April 1, 2009

You’ve asked about Lance

Mahalo to all of you who have asked how Lance is doing. He tolerated the flight from Honolulu to Dallas well, though he was a little subdued for a few days afterwards. His weight-loss continued for the first week or so that we were here, but I think he’s actually gaining a little of it back now. It’s taken a while to find a routine that works. He was having digestive upsets after most feedings and losing all of the food. Now I’m feeding him three or four small meals a day & that seems to work. I’m assuming that the liver tumor is causing the tummy troubles.

We’re staying with my cousin, who has five dogs and five cats. I think that helped Lance come out of his funk because he’s a very social critter. He can’t have any unsupervised social time with the other animals out in the fenced yard because he’s too rough in his play with the cats. He does well with all of them as long as there are folks around to calm him down when he gets a little overly-enthusiastic. He and Rock seem to be forming a special bond. Rock joins us on most of the walks we take each day.

When Rock finds the perfect patch of sun, he’s ready for a nap. Lance always seems hesitant to continue our walks without him, as if he thinks he should stand guard while Rock snoozes.

There’s ample reason to be on alert. The yard is full of coyote tracks each morning. Beagles are scent hounds, of course, and Lance is using his natural instincts each time we walk, whether in the yard or in the woods out back. He gets excited at the cottontails we startle from the underbrush and wants to give chase. I’ve seen a few snakes, but never when Lance was with me, so I don’t know yet how he’ll react to them. I’d be happy if we never find out! There are also raccoons, opossums and other critters nearby, but I haven’t come across their evidence yet. It’s the coyotes and rabbits that leave the most signs.

Mind you, I haven’t actually seen a coyote yet. The size of their footprints compared to the size of Lance’s paw have convinced me that knowing about them without meeting them is perfectly acceptable! I haven’t had any occasion to venture far from the house in the dark. Since the coyotes seem to rule the nights around here, I can’t imagine that anything short of a roaring house fire would persuade me to do so.

All-in-all Lance is doing very well for a dog with two serious health conditions. He’s adapted well to his new environment and seems contented. There’s one thing that hasn’t changed at all. Wherever I am is where he wants to be. You can’t see my foot under the quilt rubbing his belly, but he knows it’s there. I think he’d like it best if we stayed just like this, all day every day!

[tags]beagle, cat, country living, coyote, Lance, Rock[/tags]

March 20, 2009

Back with family

Care to take a guess who’s the youngest of the siblings? Wrong! That old man is my baby brother. No one is sure why he keeps maturing while I stay so young and good looking. Lady Clarirol and a good moisturizer, I suppose. Still, no matter what our ages, we’ve never been able to deny a familial relationship and I’m thinking we never will. When we were younger everyone thought that my older brother and I held the strongest resemblance among the sibs. Older brother is gone now, but Steve and I seem to look more alike as the years go by.

[tags]brothers, family, family resemblance, siblings[/tags]

March 15, 2009

Remember Pooh?

Winnie the pooh doesnt know what to do
Got a honey jar stuck on his nose
He came to me asking help and advice
And from here no one knows where he goes
~Return to Pooh Corner~ Kenny Loggins

Lance has taken to stealing my iced tea whenever I turn my back on it. Last night he found himself stuck.

His girlfriend HVAC (pronounced Havoc) wanted to help …

… while Booger, Peaches and Piglet stood by in amusement. Lance finally shut his mouth and quit trying to grab ice cubes, so the dilemma was solved and I was able to help him emege to freedom.

Lance has learned all kinds of new tricks in the week that we’ve been here. For instance, he likes playing leapfrog with HVAC, who has decided that she’d rather just be friends. She’s only a puppy, but we’ll have to separate them if she starts showing signs of maturity before she gets spayed. I’m not sure if Lance realizes he’s not making a real connection, but HAVAC might invite that connection once she’s a little older and we don’t want to pass on Lance’s heart condition to a new generation. That’s Max on the right, trying to see through his fringe and figure out what’s going on.

[tags]dogs, pets, silliness[/tags]

February 12, 2009

Stop doing that, skeet!

