Weekend of Homework

Well, it wasn't the most exciting of weekends...well I guess in some ways it was. I worked for about 6 hours on Saturday on a paper and presentation that is due on Tuesday. Why is this exciting you might be asking? Because, it's the last true paper that I have to do before being bestowed with my MSN. I do still have to finalize an abstract, make it into a poster, and present the poster but that is the last and final hoop to jump through. That paper has been completed for awhile now. The upside was that it was nice on Saturday, so I did most of it outside on the deck.

Boigie was meowing at the patio door constantly, so I tried again to bring him outside. It sort of worked, he was more calm than last summer when we tried this and he enjoyed laying in the sun but something startled him and he kind of leaped forward and the collar came completely off. While I'm certainly for collars that don't strangle my pets, I am thinking there is limited usability with this one....what good is it if it's just going to unlatch? Luckily, he wasn't skittish of me and I could grab him and toss him back in the house. Unfortunately, his taste for the outdoors couldn't be tamed, now that he had a taste of it he wanted more. For the rest of the weekend, as soon as he heard the door unlock he would come running and want to be back out there. We'll have to think of a better solution....

In home improvement news, we are STILL waiting on the contractor for that quote! I'm thinking it might be time to move on. We are not off to a good start and we haven't even started anything! He cancelled our first appointment as he was supposed to be showing up and M had left work early to meet him. Now it's taken him over 2 weeks to get us the quote when he said it would take 1. If it's taking him this long to just write some words and numbers on paper, how long is it going to take him to nail boards to the floor? Yeesh...

M finished painting the office which is actually what made me realize that we are much further behind than I thought we would be at this point. When we were first looking at colors for the baby's room and the office, I thought his plans of finishing both rooms before the flooring was laid was a pipe dream...and yet here we are. Anyway, the color is lovely. I'm glad M had a penchant for the red instead of boring blue. We decided on the Ben Moore Sante Fe Pottery and it's a soft red/pink/orange color. The room looks nice and fresh with the white trim and the white in between the chair rails where the wall paper used to be. I have pics, I promise I'll upload tonight.

I realize I haven't written much about knitting even though this blog is technically a knitting blog, or started that way and then other parts of life took over. Rest assured, dear reader, I'm 80% done with a sweater for Little Y and I also couldn't resist the Anniversary Sale at Webs so I'm working on a sweater for myself. How could a knitter resist Cascade 200 for about $4 a skein, that's almost halfprice! I'm making a Paton Cabled Yoke sweater, it's one of the first sweaters I ever made but I made it with cheap yarn that didn't breath and the sweater was so warm it was unbearable. I have learned much since then, so it's a take two.

Ughhh!

Today was an incredibly frustrating day...all of these things happening all at once

Boigie's home glucose curve went awry, we were trying to save some money by doing it ourselves at home. After the second reading, he was too low and had to go to the vet where they put in fluids via IV and checked various blood tests. Unfortunately, they sent him home to us stil his IV in place, so M insisted on bringing him back even though I told him removing them from people is no big thing. It's stressful for the little guy to go back and forth in the carrier but M was worried that he would bleed too much and squirm away and we wouldn't be able to stop it. The vet is calling tomorrow, M asked that we be compensated on our $366 vet bill in some way.

We are being monitored at work. Nuff said.

I had to deal with interest rate lock issues with the bank all day.

M then had to rush off to band practice, I unwinded with a glass of wine and some knitting. Pictures coming soon, when can I breathe.

Sum it Up

• Green Sweater is done, I've worn it twice outside of the house and people liked it.
• Applied for a mortgage
• More open houses last week, two of note
• One more class left
• M's car dead in driveway
• Boigie is a fave at the vet
• Finished Northern Clemency--great writing. It's like the movies I like, not really much happens but somehow it's still really good.

We are paying the mortgage at this point..

Boigie had his bimonthly trip to the vet yesterday to see if the adjustments in his insulin level are working, this time it was too much! Poor BBC needed an IV to give him dextrose because his blood sugar dipped very low mid way through the day. He came home with a very cute little bandage and a shaved leg. He now looks like he's wearing one mitten or an Ugg boot.



