Wow. I forgot all about this blog.

Funny how that happens.

Snuggle Monster

This might be why I'm unmotivated/unable to do much. Gordo is such a snuggler, I've had to implement a snuggle schedule just to get anything done.

moving

So...I'm moving.

I know that's common knowledge, but it hit me yesterday when I was making Tetris towers of taped up, labeled boxes in the office and all of a sudden there was just a small stack of miscellaneous stuff I didn't know what to do with but ended up dumping in a box that I pulled from the ever-shrinking stack of empties:

Holy crap. I'm actually doing this.


Anyway. The "OMG" moment passed, and I went out and had a lot of fun hanging out at James and Kim's for one last Rifftraxing before I move. Fast forward to today. I did some more packing, this time in the living room. I emptied out the coat closet (which was really more a strategically packed and delicately balanced blanket/Christmas/games closet) and boxed everything up. Mantle? Empty. The only things left out and to be boxed are my 2 lamps I need for seeing and the DVD player. I took all of pictures off the walls and promptly ran out of bubble wrap, so I stopped packing for the night.

Now I'm surrounded by newspaper, bags of shredded paper, and packed boxes, and all I can think is, "I'm really doing this." My timing is awful. I know that. I worry about the economy. I worry about finding a job quickly, and worry about what I will do in the meantime, if one does not materialize quickly. I worry that relying on the support of my family is going to come with a heavy blanket of guilt, not one that they throw on me, but one I throw on myself. I worry about them. I worry that this isn't the right thing to do, not because it's not what I want, but because of the timing. I worry about other things, like am I going to be a good enough friend from farther away, because history has told me that I won't be. And that really sucks, because I love my friends.

Underneath all of the worry and the self-doubt though, I am excited. I'm happy. Happy at the prospect of being jobless, penniless, and home-less (but not homeless)? No, not really. That would be crazy. I'm happy about where I'm headed, because eventually I will get there. Happy because I'll be able to see my family a lot more often than I do now, even once I'm out of their hair. Happy that I'll get to spend time with old friends again. Happy that a visit to/from Chris won't require 20+ hours of driving, a business-related excuse, or dealing with airlines and airports and throwing toiletries away. Happy at the prospect of starting over professionally doing something I actually enjoy, even if it means making less money. Excited at the prospect of possibly going to graduate school. I feel like I haven't been able to be excited or express enthusiasm about all of these things, because being excited about them means not caring about all of the things I know I'm going to miss about being here. And also because talking about how excited I am (or will be, once the employment situation resolves itself) seems a bit like saying, "So long, suckers!" to all of the aforementioned friends I love and miss already.

On the topic of things I won't miss...this week is my last official, full week at work. I will be so happy to be rid of that place. I guess I didn't realize it or admit it until I found out that they wouldn't let me work from Texas, but I've hated working there for such a long time. I've looked at my coworkers who have been there for 20+ years and have turned into socially inept hermits and thought, "Please don't ever let that be me." While I'm not excited about being unemployed, I will be happy to be rid of LOMA and the sinking ship it is. I'll not miss the monotony, the resistance to change, or the lack of teaching employees valuable skills that might benefit them (or that they might take anywhere else). This past month has been kind of agonizing...being given a leading role on a project that I won't be around to finish. Knowing that I'm leaving has made it extremely difficult to motivate myself to work, or to care about the end result. If they don't see value in keeping me around (because, really, I could do this job from anywhere. It's not brain surgery), I don't see the value in working my ass off for them before I leave. I've had a bad attitude about my job for a long time, but the past few months it's been really terrible.

It will be nice to not be angry or disappointed when I wake up and remember what I have to do every day. I may not have anything to replace it with yet, but I will. And even if I don't for a month or so, that's okay too. Who knows? Maybe it will give me time, energy, inclination, and/or inspiration to write something that I actually want to write for a change. Maybe it will even be good. Here's to hoping.

In the meantime, I am organizing my life into boxes, color-coding and recording and labeling the contents of everything, and throwing away sentimental things I no longer see the use in keeping. Every once in a while, I have flashes of me when I was packing up to move to Atlanta from Tulsa in September 2001. I remember how ready I was to leave, and how, despite that readiness, I would wake up in cold sweats in the middle of the night from bad dreams somehow related to the terrible mistake I was making by moving. Only, it wasn't a mistake, and I knew that even when I was waking up in those cold sweats. It was an incredibly good thing for me, but a questionably smart and very spontaneous thing to do. I'm glad that I did it. I'm glad I ended up staying in Atlanta longer than I ever expected. And most of all, I'm glad that I'm even more sure about it this time: moving now isn't a mistake, even if it seems that way from the outside.

