Saturday night...

I got together on Saturday with some of the Asshat posse - Michelle and Beth (private blog) - and we went to Boston Pizza for dinner. It was in the works for a while, ever since I got the free coupons in the mail. ;)

Dinner was really good, the company was better, but the waiter we had was, well, not the best. Long story short, the coupons entitled us to free pizzas and soft drinks. We placed our orders, ate our dinner, and then the waiter put a bottled water on our table. When we said that nobody ordered it, he took it off the table and took it to another. Ok, fine, everyone makes mistakes. No big deal.

The bill came and the bottled water was on there. Umm...? We called our waiter over and told him about it and he insisted that we ordered the water and was very insistent on it. We kept saying we didn't order it, but he kept saying we did. It was a little bizarre. Apparently he doesn't know the age old adage that "The customer is always right." Oh well. It was taken off the bill.

We sat around and talked for a good few hours about everything adoption-related and not. Good times...

By complete coincidence, while I had a GNO with the Asshats, Josh had a GNO with his best friend...and he went to Boston Pizza too.

Thanks again for the coupons, Ryan, they went to very good use. I've got one left...looking forward to next time! By the way, Lisa, we still need to get together again...and steal forks. :)

"Take the work, out of your workout..."

I found this online and had to share it with all of you...how *awesome* is that? Imagine using that in your office? At a job interview? At a parent/teacher interview? I just hope no obstetricians use it...

The sad thing is, I'm going to have the jingle go through my head all day.


I also found a clip of Ellen using it and I'm not sure which is more amusing - the infomercial or it actually being used.

I just aged 10 years...

I gave Deuce his pain pill this morning and he started foaming at the mouth and drooling. He walked away from me and the drool was just pouring from his mouth. I freaked out, of course, and yelled at Josh to call the vet. Apparently, the vet said this is a "normal" reaction to bitter tasting pills and cats are just "overly dramatic". It would have been nice if the vet TOLD me about this kind of reaction before it happened. Holy $H!T!!!

I feel so awful for Deuce and that I was the cause of his reaction, he apparently bit into the pill. *sigh*

Right now he's sitting in his room comfortably, he's stopped drooling/foaming and he's (if he could) laughing his ass off at me.

When I give him the pill tonight, I have to coat it with margarine or butter so we avoid this reaction again.

Update on Deuce...

(For some of you, you'll already know this...it was posted elsewhere - I'm too lazy to re-write it.)

Good news: We went to pick him up today at 3:00. He has to be confined in his room for quite a few days (perhaps a week or longer - who knows right now). He's been fairly quiet, that is, until you touch his hind leg and he hisses again. The vet believes it's a strained muscle.

Bad news: The blood tests came back and they discovered that he has stage one kidney disease. One of the tests came back and they also discovered that he has enlarged blood vessels. They don't know for sure, but they are thinking that they *may* need to do an ultrasound on his heart if he's not better in a few days. When he had dental cleaning a few years ago, they discovered a heart murmur. At the time, they believed it was brought on by the anaesthetic. What they think *may* have happened now, with the possible problem with his heart and the enlarged blood vessels is that he "threw a blood clot". We have to keep a relatively close eye on him for the time being. He's not allowed to walk around the house, he can't do the stairs. He's on oral pain pills that he needs twice a day for ten days.

She suggested that we get him a water fountain so he gets more liquid into him. Do any of you have one for your pets? If so, can you tell me if your pet actually uses them and if it's beneficial. We're probably going to get it anyways. I figure, even if he plays with it (which he'll more than likely do), he'll still lick the water off his paws and get some water into him that way.

I gave him water through a syringe a couple times already today, which I have to continue to do until he's off his medication.

He took his pain meds this evening without much trouble, though he did try to spit it out once. He loves taking the water through the syringe, which I'm happy about. He's upstairs right now, resting on some blankets I laid out for him.

Thanks for asking about my Deuceybaby...

Poor kitty

This morning we had a salesman over to give us a quote on the windows that we want to order. While he was writing up the quote, Deuce jumped on the dining room table (like he usually does...he's a very social kitty). When I went to pick him up and put him back down on the floor, he let out a big hiss at me. I figured he was just annoyed with me and *really* wanted to be on the table, so I didn't give it another thought.

He tried to jump on the table about ten minutes later, but didn't quite make it. I thought it was odd, since he always makes that jump from the floor. He turned away and walked up the stairs to our bedroom.

After the guy left, I went to lie down on the bed and pet Deuce, and again, he hissed at me. Now Deuce isn't a kitty that lets out a lot of hisses, so now I knew something was wrong. I thought I noticed that he was tender in his left hind leg, so I touched it again (just to test my theory), and again he hissed at me.