I’ve had several small injuries lately - stubbed toes, minor cuts and bruises. This morning was a bit more serious. I tripped over something and fell down the front lanai steps onto the blacktop carport surface. My arm was full of grit and gravel, so I took the shower from hell to flush it out. I’ve got the wound coated with ointment and covered now. I don’t think the skin broke on my back, but I can’t really see it well. I think it’s just scraped and bruised from contact with the stair rail as I was going down. Happy thought of the day: the lanai is only three steps above the carport. It could have been worse. The fall winded me so I just lay there for a minute or so chanting “No broken bones, please. Please, please, please no broken bones.” I’m pretty sure my request was granted, but my back and arm still hurt like the devil. If they make greeting cards for this, maybe some of y’all could send me a little good will because I could sure use all of that that I can get these days! I found a whole folder full of greeting cards in my rolltop desk when I was cleaning it out. Most of them are from when I was in the hospital after my gut rupture. I spent a pleasant hour going through them and remembering all of the wonderful people who were so supportive at that time. I had just moved here from California when I got sick, so most of the cards were from church family in San Francisco, folks I was very involved with at that time but now haven’t seen in almost fifteen years. That’s the nice thing about greeting cards - the email ones get buried or deleted after a while, but the snail mail cards can be saved forever and revisited whenever you want to reminisce.

I think the accident happened because I’m very tired and it’s made me careless. I’m also a bit stressed. My realtor will be coming by Tuesday to take some showcase pictures of the house and things are still a mess, with boxes and plastic sheeting, tools and paint underfoot. I need to make the sheers for the living and dining room windows, but am afraid to get the delicate fabric out while there’s sanding and painting and such going on. The movers are getting in a bidding war over my contract (good for me!) and I should have the final “This is as low as I can go” offer later this morning. As soon as that’s in I’ll be booking the move and my flight, probably about ten to twelve days from now. If everything if not finished by then I’ll just have to let things go and live with the outcome. I think everything will be done by then … maybe.

[tags]falls, greeting cards, injuries, home remodel, selling a home, stupidity[/tags]

February 8, 2009

Small delays, little frustrations

The work on the house is going well. No, really - things are moving along nicely. Todd has done a tremendous job of cleaning up all of my amaturish repairs. I’ve shown you some of his stellar work and will be taking photos of everything when the work is done and it’s time to go. Little things seem to go wrong every day, though. Like the plastic sheeting drooping off of the walls while Todd was doing popcorn ceiling, causing me to have to spend an entire day cleaning when I could have been doing something more productive. Like Paul’s compressor needing new fittings and some tuning up (above,) causing a several-hours delay before Todd could start the popcorn ceiling and drywall texture work.

And like the sorm that wasn’t. The clouds started moving down from the mountaintops while the guys were working on the compressor. We got an impressive lightning show. We got a few sprinkles. We ran around like chickens with our heads cut off, putting away tools and moldings and lumber, carrying freshly-painted closet doors inside, dragging the boxes of garage sale leftovers under the carport so they wouldn’t get soaked before the charity truck shows up. And then - nothing happened. Well, it happened, but not to us. The next community down the coast got heavy rain, flash flood warnings and hail, but we never got anything more than a light spray of rain and a little wind.

Tomorrow will go smoothly, right? We’ll have a productive day to make up for all of the delays, don’t you think? You do? Oh, I hope you’re right!

[tags]home remodel, life[/tags]

February 5, 2009

Some kind thoughts for Lancie, please

Lance is very sick. His liver is failing. The doc believes that he has a liver tumor. He’s recommended an ultra-sound and biopsy to confirm the problem, but there’s not much point in doing either because Lance can’t have surgery. His heart murmur prohibits him from having anesthesia. It’s possible that the liver failure is due to some type of infection instead of a tumor. We’ve started him on an antibiotic plus vitamins (he’s severly anemic) and a liver-sparing medication. That’s pretty much all that can be done. If the liver failure is the result of an infection, we’ll see some results within two weeks. The doc doesn’t believe that’s a case because there’s no real evidence of an infection.

Lance had some dental problems in November. It was understandable that he wasn’t eating much while he had mouth pain. His appetite picked up after his dental work, but he’s never gone back to his robust eating habits. He’s lost about a third of his body weight in the last two months. Some days he’s not interested in food at all. The damage to his heart has also increased: he now has a Level 6 heart murmur, the worst level of damage. He still romps and plays a little, but mostly he just sleeps. He’s so skinny that it’s painful to look at him. I’m to get back in touch with the doc next week, but we both think it most likely that Lance won’t be with us much longer.

[tags]beagle, dog, dog health, canine health, canine heart murmur, canine liver failure, Lance[/tags]

Living with a mess

Mahalo to all of you who missed me! It’s good to know that your friendship is there for me even when I have to go into hiding. I’ve had a lot going on for the last week or so. I ordered my utilities to be cut off at the end of February and my cable provider jumped the gun, so I lost contact for a while there & things have been to crazy for me to do any catching up, but here I am! My living room is piled high with boxes while work goes on in almost every other room.