10 Things I Learned This Weekend

1. I can be suckered into just about anything under the right conditions.
2. I am a lot more patient than I think I am, but I do have a limit. I hit it about 5 hours in.
3. Gordo loves me. He loves me so much that he doesn't want to share me with anyone else, and he is not shy about expressing his displeasure at the sight of me doing things like, say, showing affection to anyone else...like my poor, unsuspecting, understanding, and incredibly patient boyfriend.
4. Gordo's displeasure at being put in a kennel is best expressed by pathetically barking like mad and ripping his dog bed to shreds.
5. I'm the sheep whisperer...or maybe just incredibly lucky. Sometimes.
6. If one is going to accidentally set sheep loose in the parking lot of a hotel, one should prepare to encounter several people around who will try (and mostly fail) to help, point, laugh, and take pictures/video. One should also plan on having a sheep whisperer (me) and an untrained Australian Shepherd on hand.
7. Memphis-style BBQ is highly overrated (but maybe that's just been my experience). What I mean to say is, the BBQ in Memphis sucks just as much as the roads in Memphis.
8. Trish (the GPS)'s map update I paid $80 for isn't so much an update as it is a total fusterclucking.
9. Cracker Barrel breakfasts actually expand in your stomach after you eat them. One breakfast can be enough for a person's belly for at least 12 hours.
10. My job is over me just as much as I'm over it (HR sent out the job posting for my soon-to-be vacant position this morning).

Blogging

My attempt to keep this blog as updated as my "real" one has failed miserably.

Since my last post here, I've decided to flee Atlanta and move to Texas. While I was visiting the family in Tulsa in May, I had to put Chester, the best dog ever, to sleep. A week later, I got a rebound dog. He's kind of a butthole, but I would feel awful taking him back at this point. Oh, the things we do in the midst of our grief. A day after I adopted this disaster of a rebound dog, I was hospitalized for a kidney infection. That was great fun, especially the 'seizures from high fever' thing. Now, all is back to normal, or as normal as it can be.

I'm looking around my apartment, trying to pick a place to start packing. I'd like to be as organized for this move as I was when I moved to Atlanta. To do that, I need to get back to my anal retentive, obsessively organized roots. My life needs to be in order. It's been chaotic for far too long.

canine acupuncture

This is what it looks like:





Chester loves our new veterinarian (Dr. Sasher at Loving Touch Animal Center). I love her, too. I hate that she's now the third vet I've seen since the beginning of the year, but thankful to have found her and happy that she presented me with a wide variety of options, both traditional and holistic. I love that she blocked off an hour of her time to sit and talk to me about his history, mast cell tumors in general, dietary concerns, herbs and supplements, etc., before treating him rather than treating him while talking to me for 10 minutes at the most. Man, I am in veterinary love right now. I'm actually looking forward to going back next week.

So basically, here's what's happening: While she doesn't usually recommend a raw food diet for patients (because some people don't know what the heck they're doing), his diet is staying the same. I've read up about it enough that I feel comfortable doing it, and she didn't see a problem with it as long as contamination isn't an issue. We've added medications

Benedryl

Tagament

Prednisone

...and supplements

Vitamin C

Viola 12

Xue Fu Zhu Yu Tang

...to what I have him on currently

Fish oil capsules

senior dog vitamin

...to help keep the tumors under control and maybe reduce them in size/hardness. Also for now, we're starting dry acupuncture (to balance energy) and aquapuncture with Viscum Album (Mistletoe) injections once a week and will taper off to once every two weeks or once a month.

I feel so much better about this now, like someone has given me a map (or a GPS) and I know where I'm going. We have a plan. We're not just winging it or going on what millions of internet "experts" say, and I'm not overwhelmed.

I love today.

The BARF Diet

...appropriately titled, I must say. My first batch for Chester should last a good while and make my fridge smell like cow poop. Awesome. But he will feel better for it, methinks, so it's totally worth it.





BARF = Biologically Appropriate Raw Foods, for the curious. Today, instead of working as I should have been, I spent the afternoon researching dog cancer diets and supplements to help improve life quality for a dog with cancer (who is or is not going through chemotherapy). I've pretty much decided to not put him through chemotherapy or radiation treatment, so if I can do things like this to help strengthen his immune system and possibly maybe slow down the spread of cancer even a tiny bit, of course I'm going to do it.

I opted not to drop $$$$$$ on the frozen patties and found different recipes online to make my own BARF slop for Chester (this is going to be so much fun to write about). It's going to cost much less than $$$$$$ if I do it myself, because I can pretty much buy food as I normally would, but a little more of it (and maybe a few things I wouldn't normally get for myself) and grind the extra food up for the dog. Plus, it's kind of fun...except for the tripe. Oooooh, the tripe. That doesn't smell great.

On a related note, I found a couple of holistic animal care places I'm looking into as an alternative to chemo/radiation. I know the holistic route is by no means going to cure him and won't be nearly as effective as the $$$$$$$$$$$$$ treatment, but there's no way I can afford that treatment. At the same time, there's no way I can sit back and do nothing. That leaves me squarely in the middle, doing research, making my own dog food, and considering trying things like acupuncture and herbal supplements on my dog.