Now I knew something was wrong.

I yelled for Josh to come upstairs, told him what happened, and he touched Deuce, and again he hissed. We rushed over to the phone and called the vet and made arrangements to take him in to be seen.

When it was time to get to his appointment I had a hard time getting him into his cage. He *loves* his cage. When we can't find him in the house, he often walks into his cage and sleeps there...that's how much he loves it. I had to disassemble the cage, pick him up by the scruff of the neck (I know that sounds awful, but he was in pain so to do it any other way would have caused him discomfort), and place him in it, then put the top over him and snap it into place.

On the drive over to the vet, Deuce started hissing. This is odd for him, usually on the way to the vet he sits on my lap and purrs.

We finally got to the vet and he was meowing so loudly that they put us right into an examination room because they thought he was in distress. Usually at the vet's he just sits and hisses at everyone. This time, however, he meowed and let the vet release him from the cage and he walked across the table. The only time he hissed was, again, when she touched his left hind leg.

Obviously, since they can't give us an immediate diagnosis, we left him there overnight. They're doing blood tests, X-rays, urinalysis, etc., etc., etc.

Hopefully we'll have some answers in the morning. I'm not a vet, but I'm thinking he's either got arthritis or perhaps a strained muscle. He woke up in the middle of the night, sneezed a few times, and then went back to sleep...perhaps he hurt himself (pulled a muscle) during that or during a big jump?

I don't know...but I'm worried.

Ooooh! Oooooh! Mr. Kotter!

I think I've got a bit of blogger's block, so I figured I'd follow the herd and do this.

If you have any burning questions that you'd like me to answer, leave me a comment. If you'd rather ask them anonymously, feel free...

To put you out of your misery...

For the 'anonymous' person who asked in the comment section of the last couple of posts, the reason I refer to some people on my sidebar as 'Asshats', it's an inside joke. It's a bunch of kickass moms (and moms-in-waiting) who are all part of the "lounge". Yup, we're secretive like that...

...oh, and no, there's no link to the lounge on my blog. :P

30 months!

Today marks our 30 month LIDiversary. Woo. Can you feel the excitement? :P

I added another charm to the bracelet, this time I chose it. I really liked this one (footprints) because Josh keeps saying that the house is too big and too quiet for us. He's waiting for the day that we can hear little feet sneaking down the stairs and getting into all sorts of mischief...

I also chose it because little one, even though we haven't met her, has left a strong imprint on our hearts...

















Since Josh and I are both plague-ridden, we decided to make a cake instead of going out and buying one. We're *that* sick. Sucks to be us.

For those of you who don't know why we have our monthly cake ritual, this is why.

We've been audited!

As I mentioned in a previous post, Josh and I are considering getting new windows in the house. The Ontario government has implemented a program, that if you do repairs to your house (to make it more efficient) they will kick in some money. Pretty nice, huh?

Granted, it's not a lot. To re-do the windows, the provincial government will kick in $30 and the federal government will kick in another $30. So yeah, that's $60 per window. Not great, but it's better than nothing. In order to qualify for the rebate, you have to have an energy audit done. We had this done this morning.

The guy arrived at 9:30 and, in order to run all his tests he had to leave our front door open and blow air in. Not exactly fun when it's cold outside and Josh and I both have the plague...but I digress.

The auditor told us that we have several leaks in the house and the hot air is just going *whoosh* through them. He told us that all but four of our windows are really good but they need caulking done. No big deal. We're going to have to get a new sliding door, two kitchen windows and the window done in "Little Maple's" room. At least that's better than we thought...we were originally looking at re-doing all the windows. Umm, I'll let you all know when I start pooping money. ;)

He also told us that we need little foam insert thingamabobs for all our light switches and electrical outlets...apparently they're very leaky. Who knew?

There are also a bunch of other things we *could* do, but I think we're going to work on the things we *need* to do first.

So, the audit cost $350+GST (Goods and Services Tax) and we'll get back $150 of that through the Province. We have 18 months to do the repairs, if we want...and then we have to pay this guy another $150 to make sure we qualify for the $60/window rebate.

It's neat that we found out all about this stuff, but realistically I'm not sure if it's really worth all the paperwork. In my opinion the rebates should be a bit more...

Oh, and by the way, we still haven't heard back from him.

Sleazy...

No, it isn't one of *those* kinds of posts...

Josh and I are looking into getting new windows for the house and we've had a few estimates already. We had one last week, one yesterday and one today. The guy who came today (and I won't mention their site or the company's name) I wouldn't trust to make a tuna sandwich, let alone sell us windows.

