I saw the shuttle go up today. It was awesome. They did the countdown on the radio, my mom told me which direction to look, and there it was! :)

I'm playing around with Mint, a financial website Clark Howard suggests using. Basically, you give them all your financial information, and everything is tracked live in the same place. It gives you a lot of financial advice, and so far I really like it. It's also 100% free. It forced me to track down my old 401k (which is great, except that of course it's worth a lot less than it was a couple years ago), and seeing everything in the same place is awesome. I didn't think my financial life was that complicated, but there's a lot going on that I don't really think about day to day. When I add in Michael's information (I'm trying to make a household budget), it's going to be crazy. But good. :)

Today I took Selphie in for her monthly steroid shot, and the vet is very happy with her progress. Her kidney's are nearly normal in size now (not cantaloupes), she's gained a pound (which is important because renal lymphoma is basically a wasting disease), and her kidney's are functioning normally. We'll continue to do the daily subcutaneous fluids and appetite stimulants, but the vet is hoping that if she continues to respond to the treatment as well as she has been, she'll have another six months to a year to live, and it will be a life of quality. This is great news, because originally she gave her no more than three months to live (that was three months ago), or a year with chemotherapy. I'm So Glad we decided not to do chemo, it destroys a cat's quality of life, and hopefully she'll be with us just as long as she would have been with chemo, but happy and feeling good.

Today I bought Selphie's second 12 pack of IV Fluid bags (each pack lasts 5 days). When I bought that first batch, I really expected to be donating a lot of left overs to the vet. Today was a very good day! :)

Tags: selphie

Last night I made shepherds pie with lamb.  It was awesome.  It was also easy, and I think it'll become a regular.   

The night before I made chicken tetrazinni.  It was not awesome, it was just bland.  I'm going to give it another try, next time with garlic and parsley. 

I've been on a cooking kick for the last couple of weeks.  Tomorrow I'm going to make another apple pie, this time with 2/3 granny smith, 1/3 golden delicious, to balance out the tartness of the granny smith apples, and the blandness of the golden delicious.

Tonight and tomorrow we're doing stuff around dinner time, so I can't make anything exciting, but I'm planning for Thursday night and thinking it'll be a beef pot pie, a stew, or beef barley soup.    :)

Tags: cooking

Two days ago I made apple pie. It was awesome. Next time I'll use a little more cinnamon though.

Yesterday I made Chicken Marsala. The chicken was awesome, the sauce was a little too... winey?

This morning I made the best pancakes I've made in a long time. The trick is 1/8cup more milk than suggested. I think the tablespoon of lemon juice also helped. :)

We ordered my wedding/engagement ring today! I'm so excited! It's the one I've wanted all along, and we're finally doing it!

Also, the guy had a good idea for Michael's ring. He really likes the one he already has (it's from his previous marriage), and I can see why he likes it. It's made out of good material, and has more design to it, and is better looking, than any other ring I've seen. There's gold braiding on it, and the guy suggested we take out the gold braiding and put in white gold or platinum braiding to make it a 'new' ring, and I think that's a great idea. So, we have a plan! :)

I now have a wedding dress, and a wedding ring that should arrive in about a month. Finally, some progress! :)

Tags: wedding

My mother just told me about wedding cake traditions when she was young in Canada.

Wedding cakes in Canada in the 60s & 70s were Fruit Cakes (those things you don't want at Xmas). The bottom layer was fruit cake, the top two layers were faux cake entirely for looks. The bride and groom were the only ones that had any cake at the reception. The rest of the cake was cut up and put in a doily to give to the guests to take home, single girls would put that doily wrapped cake under their pillow that night to get a husband.

Wow.

Also - Eww.

Arg! They took away the ability to add a wishlist to the Amazon Gift Organizer! I'm screwed! I use the gift organizer to organize presents for 28 individuals who get both birthday and xmas presents, and if I can't use the gift organizer for everyone, I can't use it for anyone (splitting up lists will just create problems).

Why Amazon? Why?!

