How 'bout them Dodgers

Announcing Kidlet

2011-07-25T17:02:00.002-04:00

Kidlet was successfully launched at 08:49 EDT, 23 July 2011. The 52 cm., 3.6 kg. (20.5", 7 lb. 14 oz.) payload was within optimal operational specifications and is functioning normally. The delivery vehicle was recovered in the nominal drop zone without incident and is being refurbished for the continuing mission.

Waiting

2011-07-14T12:35:00.000-04:00

I'm officially in the waiting period now and I have to admit, it's a little boring.

My due date is now three days away. No signs of labor yet and based on my last appointment and the fact that statistically first babies are often late there's a good chance I'm going to see my due date still pregnant, though I'm still hoping I won't. The reason is we were told a while ago that due to my "advanced maternal age" (their term, not mine!) there's a higher risk of the placenta deteriorating and becoming less efficient faster once the due date passes, so they probably won't let me go more than a few days past my due date before inducing me. At first I thought this was a fine idea, but now I've become a little less enthused with the idea of being induced—especially if it's starting out cold turkey with no natural signs of labor at all—and I'd much rather start things out naturally if I possibly can. As always no one has asked me, though, and there's not much I can do other than my main conversation with kidlet now being, "Out, out, out!"

On the bright side I am very glad to have been able to do things on my terms up until now. I stopped working two weeks before my due date and was able to complete things at work on my schedule without any complications (pregnancy-related or otherwise), which besides making things easier on me made things much easier on the people taking over for me as well. And while it doesn't always feel like it, I know overall I've had a relatively uncomplicated pregnancy compared to some, and I'm very thankful for that. (Dealing with acid reflux every night and having hugely swollen legs and feet for the past four months doesn't always feel particularly uncomplicated—nor did getting sick every two months for the first six months of the pregnancy—but so far everything I've dealt with has only affected me, not kidlet, which I guess is relatively uncomplicated in pregnancy terms.)

So, I wait. I know it's getting closer with every passing day by definition; I'm trying to find comfort in that. I'm definitely enjoying having an empty calendar right now, being able to rest and take naps and watch TV whenever I want to (mainly a few afternoon Food Network programs I like), and not having any schedule or real responsibilities right now. I had a lot I wanted to get done last week and since kidlet didn't come then I had time to do it, so now I really have nothing pressing on my plate that I feel I have to do; not a bad place to be in when I do eventually get to this labor/delivery thing. I hear it can start suddenly on its own at any time... I'm waiting!

A Pre-Existing Condition

2011-07-06T18:14:00.000-04:00

I hate medical insurance.

Don't get me wrong, I like having medical insurance, I just hate dealing with it. Recently I had to change insurance plans and switch to my hubby's plan. This happened to coincide with my last day of work though it didn't actually have anything to do with my job (other than my not having an employer's plan to switch to), it had to do with my extended student benefits ending. Since I'm getting ready to pop a kid out any day now it's kind of important that I have medical insurance when that happens. I've dealt with changing plans before so I worked with hubby and got him (and his HR person) the necessary paperwork to prove I was losing coverage on my existing plan, otherwise known in the medical insurance world as a qualifying event. In another twist of coincidence the timing coincided with hubby's plan's open enrollment period, but the qualifying event ensured that didn't matter and I could go on it regardless of the plan's regularly scheduled enrollment period.

The other thing tied to a qualifying event is continuous coverage, which is required to keep new insurance plans from slapping a "pre-existing condition waiting period" on you. In case you hadn't heard pregnancy is a pre-existing condition from an insurance company's point-of-view, and taking on a new member and immediately having to pay for a delivery isn't something insurance companies particularly want to do. I knew this and tried VERY HARD to supply the paperwork to hubby's HR person to make sure the pre-existing condition period would get waived... And sure enough today we received a letter from the insurance company saying based on their records I have a one-year waiting period for pre-existing conditions. SIGH. Hubby talked to his HR person and it appears somehow somewhere lines got crossed and the paperwork he gave her was just to get me on the plan, now we have to submit separate paperwork to the insurance company to deal with the pre-existing condition mess. Thankfully I know enough about medical insurance to keep any piece of paper I ever receive that says "Certificate of Insurance" on it, so I put everything together and tomorrow proof that I've had continuous coverage for the past 3 years will be going out in the mail. (Technically I only need to prove continuous coverage for 1 year but I'm going for overkill just because.) Even though we're dealing with it, based on the timing of everything I'd bet you real money that the paperwork won't be processed in time (since insurance companies aren't exactly known for lightning fast reflexes when it comes to processing paperwork), claims will be denied and we'll have to call everyone everywhere and tell them to resubmit claims and process everything again. I can't wait.

Oh, Come On!

2011-06-25T14:22:00.001-04:00

Hubby and I started our day at 7:00 this morning visiting a couple of garage sales in our neighborhood. I got an email on our neighborhood list yesterday about some multi-family sales with baby stuff going on today around the corner from us, and since hubby had to leave before 7:30 for a work-related training thing today that meant hitting them when they started, which isn't a bad thing for garage sales, anyway. The last time there were garage sales hubby ended up bringing home a bunch of great stuff for only a few dollars (things like toys and a diaper pail and a toilet trainer, which we'll need eventually), so we wanted to take the opportunity to try again. We got some more toys, a grocery cart cover for Kidlet to sit in, and a couple books, which the woman said to just take. When we thanked her I pointed to my stomach and said, "He thanks you, too." She said, "Oh, I hadn't noticed!" I'm 3 weeks away from my due date now so her comment elicited the title of this post from me: "Oh, come on!" I know I haven't shown much through the entire pregnancy—at 7 months I was standing in front of someone at work and mentioned something about being pregnant and he said, "What, you're pregnant?"—but come on, surely I look pregnant and not just fat by now! Sigh.

For those of you who aren't aware being 3 weeks from my due date means I am now considered full-term—or will be as of tomorrow, to be exact. That's a HUGE milestone and a huge relief: It means if anything happened now I could be induced without having to worry about having a preterm baby, and it means I could safely go into labor naturally myself at any time. Not that anyone has asked me and I know I have no control over it whatsoever, but it'd be really nice if Kidlet decided to be born naturally between 39 and 40 weeks, that'd be perfect. Again, not that anyone is asking me, but his coming before 38 weeks would be very inconvenient: That'd be next week, which is my last week of work (yay!) and hubby is on closing shift through the July 4th weekend at the park so he could be a little harder to reach if I really need him. (I plan to have the park superintendent's home phone number with me over the holiday weekend in case I can't reach him, just in case anyone is wondering.) It'd also be nice to have a real week off from everything after I'm done with work, so if Kidlet waits until a little closer to my due date that'd be nice. As the doctor we saw yesterday said, at this point everything is going well so we'll just see what happens.

Hose

2011-06-10T18:34:00.000-04:00

I know, I've done a horrible job of keeping up with this blog lately. Oh well. To summarize: I'm 8-months pregnant now (35 weeks) and doing fine, heading down the home stretch and looking forward to having kidlet on the outside rather than on the inside. I have three weeks of work left and then I'll be on maternity leave. That about sums it up.

So let's talk about hose. No, not the garden variety, I'm talking about maternity support hose—you haven't lived until you've worn them. One thing I've dealt with for about half the pregnancy is very swollen ankles and feet. The technical term is edema, otherwise known that-which-makes-your-feet-look-like-tubers. I was advised by my doctor a while ago to start wearing support hose to help with it, and she suggested I just wear knee-highs since that's all I really needed. Unfortunately, the knee-highs made my knees look like grapefruits because they were tight right below my knees. At my appointment today the doctor suggested I switch to full maternity support hose since the knee-highs may have been doing more bad than good. Support hose are actually a medical item worthy of a prescription, which is a good thing since maternity support hose in particular cost a small fortune. ($92 per pair, if anyone is interested.) Thankfully, my insurance covers them so we paid much less than that at the medical supply store where we got them.

I'm not a huge fan of pantyhose, anyway, and rarely wear them except occasionally in the winter with a nice dress for church. Support hose are a whole different matter: Regular pantyhose stretch; support hose don't. I'd been having a hard time getting the knee-highs on lately but I usually managed on my own. When we got home with the full maternity hose today there was no way I could get them on by myself, and it still took 20 minutes with hubby's help. Not fun at all. I don't know if I'd be able to get them on by myself without being 8-months pregnant and now I'm thinking it's probably never going to be an option. I'm supposed to wear them all day every day until delivery, so that means on days hubby works opening shift we may both have to get up extra early so he can help me get them on. (I don't have to sleep in them, thankfully.) And did I mention they itch? Yeah, not surprisingly they itch some.

I'm thankful I only have to wear them for a few weeks at this point and not a few months, but that's as close to the bright side of things I'm gonna get. And, in reality, I am thankful that this is really just another pregnancy annoyance I have to deal with and not something ultimately significant that affects the baby. God willing it'll stay that way for the remainder of the pregnancy and we'll have a healthy baby boy in due time.

A New Toy

2011-04-30T12:38:00.002-04:00

We have a new toy:

We've talked about getting a canoe for a while. Last week we went on a "babymoon" and spent a couple days at a Bed & Breakfast at a state park. The B&B has a private lake and a few boats guests can take out at their leisure, so the afternoon we got there we took a canoe out on the lake. Hubby sat in the stern and paddled while I sat in the bow and enjoyed the ride; it was wonderful. So I said okay, we could get a canoe. Hubby had actually already seen this one on Craigslist and when we got home it was still available, so he called the seller and made arrangements to check it out, and on Friday morning he came home with it. (He also prepared to get it by getting a paddle and a car kit to carry the canoe on his car's roof rack, since a 14-ft. canoe isn't something you can just throw in the back seat.) One thing hubby particular liked about this canoe is its paint job: In case you can't tell from the picture it's camouflaged, and hubby plans to use it for duck hunting. (Apparently the seller's son did the paint job, he used some stencils and it came out really well.) It also came with an attachment for an outboard motor, which hubby may get someday down the road. (UPDATE: Hubby read my post and said it's an attachment for a trolling motor, not an outboard motor. Whatever.)

So we now own a boat, and I agree that we'll undoubtedly have a lot of fun with it, especially once kidlet gets big enough to enjoy it, too. Someday we'll probably even get a second paddle for me to use. (I have paddled in a canoe before, it's just been a while.) I told hubby that its first use is going to be him taking me out to putter around the lake at the park where he works—as soon as we both have the same day off and have time to do it. Right now that's looking like next Saturday afternoon, after I get home from a baby shower for someone at church who is having her first child (also a boy) five weeks ahead of me. So far it looks like the weather next weekend should be nice so it should be a good time for an afternoon canoe ride on the lake. It sounds lovely.

Lizard Season and Other Stuff

2011-04-17T15:53:00.001-04:00

Forget about pregnancy—hubby thinks I should talk about lizards on my blog.

This little guy showed up on our porch recently:

He hasn't been there the past couple days but as the weather gets warmer I imagine he'll be back. Hubby looks for him all the time.

We also have a finch nest in a tree right in front of our porch, the nest is right at eye height so we have a good view of the babies. Hubby says he thinks there are four babies in the nest; when we got home from church this morning we looked at them and I saw at least three fuzzy heads, and two pairs of eyes and little beaks looking at us. They're really cute. (Sorry, no picture yet, maybe later.)

In other news, I'm still getting over the cold I talked about in my last post. It's been two weeks now and I've developed quite a cough, which I think is actually getting worse. I can barely breathe without coughing now and I'm barely sleeping at night. (I have to sleep on three pillows now to help with acid reflux, too, and sleeping on three pillows just isn't comfortable, I've found. I don't sleep deeply and I wake up a lot.) My cough is so bad I called the doctor (ob office) when we got home from church this morning and the midwife on-call called me back. She said it sounds like I might have a respiratory infection and could need an antibiotic. She suggested I call the office for an appointment first thing tomorrow morning. At the very least if my lungs are clear and I don't need an antibiotic they might be able to give me something for my cough, which I assure you isn't pleasant.

Last but not least, if you live in the south you probably experienced it and if you don't you probably heard about the storms that came through here over the past few days. I was at an all-day training session and hubby was at work when the storms came through our area; thankfully, the brunt of the storm seemed to go around our particular area, but not by much. I haven't seen it, but it's strange to read about the devastation that happened when tornadoes touched down only 20 miles or so from us. I was concerned since doggie was home alone during the storms, but hubby left her in the house when he went to work and she usually isn't too bothered by weather so we thought she'd be okay. And she was: She was very happy to see me when I got home but that was probably more because she'd been alone for several hours rather than her being bothered by the storm. Doggie isn't a fan of being by herself for more than a couple of hours, she prefers company.

Not Again

2011-04-05T08:56:00.000-04:00

I am getting a cold. Again.

I've talked before about how often I've gotten sick this year. Not just morning sickness (which I didn't mention at the time) but the flu and then colds. I don't know if pregnancy has made it worse (if that's even possible) but I have the immune system of a slug. When I'm around people I get sick. Last week I was at an awards banquet for an organization I'm part of; maybe that did it. Or on Sunday I was in the nursery at church and there was a baby there with a runny nose. I washed my hands every time I touched him and his runny nose was clear (the woman with me said that probably meant he was okay, maybe he was just stuffed up from all the pollen around here right now) but maybe that's not enough for me. I was fine yesterday but then last night I started having a sore throat. My throat still hurts a lot today and I'm starting to get congested, which is the usual way a cold progresses for me. I'd bet you real money I'll be worse by tonight and tomorrow, and if it's like my other colds it'll take me 5-7 days to really get over it. Sigh.

On the bright (if there is a bright) side of things yesterday was my normal day in the office and I'll be working at home the rest of the week, so at least I don't have to deal with trying to go to work. I do need to feel well enough to work, though: I discovered yesterday a couple deadlines I thought I had in May are in April instead, so I really don't have time right now to actually be "out sick." It is easier to take it easy while working at home, though, and I don't have any major extracurricular activities on my calendar this week (other than cleaning the house, which I REALLY need to do someday), so hopefully that will help.

And if this sore throat does progress into the coughing/sneezing mess I usually get at least I'm prepared: I've got about a dozen boxes of Kleenex in the closet. I usually empty about two boxes per cold so that should hold me for this round.

Pregnancy

2011-03-27T12:32:00.000-04:00

Okay, let's talk about pregnancy.

I know there are some women out there who love being pregnant. They'd be pregnant all the time if they could. I knew about two weeks into it that I was not one of those women. Don't get me wrong, I'm very thankful to be pregnant and it's definitely better than the alternative (i.e. not being pregnant), but it hasn't exactly been a bed of roses for me (unless you count the thorns—who came up with that phrase, anyway?) and I imagine once will be enough for me.

I'm 24 weeks along now (about 5.5 months) and we found out we're having a boy. So we've started gathering cute boy stuff together. I admit I'm going to miss dressing up a little girl in frilly dresses and all the other cute girl stuff out there, but God is giving us a boy so I'm learning to turn away from the girl stuff. Hubby is still a bit worried when we're around a baby stuff in a store and I oooh and ahhh at all the little girl stuff, but I'll manage.

Here are a few random thoughts I have about this pregnancy thing:

Morning sickness. I'd really like to meet whoever came up with this term—and have a stern talking with them. There is nothing exclusively "morning" about it, it's all-day sickness, period. I spent the first 14 weeks nauseous most of the time, it wasn't fun. (I didn't throw up all the time, thankfully, but I was almost always nauseous.) Thankfully, my OB believes in drugs (medicine, that is) and I've been on anti-nausea medicine since week 7, which helped me at least get through the day. (Kind of important when I was trying to start a new job and finish up school while dealing with this pregnancy thing.) I'm happy to report I'm much better now and get sick much less often, though I still have the medicine and take it occasionally to ward off nausea. Apparently I'm going to be one of those people who deals with being sick off and on throughout the pregnancy—another reason I'm thinking once will be enough.

Maternity clothes. Ugh. I know, they're so much better and more stylish than they used to be, but they're so expensive and it takes so long to find things that fit. I managed to find a few pairs of pants that fit early on, thankfully (or they fit once my mother shortened them for me), but tops are still a struggle. Even at 24 weeks I'm still not showing a whole lot, so while my regular tops are too small I don't fill out maternity tops yet and they look ridiculous. For now I've gotten a few shirts that are a size larger than I normally wear and that seems to be working, particularly as the weather gets warmer so I don't have to wear sweaters and turtlenecks all the time anymore. Some days it's quite a challenge getting dressed and finding clothes that are comfortable and work.

Seatbelts. Not designed for pregnant women. Yes, you wear them anyway. 'Nuff said.

Sleeping. How do pregnant women sleep? I did okay the first trimester (I slept a lot more due to that first-trimester-always-exhausted thing), but now I never sleep very well. I am feeling kidlet moving during the day but not particularly at night (he's not big enough yet to do the jabbing and kicking I've heard about), but I am dealing with heartburn or acid reflux or whatever it is like there's no tomorrow, and it isn't fun. Taking antacids before I go to bed seems to help (yes, approved by the doctor), but I still only sleep for a few hours at a time, it seems, and I wake up a lot during the night and always wake up early in the morning. As long as I go to bed early enough I seem to be mostly okay and can manage my days, but never feeling like I sleep very well is really annoying.

Swelling. I may not be looking very pregnant yet but my ankles are HUGE! Hubby has noticed, too. I know it's normal and all, it's just weird. I can still get my shoes on (my feet are swollen some, too) but I'm definitely looking forward to summer when I can live in flip-flops. Closely related to swelling is also leg cramps, including painful charley horse cramps in your calves. I have to be very careful how I turn and stretch in bed to avoid getting those. Ouch.

Heat. This one is just speculation on my part. From what I've read pregnant women are hot all the time and can't cool down, even in the winter. I'm still waiting on this one so I'm still cold all the time, like always.

Bathroom. No discussion on pregnancy would be complete without a word on how often pregnant women have to go to the bathroom. Even at this early stage, before kidlet is huge and hitting your bladder (and squashing all your other organs, too, from what I've read). You always hear about how you're eating for two, but it doesn't come up as often that you're peeing (eliminating wastes) for two, too!

Those are my thoughts. For those of you who have been pregnant before, what are yours?

Saying Goodbye

2011-03-22T00:04:00.001-04:00

I know it's been a while since I posted our big news and I know I should talk about this pregnancy thing (I will soon, I promise!), but right now I need to talk about something else: I said goodbye to a friend today. We knew each other for 20 years and went through a lot together. I remember when we first met: On the drive home I patted the dash and said, "You're going to last me the rest of my life." Oh, did I mention I'm talking about my car? ;-)

I've owned two cars in my driving life: A 1988 Toyota Tercel and a 1991 Toyota 4Runner, both bought new. The 4Runner was an investment I planned to last me a while; guess I called things right there. In 1991 the SUV was a relatively new concept and there were only three comparable ones on the market: The Toyota 4Runner, the Ford Explorer, and the Jeep Cherokee. I first learned about the 4Runner when I worked as an intern at a wildlife refuge in Alaska: my supervisor there had one. (Probably a 1989 or 1990 model.) When my mother came to visit me I told her we were going car shopping; she thought I was crazy but sure enough that's what we did, and she ended up agreeing it wasn't a bad idea. I remember test driving a Jeep Cherokee that was kind of stripped down; the salesman kept saying all kinds of things were available on it, he just didn't have one in stock for me to test drive. (For the record that's a bad way to sell a car. You should always have a customer test drive one with everything on it so they can't imagine buying one without all the bells and whistles they test drove.) Jeeps are also designed for taller people, I found (which I'm not), and I think I had a hard time reaching the pedals. (I don't remember exactly but I'm guessing the Jeep—like my 4Runner—was a stick shift.) When we went to the Toyota dealer and I test drove the 4Runner the salesman there had me test drive a car that was completely decked out, so his pitch was various things were optional and I could get the car without them if I wanted to. Smart man. Japanese-made Toyotas (back then) were also made for smaller people and I had a much easier time reaching the pedals (particularly the clutch) while still being able to drive comfortably. Last but not least my parents had owned Toyotas for most of my life so it just seemed natural that I would own another Toyota. I decided it was the car for me.