Cousin Todd started working on my room this morning. He’s mudding and texturing so we can paint in there and be done with it. I had done some sheetrock patching in there years ago and, quite frankly, it looked horrible. Todd is skilled in pretty much all of the building trades and has been doing a wonderful job of hiding all of the scars I’ve inflicted on the house over the years. How good is he?

I had some ugly masonite paneling on the lower half of the hall bath walls. I figured I was stuck with it because removing it would damage the sheetrock and/or leave gloppy dried glue that wouldn’t come off. Since I can’t do drywall installation I had decided to leave the ugly stuff right where it was. Fortunately, Todd’s specialty is drywall and he’s not afraid of a challenge. He installed some beautiful woven bamboo on the lower walls and re-textured the upper walls, installed a chair rail and new baseboards and trim. The bathroom is now AWESOME! He mentioned last night that he’d like to go to a tech school so he can look at jobs in programming or computer repair, but I’m really hoping he’ll keep doing what he’s doing until my new home in Texas is as pretty as he’s making my Hawaiian hale.

There’s some detail work still needed - switch plate covers to be reinstalled and the new shower curtain to be hung. I messed up the timing on the floor installation and some of the tiles moved because they got walked on before the glue was dry. There’s no sink in my master bath right now and we need to have one fully-functioning bathroom, so I’ll finish the hall bath floor as soon as the other bath is avaialble. I’ll take some more pictures then and let you gaze upon the lovliness.

I’m waiting for one last moving estimate before picking a mover and a date, but it’s looking like we’ll be out of here between the 15th and the 20th - right around the corner! Texas here I come!

[tags]moving, remodel[/tags]

January 25, 2009

Self Portrait Sunday for January 25, 2009

I’ve had a garage sale again this weekend - the third weekend in a row. Tired of that already, but I’ll do it again next weekend too (probably) because I’ve managed to get rid of a substantial portion of my clutter and I’ve made a few bucks each weeknd. It was slow today, though, so I was able to get some painting done between customers. I painted three sides of the pickets for the deck along the left side of the house - the part of the deck that extends into Lance’s yard. I’ll try to paint the side facing the deck tomorrow. Right now I Have a different priority - I need to go visit the other Self Portrait Sunday participants.



That’s what I did today - just the white pickets, not the gray deck and rails. Those will be painted after I’m through with all the pickets.



This is tomorrow’s assignment. I’m hoping to turn the corner and start working my way across the front of the house.

[tags]home remodel, meme, painting, photos[/tags]

Posted by skeet @ 5:27 pm • Photos, Meme, Home & Family • 17 comments  

January 15, 2009

Feeling secure at home

There’s snoring coming from the guest room down the hall tonight. That’s an unusual sound in my home (unless I snore myself, but I wouldn’t know whether I do or not.) It’s also a comforting sound that tells me I’m not alone. My cousin is here working on the house, helping me get it ready to sell. He’ll be here until the end of the month and, if all goes according to plan, I’ll be moving right about the time he leaves. It’s quite possible that I will never again be alone in this house, but once I buy my new home I’ll be going back to living on my own. I’m used to being alone in my own home. I’m very comfortable with that, but I’m also aware of my vulnerability. Sure, I’m a strong, competent woman and reasonably able to take care of myself under ordinary circumstances. I’m not sure, though, that I would be able to defend myself against an intruder. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you know that my dogs chased away a man who walked into my front door a while back. That’s a scary situation and one I’d rather not face again. ADT home security systems is a good solution. Even their most basic service includes burglary monitoring that will sound a siren and summon help right away if someone breaks in. Being stong and independent requires one to recognize their own limitations and to use the best possible tools to overcome them. ADT offers the tools and sevices to help minimize vulnerabilty in your own home. That’s a smart choice, whether you live alone or not.

[tags]ADT, alarm systems, burglary protection, burglary monitoring, home security systems, security systems[/tags]

January 10, 2009

Seemed like a good idea at the time

Problem number one: I didn’t remember that today is the second Saturday of the month. I need a little more gas to get me through the next few weeks, so my poor delivery guy had to thread his hose through all of the clutter as we were setting up for the garage sale.

Trying to hold a garage sale during rainy season. The first couple of hours were profitable. The rest of the day (ie: after the rain started) not so much.

I’m sure that moving during rainy season will be just as enjoyable!

[tags]garage sale, Hawaii, Hawaii rainy season, moving, rainy season[/tags]