Chilled to the Bone

Ouch. Eleven days since my last post. Sorry, dear readers. That's a new low for me. Busy with the usual: work, pup, etc.DH has been working sixty- to eighty-hour weeks, plus school, for about a month now. This past weekend was the first weekend we've had in a long time together and we spent pretty much two days straight hanging out together, which was fabulous. Friday night we, Chewy included, went to a friend's house for take-out Italian and Lucky Number Slevin, which was weird. I fell asleep at the end, but was liking it up until then. It was late, I was confused. I need to try to watch it again. DH loved it.On Saturday we tried to go to Oktoberfest on Mt. Lemmon, but they wouldn't let Chewy in so we just walked around a bit. I remember why I moved out of the northeast. It was 48 degrees up there (high 80s down in Tucson)! I always know it will be cold when we go up there, and I always pack warm clothes, but I still always manage to underestimate the bracing nature of that cold once your blood has thinned out over a long Tucson summer. We about froze to death. Notice in the pics I'm rocking the skirt and jeans look. I don't do that look. I like it occasionally when I see it, but it's just not my personal thing. My plan had been to change into jeans once we got up there, but I couldn't bear to take a single article of clothing off, I was so cold. So the skirt stayed on.Because we could only stand the cold for about an hour and a half, we then headed back to Tucson to the Tucson Meet Yourself festival, which was fun, but stressful with a puppy. It was too crowded and dirty to easily manage Chewy there. He was underfoot, trying to eat all kinds of garbage. It was easier mostly to just carry him. He hasn't had all his shots yet so we probably shouldn't have had him there anyway, but I want him to get comfortable with that kind of chaos.We went to the vet today for his third round of shots and it was good timing because he started limping about 20 minutes before we had to leave for the appointment. I'm still not sure what he did, but he somehow hurt a toe on his front left foot. He never made a peep, but was really favoring that paw. We felt all up and down with no reaction from him, but finally the vet located the toe in question. Then of course he needed xrays, but it wasn't broken. Nevertheless, I kept him home from puppy class tonight to rest it. We can make it up tomorrow.It's feeling as much like fall as it will get around here for a while. Low 80s. Everyone's in long pants and sweaters. I bought a ton of those crazy, lumpy mini-gourds they sell this time of year. I love those things, how each one is so different. I have plans to hit the pumpkin patch this weekend. I'm trying to put a costume together. Some friends want to dress as superheroes, but I don't have a name yet. I'm going with a blue color scheme, so my power should probably be something to do with ice or wind. Any ideas?
And I joined the gym that opened about half a mile from our house. Unfortunately, no classes. It's just equipment. But it's better than nothing and I've been ridiculously lazy. DH wants to start riding his new bike for exercise, but he gets home so late he'll have to go in the morning. So the current plan is that he will try to work out in the morning while I take care of Chewy and I'll go at night, while he dog-sits. This is doomed to fail as he is the night person and I the morning person (well, I can do either one, but lately I've been a morning person, and am definitely a morning person when it comes to exercise), but we have to give it a shot. Wish us luck.

Don't Stop 'Til You See the Whites of Their Eyes

So it doesn't take long to get on the bad side of a homeowners' association, does it? DH and I are sooooo not HA kind of people and hope that when we buy a house we can find one we love in a non-HA neighborhood, but from what I understand that is increasingly hard to do in many areas. The front yard of all the houses in our neighborhood are xeriscaped, but weeds abound and it's been impossible to keep up with them. So, we got a nasty letter from the HA that we must bend to their will by the end of the weekend and rid our front yard of all life forms. It's back-breaking work. I don't know how my mother does it in her own huge, beautiful, much more elaborately-landscaped yard.

Contrarily, the backyard is suddenly sprouting mushrooms everywhere. Unfortunately, Chewy seems to always notice before me. Do you know what happens to mushrooms when you try to pry them out of a dog's mouth? They disintegrate into mushroom powder. It's impossible stuff. I don't think they're poisonous. They look like the generic white mushroom kind. Spoken like someone truly ignorant of mushroom species. I should take a picture to show you guys, but that means finding one before Chewy does. But why are mushrooms sprouting up in my supposedly desert backyard anyway? Methinks the irrigation system must be over-hydrating some areas.