So I chose the car while in Alaska, then sent my mother home to CA with the specs I wanted so she and my dad could find it before I came home. You see, I was only going to be home for a week or two before I left for my summer job in NH that year, driving across the country to get there. So if I was going to get a new car I had to get it in that window or I'd have to go ahead and take the Tercel to NH again. (I'd gone to NH the summer before, too, and the Tercel made the drive then.) When my dad first heard my plans he thought I was crazy, too, but like my mom he came around, particularly when they went to a dealer to look at the car and he test drove it to see what it was all about. The way Toyota did things then was you ordered the car with the particular features you wanted, and if the particular dealer didn't have one that fit your specs they found it at another dealer somewhere and traded one of their cars for it. In this case, I was buying the car from a dealer in Ontario, CA, and my car (with the features I wanted) was at a dealer in Palm Springs. I got the car but it was a close call: The car the Ontario dealership was trading for my car was worth more than mine, I think it was, so money also had to be involved between the dealers, and I remember something about Toyota headquarters in Sacramento being involved. All of this happened over Memorial Day weekend so the holiday threw a loop into things, too. I remember a lot of phone calls back and forth with the salesman we were working with (he knew my situation, of course, that if I couldn't get the car in time the deal would be off), and the second he got the go-ahead he called us that he was on his way to Palm Springs to pick up my car. The next day I took off for NH. I remember being told that you shouldn't drive new cars over a certain speed for the first 500 miles or so to break them in. My 4Runner hit 500 miles on the first day.

Since then the 4Runner and I have been all over the United States and into Canada (I lived in Canada for two summers in my younger days), but as I got older and settled down it admittedly got to be a little less convenient to drive sometimes. Driving a stick shift car in city traffic is a pain, and you don't use 4WD much in those circumstances. I almost got a new car in 2004: I'd test drove a Nissan Pathfinder and Honda Pilot and was saving the car I thought I probably wanted—a new 4Runner—for last. But I never test drove the 4Runner: In the midst of looking at new cars I met a certain guy, and I ended up changing my car plans and getting a husband that year instead.

Once I got married I stopped driving the 4Runner as much since my husband's car gets better mileage and he usually drives when we go places. And I was getting a little tired of driving a stick and thought I wouldn't mind finally having an automatic transmission car. Then I got pregnant, and we started talking about getting a new car for me at some point since the 4Runner doesn't have airbags. (I don't know about 4Runners today but a 1991 4Runner isn't a car, it's a truck, and back then they weren't putting airbags on trucks.) Things worked out that we were able to get a new car a little sooner than we'd planned, and a few weeks ago I started driving my "new" 2001 Mazda Tribute. Most people would probably call that an old car, too (which is kind of nice for registration and insurance purposes) but at 10 years younger than the 4Runner it's definitely "new" to me! (Newer than hubby's car, too, which is a 1998. We finally own a car made in this century!)

So all of this brings me to today, and saying goodbye to the 4Runner. When hubby took it for its annual inspection last September the mechanic who inspected it happened to say out-of-the-blue that if we ever thought about selling it he might be interested in buying it. I wasn't pregnant and we had no plans to sell it at the time, but now that we did he was the first person hubby called. Sure enough the guy wanted it, and today we signed the paperwork and gave him the car (in exchange for a fair amount of money). I know I should have taken a picture of it to post here but it all happened so fast I didn't think about it until later. Suffice it to say it's a gray 1991 Toyota 4Runner and it's gone on to its new owner now, only the second owner of its life. I have a feeling he'll treat it well and have fun with it.

I know the 4Runner is just a car and I'm definitely fine with getting rid of it, but it is kind of nice to sit back and think about it for a moment; 20 years is a long time with a car, especially one you bought new. When I lived in Oregon it went back and forth to California with me and my cat. When I got my dog the car was perfect for her: A big car for a big dog. And of course having a big car was always nice since I could carry lots of stuff (something I often did), which is particularly helpful when you're moving back and forth across the country. I should mention that my parents, who both initially thought I was crazy for wanting a SUV, ended up with SUVs themselves 10 years later. I was a trendsetter.

I'm sorry our kidlet won't get to know the 4Runner but I admit the Mazda (which is an automatic) is easier to drive now that I'm pregnant, and it'll be easier to get him in and out of his car seat since it's lower to the ground than the 4Runner is. And the Mazda is still big enough for the dog, though we'll have to see how she does with a car seat taking up half of the back seat.

Now it's onto a new era (hubby's word, not mine): An automatic transmission car and a soon-to-be kid to put in it. At least the Mazda is still an SUV so I didn't have to give up that.

Bye, 4Runner!

A Reason to Celebrate

2011-02-16T10:28:00.000-05:00

Say hello to Kidlet!

I'm Sick of It

2011-02-10T08:57:00.000-05:00

Some people start out the new year running, full of big plans to lose weight, exercise, organize their house, or accomplish something else productive. I gave up making New Year's resolutions a long time ago, but I seem to have started off this year on a different foot: With no immune system. I'm sick of being sick.

It started off with hubby being sick over Christmas. And by "sick" I mean he had a minor cold: On Christmas Day he had a very slight fever, so I made him take some Tylenol and he took a nap on the couch that afternoon. By the next day he said he felt fine (even though he was still coughing some for several days after that).

I've never met a germ that didn't like me, and sure enough three days later I started having cold symptoms and not feeling well. To make a long story short I was bedridden for four days and didn't feel close to normal for over a week. I never went to the doctor but I really wonder if I had the flu rather than a cold (even though I got the flu vaccine back in November). So much for being productive over the holidays. I'm still behind on some end-of-year paperwork stuff I usually do.

So that was last month. Fast forward to now: Two days ago I started having a sore throat, generally known as the beginning of a cold. By yesterday I was fighting a cold again, although all "fighting" seems to mean to me is a losing battle before it even starts. I'm no martyr and have no desire to share my germs with other people, but yesterday I had to be in the office for a meeting if I could at all manage it so I just tried to not breathe on people as much as I could. I'm able to work from home the rest of the week, thankfully, and HOPEFULLY I'll be better by Monday when I need to go into the office again. This week is Missions Conference at our church so I'll be missing that (hubby went to a dinner by himself last night and will probably go without me again tonight). At least I'm not bedridden (yet), so maybe this time I'll just have a normal (whatever that is) cold, get over it more quickly, and not be totally incapacitated in the process.

Graduation

2010-12-26T18:02:00.002-05:00

Graduation was a week ago and it's high time I posted some pictures. Here you go:

Walking down the aisle before things start. The departmental ceremony was held in a church.

An action shot after the ceremony.

Posing with the fake diploma. Actual diplomas will be mailed in February.

What will I do with all my free time now, you ask? That's a subject for another post.

I'M DONE!

2010-11-29T23:04:00.000-05:00

Tonight I gave my final presentation and submitted my paper online so I can finally say it: I am officially done with my master's degree. I still have two class periods left to attend (to listen to other peoples' presentations) but my part is over. Two years, countless nervous breakdowns, and a large amount of Coke and chocolate and I finally made it. I'm still getting used to the idea that I am really and truly DONE.

Four More Weeks

2010-11-06T16:59:00.000-04:00

I have four weeks left of school. Sort of.

According to the calendar it's actually five, but the last week is just one evening for the final exam period so I'm not counting that. I don't have a final exam, that time will be seven people doing their final presentations. I signed up to do mine earlier so I'll have to go and listen but I won't have to do anything myself.

So that leaves four weeks. I'm giving my presentation on November 29th, and my paper needs to be done before that, so that's only three weeks away. Hubby and I will be in California the week of Thanksgiving. Since my presentation is just a couple days after we get back I need to have at least the paper done before we leave; it'd be nice to start working on the presentation, too, though I have a feeling part of my vacation will be spent up close and personal with PowerPoint. So that gives me two weeks to complete the paper—a paper I essentially haven't started yet, of course. I'm meeting with my professor on Monday to discuss it so I'll have something to say about it by then.

As you can see, what looks like four weeks on the calendar is actually much less in reality. My paper is officially due on December 3rd, giving me a few days to edit it after my presentation. So on December 3rd—if not before—I will officially be done with this class, this semester, and my degree.

Homeward Bound

2010-10-27T18:48:00.000-04:00

I'm happy to report that my dad is going home from the hospital today; at least that was the news when I talked to my mom earlier today. I talked to my dad, too, and he sounded stronger and almost normal for the first time since he went into the hospital. He was there for 11 days and had surgery last Wednesday (I think... I lose track of time these days) so he's recovering from that now. The doctors decided he could recover just as well at home as in the hospital so that's great news all around.

In other news, I'm trying something new at the moment: Typing while lying flat on my back. I had a medical procedure this morning and while I'm not sick from it, I need to be on bed rest and be a couch potato (official terminology from the doctor) for a few days now. I have to eat meals in bed for a couple days so I asked hubby to get me a bed table for that; what he found is one that's designed for laptops. It has a stand that tilts the laptop so you can type. It even has extra USB ports on it so you can hook the computer into it along with other devices, I guess. It's very cool. It's a little awkward lying down and would probably work better if I was sitting up, but this way I figure I'm following the letter of the law and lying down like I'm supposed to be.

Typing lying down. Not quite as comfortable as it looks.

Of course no bed rest would be complete without a dog:

A special treat for doggie. She's not normally allowed on the bed.

Typing this way does make my arms tired—sounds like a good excuse to wrap this up and move to the couch to watch TV while I wait for hubby to make dinner. That's right, hubby has to make dinner while I'm horizontal. I hear we're having spaghetti.

Asking For Help

2010-10-17T12:24:00.000-04:00

I don't know what it is about asking for help, but I'm not a big fan of it. For big things, that is; when it comes to little things I'm all for it. I'll ask my hubby to open a jar, get me a drink of water, carry something heavy—that sort of thing. But when it comes to the big things I keep quiet. I'll pray quietly to God but I don't like asking people for prayer. I'll tell one or two close friends and they always say they'll pray for me, but I rarely ask.

I'm not entirely sure why this is but I've got a few ideas. For one, I'm American, and Americans are indoctrinated from birth to be independent and not rely on others for help. Okay, that's probably part of it, but it's not entirely it. Another factor is I don't like to get hurt, and if I don't tell people things then they can't hurt me when they don't live up to my expectations. That's definitely a big part of it. Hubby says that may be my plan but it doesn't work and I still end up feeling hurt and disappointed sometimes; that may be true but that pattern is still pretty ingrained in me. Last but not least, I'm a pretty private person and I don't like having to explain things, and if I don't tell people then they don't ask. Particularly when it's something that could go wrong, then I don't have to explain things if there isn't a happy ending. Like my job search: I don't talk about it on this blog for a number of reasons, but I don't always talk about it with people in-person, either. I told some people when I had interviews, but if I didn't get the job I then had to go and tell all those folks who knew I was interviewing, which was a huge pain. (For the record, I've had several interviews where I was a finalist and someone else ended up getting the job. Yes, that's the way things go and no, knowing that doesn't make it any easier.)

So back to asking for help. This morning I told a friend at church that my dad is in the hospital. She knows how busy I am and asked if I'd like her to send a prayer request to the church email list if I didn't have time. Without a second thought I shook my head and said, "No." It isn't that I don't want people to pray, it's just that sharing thing again, I don't like to broadcast things. I didn't even tell a lot of people when I had surgery (which I've now had twice in the past two years—following in my dad's footsteps a little too closely, if you ask me) and I certainly didn't use the church email list to ask for prayer. That's just too open for me. On the other hand, hubby and I are part of a small group now where one of the goals is for people to get comfortable and learn to trust and support each other. That's the kind of forum I can accept, in time. (Assuming I can get enough homework done and manage my time so I can actually attend. That's the first step.)

In the spirit of branching out I'll say that hubby and I do have some things going on right now, things that actually make it impossible for us to go to California (where my parents live) this month, regardless of the circumstances. For now there's no reason that we'd need to go and it sounds like things are under control, but it's still an added stress that I really don't need in my life right now. On top of everything else hubby is out-of-town this weekend, though he'll be back tonight. Nothing like when it rains, it pours!

I Want a Toad Hole

2010-09-18T17:06:00.002-04:00

The other day hubby and I were walking the pooch one evening when it was actually a little cooler and we didn't see many toads; hubby commented that "toading season" may be nearly over and the toads may be settling in their toad holes for the winter. I thought that sounded lovely—a nice cozy toad hole to curl up in. I want one!

Life has been ridiculously busy since I started working and I've barely had time to breathe (or sleep), let alone cook, clean, watch TV, or any of the other things people do in their daily lives. On days I have class I go straight to class from work so that makes for 12-hour days for me; over the past two weeks I had other things going on that made for several other 12-hour days in addition to just class days. (Class days are only two days a week.) I guess a lot of people live this way all the time but I'm not one of them, and I don't think I want to be long-term.

I've decided for the rest of my time at this job (it's only for a few weeks) I'm going to work M-Th and take Friday off completely, rather than work shorter hours all week. I'm not working full-time so dedicating M-Th to work gets the hours in, then I can have a three-day weekend to catch up on other things I need to do, like keep up with my one-and-only-class this semester. (This particular class is on the heavy side and feels like a full-time load itself sometimes.) On the bright side, the extra activities that overloaded my schedule for the past two weeks should be subsiding now; hopefully things will quiet down to a dull roar so I'll have a few hours each week to feel like a normal person again. "Normal" being a relative term, of course.

Something To Say

2010-09-06T10:33:00.000-04:00

I haven't been writing here much lately because: 1) I don't have time, and, 2) I haven't felt like I've had much to say recently, or at least nothing that I want to talk about on the Internet. But now I've got something to say:

I'm going back to work tomorrow.

Sort of. I mean, it's a job, but it's not the elusive (as a friend calls it) permanent position, I'm still working on that. Someone I know who owns a technical writing consulting company (yes, there are such things, quite a few of them, actually) wrote to me last week and asked if I might be available to help with some proofreading and editing. Apparently she's got a lot of files that need to be proofread and she's overwhelmed. She has several regular employees and is hiring me as a contractor for 4-6 weeks to work on this project. It's flexible hours, I probably won't work full-time (my choice), and she knows I'm looking for permanent work so I won't need to make up stories if/when other interviews come up. So it should work out well and give me something else to do for a few weeks, which will be nice.

Of course this will mean a whole new routine for me and remembering how to do things I haven't done in a while—things like having to be somewhere every morning, deal with a commute, and eat lunch in an office. I worked from home for several years before I went back to school so it's been a LONG time since I've had to make myself a lunch to take to work; I make hubby a lunch (or dinner, depending on his schedule) to take to work everyday but he's not a picky eater and I kind of am. (Okay, no "kind of" about it, I just am.) I went grocery shopping this week and got some things that should get me through this week, and I know there are a lot of websites out there with good recipes for lunches to take to work so I'm sure I can get creative if I want to take the time to do so. The good news is I may not need to be in the office everyday after the first week so that will help with the lunches and the commute. (At the moment I'm not sure how long the commute will be—especially if I try to do it during normal rush hour times—so I'll definitely try to avoid that. Hopefully it won't be more than 30-35 minutes if I can avoid traffic. Hour-long commutes are not my thing.)

To get ready for work—and because it desperately needed it—yesterday I took advantage of the nicer weather we've FINALLY been having the past couple of days and gave my car its semi-annual cleaning. (I'd like to say I'm exaggerating on the semi-annual part but, um, no.) It'll be nice to be able to see out of the windows again. And we gave doggy a bath; we wash her more than semi-annually but she definitely needed it. We usually give her a pedicure (as in cut her toenails) whenever we give her a bath so she's clicking less when she walks now, too. She'd never admit it, but I'm sure she feels better when she's all clean and fluffy again. It's just the process of getting that way that isn't so great.

I hope you all are having a wonderful Labor Day. I'm working on homework and trying to catch up on some other computer things, like finally updating this blog—that's one thing I can cross off my list!

Back to School for the Last Time

2010-08-18T12:11:00.000-04:00

Today is the first day of my last class of graduate school—only 121 days until graduation, if anyone is counting. (Why yes, yes I am.) With only one class I don't expect school to be my entire focus anymore, which will be strange since school has been my LIFE for the past year and a half. And I'm fine with that. School is fun (sometimes; sometimes not) but I'm ready to have a job and go back to the "real" world now. (Still working on that.)

My last class is a required theory (vs. application) class called "Rhetoric of Science and Technology." (I'm working on memorizing the title so I don't have to look it up all the time.) Rhetoric is an important part of writing, and even technical writing addresses the rhetorical situation of the audience. (I actually used the phrase "rhetorical situation" in my capstone presentation last semester; I was so proud.) I wasn't an English major as an undergrad so rhetoric isn't something I think about everyday, and I'll probably learn a thing or two in this course. And get more practice writing papers and doing presentations and reading what others have to say on the matter until my eyes fall out... I can't wait.

But it'll all be worth it in December when I can walk down that aisle and say, "I did it!"

Getting to Know Our Neighbors

2010-08-07T16:29:00.000-04:00

Some people get to know their neighbors by inviting them over for a barbecue or having a block party. We have termite and water damage on our house.

The rotted frame.

Hubby and I had both noticed water on the porch where there shouldn't be any after recent rains, and then hubby noticed part of the trim was buckling (more like disintegrating). When he took the trim off he discovered the extensive damage underneath.

Hubby worked in construction before we moved to North Carolina so he can do a lot of things himself, but he recognized this probably needed a professional. Thankfully, we have neighbors involved with construction. Our next-door neighbor works in sales with a local construction company, so hubby called him and asked his opinion on the matter. He came over and recommended another neighbor around the corner who does residential construction for a living, and who of course had already seen the damage while walking past our house. (It's right by the front door so kind of hard to miss.) To make a long story short, this neighbor is able to do the repairs and it worked out that he could work on it today—and hubby happens to have this weekend off—so they're out there hammering away as I type this. Fun times.

I went shopping this morning to get some badly-needed clothes and take advantage of North Carolina's sales tax holiday, then met a friend for a previously-scheduled lunch. When I got home here's what I found:

Hole in the house, anyone?

That's where a window lives, folks, not a door. Isn't it lovely?

Since I've been home another neighbor has already stopped by to introduce himself and see what's going on. Some people get to know their neighbors socially. We get to know them through rotted wood...

Flowers and Chocolate

2010-07-25T18:18:00.001-04:00

Today is my birthday. I'm still recovering from my surgery last week (as I knew I would be on my birthday this year) but I'm getting closer to normal so at least I'm on the tail end of things. More importantly, I'm spending the day surrounded by flowers and chocolate, as is appropriate for birthdays. Hubby did well; guess I'll keep him for another year. :-)

The birthday spread.

Flowers from my parents. A combination happy birthday/get well soon thing.

Flowers from hubby. Roses always work.

Chocolate ice cream cake, chocolate covered blueberries, lemon drops, and creme soda—yum.

A Need To Know

2010-07-18T16:32:00.002-04:00

I guess I should update this blog someday. It isn't that I haven't had anything to talk about lately, but when it comes to my personal life I tend to share information on a need-to-know basis. Occasionally, that need is my needing to vent, so sometimes I'll tell someone something for my sake rather than theirs. I never vent on the Internet, though, and when it comes to personal information I generally feel the Internet doesn't need to know.

One can only talk about mundane things for so long, however, so I decided I'll mention the surgery I'm having this week. Relatively minor surgery, I'm told, but nothing is ever easy with me. When I sat in the doctor's office for my pre-op appointment I casually told him, "You know I had surgery last year so I already have a scar, right? Are you going to make me symmetrical now?" It didn't occur to me that the fact that I had not-so-minor surgery a year ago might be an issue (proving once again I am NOT medically-inclined), but luckily it did raise a red flag for the doctor and it occurred to him I might have scar tissue or other potential complications due to that surgery. (And I gotta say here, this is where I wish there was a single, national medical record in this country, 'cause relying on my memory for medical things is just not a smart way to go.) Since my surgery was done here last year and in the same hospital, even, the doctor decided he needed to contact the doctor that did last year's surgery and find out more about it at the very least, and if possible have that doctor present for this surgery. Amazingly, they were in fact able to coordinate things and only needed to delay the surgery a week so both doctors could be present. The week delay means I'll most likely be recovering from surgery over my birthday, but when I found out I'd be having it I figured with Murphy's Law alive and well it was a pretty good bet that was going to happen, anyway.

The surgery is outpatient and just a few days recovery under normal circumstances, I'm told (unlike last year's where I was in the hospital for 5 days), so barring any complications I should be back to normal the following week. I've got things on my calendar then so I'm hoping that'll be the case.

So that's the story. Here are a few of my thoughts:

This is the third year in a row that I'll have been put under a general anaesthetic. That represents once a year since we moved to North Carolina. Maybe it's something in the water...
When the person from the hospital called to pre-register me for this event she looked at my chart and said, "I see you were here last year. You've got to stop meeting us this way!"
The hospital has free Wi-Fi. We'll bring the iPad so hubby won't be bored while he waits. And he may not even really need the Wi-Fi since my aunt gave me an iTunes gift card for my birthday and we've already spent most of it on several games we'd been wanting to get. Hubby has plenty to keep him busy on the iPad now.