He gave us really no signs that he was hypoglycemic the night prior to, but of course, hind sight is 20/20. We did notice two things but didn't really think anything of it because they were exaggerations of his normal behavior. He seemed slightly more lethargic in the evening and then began meowing for food at 1am instead of 3am. That was it though. The vet said that even as his blood sugar was low he was acting normally for them too and apparently exhibited quite an appetite!



So now, we are holding insulin because his fructoasmine level which is the average of his blood sugars over the past week was also low. There is a slight chance that with the diet switch and the loss of some poundage, our young Boigleston's pancreas has started making it's own insulin again and we won't need to provide it for him. We are holding on the insuling for two weeks, he'll go back and have another fructosamine level drawn and we'll go from there.

Diabetic Kitty Update

Well, we have our first weekend of insulin injections under our belt and so far so good. We've already noticed that his water consumption is down and we are cleaning out the litter box less. Lucky for us, he's a very chill cat and doesn't really react at all to the injections. We usually do it right after he started eating, while he's still eating, because he's a one track kitty and when food is around the rest of the world doesn't exist. He pauses as the injection is going in and then goes right back to digging in.

It was a trying weekend in terms of having to switch his food times around so that he is being fed while one of us is home to do the injection....usually this does not bode well for me because I am the one he comes to annoy when he's hungry. This was the exact scenario that played out on Friday/early Saturday. He woke me up at 4a for his 7a feeding using a variety of his techniques. Initally, there's the forlorn meowing...then he will move onto putting his cold nose on my face. Then, if there is still no response, he will start moving things around on my night stand until I get so annoyed that I start waking up Morgan so he can deal with it! It's times like those that I tend to refer to Boigie as 'your cat' and muttering things like 'you deal with this' :)

A Big Kitty with Big Problems

Our dear young Boiglesworth has had a health setback. After a week of excessive peeing, and in turn, drinking my human clinical expertise had me worrying that our fair kitty was suffering from diabetes. M took him to the vet yesterday where they drew some blood and sent off a urine sample. The vet called today and he is indeed diabetic. This means that M and I will be functioning as Boigie's replacment pancreas by giving him insulin injections twice daily. M goes in for the patient teaching tomorrow, I was not able to get off work but I really just need to know the dose of insulin and where to stick it to Boigie.

The fun and games begin tomorrow.

Yankee Swap, Kitty Funiture

Last week, my workplace held it's annual Yankee Swap where niceness is thrown out the window and rudeness is king. People get annoyed when you don't try to steal someone else's gifts. There are always some sure fire winners that get stolen repeatedly and are the most coveted. Your gift will be passed around if 1. It's in anyway inappropriate 2. It is alcohol or alcohol accoutrements 3. There is a possibility of getting rich aka. lotto tickets.

This year I regifted what I got last year, I thought this might get a laugh from the person who gave it last year but no one spoke up. To make sure it was a coveted item, I threw in a bottle of vodka. People liked it.

The pickings were kind of slim this year as far as something that I would actually want, I was even considering taking my own gift back because I had one of the higher numbers and was fairly confident that I wouldn't get it stolen away from me. In the end, I decided to steal from someone a gift that my colleague brought, an assortment of goodies from Trader Joe's.

In feline related news, M decided to get his carpentry on and make Boigie a new perch from abandoned wood at his parents house. I viewed this idea with some skepticism for a variety of reasons...he sometimes gets these grand ideas but the projects go unfinished (i.e. touching up the paint in the bedroom). I have also seen his previous forays into carpentry and it's not something that comes naturally to him, unless he was trying for a more esoteric and abstract take on a printer table. It's usually best, however, if any type of shelving unit does not slant 60 degrees. But alas, I was proven wrong! The perch is sturdy, wide enough for Boigie's massive berth and at the right height for him to look out of our bedroom window. He even went to lengths to put sisel on the posts so that Boigie can scratch there instead of our box spring. Boigie has given it 2 paws up after also regarding it with some skepticism initially. Perhaps he's heard tales of the printer table.