On a completely unrelated note, I'm already losing faith in my Petsmart dog trainer. We went to our second puppy class on Tuesday and I expressed to her my concerns with the "watch" command we were supposed to teach the dogs over the previous week. Am I the only one whose heard of the concept that animals don't like direct eye contact? That it's a form of aggression and an animal who wants to avoid a conflict will look away if stared in the eyes by another animal? I swear I've read this in all my dog training books. That's why you're not supposed to make eye contact if you meet an aggressive dog who you think might be about to attack you. The girl teaching my class wanted the dogs to hold this command for 30 seconds. Now, beside the fact that my 11-week-old puppy doesn't really have the attention span for that, it also goes against his instinct to look his pack leader in the eye (sorry, Dad, so far you're wrong. I seem to be the pack leader. Mainly, I think, because DH has been working twelve- to sixteen-hour days since early September.).

I tried to very politely and privately ask her what she thought about this. She looked at me like I was crazy, then made a point to do the command with my dog and prove me wrong. Not meanly, but she was definitely trying to show me just how wrong I was. I didn't want to get into it with her so I didn't bother pointing out that the only reason she was able to get him to hold the "watch" was because she was bent over towards him (another no-no according to my books) and letting him jump up on her while "watching." He's not allowed to jump up on people. Whatever. The girl is still an undergrad, so I don't know what I was expecting. We go more for the socialization anyway.

You Can't Go Home Again

No pics today. DH is still in Austin with the camera. I got home late last night after a huge, ridiculous fiasco. Standing in baggage claim, I realized that my cell phone, cash, and keys were all missing. Searched through everything three times. Called DH from a pay phone with my credit card. Of course, got his voicemail. Twice. Decided to call a cab, even though I knew it would probably cost $50 to get home (I was right). The woman who answered the phone said yes, they take Visa, just go stand out on the curb. A cab arrived shortly, told me they did not take Visa, only cash, and the first tear flowed. But luckily he got on the phone with his dispatcher and said they would take my money after all (big surprise).

So he drove me all the way home, while I prayed that the housesitter would still be there, and feigned interest in his inflamed gall bladder story and tales of the filth at Kino Hospital. She wasn't there. I tried every window, crawled under DH's car from three different angles because I remembered at one time he kept a key on a magnet in there. He kindly lent me his cell phone, which I used to call DH, who answered but hadn't yet heard my messages. His main concerns were how much money I lost and where I thought my cell phone was. My main concern was how the bloody hell I was going to get in the house that night and to work the next day. He agreed to call the cavalry, which consisted of two friends who might rescue me and the friend who referred the housesitter (her phone number was missing, too). The cavalry was to be sent to Starbucks to fetch me. The cabbie dropped me off there where I read for about an hour before I begged to use their phone to call DH again. G was on her way to pick me up. He gave me the number of our leasing office to call the emergency guy to let me in. He was downright rude and said he wouldn't come. He told me to call a locksmith. I didn't.

Finally, G arrived, my rescue squad of one. We decided to drive back the house and see if the housesitter had left the keys under the doormat. She had. And I found a spare key to DH's car in a drawer, so I got to work, minus air conditioning. DH will pick up my car from the airport when he returns on Tuesday. My cell phone turned out to be at the hotel in Austin. The money wasn't enough to worry about. No idea what could have happened to the keys though.

Austin was great. The wedding was beautiful. Outside the art museum, on the water. I got to see just enough of my dear friend Z, the groom, to realize how much I miss him. Some of us went out downtown afterward, where J, who lived in Austin for a few years, brought us to the perfect laidback pub. The next day we met up with the fam at an arts fair just down the block from our hotel. I was not ready to leave.

Chewy has visibly grown in the days since I left. He's also starting to recognize words like "No!" and "Ow!" I found every single one of his toys piled in his crate (which was open, in the bathroom in which he was locked) when I came home from work today, so I guess he's nesting and giving it a homey feel. He's also taking to a preference for sprawling across my lap while playing with a toy, which is sweet for now, though I question the comfort of this when he weighs 65 pounds. And he's newly fond of running pell mell around the backyard, with or without a toy. Headlong at nothing. This has allowed me time to finish rereading Animal Dreams and start rereading Life of Pi.

Still no sewing. If I blog, there's no time to sew, and so far I seem to be putting this ahead.

First Day of School

I've received a request for more Chewy pictures and am only too happy to oblige. He had his first bath on Saturday. He's taken to digging up the drip irrigation and we were heading over to a friend's house for dinner and bringing Chewy with us to socialize with their lab/rottweiler, Sadie. I didn't think they'd appreciate his muddy paws in their house. The dogs got along famously. The other dog was even more hyper than Chewy and she's four years-old! And Chewy was in love with their two-year-old daughter. It's been really cool to see how instinctively gentle he is with the children he's met. Not so lucky, us adults, as my bitten/scratched up hands and arms demonstrate.