Hopefully, while I'm recovering at home I'll be tired enough to not want to do any real work and actually lie on the couch and watch the Food Network without feeling guilty about it; that was the best part of my recovery time last year. This recovery will be much shorter so I won't have very long to forget about reality, but even if I get just a day or two of guilt-free Food Network time it'll be worth it.

The Next Step

2010-06-30T21:28:00.000-04:00

Last Friday I finished my summer class (an independent study). With my grade posted today I am officially three credits closer to my master's degree. In just a year-and-a-half I've completed 30 of the 33 credits required; no wonder I'm so tired.

My next (and last!) class doesn't start until August so that means for the first time in a long time I have some free time—no homework or due dates to stress over. So yesterday I made a blueberry pie:

I figured it was necessary.

Of course having free time doesn't mean I don't have anything to do; it just means when I don't want to clean the house now I don't have nearly as good an excuse for putting it off. And there's that ironing I haven't done in, uh, ages... And last but not least there's that job thing. Oh yeah, that.

As I've always said, I didn't go back to school for my health—I did it to catch up with the field of technical communication so I could get a job. And not just any job—a good job that I would enjoy and be challenging and utilize the skills I have. That's always been my goal as I labored away on reading and projects and everything else being a full-time graduate student entails. And now I'm done. Yes, I still have that last class left, but I'm done being a full-time student with no time to think about anything else. So, after I've taken a little time to relax without feeling guilty (well, try to do that, at least), and catch up with things around the house, I'm planning on starting my job search in earnest. As they say, searching for a job is a full-time job; now I'll finally have the time to do it. Wish me luck.

Exercise

2010-06-16T16:16:00.002-04:00

I don't know what it is about exercise but I seem to avoid it. Don't get me wrong, I love feeling exercised, I just don't seem to like the process of getting there. (I also like having a clean house but I'm not so keen on actually cleaning it.) Numerous times over the past year I've told myself I'm going to get into a routine and really be serious about it, and just as many times I've had a ready excuse not to do it. Granted, over the past year that's usually been because of school, so it's also been an accurate excuse, but given how much time I waste on other things I'm sure I could have fit in exercising if I'd really wanted to.

It's not like I don't have any good reasons to exercise, either. I've had back and hip problems off and on for a while and my body usually feels like a pretzel, and I know I have fewer problems (and feel less pretzel-like) whenever I exercise. Last year I was diagnosed with osteoporosis (something I am way too young to have, might I add) so I know I need to exercise to keep that at bay as well. Hubby even bought me some weights a while back, which I really ought to use more than I do. (My plan was to use them while I watch TV, but quite frankly I hardly ever just sit in front of the TV.)

This time of year I even have the opportunity to swim. Our subdivision has a pool which we pay to use as part of our homeowner association fees. Last summer I found out the pool is open for adult lap swim before it officially opens for the day, so I took advantage of that and swam in the morning when I could. The pool opened a month ago and I'd planned on doing that again this year, but somehow I just couldn't get myself motivated to do it again—until this week. I've gone twice now and even though I'm horribly out-of-shape I definitely feel better so hopefully I'll keep it up. I usually try to go around 8:00 or so and I usually have the pool to myself, which is really nice.

So we'll see how long this lasts. On the bright side, I've got less than two weeks left of my summer class so when that's done I'll finally get a break and really have free time to exercise (and no excuse not to). On the other hand, I'm hoping to get a job sooner rather than later, and when that happens I'm not sure how exercising (or anything else) will fit into my daily routine, which will take some getting used to after having a rather unstructured daily schedule for so long. Guess I'd better enjoy exercising while it lasts.

It's a Miracle

2010-06-02T10:36:00.002-04:00

His name is Moe.

The weekend was tough. Little Guy did quiet down and seemed to get more used to things after the first night. We have a dog house on our deck that our dog never uses, and Little Guy took to it and made it his, spending most of his time in there when he wasn't walking around. He slept there (he's a very sound sleeper) and was warm and safe. He also stayed in there and stayed dry when it rained Monday night and Tuesday; unlike our dog who ignores the dog house and stands in the rain and gets wet.

He didn't bark as much as when we first brought him home but he did whimper sometimes, particularly when he woke up from a nap and was disoriented, I think. When I heard him I'd go outside to pet him and reassure him, then he'd settle down for a while again. Naturally, I got pretty attached to him and the thought of taking him to the shelter to let him die there got harder and harder, even though I knew it's what we had to do.

We took him to the shelter yesterday, getting there about 45 minutes before they closed. They scanned for a microchip and didn't find one, as we'd suspected. But then a miracle happened: When hubby was giving them the information on where we found him we said we lived in a subdivision and they asked for its name (every subdivision around here has a name), and when hubby said it the shelter worker said he thought the owners were in earlier looking for him. He went and got a flyer that described the dog and specifically mentioned they lived across the street from our subdivision. His name is Moe, he's 16-years-old, and HE HAS A HOME. While we stood there the man called the owners and told them we'd found their dog. We weren't going straight home after dropping him off or we would have taken him home ourselves, so we ended up leaving him at the shelter and his owners came out and got him. It was getting closer to closing time by then and I wasn't sure they could make it there fast enough that evening, but the shelter worker said since they knew the owners were coming they'd stay open a few minutes late for them (which they did).

So "Moe" wasn't starving when we found him after all; he was just thin because he's old. He's a very good eater and likes his food—and what we fed him was different than his usual—so that's why it seemed like he was hungry all the time. His toenails were long because his owners hadn't trimmed them during his last bath, it turned out, and they knew they needed to be cut. The shelter couldn't give the owners our information but we had theirs, so when we got home a couple hours later we stopped by their house to meet them. They were so thankful and appreciative. And there was Moe, in his own house, lying on the carpet next to the couch. When he saw us he came up to us wagging his tail, obviously recognizing us, then he settled back in his spot while we talked to his owners. Apparently we found him right after he wandered off on Saturday; if we hadn't taken him home maybe he would have wandered back home on his own after all, who knows. His owners had each thought he was with someone else in the house and they didn't realize he was missing until Sunday morning. When they realized it they called everywhere putting out a search for him, though if there were flyers we didn't see them in our neighborhood when we were walking our dog over the weekend. Thankfully, and amazingly, we connected with them through the shelter 25 miles from our home; a county shelter that is about as far away from us as it can be and still be in the same county.

Of course I'm relieved and overjoyed that Moe's story ended this way. A simple tag on his collar could have avoided a lot of anguish on both sides; they said he's had tags before and lost them, and a phone number written on his collar had faded off. But he did have a microchip: Apparently it was farther up on his shoulders and when they scanned for it at the shelter when we were there they didn't run the scanner high enough to find it. His owners said when they picked him up they scanned for it again—higher this time—and found it. The bottom line is Moe is home now and will live out his life where he belongs: With his family that loves him. Praise God.

Little Guy

2010-05-30T11:49:00.000-04:00

Yesterday while hubby and I were walking the pooch we came upon a stray dog. He's smaller than our dog so I called him, "Little Guy." Since he was in our subdivision at first we thought he was lost, particularly because he had a collar, but he had no tags and now we think he's probably a stray. He's very old (probably 14 or 15 I'd guess), thin, losing hair on his back and tail, walks stiffly, it looks like he has cataracts, and I think he may have trouble hearing, too. When we found him his toenails were so long he could barely walk. We wonder if he was abandoned because he's old, as terrible as that thought is. Yet he's a very sweet dog: We brought him home and fed him, and hubby was able to clip his toenails so that helped, at least. Our backyard is fenced in (for our dog) so he's safe there. Our dog was interested in him at first but since he isn't playful she just ignores him now, which is fine.

Little Guy was quiet at first but now he wants to be with us and we're not letting him inside, so he's been barking; he barked off and on for a good portion of the night (keeping us awake) and he's been doing the same through the morning. I don't blame him but unfortunately there's nothing we can do about it, we just have to hope he quiets down on his own and our neighbors don't lynch us in the process.

Our subdivision has an e-mail list so I sent a message to it about him, but we aren't surprised that we haven't had any responses. We aren't prepared to keep him so we'll take him to the animal shelter as soon as we can; of course it's not only a weekend, it's a holiday weekend, so we won't be able to take him to the shelter until they reopen on Tuesday. We have to take him to the county shelter and we live at the edge of the county; naturally the shelter is all the way on the other side, about as far as it can be from us and still be in the same county (about 25 miles away). Naturally.

Getting through the next two days is going to be tough (hopefully he'll quiet down and we'll get some sleep). The thought of stray animals always breaks my heart and makes me sick to my stomach. I hate the thought of taking him to the shelter where they'll probably end up putting him to sleep, but we know it's the right thing to do. At least he'll be taken care of and die humanely there, rather than starving or being hit by a car. In the meantime we'll deal with the inconvenience and keep him safe, fed, and give him attention when we can, which I guess is the best we can do.

What's in a Name?

2010-05-20T16:02:00.001-04:00

I'm trying to come up with a name.

One of my projects for this summer is to put together a WordPress blog. This will be a professional/personal blog: It'll be a personal blog since it won't be sponsored by my (future) employer (whoever that turns out to be) and I won't be representing them, but I'll be discussing professional topics related to the field of technical communication. So I'm trying to come up with a name for my new blog. In doing so I'm considering several factors:

The URL must be available. To simplify searching the blog title and the URL should match. When I know the name of a site I often type it into the address bar directly rather than search for it through a search engine. Using my name as the URL is definitely one way of identifying the site with me, but these days it's more common to tie the URL to the name of the site and identify yourself on your blog in other ways.

The name should reflect what I'm talking about. This is tricky. I'm planning on talking about technical communication, but that encompasses a broad range of topics and I haven't narrowed it down to individual facets of the field yet. Which tells me I should probably think about this more before I start my blog, including coming up with a list of tags I intend to use.

The name should reflect my personality. Personal branding is a big concept these days and this blog will become part of my personal brand. In my mind, how this works into the title is in what types of words I use. Does my title include an action verb? Alliteration? A made-up word? How I put the words I choose together can reflect a little about who I am.

The name shouldn't be too long. One word probably isn't enough for me but 16 words is definitely too long. There's a happy medium out there, I just have to find it.

I read quite a few technical communication blogs (see the sidebar on this blog) so I've seen plenty of good examples and I've come up with a few ideas that are definite possibilities. I haven't come up with that one, magical, "This is it!" name, though, so I'm still thinking. But soon I'll settle on a name, register the domain, do some design work and be off and running. Ultimately, while the name may catch people's attention it's the content that will keep bringing them back. That's where the real fun begins.

More Pics

2010-05-16T16:20:00.000-04:00

I thought I'd post a few more pictures I've taken of things around the house lately. Everyone likes pictures, right?

My roses are doing a lot better this year; last year some of them got blackspot and lost most of their leaves. This year I gave them some food and medicine, which seems to have helped. The large rose in the foreground was pretty resistant to it last year even without treatment and this year it's gotten even bigger with lots of blooms. The one in the background isn't nearly as big though it has had some blooms, so I'm happy.

This little rose was given to me in the hospital when I had surgery last year. I planted it and it's done very well this year with lots of blooms.

I've planted herbs in a planter on the deck for a couple years now and this year they're doing really well; giving up on seeds and starting with small plants definitely helps. I've got more thyme and basil than I know what to do with. See that chive in the background? (It's on the right behind the tall basil.) That is from a seed—from two years ago, I think. It's dormant in the winter but now it just keeps on growing and won't quit. Nice for the rare time we want a chive.

We miss having a garden. We had a small one in California but here in North Carolina we chose a house with a backyard full of trees and there's nowhere to put a garden. We really miss tomatoes, so since the deck is the one place that gets sun we thought we'd try a tomato in a pot. As you can see it's doing really well! It has over a dozen tomatoes-in-progress on it now and lots of flowers so we're expecting a good crop. Fresh tomatoes—yum.

This is a baby bluebird. (Well, probably a juvenile bluebird, more accurately.) Since I got home from church today I've been watching this little guy and his (or her) sibling come to our suet feeder with their parent. They're really cute.

And, last but not least...

It's toading season! I found this little guy at the bottom of our deck steps; I've seen him there several times lately so I think he lives there. Since I name all of our toad friends I've named him "Hoppy." We have to make sure we (and the dog) don't step on him when we go down the steps. It's always nice to have a resident toad.

Recharging

2010-05-15T10:44:00.000-04:00

My handful of regular readers have probably noticed I haven't posted anything new lately. No, I haven't abandoned this blog, until recently I've just been too busy to keep up with it. Since defending my capstone project almost a month ago (wow, has it been a month already?) I've completed my last project for my other class, gone to the other side of the state for a meeting, finished the semester, cleaned the house, travelled to Dallas for a conference, and had hubby's parents come to visit. All of the activity overloaded this poor introvert's circuits so I've now spent the last week recharging by staying home and trying to remember my name. I've also attempted to catch up on things that inevitably got left by the wayside while I was running from one thing to another, though I've come to the conclusion that my feeling caught up on everything that needs to be done may be as elusive as my winning the lottery. (Particularly since I've never bought a lottery ticket in my life.)

To make up for lost time I thought I'd post a few random pictures I've taken of things over the past few weeks. I'm not an avid photographer by any means, but I remembered to bring my camera along most of the time and occasionally I even remembered to use it.

An otter at the Asheville Nature Center. I can't tell you how many pictures I had to take before he finally posed for me this way. That little guy books!

The Hyatt Regency Dallas, where the conference I went to was held.

Results of strawberry picking with hubby's parents. Strawberry pie, anyone?

A Note to Mississippians

2010-04-24T22:12:00.000-04:00

To the Mississippians who read my blog: I hope you're all okay! I don't know where you all live exactly but I read about the tornado that ripped through Mississippi today and the damage it caused. As a native Californian I've never experienced a tornado and can't imagine what it's like (and hope I'll never know), but I really hope none of you were in its path. My prayers are with all of the people who were affected by it.

Please post or comment when you can!

Pass, you're done!

2010-04-21T14:23:00.000-04:00

I successfully defended my capstone project last night and got the coveted, "Pass, you're done," from my advisors. (Versus the other option, "Pass, but...," meaning they want you to revise something in your document.) Yeah! I pretty much memorized my presentation so I'm looking forward to forgetting it and freeing up some space in my over-crowded brain.

Now it's onto my next assignment, something for my other class which is due today and turning into a bigger ordeal than I'd envisioned. It's always something!

A Big Day

2010-04-20T11:18:00.000-04:00

Tonight I defend my capstone project—seems like the time has just flown by, doesn't it? (The answer to that is no, it doesn't, it just sounded good so I thought I'd try it.) Over the next two weeks the 12 of us doing our capstone projects this semester will be presenting them to the class, our advisors, and anyone else who wants to come. Three of us will be going each night; tonight is the first round. Each presentation is about 20 minutes long with a few minutes of questions from your advisors at the end. The class meets at 7:30 p.m. and I'll be going last, so I expect I won't get started until close to 8:30 p.m. I'll have to be pretty entertaining to keep everyone awake! (Then again, if my advisors choose to dose off that might not be such a bad thing, it could make the questioning session much easier.)

While getting past this is definitely an important milestone, I've still got assignments to finish up for my other class, unfortunately, so it's not quite the finality you like to envision with this sort of thing. And I've got that independent study to do this summer, and one more class to take next fall... Then I'll breathe that huge sigh of relief and say, "I'm done!"

Broken Blog and Other Things

2010-04-12T10:43:00.001-04:00

If you've looked at my blog lately you've probably noticed it doesn't look quite right. The sidebars now have light text on a light background which makes them very difficult to read. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about it. It's happening because the colors are part of the template, and the template is drawing color blocks from other Web sites. Something must have happened to the page that has the sidebar color block. I've noticed it's happened before but it's always managed to fix itself. It's been several days now so maybe the break is permanent this time. The only way for me to fix it would be to put together a new template, and needless to say I don't have time to do that right now. So, I'm ignoring it. At least my posts are still readable.

In other news, this is how my hubby spends his time off:

Can you guess what this is?

That, my friends, is a pollen ball—pure pollen mixed with a little bit of water. After working seven days in a row this is how my hubby starts his day off, by making a pollen ball. I'm so proud.

A Word About Seasons

2010-04-04T22:01:00.001-04:00

I'd like to have a word with the people who told me when we moved to North Carolina I'd get to experience seasons. News flash: "Too hot," "too cold," and "pollen" are not seasons. Geesh.

Last summer, when I sweltered in the humidity, my husband said to just wait until fall, then it would be nice. Well, fall lasted all of about 3 weeks before winter hit, and it was a long, colder-than-usual winter, so I'm told. Don't get me wrong, I like winter, but I think if it's gonna be cold I should also get to enjoy some snow. We did get snow twice over the winter but it was cold a lot more than that.

Then there's this spring thing, or so they tell me. Yes, things are starting to bloom and it's very pretty, but weather-wise we had about 3 days of spring before it seems to have turned to summer. I am just not into summer in April, thank you very much. It's been in the 80's for the past few days and supposed to get to 90 before it cools down toward the end of the week. Overnight we went from having the heat on to needing to turn on the air conditioner. Not good for the utility bills at all.

Last but not least, there's the pollen. Didn't have to deal with that in California. Something else that happens overnight: Yesterday everything started turning yellow. Today, all the cars are covered with it. I only wash my car twice a year here, it seems, and naturally yesterday I finally got to it because my car was so embarrassingly dirty. It's in the garage now and I'm afraid to take it out. SIGH...

Let me be clear: If we're going to have seasons here then there should be four of 'em, and spring and fall should get equal time with summer and winter. Pollen is not a season, it's just annoying. (Ok, maybe not for the pine trees.) And seriously, a couple months of not needing the heat or the air conditioner is required to keep up with the utility bills the rest of the year. Otherwise it's just not right!

End of the Tunnel

2010-03-25T13:30:00.001-04:00

My regular readers have probably noticed I haven't been posting quite as frequently lately. As you can probably imagine, things have just been too busy trying to keep up with graduate school without having a serious nervous breakdown in the process. (And I've had plenty of minor breakdowns along the way.) Going back to school full-time has definitely brought several "What was I thinking?!??!" moments, but I know in the end I'll be glad to have done the program this way.

The good news is I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. After this semester (which isn't over yet, I have to keep reminding myself) I'll have two classes left, and I was originally planning on taking both of them next fall. (One is a required course I have to take in the fall, the other is an elective.) Then I thought it'd be nice to take the elective over the summer if I could, get that out of the way and only have the one required course in the fall. The problem is there aren't a lot of classes offered during the summer sessions and the type of elective I need to take isn't available. In the meantime, though, there is a class I really wanted to take this semester but couldn't due to my schedule and workload, so I'd talked to the professor about doing the work for the class on my own over the summer on a casual basis, just so I could learn the material and not totally miss out. To make a long story short (or shorter, at least), my advisor is letting me do the work for the class I couldn't take as an independent study course over the summer, so I'll not only get credit for work I was already planning to do, but he's allowing me to do this in lieu of taking the other type of elective. This is allowing me to make the most of my program, molding it to my goals and what I want to get out of it rather than molding myself to fit it.

For the independent study I'll be compressing a 16-week course into a 5-week summer session, but I've already put together the schedule I'll follow and it's doable. I took a summer course last summer so I'm familiar with the 5-week concept, which helps. What this all means is that on June 25th—the day my independent study will officially end—I'll have only one course left in my graduate studies. I probably won't have much time to breathe between now and June 25th to get it all done, but being able to see the end of the tunnel there definitely helps motivate me now.

Last but not least, finishing the program this way means I'll be able to start my job search several months earlier than I'd originally planned. Living on one income and our savings has been so much fun, of course (or not), but I'm ready to start earning money again sooner rather than later. More importantly, I'm more than ready to put what I've been learning into practice, which has been the goal all along here. If I was taking two classes in the fall I wouldn't want to work full-time while I did that (many people do, I know, but I wouldn't want to), but having just one evening class will allow me to go back to work full-time if the opportunity arises. I definitely hope it will arise and I'll be working toward that. Just last night I got a possible job lead that would be the right timing and could possibly turn into something, so I'm already keeping my eyes and ears open for that perfect job.

If you don't see me much over the next couple of months now you know why. (Well, more specifically that you probably guessed already, anyway.) As part of my independent study I'm also going to be putting together a new blog, which I plan to host on my own Web site. (A Web site I don't have yet, but will.) My goal for that blog is to focus on topics in the field of technical communication; I'm not exactly sure what topics yet, but something where I can contribute to the technical communication community. I'll probably still maintain this blog as a purely personal blog; after all, I need a place to post pictures of the pooch!

Lazy dog.

Smart Dog

2010-03-18T18:31:00.002-04:00

I think our dog is pretty smart. That is, she knows how to communicate and tell us what she wants.