Boigie and the Bean

Young Boiglestein enjoys many accoutrements of the human diet. Things that he should not have, nor it would seem, have a desire for them. A partial list includes: ice cream, chocolate, cheese, sausage, butter, biscuits, cookies. Many of these are things he's found his way into, others we are alerted to by the extreme closeness of his body to ours when these things are eaten.

Because of his penchant for fatty greasy foods, I have decided to show him the healthier side of life. I have tried several things, one has been successful, the others have not. I now know that Boigie enjoys spinach but does not like strawberries. This weekend brougth a new discovery...his complete adoration for edemame! He used his paw to pull me toward him to get more of the bean! He lept from his perch to meet me halfway so he could get the bean faster!

I'm trying to think what I should try next. And don't worry....healthy foods got the thumbs up from the vet and I only give him small bits.

Everything

I thought I would share Boigie's new sleeping space with you....He likes to alternate every few weeks. He briefly frequents the space for those few weeks before abandoning it all together. He, of course, has his tried and trues. Our bed, his perch, and the linen closet whenever I've put off laundry long enough that he squeeze his wiggle waggle in there.

On to business:
First things first, my mother has come and gone. She was here for only a long weekend...I was bummed that I couldn't take off on Monday but I had to attend a conference for work which I really couldn't get of because I got CEU's for it and my mom also came at this time last year to meet M's parents and I skipped out on one of the days for that. So her visit went really really quickly. She arrived on a much delayed flight on Friday night which put the kabosh on our dinner plans but we still managed to fit in a beer or two at our neighborhood pub. Saturday we walked down to the Charles River to watch the Head of the Charles Regatta. It was a great New England Fall day....sunny with a great chill in the air. I love living close enough to Harvard Square that we can walk and we don't have to worry about fighting our way onto a bus full of tourists who have no idea about bus etiquette. For dinner, we went to one Kashish, our favorite Indian restaurant. Aside from them giving me way too spicy Chicken Tikka Masala, it was good as always. On Sunday, my mom wanted to cook so after a lengthy trip to Russo's and the other grocery store who can not begin to compare, we started cooking and we remained cooking all through my precious Sunday football (I did abysmally if that's a word) until we finally could serve dinner at about 830pm. I met my mom for lunch on Monday (conference benefit, uber lon lunches). She flew out Tuesday after I left for the conference. As usual, the visit went way too fast and always gives me a taste of what it would be like to actually live by mom and meet for lunch etc and then it's ripped away. I've lived here ever since I was 21 so I've never really had the pleasure of living near my mom when I could really appreciate it.





Today was the final day of the conference and MY GOD I can't possibly listen to another case study!! I was so glad to walk out tonight. It's a very informative conference but you could almost play Palin bingo with all the buzzwords that are repeated over and over again. For today's lunch excursion, I did some shopping at Copley Place and decided that these items would enjoy a better life with me and probably should journey home: Ruffle Packet Henley Sweater and hmmm..the other one is not posted on their site. You'll have to trust me it's cute. It's a tan, chunkier knit sweater with a collar that can be made into a shawl collar. There were a few other sweaters there that I liked, but I decided I could make them or something very similar so I passed.

School is getting a little more stressful right now. Next Monday I have my advising session for next semester followed immediately by the Random Systems exam where my lab partner and I each have to pick a patient scenario out of a hat and perform the appropriate exams on each other. Next semester is my first clinical and I'm nervous about it mainly because I have to do 150 hours of clinic time over the course of 15 weeks and most clinics are M-F 9-5 which are also my work hours. I have no idea right now how I'm going to finagle this. Oh, and we have class every other Tuesday at 4pm so I also have to leave early that day to get there in time. Yikes. From what I understand, each subsequent clinical requires more and more hours ( I have three total) so I have no idea how this is going to shake out.

Knitting news...I'm doing a quasi February sweater. I have also learned that M and I will most likely going to visit baby SEM this coming Sunday so I'm signing off now in the hopes that I can finish this sweater by then. And yes, I'll take a picture..I've been really bad about doing that lately but it always seems like so much of a process. Take a decent shot, load it up, load onto this page...It's just easier to tell you and show you at the end.

And with that I'm off!