I just opened up the wrapping paper I got from Costco last week, which I already thought was very pretty, good quality and a great price (two 200 square yard rolls of different, coordinating colors for $9), and guess what? It's two sided!! It's so pretty on the other side, and now I have 4 different wrapping papers that will last me a Long time, and they'll work for other occasions too, not just xmas. I want to get more! I've never seen two sided wrapping paper! :)

Times are tough for a lot of people, so I thought I'd share this with everyone. A friend recently received a reduction in her salary, and consequently is having some money problems. She found this program and really seems to like it so far. Basically the idea is that once a week, a location near you hosts "Angel Food," a group that puts together a package of food that should last a family of four for a week. It costs $30, but has approximately $60 worth of food in it. She really likes it so far, the food is all local and fresh, and she's enjoying the variety in diet.

It's for anyone, you don't have to be going through hard times to go pick up a box. They also have a senior meal plan, ("Ten perfectly seasoned, nutritionally balanced, fully cooked meals—just heat and serve. Each meal has been developed with the dietary needs of senior citizens in mind.") which sound great, and they have an Allergen Free menu as well (Processed to eliminate the eight top serious allergens: Peanuts, Soybeans, Milk, Eggs, Fish, Crustacea, Tree Nuts and Gluten (wheat, rye and barley).)

Anyway, it's something to keep in mind if you're worried about money, on a budget, or just naturally frugal. :)

The National Weather Service says we may have thunderstorms coming in tonight. Time to batten down the hatches again.

Michael asked me to marry him, and I said yes!

We're planning a small destination wedding on a beach in Florida in May 2010.

We've been together five years now :)

Tags: engaged
Current Mood: jubilant

There is a curse upon my house, clearly. Yesterday one of the springs in the garage door snapped, and last night I dropped a computer on my big toe. This is after Friday's broken garbage disposal, washing machine and air conditioner.

Now the sink garbage disposal isn't working. It hummed for a while, but now it doesn't even do that.

Sigh.

Did I mention that my air conditioner stopped working reliably on Monday?

I'm going out.

So, I pulled out towels from the washing machine, and they still were extra wet and soapy. So I started filling the washer again to re-wash them, and soap suds started coming in from the sides of the tub. Err... I guess it's time for a new washer? Hrm. I'll go see if the internet can help me figure out what's wrong with it...

I'm off to Costco to buy a big supply of selphie's fluids (IV Line, Bag & Needles). The price at Costco is about 1/10 of the price at the vet, but it's more complicated because the prescription for this stuff doesn't list upc numbers or sizes or anything, so I've got to bring the packaging in for the pharmacist at Costco to see. In general Costco has the best prices for prescriptions, and you don't need a costco card to buy there! But you do need cash, a debit card or American Express card, because they don't take visa etc.

Tags: drugs, selphie

I've noticed lately that Selphie's fur is extra soft and healthy. I wonder if it's the new high quality cat food we're giving her, or the daily fluids, or maybe it's just that she's feeling better than she was and is grooming more... Hrm....

Perhaps not coincidentally, tonight Selphie is playing tag with Loki (one of our other cats) for the first time in a few weeks. :)

Tags: selphie

So, it's 3:30am and my smoke alarm is VERY loudly beeping at me telling me it needs a new battery. Well, I don't have a new battery right now, and even if I did I can't get the current one back in (I took it out to see if taking it out and putting it back in would help), maybe because it's 3:30am and my coordination isn't great, and I have to be on my tip-toes to reach it. Also, I can't seem to unplug it from the wall or otherwise turn it off and make it shut up.

I am not going to walmart for batteries at 3:30am. What the hell am I going to do about this. Back to poking at the alarm. Am thinking of using a hammer.

UPDATE: Crap. I unplugged it from the wall, took the batteries out, and it's still beeping at me. What the hell do I do with this thing now?

Update 2: Ok, a few minutes later and it's finally quiet. Good night all.

Current Mood: pissed off

So, I tried out the raw cat food. All three cats looked at me like they were wondering why I put not-food in the food bowls, and how was I going to rectify the situation. So, I mixed in half wet cat food, and they licked at it, but didn't eat it with their usual gusto. I'm going to leave it for a bit and see if they go back to it. I really want this to work, but Selphie needs to eat to keep up her strength, and I can't afford to take the time to get her used to something new.