Today I got my CPR certification, finally. Everyone in a hospital is required to be certified, right down to the kitchen staff. It's one of those things I always wanted to do, but it took a job requirement to make me finally get off my arse and follow through on. It was fun.


This weekend DH and I head to Austin for a dear friend's wedding. The icing on the cake is that we'll get to see our brother- and sister-in-law and baby J, who is now about seven months-old. It will be DH's first time meeting him! I'll also get to see another friend from grad school, so all in all, it will be a very efficient trip. This is my first time flying since the liquid restrictions; although, I heard today that we're now allowed three-ounce containers. Not sure that will do me any good, but I guess it's a godsend for those with medications, baby formula/milk, etc.


We got way lucky this week when we finally found a house-/puppy-sitter for the weekend. When we first reserved Chewy from his litter, before he was even born, we knew about this wedding, but just assumed we could kennel him for the weekend. We had no idea until a couple weeks ago when we tried to make the reservation that he had to be 16 weeks old before they'd take him. Otherwise, he could get sick or get other dogs sick because he wouldn't have had all his shots yet. Getting a housesitter in a university town shouldn't be hard, but when your puppy's not housetrained yet and is bound to wake people up in the middle of the night, there are fewer takers. Luckily, a friend offered up her babysitter, whom she's known since the girl was a child. She came highly recommended, so I think it'll work out. She's coming over tonight to meet the zoo and get the lay of the land.

Chewy and I are off to our first puppy class, where he'll socialize and we'll learn some commands and get some housetraining tips. He already knows his name, sit, down, and off, and can walk on a leash. My books tell me this puts him ahead of the class. But he's not yet mastered housetraining, so he better not get too big for his britches. If he does, I'll just show him the bath picture. That should take his pride down a notch. :)


Oh, and someday this blog will return to being at least a little bit crafty. We're getting there with the crate training and I think that will help a lot.

Wish us luck at class.

Welcome to Parenthood

I knew, but I really had no idea, how much this was going to feel like parenthood. Chewy has to be watched every second he's awake, which is a lot given that he sleeps all day when we're gone at work. I now have a deeper understanding of that feeling of relief parents get when their baby finally falls asleep and they can get something done around the house. It's all I can do to feed myself dinner, pay a bill, feed the cats, and get the laundry in the dryer before he's up again!

At least the feeding is going better. I didn't have to hand feed him a bite tonight. He's becoming much more competent with the bones. And no accidents today. And I have a lead on a proper crate we might be able to borrow for him so we can start crate training, which would make life easier.

Yesterday afternoon we tried to go for a walk, but Chewy was really stubborn and wouldn't budge past the neighbor's house. I thought it was just not understanding the "walk" and "leash" concepts, but when we got back inside he immediately put his feet in the water dish, then tipped some water out of the bowl onto the floor, then laid in the puddle. It all sounds so obvious now that I lay out the observations like that, but at the time it took me a few minutes to put it all together and realize his feet were hot.

This morning we tried again. DH and I went together and he had to carry Chewy part of the way to the mailbox at the end of the street. On the way back, though, something clicked and suddenly he was running right along next to us and kept it up the whole way home.

Anyway, I have nothing else to blog about because my life right now is just work and taking care of the puppy. Oh and to the real parents of real human babies out there: I know it's not the same. I know. But it is surprising how much more like parenting this seems than like not having a puppy, if that makes any sense. It's all a spectrum.

An old trick of Ouiser's: Ice + Linoleum = Busy Puppy

Duncan, Clara, and their human, who came to play.


All three puppies together, and human friend feeling overwhelmed.

Bobbers, who is taking the new puppy change the hardest.

Gratuitous picture of cutie-pie Lita, who is taking the puppy adjustment best.

Chewy!