Last night hubby and I were sitting on the couch watching TV, and doggie was lying on the floor. She got up and looked at us and wagged her tail as if she wanted her nighttime biscuits; she'd already had them, though, so I told hubby she probably wanted to go out. He got up to let her out, at which point she ran around the coffee table, jumped onto the couch where he'd been sitting, settled down and put her head in my lap, then looked up at him with her big brown eyes as if to say, "What?" Apparently doggie was trying to tell us that hubby was sitting in her spot on the couch (which he was) and she wanted to sit there! While laughing, hubby called her a conniving little mutt. I thought she was pretty smart.

Not to let the dog get the last word hubby squeezed in next to her, which she thought was just fine. She didn't move, of course; after all it was her spot. But she's willing to share. She's a snuggly dog and likes to be close to her folks.

Spring Break

2010-03-10T11:09:00.000-05:00

Spring break is coming up next week and I've been making plans. Wanna hear them?

Take one entire day off from school work to go shopping with my husband. We both need clothes. Really. We've been putting it off way too long.
Clean the house. ('Nuff said.)
Have lunch with a friend.
Write the majority of the content for my capstone project and put together a 30-page document for my other class.

I really wonder why they call it spring break; "break" is such a misnomer when you're a grad student. There's really nothing "break" about it.

Vancouver 2010

2010-02-27T13:37:00.000-05:00

I've been watching the Winter Olympics this year and I can't resist making a few comments about them. I'm struck not by just how different the athletes are but how differently they're treated by their home countries.

When I was watching the ladies' figure skating the announcers emphasized the pressure the two favorites, Kim Yu-Na of South Korea and Mao Asada of Japan, were under. Not just the pressure of being in the Olympics and wanting to do well, but enormous pressure from their countries: These girls were expected to win gold. One of the announcers commented that winning silver would be a huge disappointment. I have to agree, the expression on Mao Asada's face during the medal ceremony certainly reflected that sentiment. I don't follow figure skating except for the Olympics so I'd never heard of either girl, but apparently they're both huge celebrities in their home countries. Kim, they said, makes $8-$9 million dollars a year marketing every product imaginable. If she hadn't won gold apparently she would have disappointed her country and could have lost her celebrity status, and I gather Mao Asada may face a similar fate with "only" a silver medal at the Olympics. I think that's absolutely horrible and an astronomic weight for these 19-year-old girls to bear.

Then there was Canada's Joannie Rochette, skating only days after her mother died suddenly from a heart attack while at the Games. From my limited perspective she's received only praise and support from her country and the world in choosing to deal with her emotions as she sees fit. Yes, she won the bronze medal, but I doubt anyone in her country or otherwise would have treated her any differently if she hadn't won a medal, or if she'd chosen not to compete at all.

Watching Apolo Ohno compete in the short track has definitely been entertaining, and the expectations he endures from the U.S. appear to be a huge contrast from those of the Asian figure skaters. Apparently, Apolo has also become a celebrity in the United States; when I heard his name I recognized it from previous Olympics but otherwise I've been oblivious to his growing fortune and fame. (I don't watch Dancing with the Stars, which he apparently competed in and won in 2007, so that probably has something to do with my ignorance regarding his social standing.) What struck me about Apolo, though, was his maturity, both in how he handled the actual races (demonstrating his experience in the sport and in international competitions), and in how he handled the results, whatever direction they took. While Apolo certainly had pressure on him and undoubtedly hoped to become the most decorated U.S. Winter Olympian, I never felt that he was carrying the weight of his country on his back the way the figure skaters were. I certainly hope Apolo didn't have to worry about losing a product endorsement if he happened to make a mistake in a race and didn't win a medal. Being disqualified in the final heat of the 500-meter race probably would have been devastating to other racers but Apolo handled it with such poise (in front of the cameras, at least, and you want to assume he handles things equally well in private), accepting, as Phil Taylor of SI.com put it, "the seemingly random twists of fate that can make or break a speedskater on the short track." Taylor's article doesn't focus on the disqualification but instead notes that Apolo has, "grown into a great Olympian and more importantly, a mature man." I think that's a greater testament to the man, his sport, and his country than any gold medal could ever be.

Some Notes on My Interview with Adobe

2010-02-23T11:37:00.003-05:00

Recently, I was interviewed by RJ Jacquez, Senior Product Evangelist at Adobe. I met RJ over Twitter and have communicated with him about a variety of topics, including Adobe Community Help, which is the subject of the interview. You can read the full interview here:

Interview with Peggy Harvey - The Future of Documentation: Adobe Community Help

RJ conducted the interview using Adobe Buzzword through Acrobat.com, a collaboration tool that allowed us to edit the same document without having to send files back and forth through e-mail. Since we're in different time zones we took turns editing the document, notifying each other through Twitter's direct messaging when the document was ready for the other person to respond. In this way we completed the interview over a few weeks without any disruptions to our regular schedules.

I really enjoyed doing the interview and thinking more about how user assistance is changing in the 21st century. As I finish up my master's program and get ready to re-enter the workforce as a technical communicator, I'll be looking for opportunities where I can contribute toward the type of collaboration Adobe encourages, merging user-generated content with official product documentation to create a more unified user experience.

UPDATE: If you'd like to learn more about how companies incorporate user-generated content you can read my original paper, Enabling User Interactivity with Documentation, now shared on Acrobat.com.

Headed Toward Employment

2010-02-12T08:02:00.000-05:00

Even though I'm still a little while away from graduating I've started thinking more about getting a job. My focus this year is to have a job next year, and you have to sow your seeds before you can harvest them, right? For me, that means working on networking and establishing relationships now, while I'm not looking for a job, in order to have those contacts available when I am job searching later on.

One thing I've found is that people in industry are generally very receptive to students, or at least people in my field are. My theory is that students are less threatening; especially in today's economy, people who have jobs are used to being asked for help by people who don't have jobs. Students in the middle of their program generally aren't asking for jobs, so there isn't as much pressure involved in talking to them. I've taken advantage of this numerous times already, talking to people in my field about various projects I'm doing. It's made my projects more relevant and contributed toward that all-important networking, getting my name out there as someone who takes initiative and has the drive to succeed.

Recently I've had another reason to think about employment more closely. Last week I was notified that the Society for Technical Communication selected me for their Sigma Tau Chi Award, which honors students with the potential to distinguish themselves in the technical communication profession. I'm told only a few students are selected each year. Besides being a great boost for my resume, receiving the award (or being inducted into the honor society, as it's also put) helps affirm the direction I ultimately want to take into leadership roles when I return to the working world.

A Tribute

2010-02-04T18:17:00.001-05:00

I thought I'd write this now even though things haven't happened yet. I doubt it'll be any easier later, and maybe it will help me process things now. When I post this we will have said good-bye to my cat.

I've had my cat for nearly a third of my life so making the decision to have her put to sleep is very hard even though I know it's her time. The vet confirmed her kidneys have all but failed and she probably isn't very comfortable. She's so thin she's just skin and bones now, it seems. She hadn't been eating very much before we took her to the vet although gourmet cat food seems to have helped with that somewhat, at least temporarily.

I got her from the pound when I was a graduate student in Oregon. I was on my own for the first time and wanted a pet. For the first year I lived in an apartment that didn't allow pets, but then I moved to one that did. I remember going to the pound that day in January, 1994: When I said I was looking for a kitten they said they didn't have any. I asked if I could still look around, though, and there she was. They said she was about 9-months-old so that's why they said they didn't have any kittens, but she was young enough for me. Apparently, an older woman had taken her and returned her because she was too active; the woman wanted an older cat that would be calmer. A young, active cat was perfect for me.

I went home to California for vacations and brought her with me. Friends had told me horror stories about cats getting carsick so I did a trial run first, taking her on about a 30-minute round-trip drive. She did fine and took several 950-mile (one-way) trips with me back and forth between California and Oregon. One time she flew with me as my carry-on luggage. The first time I drove to California with her I set up the back of the car with her food, water, litter box, and towels to curl up on; she spent the majority of the trip on the passenger seat next to me instead. (Making me find a different home for my snacks so she'd have a place to sit.) She'd eat and use her box during the drives, and at night she would look out the windows at the cars and trucks going by.

Before hubby came along (and even sometimes after) we'd have breakfast together: She'd sit on the kitchen table while I ate my cereal, then when I finished she'd lick the small amount of milk left in the bowl. Here in North Carolina she liked to sit on the back of the couch sometimes; we bought a blanket to put up there just for her. Often she would nuzzle up to hubby's head when he sat on the couch. She didn't do it to me as much; I guess she thought hubby's hair smelled nicer than mine.

I'll also never forget the time the basement apartment I rented in Oregon flooded due to heavy rains. I woke up one morning and saw my poor kitty going "squish, squish, squish" across the carpet. Then there was the time I tried to give her a bath... It was a bloody experience (for me) and I decided from then on she did a perfectly fine job bathing herself.

When I got my dog it took time to adjust to twice as many feet in the house. Now it will feel empty with half of them gone.

She stayed with my parents when I spent two months in Africa, then moved with me through two rentals and to the first home I owned in California. She learned to tolerate a dog and then a husband, then made the 2,600-mile journey with us from California to North Carolina. I know she's had a good life but it's still so hard to say good-bye.

I'll miss you.

Coho
1993 - 2010

Togetherness

2010-02-02T17:31:00.000-05:00

Snow!

2010-01-30T16:00:00.002-05:00

It doesn't snow very often in our neck of the woods so when it does we have to take advantage of it. For me, that means breaking out the cross-country skis I got when I lived in Oregon. (After I'd learned to ski in Alaska... Long story.) Below are pictures of our winter wonderland, some of which we took as I skied around the neighborhood and hubby followed along with the dog. One of these days we'll have to get hubby some cross-country skis so he can join in the fun!

A pile of snow greeted us outside our back door when we woke up this morning. Doggie wasn't sure how to get through it!

Snow piled around the dog house.

Can I come in now?

Our roses buried in the snow.

Hubby and doggie out for a walk.

Skiing down the street!

We saw this snowman as we were going around the neighborhood. It was so cute I had to have a picture.

Our happy family.

One Word

2010-01-27T10:52:00.002-05:00

The DJ's on K-LOVE's morning show have been been doing a program on "My One Word" this week, asking people to select one word as a kind of "New Year's Resolution" for 2010. Some words I've heard people use are "purpose", "available", "present", and "dream". When I heard the challenge I immediately knew my one word for 2010:

GRADUATE

It may not be the most spiritual or enlightening word but that's definitely it.

What's your word?

(Note: K-LOVE's blog post on the topic directs readers to the Choose Your Word Web site for help in choosing an appropriate word. If it doesn't immediately come to you like mine did, that is.)

Stumbling Into the 21st Century

2010-01-25T12:25:00.002-05:00

I caved. Actually, hubby caved, I just drooled. Here's a picture of my new toy:

It's really Amazon's fault. As I mentioned in a previous post I'd been thinking about getting a smartphone, but after thinking about it and talking it over with my husband I decided not to get one for now. I kept thinking about it, though, which is odd for me once I've made a decision about something. I probably still wouldn't have one, though, if it hadn't been for Amazon.

Since our desktop computer died we had to replace it, and after two days of research I ordered a new one from Amazon last week. They said it wouldn't ship until mid-February; I didn't know why it would take so long but it was a good deal so we figured we'd live without a desktop until then. (I got a laptop when I started school so we weren't completely computerless.) Then, last Saturday, I got an e-mail from Amazon that said the following:

"Due to a lack of availability from our suppliers, we will not be able to obtain the following item(s) from your order... We've cancelled the item(s) and apologize for the inconvenience."

That meant we were back to square one with getting a new computer, so since we were planning on going out to run some errands on Saturday, anyway, we went to Best Buy to see what they had and talk to an actual person (which had been my original plan once upon a time, anyway). I hadn't thought about it but of course Best Buy is in the cell phone business now, and when we walked in the first thing we saw were all those phones. Hubby hadn't seen the Droid Eris himself yet so I showed it to him, and as I commented once again how pretty it was he said, "Let's get you the phone. Happy Birthday." (My birthday isn't for another six months so he just made that up.) Thanks to discounts and deals we ended up paying only half what I thought we would for the phone itself, and hubby ended up getting a free one for himself—all in all a pretty productive day. Since I've never used a smartphone before (or a touchscreen) it took me a couple days to figure out how it worked but I've gotten the hang of it now and am having lots of fun with it. And it's so pretty. 21st century, here I come!

Oh, and we got the new computer, too: Best Buy ended up having the next model of the one I'd ordered from Amazon. The model I'd originally chosen came out last November (I think) and this newer model came out in January. It hasn't been in the stores very long (only a couple weeks, the salesperson thought) and it may not have even been on the Web site yet when I was looking at computers before. So we ended up getting an even faster computer with a ridiculously large hard drive (1 TB) for only a little bit more than the other one would have cost. Here's a picture of our shiny new computer:

Isn't it shiny? I've never had such a shiny desktop computer.

Unfortunately, hubby still can't play one of his games on it: Apparently that particular game requires a 3D video card, which the computer doesn't have. Interestingly, he's sure he played the game on the laptop before but it doesn't have a 3D card, either, and when we tried it gave the same error about the video card as the desktop. Oh well, we knew that might be the case. For now, enough is enough. We'll upgrade the video card on the desktop at a later date.

Goodbye, Part 2

2010-01-20T10:33:00.000-05:00

Hubby had fun with the old computer last night. It's now an empty shell and a bucket of parts.

Goodbye to an Old Friend

2010-01-18T16:19:00.005-05:00

Hubby and I are saying goodbye to an old friend this week. Well, not really a friend, and more like good riddance and no love lost, but definitely old. Our desktop computer has died.

When we took the computer to my school's IT department I asked them to not even look for the virus and just wipe the drive and rebuild the system. As I mentioned in the post about the virus I got the computer in 2002 (brand new and state-of-the-art then) so it was no spring chicken here in 2010. I used that computer to work from home for several years and it occurred to me there was undoubtedly all kinds of junk on it I hadn't been able to uninstall (mostly due to services related to databases and other corporate applications, I imagine), and a good wiping was probably just what it needed. The IT guys checked it out when we got there and said they'd be happy to work on it, but warned that due to its age they might have trouble reloading some of the hardware drivers (due to their not existing anymore). We said that was fine and left them to do their best.

Turned out the drivers weren't a problem. Or at least they don't know if they were. The person working on it never got that far: After reformatting the drive multiple times he couldn't reload the Windows XP operating system. He described everything he did to try to get it to work before calling me; I felt sorry for him going to all that trouble, but on the other hand he gets paid for all the work he did on it (since it's his job) so better him than me. He doesn't know what happened between the time we brought it in and when he started working on it but his guess is it's something physically wrong with the hard drive itself—the thing is just old and it wore out. (Happens to the best of us, eh?) Tomorrow hubby and I are going to pick up the computer to say goodbye... Or more like bring it home to take it apart and salvage some of its parts.

More importantly, now that the computer is a confirmed casualty it means we need a new one to replace it. I have a laptop I use for school but the desktop was our household computer (and the one hubby uses for everything), and frankly I'm just not comfortable having only one computer in the house now, sad as that sounds. We really don't need another laptop so we're getting a new desktop; desktops are a lot cheaper than laptops but they're also harder to find these days! My school bookstore doesn't even sell them (only laptops). I did some research and consulted with my dad (who knows a thing or two about computers) and I found one that will suit us just fine:

I ordered it from Amazon the other day. (They happened to have the one I was looking at for a cheaper price than where I originally found it.) It says it will take 2-4 weeks to ship so we won't get it until sometime in mid-February; I don't know why it'll take so long, maybe they have to build it from scratch or something. Oh well, we'll live with just one computer in the house until then and hubby will just have to use the laptop to check his e-mail when I'm not on it.

There is one happy result from all this. (Not that I consider any of this particularly "unhappy" other than the days I wasted trying to eradicate the virus myself). The new computer will have an updated video card (compared to the one from eight years ago) so hubby will finally be able to play some games on it. He has one particular game that he couldn't play on the old desktop due to the video card; he loaded it on the laptop and it works fine, but since I'm always on the laptop he never gets it for long enough to play it. With the new desktop he should be able to play it to his heart's content, and it opens up the possibility of getting more games in the future. (Can you say birthday present idea?) Not that hubby is a huge gamer and he doesn't have a lot of time to play them, anyway, but at least now he'll have the option to waste (I mean spend) some time playing some computer games if he wants to.

The Sentinel

2010-01-11T13:10:00.000-05:00

The Virus

2010-01-07T18:47:00.000-05:00

How to deal with a computer virus:

Spend two days playing system administrator, running every virus and malware scan imaginable to try and track down something. Without knowing exactly what you're doing. Hope the computer still boots when you're done.
Become immensely frustrated.
Order pizza.
Buy an external hard drive to backup data to prepare the computer to have its drive wiped.
Take the computer to NC State University's IT department and let them deal with it.

I haven't actually done step #5 yet but that's next. We have two computers in our house: A laptop we got for me to use for school and a desktop I've had since 2002. Even though the desktop is archaic by computer standards it works fine for our purposes, particularly since I have the laptop to use for newer, space-hog and memory-intensive programs. About a week ago the desktop started notifying us that the virus definitions hadn't been updated in over 14 days. Then when I tried to run LiveUpdate (which should be running automatically) nothing happened. (The desktop uses an old copy of Symantec Anti-Virus. It did its job just fine until recently!) Finally, when I tried to go to the Symantec Web site in any browser it failed (with different errors depending on the browser). Further testing revealed I couldn't get to the McAfee site, either, and clicking on Google links to anti-virus related sites were often redirected. Eventually it dawned on me these were all probably signs of a virus.

This was supposed to be my week "off." I thought I'd finally have time to attack various things on my list that never get done, and start working on my capstone project for this semester. Instead, with classes starting in only three days, my list is virtually untouched and I'm feeling way behind where I wanted to be with the project. Instead of working on those things I lost two days of my life to a computer: Not sitting in front of it getting work done like I'd planned, but attempting to deal with the first computer virus of my computing life. (Since my dad worked with computers we had computers in our house way before it was fashionable to do so. I've been around home computers for a LONG time.) Suffice it to say I was completely unsuccessful in my attempt, other than last I checked the computer still booted. (This is a good thing.)

Thanks to being a student I can take the computer to my school's IT department and let them try to fix it, which will most likely mean wiping the drive, reinstalling the operating system and starting from scratch. The computer has been through a lot in the seven-and-a-half years I've owned it so a good wiping probably isn't a bad idea. Eventually we'll replace the desktop computer with something newer, but at least this will allow us to put it off a little longer.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T13:11:00.000-05:00

I always miss California the most on January 1st. I grew up watching the Rose Parade on TV, and when I lived closer to Pasadena I sometimes heard the Stealth Bomber fly over my house on its way back to base. I still watch the parade on TV, but it's just not the same as being in California (even though I never had any desire to actually go to the parade myself). Now I just look at the mountains in the background—"my mountains," as I call them (otherwise known as the San Gabriel Mountains)— and enjoy the scenery from afar.

I've never been much of one for New Year's resolutions. I've always figured if there's something I want (or don't want) to do I should just resolve to do it, with or without a change in the calendar. Sometimes it seems like making New Year's resolutions is a recipe for failure from the beginning: There's so much hype and pressure around the very concept it's hard to live up to expectations. I don't know what the average for keeping New Year's resolutions is (two weeks? three?), but I know I never managed to keep them for very long. Don't get me wrong, I'd like to eat better and exercise more as much as the next person, but I just don't feel the need to resolve to do so on New Year's Day.

There is one resolution, however, that I will say today, and it's something I'll probably start talking a lot more about next summer. I'm currently on track to graduate with my M.S. in Technical Communication in December, 2010. My 2010 New Year's resolution is I'd like to have a job lined up by New Year's 2011. Not quite a resolution that I have complete control over, but definitely something I'll be working toward during the second half of the year.

Should You Post Photos of Your Kids?

2009-12-29T22:57:00.002-05:00

This isn't a topic that is particularly relevant to me right now, but I've seen other people discussing it lately so I thought I'd share an article that appeared in our local newspaper:

Who's clicking on your kids?

Just one more thing to be concerned about in today's world, I guess. And, like so many things, something that can be taken to extremes. I feel sorry for the person quoted at the end of the article: If I ever have a child I certainly hope I won't be so paranoid as to not want to bring a camera to take pictures of my child in a school play.

Finished!

2009-12-18T19:08:00.006-05:00

Last night I finished my last paper for the semester and turned it in. All 7,000 words of it. 41 minutes before it was due. For a professor whose wife was about to go into labor (if she hadn't already). I am completely wiped out.

