited about stabbing me with a sharp object ;) A little too excited if you ask me. But he did make me laugh about it (which is also not a good thing as you're about to be speared).

He’s not one to read instructions – good thing I had read them previously – but it didn’t matter because he was gonna do how he wanted to do it - after all, he's the Paramedic. He didn’t let the meds come to room temp which I think might have been mistake #1. I have a high tolerance for pain but the mix of worry and overall sadness of having to do this step in the first place kinda put me in a tailspin.

Tim is an awesome injection giver though. I could have done without his paramedic narrative as if he was producing a “how-to” video – just stab me and get it over with. But the second the meds were in it was burning ... BAD. He did a great job at moving it around (which maybe you’re not supposed to do, but it helped). No sooner did he remove the needle I got instantly flush, hot, had to go sit down under the air vent – lost all color in my face, had shortness of breath and tightening in my chest. All normal side effects to this drug – oh fun! Yeah, it's daily...

I put ice on the injection site to ward off any welts (which worked sort of, I still had what looked like a large reaction to a bee sting) My arm was sore the rest of the night, couldn’t sleep on that side and even this morning it’s sore but there is no bruise or welt so we did at least something right.

Next step will be to learn how to do this to myself… ack. And fast - Tim heads to NYC for a week at the end of the month.