Tags: cat nutrition, selphie

Project Runway starts again tonight at 8pm on Lifetime. :)

I have been searching the internet for two weeks for food for Selphie that's low in phosphorous and low in carbs, to make it easy on her kidneys. I finally found what I needed, and it's cheaper than canned cat food! Nature's Variety Raw Frozen Food. And if you sign up on their website, they'll send you a BOGO coupon :) Selphie's going on an organic atkins diet ;)

You can can buy it at most of those specialty pet shops you'd never go in otherwise. They have a Store Locator if you're interested. All the cat health websites say going raw is the best way to keep your cat healthy, and I just dismissed it because I couldn't conceive of a good way to do that. But Nature's Valley figured it out for me, their food comes in the right meal size for cats or dogs, depending on the packaging you get, and has all the vitamins etc that cats need. Finally! Now I just hope to goodness she'll eat the stuff! :)

PS I called the vet and asked about this brand specifically, and she loves it and says it's the only thing she feeds her animals, and agrees it's the best possible thing to feed Selphie. Woo hoo! :)

Tags: selphie

I found a great book today, I think people with cats may be interested in it: The Natural Cat: The Comprehensive Guide to Optimum Care

I'm going out to buy it tonight, it's got a whole section on a million things I can do for Selphie that I hadn't read anywhere else, and that my vet didn't mention (I think she's trying to keep me from getting information overload, or overwhelmed with how much I should be doing for her). I'll double check with her before I do anything big, but it's 530 pages and has 4 full pages just about the subcutaneous fluids procedure (I'm able to read some of it on Google Books), and it's answering a lot of my questions. It seems like a great book, and not full of the questionable hippie stuff I'm finding online and in other books I've looked at (no offense to hippies, I just want to be sure everything I do with her is based on science).

Tags: selphie

Selphie has renal lymphoma (kidney cancer) and about 2-3 months to live. Chemo therapy isn't much of an option, it would buy her at most one year of life, and it would be a painful, sick and thoroughly unhappy life. We took her in to get a prednisone shot today, she'll get that once every three weeks (along with blood tests to see how she's doing) and it'll slow things down a bit and make her feel more comfortable. We'll give her subcutaneous fluids, anti-nausea pills and appetite stimulants every day. One small bright note is that she's gained two pounds since Monday, and that's amazing and made the vet very happy. So she's responding very well to everything we're doing for her, and we'll just keep in mind her quality of life as time passes.

Tags: selphie

Ok, so the plan until we get the test results back, is:
In the Morning: Anti nausea pill, appetite stimulant goo in the ear.
In the Afternoon: 200ml of fluids under the skin.
In the Evening: More Appetite stimulant goo in the ear.

And offer her food and water constantly throughout the day.

I just got back from the vet, they showed me how to do the fluids. It's not too hard, and she didn't mind. And now she looks like she has a hump back.

Tags: selphie

Michael's cat Selphie (also my cat) isn't doing well.  She stopped eating, I took her to the vet and her kidneys are enlarged and not working properly.  Today I'm going to take her back to the vet, they're going to show me how to put fluid under her skin until we get back more tests on Thursday or Friday.  She's only 8 years old. 

Current Mood: worried

Is anyone a member of GoodReads? A friend suggested and it looks like a fun book/social networking site. :)

Tags: books

My adventure begins! :)

Tags: sca

Today they started painting the house. It's going to be labradorite blue colored (my favorite gemstone by coincidence), the door, shutters and window topper will be raisin colored (sort of an eggplant purple), and the trim will be ivory (I need to make sure I get the color name from the guy).

Our house is currently blue and purple, and it would cost a Lot more to change the colors, so that's what we're going with and I'm happy with it. Anything is better than the old, mottled and faded paint we have now :)

So, now I just have to deal with the six guys climbing all over the house all day making strange noises that sound like they're inside.

Yesterday we got the gutters replaced. Today the power washer is here cleaning everything so they can start painting the exterior tomorrow. It's weird. I know there's only one guy power washing, but the sound of the water hitting the house seems to be coming from... everywhere.

Tags: house

We're getting our house painted, the deck painted, the gutters replaced and the chimney hardiplanked on Monday! Woo hoo!! We're finally embarking on this crazy project, and the guy says it'll only take 3 days! And he's the least expensive, but best looking (most complete) proposal and estimate we've ever received :)

Tags: house