Sharing a photo of Sophie...

Dej took this photo this morning.  Sophie looks quite angelic.

Am I blue?

L has really wanted to paint her room for nearly a year.  The color has been a bright pink since it was Dej’s room and she painted it.  Dej and I still love that color (Dej painted her bedroom at her house the exact same color) and really didn’t want her to paint over it, but since it’s her room now, the beautiful color is gone.  It is now almost completely this light blue color.  It’s a beautiful color, and she’s very happy with it, but we still miss the pink.  Dej’s birthday present to L was that she would help prime and paint it.  My dad came and helped for a bit, too.  It will require one more coat, which they will finish soon, I hope.  When they paint, the rats get moved into my workout room, and it’s incredibly difficult and inconvenient to haul everything I need downstairs and set up.  L is very much enjoying having her sister to herself for the painting, and it’s been fun to hear them giggle and chatter through the closed door.

Sophie entered the room with me, just long enough for me to take a couple of pictures.  In that brief time period, she managed to get blue paint on her little face.

Second week of classes has finished, and that usually means I’ve reached the end of the add/drop chaos of the first two weeks.  I was not able to accommodate everyone on the waitlist this time, but I did get a few in.  I over-enrolled my classes again, being ever the optimist (realist?), that there is almost always some attrition throughout the semester—especially in these classes, which are required gen-eds for business majors.  Even without attrition, the odds are that there is at least one student absent per class.  Perfect attendance is rare (in non-major specific classes).

While I enjoy teaching all of my classes, I admit preference for my programming classes.  I love programming and talking about programming, and the students are much more invested and passionate about the material, too.  One of my Java class mornings, the roads were an absolute nightmare.  It took me 35 minutes to make my usual 10-12 minute trip to campus, so instead of arriving early as I usually do.  I walked in one minute after class was supposed to start.  As I was making the long, harrowing drive, I kept thinking I was going through all of this and would probably arrive to see a handful of students, if that many.  If it had been a different class, it would have gone that way, but not with Java.  All but one student was there, and when I walked in, they cheered.  They were so worried I wasn’t going to make it in and they wouldn’t have class.  How could I not love teaching such enthusiastic learners?!

I’m already behind on grading, due to an unexpected animal rescue situation that took up most of the day yesterday.  I’m hoping to get caught up tonight, but tonight is family night, so that doesn’t leave me too much time to grade.  This rescue situation didn’t go well and left me more depressed than usual (and I tend to be pretty bad after the rescues—seems counter intuitive, but regardless of how they turn out, it’s always emotionally traumatic to see the things that one has to see).  Even a ferocious workout didn’t burn off the emotional mess I hoped it would.  It’s hard to head into a Monday, knowing I have to be “up” and performing well for my Java class in the morning, when I’m so horribly despondent about being stuck living in this mess of a world.  Though I’ve maintained my caffeine-free status religiously for over ten days now, I’m reserving the right to have some before class if I can’t get in the right frame of mind by class time.  I cannot shortchange the students.

I finished reading Plastic Free and would be happy to loan out my Kindle version to anyone who is interested.  I don’t have a Kindle but can buy/borrow and read Kindle books on my laptop or phone.  I read a portion of it and got so bummed out about the gravity of the situation that I had to take a few weeks off.  The remainder of the book, however, was quite empowering with so many good resources and ideas for making changes in my own life, that I felt much more encouraged when I finished the book.  I wish I had just read straight through—I would have gotten to the “happier” parts quicker.  I appreciated the author’s reminder to make incremental changes as well as her honest depiction of her depression and struggles with despondency when learning the full scope of the problem.  I will be talking more about some of the specific changes we are working on in severely reducing our plastic consumption. 

One of the first things I did was track down a new source for coconut oil, which I use tons of  (cooking, body lotion, lip balm, hair smoother, eye makeup remover).  I love the Nutiva brand and have always used this, but I found that they only sell their coconut oil in plastic jars.  I ordered from a new company (fingers crossed that I like the product as well) that sells it in glass jars.  We go through a lot of it, so I can get one nice, large, bulk-sized glass jar of it and then distribute it to the various locations of usage in smaller jars.

The other item I rely on that I’m trying to track down in glass (or at least a refill-your-own-container system) is white vinegar.  We go through gallons of this, as I use it for cleaning almost everything (vinegar, baking soda, and tea tree oil or lavender take care of 95% of our cleaning needs, which are immense), and we have to do a lot of cleaning in this household.  There are smaller-sized glass bottles available, but it would take a LOT of those to match the quantities we use, and that isn’t a convenient or practical solution.  I’m working on tracking down a good solution to this.

Home for the Holidays

I finished grading and got all of my grades entered the afternoon of the 24^th.   I spent several days in my room doing nothing but grading.  It was not pleasant. It is always a good feeling to be (almost) done with a semester; after grades are entered, there is usually a handful of student emails with questions about their grades or projects.  That phase is almost wrapped up.  Next week I will start prepping for the spring semester, which starts right after MLK day. 

As always, I miss my students when the semester ends.  I get used to seeing them, talking with them.  I spend most of my work time with them, rather than colleagues, so I always feel the loss when they're gone.  It's so nice to hear from them over break via email and FB.  I do look forward to the spring semester (already) and getting back to the students.  

