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19 October 2018

Oregon in the Fall












I really do love Oregon in the Fall. 

All photos taken on a friend's property.

19 March 2018

Life keeps happening

I keep feeling like things will slow down next week or next month; and then next week or next month arrives and everything is just as crazy and busy as it was before. 

Or it feels more crazy and busy than it really is and I'm just losing my marbles. I don't know anymore.

The horse that Carus started the 4H year with, Caly, didn't work out.  They weren't connecting and it just became a battle of wills between a young horse and a frustrated kid. We were sad as Caly is a sweet horse that Carus did enjoy riding, but it's not fair for her or Carus to keep trying where it wasn't working. 

Also, I had incredible amounts of anxiety over quitting too early.  I do not like to "give up" even if it's in my best interest and I'm more realistically just moving on.

We asked around a little and quickly got a few geldings to try (Carus insists that she can connect to geldings better cause mares be crazy).  

Introducing (sort of):  New lease horse, Chester.  (This is totally old news if you're on Facebook.)


So far Chester is working out great.  If you ask Carus how it's going you will get no words, but instead some excited squealing while she clutches her hands to her face and/or bounces up and down.

She hearts Chester.  

She's still finding school tough to navigate this year; mostly the 2 AP classes and 2 honors classes have her feeling a bit stretched thin, on top of the emotional lows of losing Scout.

My washer motor broke a few weeks ago.  The direct drive motor is not supposed to break EVER but yeah mine did.  Thankfully I have a handy husband who was able to get the parts ordered despite the customer service reps saying "yeah, no the motor can't break it's not the motor" and then got them installed. I was only without a washer for a week.  Surprisingly...not surprisingly?  I was anxious about not being able to do laundry for a week. Cause I'm a weirdo. Or I have issues.  Both?

The master bath is still not done.  We had to save up to purchase the vanity and then we decided the shower stall was beyond cleaning up so we had to search for new glass walls and doors that would fit our the insert which took forever.  Since the new floor was already in we were not replacing the whole thing.  Then, the granite counter top we like is now out of stock.  We found a new supplier so now just saving up a bit more so we can order because it's more expensive than the first one was.  (And yes, all of the we's in that above paragraph refer to Robert. He's doing all the leg work and hard work. I'm in charge of painting.)

Adam is now coming up on the end of his second semester of college and seems like he's floating along.  He is still doing a general transfer degree with plans to transfer to a 4 year college at the end of 2 years of community college and still isn't sure what the end goal is. Occasionally I panic for him and start worrying that he hasn't figured it out yet. 

12 January 2018

Goodbye Yoda Pug

We lost Yoda this week.

He had a seizure back in December and we wondered if maybe he had been having them for awhile and we didn't see them. The sudden muscle weakness, especially in his back legs happened a few times this past year and we just thought it was related to the known degenerative disc disease he had in his spine. He was weak for about an hour and then he was running around barking with the big dogs and being his normal self. He's getting older, seizures in old dogs do not mean good things, and he was fine so I left it as that.



Monday night/Tuesday early morning, he had a couple seizures. They woke me and I held him through two and I think I woke too late to hold him through a third.  Seizures are hard to watch and with them coming in a cluster, I knew it was time. I woke the kids and let them say their goodbyes. Carus was mad that we didn't warn her about Timmy so I wanted to be sure to warn her as much as I could about Yoda.  Yoda then got to go bye-byes to take Carus to school - one of his favorite things.

The vet was awesome. I called for an appointment and they said whenever I could make it in. They reassured me that seizures that start in old dogs mean bad things like blood clots or tumors and prognosis is poor; I was making the right decision. While I was waiting for them to return with the medication, he had another smaller seizure. They had me to tell them stories about puggy while I held him. He was breathing like he was in pain and it slowly stopped.

Beach 07-25-10 072 ED

When we got him, we showed up to a house in NE Portland to pick him up and there were like 40 pugs in that house. I felt guilty for supporting that type of breeder, but I wanted my puggy at that point.  We grabbed our puppy and ran. 

He was the teeniest thing! And was so terrified for like 3 days. Carus was crawling around on the floor and he started playing chase with her and that was the first time he hadn't been scared. 

Playing with Carus

He loved the beach, especially the run to someone game. He always ran the fastest to me.

He was happiest when he knew where I was. He would follow me anywhere, and wait by doors and windows for me to return.  He slept at my feet for years, and then his back problems made it painful for him to get up and down off the bed. He would hurt himself badly jumping down so he wasn't allowed up anymore. He'd still ask.  He had a bed beside me and one at my feet under my desk for when I worked.

He was so determined to follow me everywhere, that he followed me mowing the lawn the spring we moved into our house and the grass was super long and so freshly cut that he was green half way up his body.

He used to do hand stands when hiking his leg to pee...

He peed on a computer tower Robert had opened up for repairs. That's when we decided he was old enough to be fixed.  (We delayed as pugs have trouble with surgery so I waited until he was about a year and a half old.)

He stole a stuffed caterpillar toy from Carus and loved it so much and hard that Robert spent like 6 months looking for a replacement on eBay - which he found.  Yoda loved that one too, but not as hard so it still exists.

He went by Yoda Pug, Poda Yug, Puggy, Puggers, Yoda Bug, Yoda Soda Bug, pug-pugs, puggy.

I miss my puggy so much. I knew I would, but still... 

(Below the photo links to Yoda's flickr album.)

Yoda

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