It's been over a week and I've been dying to blog, but just hadn't been able to find time until now. Last night, especially, I wanted to blog, but I was as exhausted as the new puppy! We've named him Chewy, both because that's all he seems to want to do and because he kind of looks like Chewbacca, in a good way, and much smaller (for now).
I almost had a heart attack picking him up from the airport. We had to go to the cargo area, which is a whole separate building from the terminal...and they didn't have him. And they didn't know where he was. We called the breeder--no answer. DH calls the airline and had to sit through literally about 8 minutes of recording before a live person would talk to him. Meanwhile I'm panicking that either we were scammed out of our money and there is no puppy, or he's been mistaken for baggage and is dying of heat stroke as we sit there, or he was left behind and never made it on the flight. Turned out to be that last worry. He missed his connection in Houston. Air travel's not easy these days for any of us.
They got him on the next flight. We went and had lunch, came back about an hour later and he was there! Of course, he's the most precious thing I've ever seen in my life. I was in love with him before I even met him, but those first moments sealed the deal. He was really quiet and still at first--I'm not sure if the breeder drugged him for the flight or if he was just in shock. We took him out of his air crate, put his collar on immediately, then set him in a cardboard box with some towels and a Nylabone for the ride home. The second he set paw in the box he was all over that bone like white on rice. Not a peep out of him the whole way home, just gnawing on the bone, the box, the towel, back to the bone, etc.
He already seems to know to go to the door when he wants to go out, though that doesn't always mean he wants to go do his business. But at least he's learning that if he stands there, we'll let him out. He had one accident when he first got here, then another while I stood there saying, "I wonder if I should take him out right now?" Yup. Should have. And then two more that were also not his fault, but a result of DH hesitating a moment too long. But we're all getting there. I'm attaching some bells to a ribbon to hang on the door. Supposedly you can train them to ring the bells when they need to go outside. Then you just need to teach only to ring when they need to go, not just because they want to go.
Some friends are coming over tonight for barbecue, and one is bringing her two puppies, so we're starting the socialization right off the bat.
I had a moment last night that reminded me of Ouiser's "Is this really my life?" post. Earlier in the day, we could tell Chewy was hungry, and we'd bought raw chicken wings for him, per the breeder's instructions. They were dethawed. I put three in his bowl, exactly as the breeder had instructed us, showed it to him, and he wouldn't go near them! He acted like he was afraid of them and kept backing away. With encouragement, he licked them, so we knew he liked something about them, but we couldn't figure out what the problem was, so we gave him some kibble, which he ate promptly.
Then later that night, he was hungry again, so we tried again with the chicken wings. Same reaction. Then I remembered that the books I read on raw food diets said sometimes dogs don't know what to do with the bones. I didn't think of this at first because the breeder said he's already been eating chicken wings with no problem. Anyway, one of the solutions is supposed to be to hand feed it to them. So we cut up the bones, stripped some of the meat off, sat on the floor with Chewy, DH holding pieces up one at a time for him to work on. That did the trick! The dog immediately turned into a ravenous carnivore. It was a bit terrifying for both of us watching him swallow actual bones, having grown up with dogs and being taught over and over by our parents how deadly bones are for a dog. The trick is, those are cooked bones. Raw bones are apparently safe because they're more pliable. And the calcium in the bone and all the nutrients inthe marrow are supposed to be very good for him. And Chewy didn't try to gulp any, true to his name he worked forever on those things until you'd finally hear it crunch and down it would go. You could almost hear his jaw muscles getting stronger.
Anyway, he ate three wings in total last night. I offered him kibble this morning for breakfast while DH was still sleeping, and he wouldn't eat it. Since the raw food thing is currently a 2-person job, he still hasn't eaten yet today (DH had a meeting for school) and it's almost noon. But he's been offered kibble repeatedly, so the boy's not starving. Anyway, I guess he's into this raw food thing, so we'll give it a whirl.

WIP Thursday

The latest romper in progress from the 2006 J line.

This is the new flannel "wall" in my sewing room. For my non-sewing readers, whom I know are in the majority, quilters like to have a big piece of flannel fabric to use as a design wall. The cotton fabric pieces one uses to quilt with can be placed on the flannel in various combinations until the desired design is achieved. The cotton sticks to the flannel, so you can stand back and look at it from a distance for perspective. I didn't have a lot of wall space I wanted to give up, so DH had the brilliant idea of manufacturing a temporary one. I backed a giant piece of flannel with a polyester lining fabric with a sleeve at the top and bottom for a wooden dowel. When in use, it hangs from the dowel in front of the closet. When not in use, or when I need to get in the closet, it rolls up to be tied out of the way with lovely pink ribbons. Ingenious, no?

Bob demands being included weekly in my blogging. She calls this one: Bob in Basket.