Thanks to all of you who commented on my last post about the cell phone dilemma. Even with my small, couldn't-possibly-apply-to-a-larger-population sample size, it's interesting that none of you really do the smartphone thing. I had lunch with a friend this week and asked her about it, too; turns out she lives in the '90's as far as cell phones are concerned, too, just like me. I even made it to a mall this week (first time I've been to one in months, I think), and I went to a Verizon Wireless store and looked at the phones and asked about the whole pricing thing. The salesperson was very helpful and answered my questions without pushing me at all (I was really impressed with that, by the way), but the bottom line is we've decided not to change our cell phone situation at this time. I just can't justify the monthly price and I'm not "plugged into" things enough to really make it worthwhile, I think. So we'll stick to our basic plan and our phones that we use just for calling people (and frankly I hardly even use mine much for that). Maybe we'll revisit the issue again in another year.

I'll try to post more updates over the next few days, but given that Christmas is only a week away and I haven't had time to do much about it yet I'm expecting to be kind of busy for the next week. (When I'm not sleeping, which I may be doing a lot of due to being totally exhausted.) For example, you know that wonderful Christmas tree we got over a week ago? It still isn't decorated. Writing papers took precedent and hubby was out-of-town for a few days so we've just had a pine tree living in our house. It's pretty sad. The plan is to finally get it decorated tonight.

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

To Phone or Not to Phone

2009-12-14T09:14:00.007-05:00

Lately I've been thinking about getting a new cell phone. This one looks nice:

Droid Eris

I've never had a smartphone and I keep debating whether it's really worth it. After all, one of the reasons to have a mobile phone is because you're mobile, and I'm definitely not; these days when I'm not in class I'm usually at home (working on homework, of course). We still have a landline (yes, totally 80's or 90's or whatever, I know) so that's another factor: If we start paying for a fancy phone plan (that whole data thing I haven't entirely figured out yet) I wouldn't want to keep paying for a landline, too, especially since we hardly use it, anyway. I know a phone like the iPhone or the Motorola Droid is so much more than just a phone, but having never had more than "just a phone" I'm not really sure what I would do with it. I know whatever I got would have all those cool apps... But do I really need them? It's hard to know if something I've never had will make my life better or just be yet another thing to waste my time and money on (neither of which I have very much of these days as a full-time graduate student, of course).

So the debate in my head (and discussion with my husband) continues. I'd love to hear from those of you who have smartphones and find them useful: What do you use them for? What features do you like the most? Have they simplified your life in some way? How do you justify the cost of the monthly plan?

Maybe someday I'll join the 21st century when it comes to phones. Until then, to phone or not to phone—that is the question. [Yes, that was totally cheesy. My apologies to Shakespeare. I've been writing way too many papers for school lately and I really need a break.]

O Christmas Tree

2009-12-09T11:16:00.002-05:00

Last night hubby and I finally got our Christmas tree. Our dog was very interested and wanted to help hubby put it up.

Finally, he got it up (without the dog's help).

The next step will be to actually decorate it... Maybe tonight.

While we were out I also got a small Poinsettia; it was the last one and looked kind of sickly.

I asked if they would give me a discount since it was looking kind of scraggly and they did, then it turned out it was already on sale (since it was the last one, probably), so I ended up getting it for about a quarter of the original price. Definitely worth it. I re-potted it and I'm going to see if I can bring it back to life. I seem to have a special place in my heart for sickly looking plants as this isn't the first time I've gotten a discount on one and brought it home. It's kind of ironic since I've managed to kill some very healthy plants in my time, including cacti and Sago Palms, which make very nice house plants and are theoretically nearly impossible to kill. (Several died in my house in California.) So we'll see how it goes with the Poinsettia. If it ends up doing well I'll try to remember to post another picture in a few weeks of my success.

Presentation: Enabling User Interactivity

2009-11-30T08:02:00.014-05:00

I'm happy to report my presentation on enabling user interactivity with documentation went well. I had only 15 minutes to get through 34 slides so I had to go a little faster than I wanted but my professor said he was still able to follow along. Now onto the next step: Writing the paper to go along with the presentation.

For those who would like to see the presentation slides I've embedded them below. (If you pause the slideshow you can then use the arrow controls to click through each slide one by one.) If you have any questions about anything feel free to leave a comment. I think incorporating user-generated content into documentation is the wave of the future. Technical communicators can help make that happen.

Tradition

2009-11-26T11:23:00.008-05:00

My Thanksgiving tradition

When I was around 7-years-old my mother asked me what I wanted for Thanksgiving dinner. Without batting an eye I said, "Chocolate cream pie." She said, "That's not a Thanksgiving dish!" I told her she'd asked and that's what I wanted. We've had chocolate cream pie at Thanksgiving every year since then and it's always a favorite. Now I make the pie myself. I've even introduced my in-laws to it; I don't think they've embraced it as a new tradition yet but it was definitely a hit, including the all-important associated tradition of having leftover pie for breakfast the next morning.

What's your favorite Thanksgiving tradition?

Presentation Day

2009-11-19T09:36:00.003-05:00

I'm giving my presentation on user interactivity with documentation to my class this evening. Students will be doing their presentations over the next two weeks. I volunteered to go today—the first day—ostensibly to get it over with; in reality I have so much else to do that taking longer to do it wouldn't have helped me, it's just a matter of what I juggle when at this point. Going today also means I'm not expected to have my associated paper together at this point so that helps me. I think a lot of people in the class are working on their papers and presentations simultaneously; normally that's how I'd do it, too, but it just wasn't an option this time. The presentation is due today so I focused on that; the paper isn't due until December 17th. I have a lot more due between now and then so the paper will have to wait.

I ended up framing my presentation around the following questions:

What is user interactivity?
Why is it important?
What are some issues?
What are companies doing it?
How is it redefining documentation?
What are some implications for technical communicators?

I have quotes from technical communicators throughout my presentation to support my positions. Several are from Twitter: Some of the things I'm talking about are definitely hot topics right now. I think the screenshots I have of tweets are a nice touch. Hopefully the class (and professor) will think so, too!

The presentation is supposed to be 15 minutes long and I have 34 slides... Several are title slides but I'm still hoping I can get through them all fast enough without it looking like I'm rushing. And on that note, off to practice!

Three More Weeks!

2009-11-16T08:01:00.002-05:00

Hard to believe I only have three weeks left of the semester...Well, sort of. Three more weeks of classes, that is. After that comes final exam weeks; I don't have any exams, thankfully, but I do have several final projects, two of which are due during the final exam period. So in reality only one of my classes will be done in three weeks; for that one the final project is due on the last day of class. I guess the professor doesn't want to draw things out.

In addition to finishing up projects for this semester I'm also still working on coming up with an idea for the capstone project I'll be doing next semester. Proposals are indeed due the Tuesday before Thanksgiving—at least that's what the e-mail from the professor teaching the class said. I replied and "suggested" making the due date the Tuesday after Thanksgiving might be better than the Tuesday before. He agreed that was reasonable so I, at least, will be doing my proposal over the Thanksgiving break. (Ok, what I really told him was if I had to do anything more before Thanksgiving it would be the straw that breaks this camel's back. At any rate I got an extension for this particular assignment for a class that hasn't actually started yet...) I'm still looking around and waiting for that epiphany of a project that will be really interesting and exciting to do over the semester. Next week I'm going to look at previous projects in the hope that will give me some ideas. (They're stored in a particular bookcase in my department, behind a locked door that not everyone has a key to, I've discovered. I've now talked to a professor who has a key who will make sure the door is unlocked when I plan to be there next week... And to think this is the easy part!)

For those of you who read my post on my user interactivity project I'm happy to report that it's coming along. I'll be giving my presentation to the class on Thursday. I talked to my professor about my concerns and he agreed that my revised focus is a good one. That means I'm looking at how companies implement user interactivity but I'm not trying to assess how well companies incorporate user content into official documentation or how effective their efforts are, since I would need inside knowledge to determine both of those. I also talked to someone in my field about the project: Sarah O'Keefe is a leader in the technical communications industry and just happens to live and work in my area. (I initially contacted her via Twitter, believe it or not.) I met with her at her office and got valuable insight into how she views user interactivity with documentation and what companies need to do to embrace it.

God Bless Our Troops

2009-11-11T13:00:00.005-05:00

I confess I've never been that close to war. I've never had a close friend or relative serve—let alone die—in a military conflict. I lived 3,000 miles away from 9/11 events and didn't know anyone personally involved. While I hope I never have to experience war or terrorism firsthand, though, I hope I can still have compassion for those who have: Those who serve and those who have lost loved ones, or even had to live without them while they're away serving our country. God bless their sacrifice.

Is It Worth It?

2009-11-06T15:56:00.003-05:00

Soon it will be one year since I went back to school to get my M.S. in Technical Communication. While I'm enjoying the academic environment and definitely learning a lot, I wonder everyday if it's worth it. Of course my answer is, "I sure hope so!"

I went back to school because the opportunity presented itself and it's something I'd been thinking about for a while. Quite a while, actually: I remember in 2003 after the Columbia space shuttle tragedy being struck with the thought that those people died doing what they loved. At the time I didn't love what I was doing (far from it, actually) and I wished I could figure out what I wanted to do and pursue it. The realities of modern life made staying in my comfort zone more appealing, though, so I stayed in my job and did what I could with it until circumstances gave me the chance to change.

I can't say that becoming a technical communicator is my lifelong dream, as becoming an astronaut was for some of the Columbia flight crew. I was a technical writer early in my career and I enjoyed it, and I think I'll enjoy it even more now as the ways documentation is created and presented have progressed in the digital age. Do I need a master's degree to excel in the field? No. I don't know the statistics but I'd guess less than half of the people who call themselves technical communicators have a master's degree in technical communication. However, times and the economy have changed since I was a technical writer so I'm hoping the degree in addition to my experience will give me that "edge" with employers, bringing my resume to the top of the stack and putting me on that short list for an interview. Since I'll be graduating in December, 2010, I'll probably be looking for that perfect job at this time next year. Hopefully I'll find out then that it was all worth it.

Enabling Interactivity with Users

2009-11-04T16:53:00.002-05:00

I imagine to most of my readers today's title doesn't make much sense. I've decided I'm going to talk about some struggles I'm having with the hope that it will clear my mind. No, not personal struggles, I'm talking about struggles I'm having with a particular project for school. My struggles range from figuring out how to frame the project in the first place to determining how to go about actually doing it.

The project involves looking at how companies enable interactivity with users when it comes to documentation. (Thus this post's title.) I don't know about you, but when I'm trying to figure out how something works I often can't find the answer in the online help. (I haven't seen a printed manual in a while now so we won't even go there.) So where do I turn? To Google, of course, to search the plethora of information known as the Internet for the answer. More often than not I'm successful (though depending on the complexity of the problem it may take a few hours of searching), eventually finding the answer I need on some obscure Web page where someone somewhere had a similar problem and thankfully shared it in a public post. But what if companies—or more specifically technical communicators—harnessed the vast amount of user knowledge out there and integrated it into the official documentation for products in some way, providing users with a more central place than the untamed Internet to find the answers they need? Just think of how much better this would make users' experiences with products, knowing there was a single place they could go to solve their problems!

This may sound like Utopia but some companies are using social media tools today to engage users and interact with them. This is primarily being done in the realm of marketing and public relations but it's also spilling over to customer and technical support forums. What I'm not so sure about is whether that knowledge is being captured effectively and integrated in a manner where people with the same problem can easily find it. I don't really have the means to investigate that aspect of things with this particular project so I think I need to stop at the point of determining how companies interact with users and look at its potential value. I'd really like to close that loop (as I see it, anyway) of evaluating whether any of the user-generated knowledge is incorporated back into the documentation, but without insider knowledge I just don't know how I'm going to do that.

So that's where things stand. As I've been working on this post I've been looking on the Web and reading some articles, trying to put some structure around whatever I'm going to do. I'm also waiting to hear back from my professor regarding an e-mail I sent him yesterday on all of this. The bottom line is in two weeks (yes, two weeks) I need to have a 15-minute presentation put together that answers my questions and describes what I found. And, as with all projects I do, I'm determined to do it well. I'll let you know how it turns out.

A Confused Kitty

2009-10-27T16:20:00.004-04:00

I have a lot of reading to do this semester and my favorite place to read is sitting on the downstairs couch. The light is best there and it's pretty comfortable, but more importantly my dog and cat often join me, one on each side of the couch.

Today while I was eating lunch the dog got up on the cat's side of the couch. We have a towel there for the cat to sit on and the dog decided to sit on the towel. It wasn't a problem until I sat down to finish my reading for class today. As usual, the cat came over to sit on the couch with me—and she noticed the dog in her "spot." Twice she jumped up on her usual side and kept finding the dog there. So she tried to find another spot—the other side of the couch, the top—eventually settling on the arm for a little while, where she sometimes sits. In the meantime the dog stretched herself over my lap, making it very difficult to read. (Of course I didn't move her; she was all settled and snuggled in, after all.)

Thankfully the dog and cat have had some experience living in close quarters together and neither is too fazed anymore when the other one gets too close. When we moved from California to North Carolina they spent five-and-a-half days together in my car: The dog stayed in her seatbelt in the back and the cat roamed around. (The cat used to travel between Oregon and California with me so she's an old hand at long car rides.) I think the uniqueness of that event changed their dynamic; the dog still teases the cat once in a while but not nearly as much as she used to. (Age may have something to do with that, too, since they're both older now, but I'm gonna stick with the drive-across-the-country theory myself.)

I'm happy to report that today's couch story does have a happy ending for the cat. Eventually the dog got tired of balancing on my lap and rolled off the couch to go lie on the floor. (I think she heard a squirrel outside, too; she had to go to the window to check it out.) As soon as the dog left the cat promptly came over (seriously, it took less than a minute), settled in her spot on the towel, purred and went to sleep while I finished my reading. My cat's world had been restored.

Change in Plans

2009-10-16T14:09:00.002-04:00

Another Friday, another post—anyone besides me sensing a pattern here? I really think I'm lulled into a false sense of security on Fridays about how much I need to do... especially right after a Thursday when I've had something important due (which probably means I stayed up late Wednesday working on it and still rushed to finish before the deadline on Thursday) and I feel like I need a rest. Since I never have anything actually due on Fridays I seem to think I can "relax" and not be as productive as I should be. Assignments for my online class are usually due on Sunday so I do have that to contend with, but since Saturday comes before Sunday it seems to provide a buffer for Friday.

This week I registered for spring semester. When I started my program last January I wasn't sure how long the program would take; eventually I decided on 2.5 years, so graduating in spring 2011. If you go full-time it's designed to be a two-year program, but starting in the spring throws things off because of when the required classes are offered. In particular, a course called "capstone project" is offered only in the spring, and it's designed to be the last class you take before you graduate. (The capstone project is in place of a master's thesis; as the name implies it's really just a semester-long project, not a real thesis.) It's also recommended that you take the capstone project course alone if you possibly can since it requires a lot of work. I'd be done with the majority of my classes in spring 2010 so I decided I'd start looking for a job starting in summer 2010, then just take the two classes I had left (one class in fall 2010 and the capstone project in spring 2011) while working full-time. They're both evening classes and plenty of people do the program while working so that was my plan.

Until about a week ago. While thinking about what courses I need to take next semester my plan of waiting until May 2011 to graduate started sounding a lot less appealing than doing the program in two years and graduating in fall 2010 (Dec. 2010). The only way for spring starters like me to do that, though, is to take the capstone project course the semester before you graduate—so you still have at least one course to take afterward (the required class only offered in the fall) and possibly other courses, too, depending on how much you've done up until then. To make a long story short (or maybe it's too late for that—oh well) I've decided to do it that way and take the capstone project course next semester in order to graduate in Dec. 2010 instead of May 2011. It means I'll put off my job search for six months longer than I'd planned but that's a relatively minor detail for us at this point. (When I went into this we expected I'd be out of the workforce for two full years.) It also means I won't be taking the capstone project course on its own and will be taking another required class with it, but since it'll only be two classes instead of the three I'm taking this semester that still sounds like a huge relief to me right now. I'll need to take two classes instead of just one in fall 2010 but that's ok, too, since I won't be trying to work at a full-time job then.

I'm not the first person in the program to take the capstone project early and I won't be the last; plenty of people do it so there's definitely a precedence. Now I have to come up with a project a year earlier than I thought I would—YIKES! I talked to my advisor yesterday and found out I'm going to have to turn in a short proposal for my project this semester, probably by Thanksgiving—DOUBLE YIKES! I've had some vague ideas of possibilities for a while but having to think about them concretely now is an entirely different matter. I'd really like to do something Web-related if I can. Redesigning a Web site is a common project; anyone out there have a Web site they'd like created or redesigned? I did one as a semester project for a class last semester (the class was on Web design) that probably would have been a good candidate for a capstone project; that was then, this is now. Apparently my project doesn't have to be "real" (related to an organization that actually needs whatever I do) and I can make it up out of thin air, but I'd really like it to be something real (related to an organization somewhere) if I possibly can. So I'll be giving it some thought. And hoping for a revelation, which is welcome to come any time now.

Happy Birthday, Hubby!

2009-10-14T14:48:00.002-04:00

Today is my husband's birthday. Happy Birthday, hubby!

I promised I'd make him a pecan pie for his birthday. Ta da...

The Forcing of the Twitter

2009-10-09T11:55:00.005-04:00

I joined Twitter this week. I'd been thinking about doing it for a while; not for personal reasons but because one of these days I'm going to need to look for a job again and I know employers sometimes use it to communicate with applicants. I've also heard of social media-related jobs only being posted on Twitter and Facebook (or posted in those places first) and I figure that could potentially be useful. However, that's not why I signed up right now. My reason was much simpler: I had to for an assignment for my social media class. There you have it.

So I'm on Twitter now and I have to say I'm really not sure what all the hubbub is about. I'm "following" (as it's called) a few people that I knew had Twitter accounts and I'll be following some organizations for the class assignment, but honestly when I think about going out and finding lots of people to follow and trying to get people to follow me I'm really not all that inspired. First, I live in the dark ages when it comes to cell phones (I don't have a smartphone, Internet access, or use texting) so I won't be doing the mobile thing with Twitter and that makes it just another Web site to check. I have no desire to know what any celebrity is doing at any particular moment; in fact I can't really think of ANY individual that I'd like to know what they're doing ALL the time. I tried to think of some organizations I'd like to follow outside of the class assignment but so far even there I've come up empty. One organization I thought of was K-LOVE, the radio station I listen to; I think they do more with Facebook than Twitter but still, they're there. I looked at their Twitter page but while I like listening to the station and hearing their stories on the radio I'm really not into following artists and all that so I'm not sure what following them on Twitter would accomplish.

Maybe in the future I'll find more use for Twitter as a communication tool. For now it seems like a lot of people use it just to toot their own horn... I already use this blog for that!

A Day Off

2009-10-05T09:44:00.005-04:00

I took yesterday afternoon off from schoolwork. Here's what I did instead:

Two loads of laundry
Swept and washed the bathroom floors
Vacuumed the house
Vacuumed the stairs (a separate task from vacuuming the house as far as I'm concerned)
Took out the trash
Washed my car, including washing all the windows inside and out (first time I'd washed it since April—it was time)

If none of that sounds like a very good day off you won't get any arguments from me.

I could really use a real day off. Unfortunately, I feel like I'm barely keeping up as it is and if I take a whole day off—really take it off—I'm afraid I'll fall behind so fast it would make your head spin. (Or make mine spin, which is probably more important in this case.) This Thursday and Friday are fall break at NC State which, as far as I can tell, won't mean a whole lot to me. It means the two classes I have on Thursday evening won't meet so I'll get a break from that. I'm planning on using the time to do some group work I need to do for one class, though, so I'll be going to school for that instead. (So I won't even save a trip to school this week.) One of the classes isn't meeting on Tuesday evening, either, since the professor is out-of-state this week presenting at a conference. So I get a slight break due to that, too. I'll still have to go to campus on Tuesday for the other class, though, so I'll still be making that trip to school. No rest for the weary.

Hopefully with the break in those two classes this week—and actually not having anything due during the week (until next Sunday for my online class, that is)—I'll FINALLY have a chance to catch up on some things and maybe even get a little ahead. (If I do it'll be short-lived, I'm sure, but every little bit helps.) Getting some things done around the house would help a lot, too; as much as I hate cleaning and doing it yesterday was hardly relaxing it was a good start. Hubby said he'd vacuum my car this week, too; I'm pretty sure it hasn't been vacuumed since we moved to North Carolina over two years ago so having that done will be really nice.

The reality is I probably won't have a real day off until the semester is done in December. So I have a question for all of you: What do you do for fun on a real day off? Maybe you'll inspire me—or at least give me some ideas for December!