His entire sales pitch was lousy. He told us that they sell two kinds of sliding doors - one that's secure and one that is easily removable for burglars - seriously. He refused to measure some of our windows because he claimed that we don't need them. Umm, no, we actually do...otherwise why would we have him come in? I don't know if he was trying to be our buddy by not measuring them and therefore we'd think he was on 'our side'. Who's the customer and aren't we always right...?

The other two companies that came in each told us the same thing - that our windows aren't energy efficient. If you look at your windows, they should have the year they were manufactured on them. Josh thinks the the previous owners had their "Uncle Louie" put the windows in...and they were done really sloppily. We've got leaks and terrible condensation when it's really cold out.

He told us that the windows were about three years old, yet the other companies told us they were at least ten. Actually some of them are the originals. He also told us that if he replaces the kitchen windows (which are original), that he'd end up cracking our tile backsplash. Now is that a selling feature?!

The other companies said everything would be fine. I get the impression that this company is very sloppy in their installation and he's just covering his ass by saying that.

The weirdest thing is, when he was talking to us he didn't even ask us what kind of style, what kind of glass (double glaze, triple glaze), what it should be filled with (argon or krypton gas), and so on.

We've got two quotes already, and he said it would take him until the end of the week to calculate ours. One of the companies did the quote while he was sitting at the dining room table - it took less than half an hour to calculate and the other sent it the same day.

Oh well, live and learn. We'll still *look* at the quote for comedic value, but we're definitely not going with this particular company.

23 years

Now I'm not sure if any of you believe in this, but take a moment and read these links that I'm putting up...because I'm a little freaked out about it.

Last year I wrote this post all about signs and the significance that I put in them.

If you remember last May I wrote this post, this post and this post all about the bird's nest that I had in my tree. Check out the pics for some uber cuteness. :)

Well, I walked out of my house today and I found that some other birds had taken over the nest. They haven't laid eggs yet, but there were two of them in there. Wouldn't you know it...they're mourning doves. If I get the chance I'm going to take some pictures...assuming they come back again.

Today marks 23 years since my dad passed away...you are missed now and always.

Resurfacing...

A while back, before I had my blog redesigned, I changed the 'comments' thingamajig to something else. I know that Sen was the one that named it, but frankly I've forgotten what it was. So rather than try to figure it out, I decided to have a vote so to speak.

If you can think of anything more creative than 'comments', leave me, umm, a comment. :P

Does this make sense? It's almost 5:00am, I can't sleep and I'm sick...

Vote early, vote often...

*SPLAT*

That about sums up how I'm feeling lately.

The recent batch came out and it went from March 3 to March 6 2006 (for those of you who aren't knee-deep in the hoopla of the adoption process). Woo. What's that? Two days? Now don't get me wrong, I'm happy for everyone getting their referral in this, and every batch, but I just want it to be our turn already. It feels lately like our adoption is akin to "The Song That Never Ends"...it just keeps going and going and going. I really don't want to hear from people that "it happens at the right time", "you'll forget all about the wait, when..." etc., because you know what? It doesn't and we won't.

I'm not trying to play the 'pain game' and say that this wait is harder for us because...The truth is, it's difficult for everyone for their own reasons.

The next batch, if the predictions are correct, will probably only be another day (or possibly two). Yes, I know, some great people are going to be getting their referrals next and I *am* happy for them, but you know what? I want to be happy for US.

We're going to hit our 30 month LIDiversary next Friday. 30 months of waiting. 30 months of wondering. 30 months of what? We probably have another 30 to go before we get our referral (if we're lucky). Who knows?

We.didn't.sign.up.for.this.at.all.

I think I've lost my optimism about this adoption for now. I try to put on a happy face about it, but there are some days, I just don't think it's going to happen, and today is one of those days. I'll probably feel better in a few days, but right now I'm feeling lousy and I'm choosing to wade in the waters of discontent.

Hell, I'm soaking in it.

PIPO has PIPA!

I know I'm late in announcing this. I've been out all day but I ran to my computer as soon as we walked through the door this evening, so I could see little PIPA in her momma's arms. I can't tell you how excited I am for them!

Josh and I decided to go out for the day...we ended up in Paris and London. Well, let me backtrack a bit.

When we woke up this morning Josh was going a bit stir crazy, and he wanted to go out somewhere. We decided to go to Paris and visit the Mary Maxim store. We walked around for a while and then decided to get something to eat. While we were at lunch, I decided to give my "sister" M a call, and we went out to London for a visit. We had a ball together, as we always do. Hopefully she's coming to town next weekend. WOO!