And this is the result of an obscenely expensive puppy supply shopping trip. It actually looks like so little for what we paid. It's all but the food though. Including a collar to grow into. We didn't buy food yet because I'm looking into the raw food diet. My parents have been feeding their dog some special, gourmet dog food for years in an effort, not to be fancy, but to avoid all the by-products and give her the healthiest diet they could. The breeder is currently feeding our puppy the BARF diet one meal a day and fancy kibble for the second. I need to learn more about this raw food program though. I'm concerned about how to keep the bacteria under control. I ordered a book from Amazon. My answer to every question in life, after a Google search. By the way, for anyone looking for an excellent puppy/dog training book (you, Daddy-o?), I highly recommend this one. Not even so much for the training info as for the animal behaviorism; fascinating stuff.

New Vocab

bershon, see http://queserasera.org/archives/000802.html

Snakes on a Bridge

Thank you domesticali for the suggestion! DH's response was a reference to the giant gingerbread man from Shrek 2. Which I took as a "thank you, but not quite right for our pup." So please, can we have some more submissions to the Name That Puppy contest, inspired by Farmgirl Fare's Name That Sheep contest of 2005? We would love to read any and all suggestions! But you won't win any puppies.

In other news, DH and I enjoyed a lovely spa day last Saturday. Well, he enjoyed a spa 90 minutes of Thai massage. He could have done more, but didn't want to. Silly boy. I had a haircut (I was waaaay overdue for a trim), facial, pedicure, and deep tissue massage. The facial was amazing, loved every minute and actually saw a noticable difference that I didn't see after the only other facial I've ever had, over three years ago. The pedicure was probably not worth it. I've learned that pedicures up to a certain monetary value are worth the money. Apparently there's only so much they can do to the feet after that. The massage was probably worth it, but not enjoyable. That was my first deep tissue massage and it really hurt. I had some huge knots in my back, presumably from the abuse it took during the move, and she could not break them all up. One in particular is actually visible, accoding to DH. Is that gross? Sorry. I may be hanging out with too many PTs lately. Anyway, all financed by various gifts we'd saved up over the years. A rare treat and much enjoyed.

That night we had a lovely evening of walking our friends' dogs (practice, practice!) and ice skating, which I hadn't done in years. I seem to be gaining a lot of fear as I age. I grew up in the land of ice and snow, after all. You'd think I'd be right at home. I think the knee surgeries I had and the doomsday diagnosis about having the cartilage of someone in late middle age when I was only 23 kind of shook my confidence in my body. But I persevered and progressed and didn't fall. Needs more practice.

Monday and Tuesday were uneventful work days. Wednesday I finished the copy editing job from hell. However, on the way to the Starbucks at which it was finished, via bicycle, I was nearly killed by a snake. Maybe a little exaggeration on the "almost killed," but no exaggeration on the "snake." The Starbucks is about two and a half miles from our house. Getting there requires crossing a bridge over the Santa Cruz River wash. Crossing the bridge, I didn't see this snake until I was almost on top of it. It was just to the right of the bike lane, and it was huge. I don't know what kind it was (brown, if that's a kind), if it was poisonous, or what, but it was huge. And did I mention huge. I can't guesstimate tonnage, you'll just have to take my word for it. DH's response: "Why didn't you help it back into the wash?" Oh yeah, why didn't I? And for that matter, why didn't I throw myself into oncoming traffic? Or off the bridge itself? Or drink a gallon of bleach? Why haven't I attempted to kill myself in any of a myriad of ways? Where has my head been? Men. Anyway, I wasn't the only one startled. I swear the snake jumped upon hearing my sharp inhalation of breath. As I crossed the bridge, recovering, and proud of myself for actually not swerving into traffic, I noticed anew the huge construction site on that same side of the road, and now I think the poor snake was probably sans home. Then I felt bad. But not bad enough to go back and commit hari kari via snake bite.

It's a Boy!

Well, we already knew that. But now we know which boy! And we're officially taking suggestions for names. This is turning out to be much harder than naming the cats was. Probably because I keep picturing myself yelling it across a park in front of large numbers of people. So post some comments with male puppy names, please! We just might use one. These are all him:




I have lots more to blog, but I also have to go to bed. More to come, asap.