Happy Anniversary!

2009-10-02T10:24:00.002-04:00

Hubby and I were married 5 years ago today. Happy Anniversary, hubby!

Hubby replaced the wallpaper on my computer with this picture so it greeted me when I turned on the computer this morning. We had calla lilies at our wedding.

Random Citings

2009-09-30T18:32:00.003-04:00

I've been collecting some random musings lately so I thought I'd share.

Whenever I do laundry I inevitably forget about it and end up leaving it in the washer (or dryer) for several hours.
I only buy chocolate chips in 72 oz. bags. Anything less is hardly worth it. (Have I mentioned chocolate chip cookies are a staple in my house?)
Sometimes I like to be domestic—cooking, baking, that sort of thing. Unfortunately my desire to be domestic never extends to wanting to clean the house.
I like blueberry-chocolate chip pancakes, as in both of them in there together. It occurred to me once that I liked blueberry pancakes and I liked chocolate chip pancakes, so why not try them all in one? Yum.
It takes two people to give our dog a bath. At least. She's a squirmy thing! (But oh so clean and fluffy afterwards.)
I have lots of freckles. Probably has to do with my reddish hair, which I think was even more reddish when I was a child. (Never carrot-red, though.)
I make an awesome dog nurse. (I nursed my dog back to health and got her to eat again when she was sick over the summer.)
My hubby and I met online, on a Christian dating site. Maybe I'll tell that story someday...

The professors in my department have a conspiracy to have everything due on the same day. Really. I asked one of them about it last night, why major projects in different classes are always due on the same day. He said it's a conspiracy.

Back to the books!

The Problem with Fridays

2009-09-25T11:44:00.002-04:00

Fridays are a problem for me. You see, by the time Friday rolls around I feel like I need a break after going through the week and before heading into the weekend (which is really just an extension of the week when you're a full-time graduate student). Unfortunately I really don't have time to take a day off—at least that's what my head tells me. My body is pretty persistent, though, and I'm pretty sure after I finish typing here it's going to take me downstairs to make cookies. (I consider chocolate chip cookies a staple in my house and I've been out for several days now. I hate it when that happens.)

The reason I can't really afford to take Fridays "off" is because I have three classes this semester (what's considered a full-time load) and they all require a lot of work. No exams, but lots of readings and periodic assignments and projects due during the semester. Two of the classes are in the classroom and one is online (the social media class I've mentioned in previous posts). I do my best to keep up with the two classroom ones but I always feel like I'm playing catch up with the online class at the end of the week. I suppose this actually makes sense since the two classroom classes have their things due during the week (when they meet) but everything for the online class is always due on Sundays. So I end up spending the week doing the classroom stuff and once that's done I have to hurry and get the online class stuff done before Sunday rolls around. I try to do the reading and watch the lectures earlier in the week if I can but it doesn't always happen, particularly when I end up with assignments for both classroom classes due on the same day. That's really painful. (It'll be happening again next week, too!)

So it comes down to I wish I could spend more time on the social media class, or at least balance it better with the others. Last week I mentioned the latest photosharing assignment I have; I managed to take the pictures for it last Sunday but then Monday rolled around so they've just been sitting. The assignment is due on Sunday so it's time for me to actually do it—yep, starting on Friday. I don't think it'll be too difficult. I just have to upload the photos to Flickr and create catchy captions and tags for them. Ok, depending on how creative I'm feeling that may or may not be difficult. I've never used Flickr before but I created my account and it seems straightforward enough. I particularly like that Flickr is part of Yahoo! now and uses Yahoo! login information so I didn't have to create a new username and password for that. As much as I want to try and keep track of usernames and passwords for every single Web site out there that needs one... (I realize some of you don't know me too well yet so I'll just let you know: I'm being totally sarcastic there. I do not want to have accounts on every Web site known to man.)

Enough about school, it's time to go make those cookies. Then I'll be nice and rested and ready to dive into my homework, right? Yeah, right.

I'll just leave you with this lovely picture of doggie and hubby I took yesterday:

Ahhhhhh, it's a good life.

Have a good one!

Staying Home

2009-09-22T12:55:00.003-04:00

It's official: I'm sick and staying home from school today. No fever thank goodness so it's still just a cold, but enough of one that I need to keep my germs to myself if I can. When I wrote to my professors they both agreed I should stay home: One mentioned school policy (staying home for 3-5 days if you have cold or flu symptoms) and the other thanked me for considering my classmates (which I thought was really cute). I probably won't miss anything major in either class but just in case I've let some friends know I won't be there so they'll let me know if I miss anything important.

Since I won't be going to class tonight that's about 4.5 hours I'll have to work on things that I wouldn't have otherwise—I should probably use it wisely and be productive, don't ya think? Not watch TV or anything like that...

Doing Things Right

2009-09-21T21:56:00.001-04:00

I like to do things right. I always try to do my best at school, whether it's doing the best I can on assignments or actually reading everything assigned and trying to understand it to the best of my ability. (Not always an easy task with some of the reading assignments I have this semester.) When I work I'm always thorough and do the best I can on my projects. My doing things right also extends to when I get sick: When I get sick I "do it right."

I have a cold. I'm pretty sure it's just a cold; I don't have a fever so I don't think I have the flu (H1N1 or otherwise). I'm pretty sure hubby gave it to me, too (bless his heart). He started feeling congested toward the end of last week; he was stuffed up over the weekend but said he didn't feel too bad and today he said he felt fine. Of course I hoped I wouldn't get it... No luck there. I have never met a germ that didn't like me. (At this time last year I had strep throat, which turned into a respiratory infection before it was through.) I started feeling a little stuffed up on Saturday; by Sunday I was more stuffed up and my throat hurt a little, and by Sunday night I definitely had a cold. I took cold medicine last night which helped me sleep but it didn't do much for me today. I've been sneezing and feeling "blah" all day; luckily I don't have class on Mondays so I didn't have to leave the house. Hubby didn't have to go to work until noon so this morning he went to the store and got me my "sick juice" (Ocean Spray cran-raspberry) so I've been drinking that today.

Deadlines wait for no one and I've been trying to get some of my exorbitant amount of reading done today; not an easy task in my current condition. It'll be interesting to see how much of what I've read today I actually retain.

On that note back to reading. ACHOO!

Little Victories

2009-09-20T19:11:00.004-04:00

I kept thinking that one of these days I'd put together a philosophical post about some things I've been thinking about recently, how I don't want to just do "good enough" and skim through graduate school (or skim through all the reading I have to do), how I went back to school to really learn and not just get letters by my name. I thought I'd try to throw in some Bible verses about what God wants from us and how this is all part of His plan. Yep, that's what I thought I'd do when I had time. Now back to reality: I will NEVER have time.

Since I really want to get an update done before the three people who read this blog think I've died I'm going to talk about some lighter subjects instead. Recently I lost a barrette. I don't lose things very often so it's always a little annoying when I do. It was a cheap plastic one, though, so I figured I'm not perfect and I didn't give it that much thought. I also don't wear my hair in a barrette very often so again, not a huge deal. This morning I decided to put my hair back in a barrette, though, and I remembered a silver one I have that I used to wear a lot; when I went in the drawer to get it I discovered it wasn't there. Now, you're probably thinking my first thought was, "Oh no, I've lost another barrette"—nope, that's not what I thought. The silver barrette is a nice one and I knew I wouldn't have lost it. My first thought was, "Ok, those two barrettes are together somewhere, probably in this house." From there it was a quick matter of deduction: Since I don't wear barrettes very often the only time I have them together outside the drawer where they live is when I travel. When I travel I put whichever ones I bring in a cosmetic bag, so I went and looked in the cosmetic bags I usually bring on trips. I looked inside and they were all empty, but then I noticed a zipper pocket that was open in one of them. I put my hand in—and pulled out the two barrettes. I hate losing things so finding both of them easily this morning made my day. Given my ridiculously busy, always tired graduate school life I seem to be living right now it's the little victories that keep me sane.

This reminds me of when we moved to North Carolina. Everyone knows when you move you always lose things, right? After unpacking everything and finding several things we thought we'd lost it finally came down to one thing I just couldn't find: The cyclometer that goes on my bike. I figured maybe I forgot to take it off the bike and pack it elsewhere so maybe it fell off the bike in the truck and we somehow never noticed. I didn't like losing it but kind of like the plastic barrette it wasn't a huge deal and wasn't worth getting that upset over. Last May we went to California to visit family. I took out a carry-on bag that I don't use very often but I'd decided I wanted to bring on this particular trip. I was taking some extra straps out of it and put my hand in one of the outside pockets—and pulled out the cyclometer. I must have taken it off the bike and in my packing haste thrown it somewhere it would be safe. I'm sure I had other things packed in that bag when we moved so I must have just missed it. Apparently I don't unpack bags very well!

And one more: My latest assignment for my social media class is to put together a photosharing site for an organization. I'm doing it on the state park where my husband is a Park Ranger since I have an "inside track." This afternoon I went there to take some pictures. On my way home I decided I needed some ice cream (I really like ice cream); unfortunately there's no ice cream place between our house and the park and the closest ice cream place isn't all that close to us. I didn't have any great plans for dinner tonight, though, and ruining my dinner with a Baskin Robbins chocolate peanut butter shake sounded like a fine idea. So I went out of my way to get it. I figure I probably drove 8-10 extra miles and paid way too much for it, and now I feel royally sick from drinking the whole thing. And you know what? Totally worth it. :-)

Critter Returns

2009-09-13T21:39:00.002-04:00

Our resident flying squirrel returned to the feeders the other night.

We've named the little guy Zippy. Shortly after hubby took this picture Zippy climbed to the top of the feeder tree, opened his arms, and sailed off to a nearby tree. Hubby wants to get a picture of him flying sometime—that would be cool!

Caught Up

2009-09-13T21:28:00.003-04:00

I caught up with my homework today! — For last week. Assignments for my social media class are due at 5:00PM on Sundays each week and I finished my last blog post for the class at 4:48PM so that counts. (It's an online class so weekly deadlines are somewhat arbitrary since one day is as good as any other. Sundays work for me.) Now I can rest for about five minutes before I need to get started on the next round... Time's up.

Last week was a particularly hard week. I had two papers and an oral presentation due in two classes on Thursday; each assignment by itself was doable but having them both due the same day was tough. Being a graduate student is all about juggling (or having priorities, some might say, though it's more like juggling to me) and having things equally important due the same day makes it VERY hard to figure out what to juggle when. I managed to put a brief PowerPoint presentation together in 20 minutes (the only thing I've ever done quickly) and I finished the second paper 30 minutes before I needed to leave for class which is a little too close for comfort for me. Of course while I was focusing on the papers for those two classes I totally ignored my third class (that'd be the social media class) which wasn't good since I had my first assignment due for that class on Sunday (in addition to the weekly readings and blog posts). At least Sunday comes a few days after Thursday! I managed to get that project done on Saturday, which is why the weekly blog posts didn't get done until 10 minutes before they were due on Sunday. It's hard enough to keep track of everything, let alone keep up.

One nice thing about my program is it's relatively small so you get to know the people in it and you share a lot of the same classes—or in other words we suffer together. There are six of us that have the same two classes on Tuesday and Thursday nights. At least we could commiserate when we were all falling asleep on Thursday from having both papers due on the same day. That helped some.

I did get to take a break from the rat race Saturday afternoon to meet Dr. Wifey and her hubby—that was fun! We had a nice stroll in a park with our hubbies and my dog; the precious pooch LOVES outings and meeting new people so it was a pretty exciting day for her. And for me, getting to meet a bloggy buddy. I hope we'll be able to get together again soon.

This week I'm taking advantage of my student status (something I'm always told I should do while I can) and going to a conference in my field that just so happens is being held at my school. It's on a topic that I'd like to learn more about. The director of my program sent a message to all the M.S. students about it last Wednesday and said if anyone wanted to go to let him know and he could probably get some free passes. I finally looked at the e-mail on Friday (I didn't look at much of anything on Thursday other than those two papers that were due) and realized I really should take advantage of the opportunity and try to go. I thought it might be too late since it was around noon on Friday when I e-mailed my professor but that evening he sent me a message that I was on the list and all set for both days. The conference is on Monday and Tuesday. It's been a while since I've been to something like this and I think it will be a good experience for me.

On that note... Have a good week, everyone!

Happy Labor Day!

2009-09-07T14:14:00.003-04:00

Thought I'd take a moment out from laboring and wish everyone a Happy Labor Day—especially all you laborers for whom today is actually a holiday. (My hubby doesn't have it off, unfortunately, and as a graduate student I don't consider any day a day off.) I hope those of you who have it off are taking some time out to relax and enjoy the day with your family and friends. If you're having a cookout flip a burger for me! :-)

Corndog

2009-09-04T14:56:00.002-04:00

We had corn-on-the-cob for dinner the other night. I asked hubby to clean it so he went outside on the deck to do it. Our dog helped.

I can help! I can help!

Finished that piece, now on to the next one...

Now I'm ready for some corn. Yum!

Our dog is a "corndog." Yes, corny, I know. You can thank hubby for coming up with that one!

California Fires

2009-09-02T18:50:00.004-04:00

Perhaps some of you have seen in the news about the Station Fire burning near Los Angeles. My husband and I moved to North Carolina from that area two years ago, which is where I'm from. The Station Fire isn't burning directly near where we used to live or where my parents live, though they've smelled smoke at their house, they've said. A friend of mine who lives in one of the threatened areas went to stay with friends over the weekend due to smoke; she said there's smoke and ash everywhere, similar to a fire we had several years ago while I was there. (I remember ash all around my house—it's weird.)

The saddest thing about reading about the fire is I recognize a lot of the places they mention. The San Gabriel Mountains were my home; I always call them "my mountains" whenever I see them on TV. (You'll see them, too, if you ever watch the Rose Bowl or Rose Parade on January 1st.) I've been hiking in many of the areas that are now burning. I've seen plenty of blackened hillsides in my life but it will be strange to see the extent of this fire next time I'm there (whenever that may be). I've also been to Mt. Wilson and seen the telescopes at the Mt. Wilson Observatory there. (I think I even remember going there for a school field trip, probably in elementary school...) Mt. Wilson has a Webcam; it usually updates every few minutes and is very popular with those who know of its existence. I checked it a couple days ago and could see the plume of smoke in the distance. When I checked it today, however, I found it was down: Apparently a backfire burned through cables supplying all telephone and Internet service to the Observatory. If you look at the Webcam today you'll see a static picture from yesterday (located on another server)—the last update the camera had before going down. It's a smoke-filled sight.

Blogging Update

2009-08-31T15:18:00.001-04:00

Thanks, folks, for your comments on how you keep up with the social media world—I don't know how you do it! (Though I do know what you mean about needing something to do at work... been there, done that. And yes, I definitely know better than to respond directly to the prolific poster on a class blog, but venting about it just a little on my own blog did help me put it into perspective.)

So, an update on the class blog. First, I discovered I was wrong about the number of people in the class. Turns out there are two sections to the class: One for graduate and one for undergraduate. There are 12 (or now 11—I guess someone dropped) graduate students in the class. When I looked at the undergraduate section, though, I discovered there are 33 people registered there, so with 44 people in the class that explains a little more about why the posts seemed to be ballooning last week as much (and at times as quickly) as they did.

I'm also starting to get a handle on keeping up. Like I said I did the RSS thing, but even with that I'm learning to ignore it so I can get other work done. I'll look at everything from the RSS feeds all at once when I'm ready to do that, skim most and respond to a limited number where I feel like I have something intelligent to say. That tactic should help me keep things down to a dull roar.

Finally, I wrote to the professor today and asked him something related to how he was grading our blog posts and what he expected. He sent me back a very thoughtful response saying I'm doing just fine with the blog and he doesn't expect everyone to spend as much time on the blog as he does, he's just looking for a good "classroom" dialogue about the topics we're covering in the course. I can handle that, particularly since that's how I was approaching it already: Do my posts after I've listened to the week's lectures, read the material, and put together my thoughts about it. So I think I'll do ok.

So that's the status of one class. Maybe next time I'll talk about another class (I have three of them). And on that note, time to turn the computer off to keep me from being distracted while I do some reading for another!

Keeping Up

2009-08-28T17:30:00.004-04:00

I've now completed my first full week of fall semester (the week before when classes actually started was only a partial week)—only 14 to go. Apparently a semester is 16 weeks long; whadya know. I think it's safe to say I'm drowning. Well, ok, technically I'm not behind on anything (yet) but I find it easier to just feel like I'm drowning all the time. That way when I really am (which I think is going to be pretty often this semester, anyway) I'm already in the right "mode" for working on stuff. If that makes any sense.

Actually, I am drowning in one place: Blogging. In my last post I mentioned that I have several blogs I have to post to this semester, and by "have to" I mean I'm getting graded on it, both quality and quantity. One of those blogs is for the "Social Media and Public Relations" class I mentioned. I've now taught myself about RSS (ok, I knew what it was, I just didn't bother to use it until now) and that's helping a little, but keeping up with everyone's posts in addition to having to do my own is already getting WAY out of hand. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about here: The way this particular blog forum works is the instructor makes initial posts and then it's our job to post comments, both to his posts directly and to comments other students have made. So you end up with multiple "threads" (multi-level comments) within a single original post by the instructor. It makes it hard to follow, particularly since the RSS feeds only include the title of the original post by the instructor so without going to the blog to see the context you don't know if a particular student's post is replying to the original post or someone else's post. (If that all sounds confusing, you're right—welcome to my world.)

On top of the less-than-usable interface the quantity of posts is pretty astounding. As of this particular moment (and it'll probably change by the time I actually publish this post), in the four original posts that the instructor has put up for this week there are a total of 131 comments. I should mention that according to the course enrollment—which I just checked—there are a total of 12 people enrolled in this class. Yes, 12. And 131 comments (and rising) in less than a week. Maybe the other people in the class are only taking this one class so can focus on it wholeheartedly, but with three classes I can't. It's my nature to want to keep up with everything for my classes but I know if I don't start ignoring some of the posts soon I'm going to go crazy. I know I need to just do my posts, comment on a few other peoples', then turn it off until the next week's assignment. It's just hard when I can't get all the reading and listening to the lectures (two per week each over an hour long) done immediately so I see the RSS folders fill with posts from people who apparently have. (Either that or they're posting to the blog before they do the required reading and watch the lectures, which could be happening, I don't know.)

So, after all this I have a question for y'all (if you knew me in person you'd know I could never pull off that word in speaking): How do you keep up with the social media world? I've only talked about blogging here (and one blog in particular) but there's the whole Facebook, Twitter, and whatever else world out there, too. Everyone says how time consuming it is yet they continue to do it; since there's only so much time in the day that means other things have to suffer, right? How do you manage it all? And not just with friends: My class is on how organizations use social media to reach their publics, so that means their publics—that's you and me—have to be spending time with those social media tools in order to see the organizations' messages. I don't know how anyone has time for it all and can still be a student, an employee, a wife, a husband, a person who has a relationship with anything other than their computer all day long...

* * * *

As I've been writing this I've been monitoring the RSS feed and going back and forth to the blog I mentioned; one person has now posted 12 comments in the past hour. His most recent post is responding to someone who speculated that too much from an organization—too many tweets, Facebook updates, whatever—may be too much for some people. The prolific commenter agreed and asked when do you say, "Enough is enough." I am SOOOOOOOOO tempted to reply to his post and say, "12 comments in an hour—enough is enough!!!!!" But I'm restraining myself and won't. :-)

Back to School

2009-08-22T22:16:00.003-04:00

Fall semester started last week at NC State. I don't know what it is about school but just the thought of it makes me feel overwhelmed—let alone the actuality of it. So, even though I've only had one day of classes (for my two on-campus classes; I also have an online class that isn't starting real work until next week) I am officially overwhelmed.

On the bright side I think it will be a fun semester. When I started the program last spring a lot of classes were full by the time I was able to register so my options were somewhat limited in what I could take. When registering for fall, however, I was able to register with all the seniority that being a graduate student brings and I had no trouble getting my first choices. All three of my courses are in my field, relevant, and include interesting readings and assignments. Now that I'm not a new student anymore I also know many of the people in my two on-campus classes already. I'm particularly excited about my online course, a communications seminar called "Social Media and Public Relations." I'm finally going to learn about all the social media I've been avoiding! And I'll be dealing with it from the perspective of how organizations can use it to enhance their businesses, not from a personal standpoint, which is what I was avoiding. Sounds like the best of both worlds to me.