This was one of the least stressful holidays I’ve had.  The non-consumerist Xmas is really the way to go.  We were all in agreement and will definitely continue it in the future.  All the time and energy normally spent on shopping and stressing out over what to get for people who have too much already, wrapping, opening, cleaning up after opening, finding places for the gifts we didn’t need, etc., was all freed up for accomplishing tasks or visiting with friends/family.

We knew we were getting paintings from L, but were all eager to see what she had chosen for each of our pictures.  She always puts a lot of thought into what animal/creature she will paint for each person.  I hope she got photos of Dej & Russ's, because mine didn't turn out.  I will either get them from her and post them later, or I'll have to have D & R take photos for me--either way, those will be coming in the near future.

Our traditional pre-family get-together with Denny & Susan was very enjoyable, and I was much less frazzled and tired this year and able to enjoy visiting with them.  I added two new drinks to the options this year, inspired by the delicious peach mimosa I had at the comedy club last month.  Peach and pear mimosas were both available, and the pear mimosa was a big hit.  We were so anxious to try the pear, we never made it to the peach.  Maybe we’ll get to it on New Year’s.  (Yes, that is a big-ass Bible he's reading from.)

Sophie had her first surgery on Friday.  They removed all but ten of her teeth.  They were in very bad shape, and most of the teeth removed had also abscessed, and some of the abscesses were so deep they had gone into her nasal passages and sinuses.  They flushed a lot of grossness out, and that has helped her labored breathing immensely.  She will probably always retain her little pig-snort noise, because her left nasal passage is essentially closed, it’s so small, leaving her with one functional nostril.  That’s not something they can’t fix, though.  She has lots of stitches in her mouth from the removals, but it’s still clear that she is feeling much better already.

I got to babysit for her yesterday while the kids attended a funeral out of town.  She had good pain meds and seemed to feel just fine.  She played, hung out with the other dogs, and ate her soft food very well.  She had a good day, and it was fun to have some extra time with her.

Daisy is improving with her.  She didn’t try to hump her or “T” her but was still a little vigorous and irritating with her butt sniffing. It’s always something with Daisy.  She’s such a strange little being.

Great news!

I've become a grandma again.  Sophie came to live with her mom & dad (D & R) yesterday.  We were all in love with her before we met her.  We knew she:  was a beagle mix, had been dumped in an outdoor kennel on a cold night at an animal control facility that couldn't provide her the necessary care or keep her, was 9-10 yrs old, had been significantly abused, had mammary tumors, was heartworm positive.  Though that all sounds awful, I had previous experience with a dog with mammary tumors and one with heartworm.  Both had also been significantly abused and were between 6-9 yrs old at the time of the disease.  Both survived their disease, recovered and lived many healthy years beyond.  With D, R, M & I supporting this effort, and Sophie illustrating an amazing, beautiful being with a desire to live, the odds are in our favor.

When we picked her up yesterday, we found that she was much tinier than we had pictured.  She's only 13 pounds.  She's afraid of everything, and belly crawls timidly (though she doesn't do that in her home) , but she's a complete lover.  She rode the entire three-hour trip home in the back seat sitting between D & R.  She really bonded with them and quickly started to hide her head in the crook of R's arm whenever she got nervous or frightened.  She's quite a daddy's girl already.

We became increasingly concerned by her not eating.  We weren't too worried last night, because she had a big day with a long car ride and a lot of stress (which makes sense given how her last car trip ended).  Dej couldn't get her to eat today and felt by watching that she was having problems with her teeth.  She also had a snort/snarffle thing going on, and I was quite worried that it indicated heart damage, though I kept that to myself.  D found she would eat soft food, so put her dog food in hot water and she scarfs it right down.   

She had a vet appt this afternoon, after my first final (student presentations) of the week end.  She had xrays, bloodwork, and a thorough examination.  I was so relieved to find that she didn't have heart damage.  The reason for the strange noises was something above the larynx--maybe a polyp, a sinus infection--we will find out when she is anesthetized to have her teeth taken care of.  The few teeth she has left are pretty nasty--some broken, infected. She has a big raw, scabby patch which is infected.  Poor baby.  She is on Clavamox right now, which should help the mouth infection, may help the sinus infection, and will also help the skin infection.  She will be feeling like a new dog within the next two days.  Her prognosis is actually better than any of us expected it would be.

When all of her blood results are back tomorrow, we will schedule her surgery and also determine what will be done in this surgery.  She has to have her teeth taken care of, exploration on the sinus issue, get spayed, and have the mammary tumor(s) removed.  Doc  wants to look at all of the results and prioritize and determine what she can handle.  Her organs and overall health are pretty good, so that helps a lot.  The heartworm is actually the easy part; she will take antibiotics and a heartworm preventive until they are gone.  [I mean "easy" in the comparative sense, not in that it's really an "easy" or minor thing.  All dogs are at risk for HW if not taking a preventive consistently during the season.]  

We learned at the vet today that she tolerates absolutely anything without any aggression at all.  He called her a "gentle soul."   She seemed to feel at home as soon as the kids put her down in their dining room.  She ran around with her tail wagging, sniffing (and snarffling) like a puppy!  She met the cats, and there was no aggression from anybody.  She and Sparta (mommy cat) have already become snuggle buddies.  She spent last night on the bed snuggled up with the kids and sometime cats.  She's already selected a favorite spot on the couch.  She's made herself at home and settled in surprisingly well.  We're so happy things have gone so smoothly!

It's been a very busy couple of days, so not nearly enough pictures yet.  There will be many, soon.