Snow Days

This morning came with a very sudden and welcome turnaround from the direction it had been taking toward The-Most-Stressed-I-Had-Been-Since-Grad-School, a cold and dark
wasteland from which I just barely escaped once, never mind a second go around. I finished one copy editing job last night, only to open another one and find thick stacks of about 250 pages of papers, many single-spaced, due in about ten days. This figured out to approximately an obscene number of pages that I must complete each day to reach the deadline (and I was just recently late with a deadline, something that's happened only a handful of times in the three years I've been doing this). The problem is that I copy edit articles for academic journals, and most of those journals are quarterlies, which means I get dumptrucked on quarterly. And I have not been my hyperorganized, on-top-of-everything self lately. There's a huge stack of bills and filing, I'm missing birthdays, the house is a disaster, my sewing room is still nowhere near complete, too many errands for my comfort are pending, etc. It's hard for your garden variety type A to deal with.

Then two things happened: First, I learned I would not have to go in to work today at all. Ah, the magic of working PRN! "Snow days" come more frequently here in the desert than they ever did when I was growing up in the 'burgh, north of the Adirondacks, if you can imagine such a concept. Of course the reality of a snow day is a little different in that there is now no actual involvement of said snow, but there is still the unexpected thrill of waking up expecting to face another day, put another "x" on the calendar, only to get the phone call from heaven that, in fact, I have the day off! And there's the downside of not getting paid. On the other hand, this meant I could spend the whole day copy editing, for which I do get paid, and thus carve a nice chunk out of the work I had expected to be tethered to all weekend.

Second, I checked my email and found more puppy pictures!


The breeder will be doing temperament testing this weekend and allocate the puppies to their families on Monday. The two girls are apparently already reserved, so now we also know that we'll be getting a boy. She sent a dozen pictures of only nine puppies, so obviously some are dupes, but Lord help me, I can't tell them apart. Some look more reddish than others, but that could also just be the lighting. They're all just darn cute (as all juvenile animals are meant to be) piles of fluff. She also asked for preferences regarding ship date, and I learned that he could come home as early as the ninth, but I don't have a set date yet. Time to make a list of the 10,000 things that need to be done before he gets here and get cracking. Or get DH cracking while my butt is glued to the couch with my hand glued to my red copy editing pen.

I also learned three interesting things today (interesting to me anyway):

My old standby technique for copy editing, whereby all unknown or unfamiliar words and terms are replaced by such ubiquities as "whosit" and "whatsit" thus making the sentence comprehensible for grammar checks, does not, in fact, work for all academic fields. Specifically, I have stumbled upon a segment of academia so baffling to me that there are more whosits and whatsits in the sentence than anything else, making it instead less comprehensible than it was before. Case in point: "The spread of whatsits such as thingamajig, doodad, and whatsitsname has greatly contributed to the rapid dissemination of whosits among several thingies of human and verterinary importance." And that's a tame one. I just don't have the time to find the wild ones hiding in the bush for your reading excitement.

Despite the fact that I live in a so-called desert, one's lawn can apparently turn into a veritable jungle within a matter of three weeks during monsoon season. And further despite the fact that the real estate agent specifically told us she thought all the grass was going to die. It didn't. In fact, DH and I somehow failed to reckon with the fact, until days after we had moved in, that it was actually our responsibility to now care for this lawn. Lawn? Who said anything about a lawn? Wait a minute, lawncare requires a lawnmower! No sir, we did not sign up for that. Who has a lawn in the desert? Actually, far too many people, if you ask me, but we never intended to be one of them. We just never put two and two together and now we have to buy a lawn mower. This seems as overwhelming and daunting a task as buying a new car. In theory, DH is on it.

It turns out that fat really does weigh less than muscle. I am now suspiciously close to my wedding weight (according to the MD's scale at my recent check-up), which, for those of you who didn't know me then, was my fighting weight, my I-can-pretty-much-wear-whatever-I-want-without-thinking-twice weight (periods that have come fleetingly in my life). That should sound like a great thing, but I feel like I have the same amount of flab on me I had 16 pounds ago. Could I have really lost that much muscle? DH seems to have no trouble believing it, but he's a boy and that much muscle is nothing to them. Women don't put it on so easy. I recently figured out my supposed "ideal weight," not the fashion magazine kind, but the Women's Health kind with all the very complicated calculations that registered dieticians use for actual optimum health, as close as any calculation can figure it. Now I'm starting to see how that low, low number I figured is actually possible. With the same amount of muscle that most of my girlfriends have on them (i.e., very, very little), that would actually be a reasonable weight for me. Not unhealthy at all. I think being a rower in college just skewed my idea of what normal muscle mass was for a woman; although, I was never by any means any kind of hulking warrior princess. Looking in the mirror, I see the back muscles I've carried for the past ten years are gone. But when I think about the kind of effort it took to keep all that muscle, way way more than the average fitness plan, I start to question whether it's worth trying to rebuild to the same degree. Out of my early 20s, I'm not so insecure about how I look. Other things are more important now. Frankly, I'm busy. I don't have the same drive to excel at fitness so much as to just meet the status quo. But am I really willing to surrender to the fact that I've probably peaked, in that totally vain, shallow, physical way (note me noting that none of this really matters; feel no need to scaffold my self-esteem, sweet as any such intentions would absolutely be)? This is a tough fact to come to terms with for me. Kids are not too, too far in the future and I think I still see that as the beginning of the end, for my body anyway. Well, I'm not going to reach a decision this moment, so I'll just revel in the uncommonly low (for me) numbers on the scale, and ignore the rest for now!