One thing being back in school will mean, of course, is that I'll undoubtedly have less time for this blog. I'm still going to try to post to it once a week; we'll see how well I do with that. As part of my schoolwork and other responsibilities this semester I've actually got three other blogs I'll be posting to on a regular basis so that will keep me busy with blogging, I'm sure. But, the more practice the better, right?

* * * *

I realized I haven't posted an update on our precious pooch lately—I'm sure inquiring minds want to know! I'm happy to report that she's doing MUCH better: She's finishing up her antibiotic this weekend and I'm taking her to our regular vet for a follow-up blood test on Monday. She isn't having any of the symptoms she was anymore and is definitely brighter and more energetic than she was for most of the summer.

She's still a little on the thin side and getting her to eat is still a daily ordeal; I doubt it'll ever be a matter of just putting her food in front of her and having her eat it again. But we've got a routine (and an understanding) now and she does pretty well. She always comes and eats at least a few bites of breakfast now; for a while she wouldn't even entertain the idea of breakfast. Her favorite time to eat seems to be after her evening walk when she often cleans her bowl. Today was an exciting day: She cleaned her bowl at breakfast, lunch, AND dinner! So even though I still have to stand over her while she eats and remind her to eat periodically (she's an easily distracted pooch) at least she's getting used to eating regularly again. She's also been sleeping through the night for the past several weeks—a true blessing.

Comments on Commenting

2009-08-20T16:18:00.003-04:00

First of all, thanks to those of you who commented on my last post—it's nice to hear how other people navigate the blog world as I work on defining my own response to it. I've got some ideas on why my attitude might be what it is about some things; more on that in a minute.

First, some comments on comments:

Allison - I agree about the time management aspect of things! I don't know how people keep up with dozens of personal blogs on a daily basis.

Dr. Wifey - Thanks for the tip to the SITS site. That's a good idea—for people who must have a LOT of time on their hands! I can tell just from looking at it that I'd be overwhelmed by it pretty quickly.

K Storm - I'm always happy to hear what you have to say! I use the blog roll to see which blogs are updated, too, though I've noticed my blog roll doesn't always reflect things correctly: Sometimes it'll say a blog hasn't been updated for 5 days but when I check the blog there's a new post from that day. So maybe the blog roll just has a delay in its update times. I'm never sure what time zone it's working with, anyway...

Jen - I read a few blogs that are for information, too (related to the field of technical communications, in my case); if I ever do comment on them (which I haven't yet) I definitely wouldn't expect any comments on my personal blog in return. And I know what you mean about commenting sometimes keeping you up late at night—I've occasionally done the same!

Now, some thoughts about my attitude toward blogs and commenting. There are definitely different categories of blogs: Ones I consider professional or informational, which I read for the same reason I read articles on something like CNN; blogs of friends I know outside the blogging world, where I may or may not comment since we communicate in other ways; and blogs of people who I only know through their blogs. As I've been searching for blog friends I find blogs that look like they're written by nice people but I'm not necessarily looking at the content specifically. If I comment on several posts and don't get any response, though, then the content starts to matter more since that's all I have to go on. It's similar to if I try to befriend someone in person: If I'm doing all the talking and it seems like the person really doesn't want to relate to me then I'm probably not going to continue that "friendship" (which really isn't a friendship but more of a one-sided monologue) for very long. In the blog world—or any other online-only discipline—that two-way interaction is even more "removed" (the best way I can think to describe it) than face-to-face interaction. The truth of the matter is if I'm reading a blog about a family, for instance, then the kids may be very cute and they may do fun things, but since I don't have a connection to that family it isn't very real to me. Reciprocal comments on each other's blogs make people—and their families—much more real to me and establish that connection. When I look for blog friends I'm looking for that blog-level connection.

I'm also finding that quality is much better than quantity (back to that how do people keep up thing!) so I'm not complaining, just analyzing why I (and others, I imagine) might act the way I do.

On that note I'm off to class to learn about usability studies and technical communication theory. Happy blogging, everyone!

Awards and Blog Etiquette

2009-08-18T09:44:00.005-04:00

Ok, it's time to deal with some bloggy things.

I'm the first to admit I'm no expert on blogs and I don't know all the comings and goings about them; I'm learning as I go and hoping I don't say anything wrong or offend anyone along the way. For example, I'm still working on making blog friends. I'm told the best way is to comment on lots of blogs and then see who comments back on yours. I have made a few blog friends that way (including one who I'm going to meet in person next month!) and I have to say I've had fun getting to know them through commenting on each other's blogs. I wouldn't say I've commented on a huge number of blogs but I have commented on a few who have never returned comments on mine. I'm not sure what to think about this... Should I continue commenting in the hope that the blog owner will eventually acknowledge my existence (and my blog)? Should I just read the blog if I like it but not worry about commenting? Should I stop reading the blog? (I confess I've done that in a few cases...) I'm curious what other folks out there do with this dilemma.

Another area I'm not quite sure about is awards. Or maybe I should say "awards" since I don't think these are official blog awards; as best I can tell they're a game of some sort where people pass these "awards" around from one blog to another. (They kind of remind me of chain letters from way back when, or chain e-mails in the digital age.) A friend of mine gave me my first "award" back in July; I figured out the code to put it on my blog but I guess I've been lax in my award duties. So, to make up for lost time here are the rules for the first award I received from my friend, Sarah:

This award is bestowed on to blogs that are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to six bloggers who must choose six more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

I'll pass this award onto my new blog friends. Congratulations! (I think...)

(I know that's only five, not six. Like I said, I'm still working on making blog friends!)

Now Sarah went and gave me another award:

This one looks kind of fun so I'll run with it. The goal is to answer each question with only one word. Here it goes:

Where is your cell phone? dresser
Your hair? messy
Your mother? librarian
Your father? engineer
Your favorite food? chocolate
Your dream last night? forgotten
Your favorite drink? strong [Not really, that just sounded too good to pass up.]
Your dream/goal? job
What room are you in? bonus
Your hobby? blogging!
Your fear? job
Where do you want to be in 6 years? working
Where were you last night? sleeping
Something that you aren’t? programmer
Muffins? yes!
Wish list item? job
Where did you grow up? California
Last thing you did? breakfast
What are you wearing? headband
Your TV? big
Your pets? sleeping
Friends? close
Your life? blessed
Your mood? anticipating
Missing someone? no
Vehicle? 1991
Something you’re not wearing? socks
Your favorite store? Trader Joe's (should count as one word!)
Your favorite color? green
When was the last time you laughed? yesterday
Last time you cried? Thursday
Your best friend? husband
One place that I go to over and over? school
One person who emails me regularly? mom
Favorite place to eat? restaurant

I'll pass this one on to the people listed above, or anyone else who'd like to put it on their blog and try it. Have fun!

Goin' Toading

2009-08-16T15:42:00.008-04:00

My computer connected normally today (vs. yesterday)—yeah! Now I can get to work.

One of my husband's and my favorite activities here in North Carolina is what we call "goin' toading." On summer evenings the toads come out (they're Fowler's toads, my naturalist husband tells me) and when we take our dog for walks we look for them. We've even made up a song for our outings (sung to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell"):

A-toading we will go,
A-toading we will go,
High-ho the merry-o,
A-toading we will go.

In our travels around the neighborhood we've identified three categories of toads. We call them mini-toads, mid-toads, and mega-toads. Descriptive, huh? My favorites are the mini-toads. They're the hoppiest and hardest to catch sometimes but they're the ones I usually go for. I'll also pick up mid-toads but I let my husband pick up the mega-toads if he's so inclined. Our dog just likes to try and pounce on whatever she sees. (I'm happy to report she has pretty awful pouncing aim and has never actually caught a toad that I know of.) Most of the toads we see are mini or mid; we've only seen a few mega-toads this summer. We also occasionally see nano-toads; they're really tiny and pretty much impossible to catch. When we catch a toad we just say hello to it, then we put it back where we found it so it can get back to catching its dinner.

Here's a picture of a mini-toad we found by our house one evening:

Isn't he cute?

Here's a picture of a mid-toad—this one has more stripes than others but he's still a Fowler's toad.

Last but not least, here's our resident mega-toad:

Ribbit.

This particular mega-toad is a real character. He (or it could be she) is always out in front of the same house at the same time almost every night. We've named him Megs (short for mega-toad; yep, original, I know). It took several tries to get a picture of him; I'd see him when I took the dog for her walk then my husband and I would go look for him to take his picture after he got home from work. When we got there after 10 PM, though, Megs would be gone. We finally figured out that I usually see him before 9:30 and he must go to bed (i.e. retire to the bushes) by 10:00. One evening when my husband was off and could come with me for our walk we went out at 9:00 to look for him and there he was, right in his regular spot. My husband even got an action shot of him hunting down a bug:

Right after hubby took the picture Megs caught the bug and ate it. Unfortunately, that happened too quickly to capture on film (or digital camera, in this case).

Happy Toading!

Computer Problems

2009-08-15T23:22:00.004-04:00

UGH!

I was planning on having such a productive day today: Updating this blog, posting to another one, cleaning up the rest of my e-mail, maybe even doing some vacuuming and ironing for once. Instead, I dealt with computer problems for the majority of the day.

Yesterday I spent nine hours logged into a virtual private network (VPN), downloading files from one server to another. (I'll talk about why I did that in another post someday.) Everything seemed to go fine; the application I was using to download the files crashed every so often and I had to keep restarting it but the person I was working with said that was to be expected. The VPN was stable and never dropped, though, which was a huge plus. The download still hadn't finished by 11:00 at night so I figured I'd let it run some more today and hopefully it would finish then. (Unfortunately the download is blind for me: I can see how much is downloaded to the target server but I can't see how much of the total it's done or how much it has to go. The application is definitely lacking in the feedback area, if you ask me!)

This morning I went to the vet to pick up a refill of some medicine for my cat, then I came home and thought I'd get some work done on the computer. I turned on my laptop that I use for everything these days, it booted normally, and I waited for the network to connect for Internet access... but it never did. I figured our Internet provider may have reset things on their server as they sometimes do so I reboot the modem and the router, then reboot the computer; still no connection. We also have a desktop computer so I turned that on to see if the Internet worked there; it did so that proved it wasn't a problem with the ISP. I attempted to connect the laptop directly to the modem (bypassing the router); still no connection. After trying a few other things I narrowed it down to being a problem somewhere in the laptop itself: It was as if there was some switch in there telling the network adapters (wireless and LAN) not to turn on. I'm no system administrator (and don't want to be!) but whenever these things happen I learn more about the inner workings of computers than I ever wanted to know. Using the working Internet on the desktop here are some of the rabbit trails I followed today:

tunnel adapters
TCP/IPv6
ipconfig
netsh
BIOS

(I'm guessing most of you reading this don't know what most if not all of those things are. If so don't worry, count your blessings and hope you never need to know.)

After SEVEN HOURS of failing to fix the problem (and becoming pretty frustrated and agitated with the thought of having to take my computer to a repair place and leave it for a few days) I finally read a post in a forum that happened to talk about a setting in the BIOS... Once I found the BIOS in my Windows Vista computer I found the setting, which was indeed turned off (disabled). I turned it on (enabled) and to my total surprise the network connected and I had Internet access—just as I was about to give up and take it to the repair place. So what was that setting in the BIOS? "Internal Network Adapter Boot" (or something like that). Apparently Windows Vista (which is on my laptop) has a BIOS setting that has to be enabled for the network adapters to "turn on" during the boot process; if that setting is disabled the computer boots up without them and the network can't connect. The fact that Windows still recognized the adapters and said they were enabled didn't help things during my problem-solving endeavor.

I have no idea how that setting got turned off but given the variables I'm working with I suspect it has something to do with the VPN and the process surrounding downloading those files. (Which I'm continuing to do as I write this, in fact, and it still isn't finished... It's V E R Y slow over the VPN.) And I'm still having problems: After we got back from dinner (I decided I needed to go out to dinner after all this) I turned on the laptop and the network connected but not the Internet. Thankfully rebooting the modem and router worked this time and it connected again.

At this point I'm afraid to see what tomorrow might bring. Maybe I should rethink my career path and become a system administrator after all!

More Critters

2009-08-07T17:14:00.002-04:00

The other night we found a new critter on the suet feeder:

Who, me?

We always suspected there were flying squirrels around but hadn't seen any yet. This one was amazingly unskittish: When my husband went outside to get better pictures the critter jumped off the feeder onto the tree but then he just hung there, letting us get pretty close to get a good look at him.

I blend in pretty well, don't I?

Coming home from a walk one evening we found this little critter on our front porch:

Here I am posing on a leaf...

He stuck around (literally) for quite a while, too.

Last but not least, one more critter picture I can't resist:

Our dog pulling stuffing out of her latest chew toy, in this case a teddy bear we got for her at a thrift store. She makes a hole, pulls out the stuffing, spits it out, then goes back in for more. Do all dogs act like this? I'm not sure if her behavior here is normal or yet another of her lovely quirks.

Freedom!

2009-08-05T10:53:00.002-04:00

On Monday I took my final exam for the summer course I've been taking—I am SOOOOOOO glad to be done with that course. Suffice it to say it wasn't my favorite class. Thankfully it was only a 5-week summer course (a semester's worth of work in that time, though); if it had been any longer I seriously would have considered dropping it rather than just sticking it out. I didn't waste any time and made a special trip to the school bookstore yesterday to sell back the book. I got back about half of what I paid for it, which I figure is that much more than if I kept the book and used it as a paperweight (which is about all it would have been good for as far as I'm concerned). I don't know my final grade in the class yet but as long as I didn't completely bomb the final exam I think I did OK. The important thing is it's done.

Now I have about two weeks until fall semester starts and I'm hoping to make the most of it. I really need to clean the house from top to bottom; that should be first on my list. I'm not even going to pretend it is, though, just that I'll hopefully be motivated enough to get it done before classes start. I also want to get through e-mail I've been letting sit and catch up on blogging. I know it's hard to believe but I actually do have a few more topics in mind than just my dog's health. (Though I admit that's been pretty consuming as of late.) Last but not least I'd like to do some cooking and baking while I have time. While I'm in school I try to make things with lots of leftovers so they're easy to warm up in the microwave when I get home late. It'll be nice to eat some non-leftovers for a change.

A quick note about the dog for those of you following along with her. She's still not completely well and getting her to eat is still a daily struggle; sometimes it's more of a game and other times it's more of a battle. For the past couple of days it seems like she's been drinking more again (she had been drinking a little less) and she didn't want to eat even when she saw me put her "special" food in her dish. Last night I resorted to chicken again; when I put that in her dish she gobbled it and her dog food right up so she was definitely hungry. She picked the chicken out of her dish at breakfast this morning so I'll try again at lunchtime. This afternoon she has an appointment with our regular vet for her annual shots so I'll see what they say about all this then. She's still on the antibiotic so it should be doing its thing. Leptospirosis may just be a very persistent disease.

A Diagnosis

2009-07-31T11:05:00.001-04:00

Our doggie's doctor from the vet school called this week to let us know they got the results back from the blood tests and they had a confirmed diagnosis: Our dog has leptospirosis! I mentioned before that they were testing for the disease just to rule it out so they were VERY surprised when the results came back positive for it. Apparently there are multiple strains of the disease (similar to the flu) and she tested positive for two of them, one of which was pretty high in her system. There is a vaccine for leptospirosis but it's not routinely given to dogs that I'm aware of, and like the flu it's hit or miss for the particular strains out there.

The treatment for leptospirosis is antibiotics. Since she was being tested for the disease they'd already put her on the appropriate antibiotic as a precaution (part of their protocol at the vet hospital) so that explains why she's been doing better this week—her body has started responding to the antibiotic.

Thanks to the positive diagnosis we didn't end up having to use the eye drops that I talked about before. That's a huge relief; we gave her the first few doses before they said we didn't need to anymore and let me tell you, you haven't lived until you've tried to give a dog eye drops twice a day. She takes her pills with cheese and thinks that's just fine, but eye drops, well, that's another story.

We're definitely relieved to have a diagnosis and the doctor felt very confident that that's what was causing her kidney problems and other symptoms (including not eating, according to what I've read about the disease). Now I'm just continuing to work on getting her to eat regularly again; my purpose in life these days seems to be getting the dog to eat. It's pretty ridiculous. Getting her to eat is all about marketing: She won't eat unless she has some of her "special food" (the gourmet stuff) in her dish with her regular food, but luckily it only takes a tiny bit of the special stuff so that's not too bad. However, she has to see me put it in her dish: If I just put her dish down she comes over to check it out, sniffs it and walks away. If I have her watch me put her food in the dish, though, then she'll sniff it, take a bite, and usually realize she's hungry after all and eat some. Like I said, it's ridiculous and all about marketing with this dog. I'm not sure who is being more manipulated at this point, me or her. And I KNOW she knows perfectly well what I'm saying when I show her the dish and say, "Eat!"

She Ate!

2009-07-27T13:50:00.006-04:00

Of course I'm talking about our dog. As anyone who's been following along knows for the past several weeks we've been dealing with our sick pooch, culminating in our taking her to the NC State Veterinary Teaching Hospital last week. The best guess is it's something related to her kidneys, probably either an infection or hormone-related, and for nearly a month now she hasn't wanted to eat. I made her chicken and rice and did everything I could to get some nutrition in her but she still lost 7 pounds over a month. She'd been carrying a few extra pounds (she wasn't overweight—yet—but we didn't want her to gain anymore) so losing a few was ok, but she now has a perfect shape (according to the vet) and she shouldn't lose anymore.

Now I have some good news: She finally seems to be getting better. She's definitely drinking and going less so we're hoping the trend continues. She's a walking animal pharmacy now so that may have something to do with it; maybe the antibiotics and thyroid medicine she's on are making a difference!

Over the weekend I took our local vet's advice and got some different types of canned dog food to try and find something she might like. Most dogs like routine and don't mind eating the same thing everyday; our dog apparently likes variety. I started giving her small amounts of the canned food, then mixed it with some of her dry food, and she's been eating it; she still isn't eating what I'd call a full meal but it's a HUGE improvement compared to her not eating anything at all. Her favorite is the expensive gourmet stuff I got, of course, but so far if I mix a small amount of that with other food it's enough and she'll eat what's in her dish. Up until she got sick she ate 2 meals a day; now I've been giving her small amounts 3 or 4 times a day and that seems to be working. I'm pretty sure her digestive system shut down while she wasn't eating so eating small meals multiple times a day will help with that.

As silly as it sounds I'm also fairly sure our dog has to be retrained to eat. She's always been a creature of habit and routine (as most dogs are, I think) and when she doesn't do something for a while she tends to forget how to do it and has to relearn. Like sleeping through the night: In this case her going out every night was due to being sick but in the past she's sometimes gotten up for a few nights and then "forgotten" how to sleep through the night. We've then "reminded her" (usually by putting her in her crate) how it's done. Now when she didn't eat for so long I think she got used to not eating and lost interest; she wasn't even interested in treats or her bedtime biscuits (as we call them) that she gets every night. For the past 2 days she's been interested in her treats and biscuits again. Not having so much water in her system anymore is also probably helping get her appetite back. Last night we could definitely see a difference in her energy level now that she had some food in her stomach: She was playing with her toys (and my husband) much more energetically than she had recently. I'd already taken her for a walk before he got home so pooch was pretty pooped; after playing with him she excused herself and promptly fell asleep on the couch.

Today our precious pooch has managed to eat some breakfast and lunch, so when I get home from class tonight we'll shoot for some dinner. And tomorrow I'll be going back to the store to get some more of that gourmet dog food... If a little of that is all it takes to get her eating again then I'm all for it!

Birthday

2009-07-25T17:10:00.005-04:00

Today is my birthday.

Nope, I'm not going to say how old I am, not because I'm particularly vain about it but because I'd like potential employers to look at this blog someday and that isn't information I want to hand them on a platter; they can interview me and judge my age for themselves. I'm not saying I'm over-the-hill or anything like that (though my dad did tell me this morning that the hill keeps moving thanks to advancements in medicine), I've just read too many articles in the paper lately about age being a factor in hiring decisions. So I'm leaving my age out of this blog. Suffice it to say I'm somewhere between being old enough to vote and I'm not on Medicare yet. (Though while we were in CA my husband somehow got on AARP mailing lists and that seems to have followed us here. We still periodically get ads in the mail for hearing aids and retirement homes. Maybe we should take them up on it—some of those retirement homes look pretty nice!)

So far it's been a pretty nice day. A few phone calls, e-mails (including a link to geritol from a friend at church—thanks, Jordan), cards in the mail, and flowers and a cake from my hubby:

My hubby the pyromaniac. The fire extinguisher was a nice touch. He put this together while I was out getting dog food choices for our picky pooch.

He got a chocolate-lovers cheesecake. Mmmmm, chocolate—is there any other flavor?