Now really, this can't be comfortable.

No News Is Boring News

This is a token post, a space-filler. Not much quality here today, I'm afraid. DH tore the computer apart today, unexpectedly, so I don't have access to Photoshop, which I usually use to try and pretty up my pics (as much as possible). But I've had these on the camera for days now, so I got him to show me how to upload them to my laptop. We're still unpacking. I'm still disorganized. I'm still getting slammed with copy editing, so I've had no time for anything. I honestly don't even feel inspired to write today. Could it be the three straight hours of Project Runway that's been on tv in the background rotting my brain? I swear I'm actually making progress toward having interesting things to post again, but I'm not there yet. In the meantime, here are a few tastes of what's going on around here.

Not sure what happened with this glass. I had set it down on the floor, then dropped this silver goblet-y thing on it accidentally. It broke right at the level of the liquid, which we found fascinating. We couldn't decide whether to peg it on the cohesive or adhesive properties of the liquid. Any takers on that one?

This is a chocolate chip banana bread I made today because I had some way overripe bananas. It was a new recipe I pulled off Epicurious. Not overly impressed. It's a little dry, but I didn't actually measure out the banana volume, so maybe I didn't have quite enough. Small matter; it's just going to work for the colleagues anyway. It was kind of nice to bake something for the first time in a loooooonnnnngg time. I generally have no restraint with all things baked, so they seldom make appearances in our house.

Here are a couple of promised pictures from the walking/cycling path near our house. The views are nothing phenomenal, I know, but I'm just so happy to have someplace I can walk, alone, even at night, and feel 100% safe.



This last pic is a mountain near our house of which I'm just particularly fond.

Kind of Puts It All in Perspective

DH emailed me these yesterday and I thought they were way too cool not to share. This is one of the most enlightening things I've seen since my first barium swallow video (when my entire dysphagia class suddenly came to a new understanding of the anatomy we'd been poring over for months--"Oh, that's the valleculae? Now I get it.") .

Kitty Bling

DH is still working on the computer, so no pics. Sorry.

I've been slowly edging myself toward getting up earlier in the morning because I have big plans to join the LA Fitness near our new house and go to the 5:45 Aqua Fitness and Spinning classes. They say that when you need to get up earlier in the morning you should get up 5 minutes earlier every day to ease into it. So I am not yet getting up early enough for the gym classes, but I do have time to kill before work, so I went for a walk this morning. I discovered that there's a paved bicycle/pedestrian path in the wash that borders our development, which will be perfect for dog-walking! I'm very excited about this. On the one side, you can look into people's backyards and compare landscaping and patio furniture. Turn to the other side and a wide open desert vista confronts you, with only a few manmade structures visible in the distance. I'll have to post a picture. It's not the most picturesque Tucson landscape, but it's certainly better than the QuickMart we had previously as our walking scenery.

On a totally different topic, since when did Petsmart decide that ID tags should cost $18 each? For the cheapest ones? All three cats need new tags now that our address has changed. I read that you're not supposed to put your name or address on their tags anymore because bad people will use the info to steal your cat or rob your house. Now you're just supposed to put your phone number. So I'm doing that, but I'm ordering them online where I found them for only $4 each. I wanted to order a dog tag, too, but we don't know the gender yet and I really felt that would guide my decision as to what shape and color the tag will be. I know. You don't even have to think it.

Checking Back In

Told you I'd be back! Sorry for the long hiatus. Everything is finally moved in. DH and a friend whose stock around this place just went up a hundredfold moved all the big furniture yesterday with the help of a dolly. DH swears we are hiring movers next time. I don't blame him. He's been cleaning the old apartment all day. I've been continuing to unpack the new place. All the important stuff is 99% done. DH will tackle all the electronics (e.g., tv, stereo, computer) over the next few days. Then we're left with his office, my sewing room, and all the decorative stuff: hanging pictures, making curtains, etc. I'm calling Aveda tomorrow to schedule massages for both of us next weekend.