The obligatory flowers. He's been trained well. :-)

Since my husband works today and won't be home for dinner we'll be celebrating the rest of my birthday with a special dinner out next week. For now I'm planning on spending the rest of the day doing homework for my class (I know, not fun, but it's now or have a stressful Monday when it's due), but before I do I thought since it's my birthday and the beginning of a new year (or era, depending on your perspective) I'd take some time out and list 10 things I'm thankful for as I begin the next year. So here it goes:

I'm thankful for a God who loves me and gave His Son to die for me. That is without a doubt the greatest gift (birthday or otherwise) that I could ever receive.

I'm thankful for a loving husband who loves God and me and wants the best for me. (He told me yesterday that he's thankful for me, and I hadn't even told him about my intentions to make this list yet.)

Since it just started pouring rain outside I'll go ahead and say it: I'm thankful for the rain. Otherwise I have to water things by hand with the hose and I'm lazy and don't do it enough. I'm really thankful when Mother Nature does it for me.

I'm thankful for the opportunity I've had to go back to school to get my master's in a field I enjoy. At this time next year I hope to be thankful for the great job my degree helped me get.

I'm thankful for my parents who are helping us while I'm in school. Life would definitely be more difficult and stressful without their help.

I'm thankful for having married into a wonderful Christian family and being able to spend holidays with them now that we're on the east coast. Admittedly I'm still getting used to having big-family holidays but I'm thankful to be a part of them.

I'm thankful that I still have few enough gray hairs that I can still pull them out.

I'm thankful that I still have plenty of hair so you can't notice when I pull a few gray hairs out.

Having recently had surgery I'm thankful for my health.

I'm thankful for another year, another decade, another quarter-century, and whatever God chooses to give me on this earth.

Here's to a great next year.

Home Sweet Home

2009-07-24T18:08:00.003-04:00

I brought our precious pooch home from the vet hospital last night.

Where to begin (and be brief at the same time). They're still waiting for test results to come back to see if they'll shed any light on what's causing her problems. They still think it's kidney-related, but whether it's a kidney infection specifically or something else that's causing her kidneys to react is still unknown. And there's still the whole issue of cause and effect: They don't know if she's drinking a lot because she's urinating so much or if she's urinating so much because she's drinking a lot; in other words they don't know which is causing the other. They sent her home with antibiotics just in case it is an infection and next week we'll be doing a test where we give her an artificial hormone related to the pituatary gland to see if she reacts to that. (It's an eye drop where we have to give her 3 drops twice a day—that's gonna be interesting.) Right now we're monitoring (as in keeping track of and measuring) how much water she drinks to get a baseline measurement for this test. I replaced the buckets she usually has outside with a bowl so it would be easier for me to measure—that confused her. She keeps going over to the (dry) buckets and sticking her head in them, wondering where the water is. I'll fill the buckets again on Sunday when we're done measuring how much she's drinking for this round.

While she was at the vet school they also tested her for tick-borne diseases and they're waiting for the results to come back on that. They think the chances that she has one are very small but there were a couple things about her bloodwork that made it a possibility so they went ahead and sent the blood samples out for further testing. One of the diseases they're checking for is leptospirosis, a bacterial disease that can be transmitted to humans. Even though they think the chances that she has it are pretty slim the fact that they were testing her for it meant that the hospital had to follow certain protocols for our dog; in effect she had to be quarantined and everyone who interacted with her had to take certain precautions. Those precautions included wearing gloves to touch her and dressing up in a full biosuit to be with her in her cage—which I did when I went to visit her before they released her. Unfortunately I didn't have the camera with me but I had to have looked pretty funny. If you've ever been around a clean room or a sterile lab that's the kind of garb I had to wear. I call our dog my little biohazard now. Of course wearing the gloves and suit were only required at the hospital; at home we don't have to be quite that careful with her, we just have to make sure we don't come in contact with her urine until they've confirmed she doesn't have the disease. Not that I'd like to come in contact with her urine, anyway, thank you very much!

While our little biohazard (told ya I was calling her that now) was at the hospital they had her on an IV so they had to shave her leg for that. They also had to shave her belly for a couple other tests (the ultrasound, I'm guessing) so I thought you'd like to see how funny she looks with her shaved areas now:

Don't my leg and tummy look funny?

On the bright side she seems to be drinking and going less today and she's definitely alert and has energy (she slept like a rock last night!) but she still isn't eating... I saw our regular vet with the cat today (just for a check-up but that's a whole other story) and she suggested I get some different canned food to try and find something she likes. She's been eating the same food for years and never had a problem with it but maybe changing to something new—even just temporarily—would do the trick. Unfortunately I'm lazy and really don't feel like going to the grocery store right now... Maybe tomorrow morning. In the meantime she'll still eat chicken (particularly if I hand-feed it to her) so for this evening I'll probably just go with that. Thankfully she still likes cheese—a good thing since that's how I get her to take all her pills!

A Visit to the Vet School

2009-07-22T22:18:00.005-04:00

Today we took our precious pooch to the NC State Veterinary Teaching Hospital. It's quite a place. It was pretty crowded when we got there and I thought we'd probably have to wait a while but we were only in the waiting room for a couple minutes before we were called back. The way things work there is first you see a 4th year student who does a physical exam on the animal and gets their medical history from you; it's very thorough and they ask lots of questions. Then the student goes away and consults with a resident/intern, then the two of them come back and the intern asks more questions and discusses a recommended course of action. In our case they wanted to start with a full blood work up and an abdominal ultrasound to check her kidneys and other organs, then go from there. They also wanted to keep her overnight, at least, and start her on an IV and catheter so she wouldn't have to drink and go so much and could get a break from all that. Since I had surgery recently and had an IV and catheter myself I can't quite imagine how they do that on a dog... but apparently they do!

So we left our dog in their care. This evening the student assigned to her case called to report on the tests they ran this afternoon, and in particular the ultrasound: She said there are definite abnormalities on her kidneys and at least one of them is enlarged, indicating a kidney infection. When she started having problems and I took her to our vet we thought then it might be a kidney infection but the blood and urinalysis tests came back negative so we ruled it out. Apparently kidney infections don't always show up in blood tests or even in cultures if you don't get a large enough sample to grow the culture. They're doing some further tests now but they're fairly certain it's a kidney infection that's causing her problems so now they just have to identify the bacteria so they can put her on the right antibiotic. Once she's on that she should start to improve. They're probably going to keep her there for another day (and night) so they can start the antibiotic intravenously, then she'll come home on Friday with oral meds. The student who called this evening did say they got her to eat some canned dog food mixed with some cat food; at one point I'd wondered if she might eat cat food if I gave it to her but I never tried it. I guess I should have!

The fact that they found something is definitely good news since now they can head toward treating it. Even when we left her I felt a sense of comfort that our precious pooch is in the best place she can be right now and we did the right thing in bringing her. Everyone we met was very nice and helpful, and she'll definitely be well-taken care of while she's there. They don't rest until they track down what's wrong with the animals that come there; an element of being a teaching hospital, I guess. I'm very thankful we were able to bring her there. Apparently we were luckier than I realized: When we were leaving and paying our deposit the person at the front desk said they're very selective about what animals they take, even with referrals. (You can only go there by referral, they don't do routine animal care.) Our vet only faxed the referral to them on Monday and we were able to get an appointment on Wednesday so thankfully it all happened very quickly for us. When I made the appointment the paperwork they sent me included a list of pet-friendly hotels in the area so I guess people from all over (surrounding states) bring animals to this hospital for specialty services. The person we talked to at the front desk said NC State is one of the best and they do get a lot of referrals from far away.

So that's the current story on our dog. Thank you so much for your prayers for her. There is one positive consequence of her staying at the hospital overnight: We'll be able to get a full night's sleep. We've been taking turns getting up to let her out in the middle of the night for nearly a month now so it's been quite a while since we've had an uninterrupted night of sleep. I miss our precious pooch (the house isn't the same without her!) but I know she's being taken care of, and I'm definitely looking forward to a good night's sleep!

Dog Update

2009-07-20T13:13:00.004-04:00

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for our dog. Unfortunately, things don't seem to be getting better as far as her eating is concerned. Over the weekend I pretty much gave up trying to get her to eat her dog food and made rice and chicken for her instead; at first she seemed to like that but I guess the novelty wore off and now she won't even eat that. Last night we had hamburgers for dinner so we made one for the dog as well; she ate some of it then but won't eat the rest of it mixed with rice today.

We talked to the vet on Friday who at this point doesn't know what else to do. She suggested we take our dog to see an animal internist at the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine. The vet called this morning to see how our dog was doing before she faxed the referral paperwork over to the vet school. She said they would probably call us later today to set up that appointment.

At this point taking our dog to the vet school seems like our only course of action, so we're praying for wisdom regarding what to do. As anyone with pets knows when an animal has to go to the vet it's almost always a very expensive venture. Depending on what doctors at the vet school want to do just the tests alone could end up costing several thousand dollars. Money isn't exactly growing on trees for us right now (it never has and I doubt it ever will!) so for now we're just trying to take things one day at a time and do what we can to help our doggie feel better. We'll see what the vet school has to say.

Please Pray for Our Dog

2009-07-17T09:42:00.002-04:00

For the past month our dog has been having various problems. First she seemed to be in pain when she got up or down and we thought it might be arthritis; a trip to the vet and x-rays confirmed that might be the case. The vet gave her some medicine for it and she seemed to get better. Then, a few weeks later a new problem emerged: She started drinking like there's no tomorrow, as if she can't drink enough to satisfy her thirst. Drinking so much also causes her to need to go a lot more; we've had several "accidents" in the living room and she can't make it through the night so we take turns getting up to take her out each night, which means we haven't had a full night's sleep for a while now. We thought maybe it was a kidney infection but another trip to the vet with blood tests and a urinalysis ruled that out. The vet now thinks it might be a thyroid issue (hypothyroidism) so now she's on medicine for that. (Ironically, our cat has hyperthyroidism and has been on medicine for that for several years. The cat's medicine seems to keep her condition under control; we're hoping this medicine for the dog will do the same—if hypothyroidism is indeed the cause of her problems.)

The biggest problem is she hasn't been eating regularly through all of this, as many animals (and humans) don't when they don't feel well. At first I was able to coax her to eat by putting some chicken in her dish with her regular food and she would eat some food with the chicken. Over the past few days, though, even that hasn't worked, and no matter what we put in her dish (chicken, steak, bacon, beef jerky—all her favorites) she just sniffs it and walks away. She'll eat the chicken, steak, etc. if we give it to her directly out of our hand but she won't eat her dog food even that way.

I know she's getting weaker now and doesn't have very much energy (except to still bother the cat occasionally). My husband tells me not to worry too much yet, that we'll call the vet again and that she'll eat when she gets hungry enough. But the dog and cat are my "babies" and I get very upset when either of them is sick or won't eat so this is definitely affecting me now. Please pray that our dog will start eating again and her thirst will go back to normal; if it is hypothyroidism that the medicine she's on now will help and not make things worse, or if it's not that the vet will be able to determine the cause and find a treatment plan that works.

We miss our playful dog. Thank you for your prayers.

Backyard Birding

2009-07-10T18:33:00.013-04:00

Hummingbirds at our feeder in California.

Dan and I love to watch birds in our backyard. When we lived in California we had a hummingbird feeder hanging under our roof outside a picture window. CA has quite a few hummingbird varieties and our feeder was very popular. Sometimes we even had birds lining up for a drink!

Waiting in line.

We also had two special visitors to the feeder, a pair of Bullock's orioles. With their bright yellow plumage they were also so pretty to watch.

Bullock's orioles

Here in North Carolina we don't have the same type of house as we did in California and we can't hang feeders under the roof like we did in California. So Dan built a feeder stand for our deck instead. I can see it from the kitchen window and I love watching the birds while I'm getting dinner ready or washing dishes. The hummingbird feeder is pretty popular here, too, but what's really popular is the suet feeder. Some of our "customers" that enjoy the suet include:

Catbirds:

Downey woodpeckers:

Red-bellied woodpeckers:

(This one is an immature bird that we've named Red-belly junior. He's a regular at the feeder.)

We've also seen wrens, mockingbirds, and robins at the feeder so it definitely gets a lot of use. Unfortunately, we also have a few unwelcome guests, including these fellows:

I know some people like to have squirrels come to feeders but we'd much rather leave it for the birds. When the squirrels come they hog the food, scare the birds away and make a HUGE mess. They go for the suet, the seed, and we even find them regularly trying to drink out of the hummingbird feeder, which explains why all the squirrels around us are so fat! They also perform amazing (or ridiculous, take your pick) acrobatics trying to get to the various feeders. I haven't been able to get good pictures of them doing it because they always see me coming but here's one I caught; it's not the best picture but it's definitely illustrative of what our squirrels do:

Pesky little fella!

Since creating the stand Dan has been at war with the squirrels, trying to find a way to keep them away from the feeders. He's tried putting the feeders on wires that the squirrels can't pull (when the suet was on a string the squirrels simply pulled the string up and muched away) and putting them far out from the railing so the squirrels can't stretch to them. The squirrels always find a way, however, resourceful little critters that they are. Now Dan has taken to leaving the hose on the deck with the water on and he tries to spray them as they run away. It doesn't deter them from coming back, of course (and they're usually faster than Dan can get to the hose and spray them before they get out of range), but it makes him feel better when he's able to make one a soggy squirrel.

Last but not least recently we've had an unwelcome nighttime visitor:

I took this picture at 2:50 a.m. one night so that explains why it's blurry. I was having trouble with the camera, or at that hour the camera was having trouble with me.

While squirrels are a nuisance raccoons can do real damage, including to your dog if you're letting her out at night and don't know the raccoon is there! Now we always make sure to check for raccoons before we let the dog out at night. We even take the suet down at night to try to discourage them, though as you can see some raccoons will apparently eat seed just as well!

Regardless of the challenges we always enjoy the feeders and watching the birds that come to them. It's our kind of reality show!

What Day Is It?

2009-07-02T15:47:00.009-04:00

During the summer my husband works most weekends. State parks are generally utilized more heavily during the weekend so it makes sense that rangers would need to be on duty then. This means that his "weekend" falls on weekdays instead. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but since I don't have a regular schedule right now, either, it does make it difficult to keep track of what day it actually is. For example, Dan went back to work today after having the past two days off so today feels like a Monday to me; I have to keep reminding myself that it isn't Monday, it's Thursday. It's important that I remember what day it is since not only do I need to remember when to go to class but I also need to remember when assignments are due. I'm fairly certain an excuse of, "I lost track of what day it was," wouldn't fly very well with my professors.

One advantage of hubby having days off during the week is with my relatively flexible schedule right now (other than needing to be in class at certain times) I can often join him on "weekend" activities during the week. Since crowds tend to be lighter then we often have places to ourselves. Yesterday we took our dog and had a picnic and went swimming at a local lake. We were the only people in the picnic area and the swimming area we chose. Thanks to shade the weather was bearable and we had a great time. Our dog isn't much of a water dog; she'll get her feet wet but she doesn't like to go in much beyond that. Dan thought she might follow us in so he tried to coax her into the water; apparently she went in farther than she was comfortable with. (She probably didn't like all of the mud in her paws, either.) So she tried to get the first solid ground she saw, which happened to be a log in the water. Have you ever seen a dog try to get all four feet on a log? It was pretty funny. Unfortunately, I was in the water at the time and couldn't get to the camera to take a picture. At one point she actually succeeded and had all four feet on that log. From there she got to the shore as quickly as she could and decided she'd had enough of the water for a while. She explored a little more on shore and then settled down for a nap until we left.

A tired pooch.

B12 Shots, Surgery, and Cheap Shirts

2009-06-26T18:22:00.008-04:00

Yesterday I learned how to give myself shots.

Last month I had surgery for Crohn's disease, an intestinal disorder I'd had for almost 20 years. Without going into excessive detail a small portion of my intestine was removed (the diseased portion) and I'm now Crohn's free. This is good. (If you'd like to know more about Crohn's disease see CCFA—Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America for a good description of the disease.)

One consequence of the surgery is that the part of the intestine that was removed is the part that absorbs vitamin B12. This isn't always the case—sometimes patients have the disease in a different part of their intestine—but it's very common to have Crohn's in the area where I had it. So it's equally common that post-Crohn's-surgery patients require B12 supplements. Vitamin B12 comes in a pill form (so I'm told) but the easiest and cheapest way to get it is by injection. Pills have to be taken daily while the injection for most people is just once a month. The pills also have to be taken with certain foods to increase absorption while the injections are independent and easily absorbed. All things point to injections as being the way to go.

So yesterday I went to the doctor's office and a very patient nurse showed me how to give myself shots. In general I'm ok with needles; you get a lot of blood tests when you have Crohn's disease so you kind of get used to it. But I do have limits—and a very weak stomach when it comes to medical things. Suffice it to say I learned how to do it, but whether or not I'll be able to give myself the shots or need to have my husband (who previously had EMT training) do it remains to be seen.

On a different subject... Don't you love it when department stores give discounts? Most department store discounts seem to be in the form of percentages: 20% off your total purchase for some items (and not others), for example. Those types of discounts generally don't get me into the store. One department store near me, though, periodically sends coupons for $10 off everything—now that I like. That's free money. Of course the $10 coupon is a marketing gimic, intended to get you into the store so you'll spend more than $10 and that will be money that you may not have spent there otherwise. It's not a bad strategy, as marketing strategies go. It just doesn't work well with me. For me, it's $10, and this particular store almost always has decent shirts for only slightly more than $10, so I end up going and getting what turns out to be a very cheap shirt. Rarely do I pay more than $10 and usually it's closer to $5. Today I paid all of $3.73 for my new shirt; last time it was $5.33. So unfortunately for the department store they don't end up getting a whole lot of extra money out of me. Ok, I'll acknowledge it is a few dollars more than I would have spent (since without the coupon I wouldn't have gone in and would have spent zero), but those few dollars a few times a year don't break the bank for me—and I can't quite see how it could be profitable for the store. But if thousands of people go and spend just a few dollars like I do I suppose it adds up. Ultimately it must be worthwhile for the store since I keep getting the coupons, which means more new shirts for me!

Taking the Plunge

2009-06-24T19:45:00.001-04:00

After much deliberation, consternation, and procrastination I've decided to enter the world of blogging. So here it goes.

I've avoided all social networking sites like the plague for a while now. I don't blog (until now), don't Twitter, don't have a Facebook page, have never looked at MySpace, and I've only recently become aware of Ning, which I gather is a relative newcomer to the social network scene. I'm sure there are many more sites I'm not aware of, to say nothing of the thousands of communities out there that provide discussions on various topics. I do have a profile on LinkedIn but only because it's a professional gathering and when I started that way back when it wasn't included in the same group as the social networking sites; now I usually see it listed along with all the others. I considered social networking an unnecessary, frivolous activity that would just be time consuming and could potentially open up numerous cans of worms including security, identity theft, and most importantly the ability of people (like future employers) to dig up personal information about you on the Web. (I never said all of my concerns were rooted in reality.) I figured staying away from social media sites entirely was the easiest way to avoid the potential pitfalls. That, and I'm a pretty private person, anyway, so joining a social network "just for the fun of it" never really appealed to me. And there's definitely that time consuming thing—I figured I spent enough time on the computer already as it was!

So why am I starting a blog now? For a number of reasons. I'm still not going to establish accounts with Facebook or Twitter but I've come to see that having a blog could be fun. Recently I've been reading some blogs of people I know and I find that I enjoy reading them, so if I enjoy reading other peoples' blogs maybe some people will enjoy reading mine.

I also think having a blog would be good for my career. I recognize that social media sites aren't just for fun anymore: More and more corporations have an advertising presence on them and organizations use them to communicate with their members. (I was recently told that my department at school now has a following on Facebook. Intriguing, but I'm still not going to join it.) Next semester I'm taking a course on social media and public relations so I expect to learn a lot more about the positive aspects of social networking.

I've also come to recognize that if I want to get a good job in technical communication I need to have some sort of Web presence. I'm working on putting together a personal Web site but in the meantime I think a blog is a good start: It's definitely more practice for my Web skills than I thought it would be. (I've spent the past several days tweaking the template to get it exactly how I wanted it.) Technical communication also includes technical writing, and employers usually want to see writing samples for prospective employees. While a blog doesn't substitute for professional examples it is a good platform for my general skills as a writer. It (hopefully) will show employers that I can communicate clearly on various topics—whatever those topics may be, because frankly I haven't planned things out quite that far yet.

So there you have it—my reasons for starting a blog. Better late than never, right? As a Christian artist I like says, "The river's deep, the river's wide... So sink or swim I'm diving in." I'm taking the plunge. We'll see what the future holds!