The kitties hated the drive up here. My vow for this move is that next time all three will be sedated. Puck and Lita were in a carrier together and fought. Bob was in a second by herself and I think she was throwing herself against the door the whole drive. When we got here, they had to be locked in the bathroom for hours while all the furniture was being moved in. I periodically checked on them and invariably found that Lita was still in her carrier and Puck was beating on Bob who had her face hidden in a corner. It was heartbreaking seeing Bob, in particular, so scared because she's usually so confident. Poor dears. But they've bounced back quickly. There are lots of big windows in this house, which they love. And the wildlife viewing is much improved from our central apartment. I saw a bunny in the backyard yesterday, and again in someone else's front yard tonight when walking to the mailbox. Also a quail. There are lots of other birds I can't identify and that we didn't have at our last place. Really big birds, too. So the kitties will have lots to watch to keep them busy. Nobody's going outside for a while.

I've also started them all on a diet. Lita has surpassed the cute, chubby weight she was at for years and is now pitifully, downright fat. I'm worried about her, so no more grazing for anyone. They usually have a big bowl of food at all times. Now it will be measured portions every morning and night. Regular food for Puck and Bob, Lite food for Lita. Maybe Puck will even put on some weight while Lita loses. This really would have been a necessary change in another month anyway as I wouldn't leave cat food out with a puppy in the house.

A new copy editing job arrived in the midst of this move, so I'd better get busy with that. Sorry no pics today. Our wireless is set up, but not the main computer, so I'm writing this from my laptop with no way to upload pics at present. I'll get on that as soon as DH has it set up.

Empty Nest

I had a request for some interior shots of the new house, so here's the best I could do with what little energy I had left after work:

Living room, shot standing near the kitchen


Kitchen, shot standing in the dining area


Living room in the foreground, shot standing near the front doorway. The dining area is at the far end, with the kitchen directly to the left of it, out of camera range.

There is also another room through the french doors you can just make out to the left of that last shot. It will probably be the office/DH's computer room. The master bedroom is through that arched doorway to the right of the last shot. Down the hall to the left is a guest bathroom, guest bedroom, & another bedroom that will be a sewing room for me!

As you can see below, the backyard is in pretty rough shape, but we figured that was perfect for a new puppy! No pristine landscaping to be ruined. And I can try some experimental gardening with no reprecussions.

We'll be doing a lot more moving this weekend, and maybe not much else. So posts may be scarce for the next week while we finish up. Patience, grasshopper. I promise to post more frequently in the near future.

New Digs

Work is going well this week. It continues to improve every week as I like to think I get more competent and, therefore, confident. I have learned, though, that, contrary to my previous assumptions, I am not the worst person at dealing with stress. Let's leave it at that.

We've now taken about 8 carloads of stuff up to the new house. And my Matrix holds quite a bit of said stuff. DH is now referring to it as the "clown car." We've been preparing items to pack each night, getting up early to load the cars each morning, then dropping off the goods at the new abode after work each evening. Every morning, when packing my car, we get to the end of what we'd prepared and find the thing maybe half full. Then we run around the apartment grabbing whatever we can to shove in there and get to work. Anyway, here's a pic of the new 'hood. If you look very closely, you can even see my wreath, already transported and hung on the front door. You may also notice, at the very right of the picture (try clicking on it to make it bigger), behind the tree, the gate with spaces between its iron bars big enough for several Pucks and maybe one Lita to get through. Okay, maybe you can't see it in this picture. But, at any rate, don't worry, we'll be covering that with something or other. I'm not making it that easy for him to go gallivanting around the neighborhood. And Lita won't be going out at all unsupervised. I really don't think she'll mind much. She kind of likes having the place to herself now when the other two are out. In the plus column, we are at a nice median distance from both the major road and the wash, minimizing danger to my furbabies both by car and coyote/hawk/owl/generic cat-killer.

By the way, we've had some meteorological excitement 'round these parts lately. It's monsoon season and we had some nice flooding Monday. The Rillito River flooded in a dramatic manner. I tried to take a picture Tuesday, but it was already mostly dried up. Here's one pic from our local NBC affiliate.

Gratuitous kitty picture.