Dining Room Garden Progress

I finally had the time, and a little bit of energy, to get back to doing some things around the house. I've been slacking for several weeks for some reason.

The Dread Reverend cleared a path through the garage yesterday.



It was much worse than this, in that the garage was pretty much full from side to side and front to back - you could barely get through it for anything. Once the path was cleared, everything that had come out to make the path, had to be put away somewhere - the goal was for it not to go back in the garage. So I got a lot of that done, though not quite all yet. There are several boxes and a pile of clothes in the spare room that need to be packaged up to donate.

Speaking of recycling, I had this cooler with a broken lid, and I was going to throw it away. But just as I was getting ready to toss it in the dumpster at work, I realized ... hey, this thing has wheels, and a handle, and a drain, and it's deep ... it would make a great gardening tote.


Our front yard accumulates tons of little branches out of the trees, that I've been tossing around the base of the trees to get them out of my way when I mow. But that's going to have to stop, because (a) it's starting to look kind of crappy, and (b) when I eventually plant things there I won't be able to do that. I was thinking I'd have to lug the big, heavy, rusty wheelbarrow out there to conveniently move them. But this cooler would work much better, and be easy.

When I'm not picking up sticks I can use it to pull my gardening stuff around, like my little tote bag of hand tools, my knee pad, etc. Or to move smaller plants from one place to another.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of that, but I thought I was rather clever. It did occur to me that if it still had the lid, I'd also have a seat. But if it still had the lid, I'd be using it as a cooler, and would never have thought of this. I'm sure I'll manage, or figure something else out.

Our clematis vine is in bloom!


And, I made major progress on the dining room garden. It's not done, by any stretch, but it's a good start.

I dug up four shrubs, three of which I was able to do myself, although it wasn't easy - except for one I was able to basically pull up by hand, the others had some serious root systems. I was digging and pulling like mad before I finally got two of them out, and one of them just seemed to be set in concrete. Nothing I could do would budge this thing.


After breaking the shovel, and resorting to a pry-bar and a machete, Matt finally got it out.

Tyler enjoyed hanging out with me while I worked outside today.


So the dining room garden went from it's original state ...

... to this ...


Oddly, the dirt in this bed is too deep. The top of the soil is about 8" higher than the sidewalk in front of it. That might not be so bad, except I want to incorporate some of the 'black gold' from our compost pile that came with the house. (In the far back corner of the yard the prior owners had piled what looked like several years worth of leaves, several years ago; it's degraded into a wonderful bunch of compost). I can't dump more compost on top of this much dirt, or I'm going to have a raised bed without the benefit of sides on it.

So I hauled two wheelbarrows full of dirt out of the bed and back to the compost pile, to be mixed in (in a different spot, of course, from where I take my new dirt from). But it needs more taken out before I can start putting the good stuff back in, and by the time I had that much done (about 2:00 p.m.) I had completely, totally, utterly exhausted myself.

I just barely had the energy to put my tools away, take a shower, and take a nap. And I'm pretty well done for the night. Wow, it sucks to be so out of shape. Well, a summer of this kind of work ought to fix that. Because this is only the beginning ... only a tiny fragment of the areas of the front yard I plan to re-landscape eventually.

But ... I've made a start, anyway.

More Good News For Tyler

The vet appointment went well! I met with Dr. N, the vet I trust, and had a long discussion about all these test results. The bottom line was, he said Tyler's numbers are all actually extremely good. He said his current "kidney numbers" (the BUN and creatinine) are not bad at all. They are slightly elevated, which indicates some reduction in function of the kidneys - but this is more due simply to aging, and not that he actually has any kind of "kidney disease."

All dogs, and people too, will slowly lose kidney function as they age. In fact, my dad's doctors told me once that no adult, even healthy ones, have kidneys functioning at 100%. It's just the normal aging degradation which occurs.

So that's what's going on with Tyler. It may seem like splitting hairs, but it's not to me ... there's a difference between normal age-related reduction in function (which can be subtle and slow in an otherwise healthy dog), and the actual status of being 'in kidney failure,' a disease condition which requires ongoing, intense treatment.

The other good news is, since the numbers hadn't changed but a fraction in a year, that means that the kidneys haven't gotten percetibly worse in an entire year - even without me taking any preventive measures. That means their decline is moving very slowly, which is another good thing.

In fact, Dr. N said that the kidneys were still working pretty well, with the BUN still in the normal range - because that's blood urea nitrogen, and that's a strong indicator that the kidneys are still doing a good job filtering waste products out of the blood.

Could they go south at some point in the future? Yes, they could. In fact, it's (allegedly) inevitable that they will worsen over time, as Tyler gets older. All body systems wear down with aging. Is it likely to be any time soon? No - and that's the best news of all. Because he's 14 1/2 - a lot of things could go wrong in the next few years, I can't prevent everything. But at least I know this particular problem isn't looming on the immediate horizon as a crisis situation.

And now Tyler's going to be a guinea pig. The vet told me that it's hard to say whether methods used in dogs with more advanced kidney problems, such as special diet and supplements, will have any impact on slowing such an early stage kidney dysfunction, because most people never catch the subtle changes this early (and he complimented my 'dog care skills' by being so observant of these test results - I was pleased). But now that I have time and it isn't an emergency, I'm going to research and add to Tyler's diet things that are believed or known to support the kidneys and slow the progression of kidney disease, and see if it helps him not get worse. I'm going to have his blood tested more often than they recommend so I can monitor it more closely. And I'm going to see how it goes.

There's no danger to Tyler in this, because I will never give him anything that isn't safe. If I want to try any supplement that has any potentially bad side effect, I won't try it. The worst that could happen is it won't really have any effect on the kidney function one way or the other. In fact, it may be hard to tell, because if it has no effect, but his kidneys weren't really getting much worse anyway, I won't know whether it was the food and supplements, or just that it wasn't going to happen anyway.

Regardless, as long as it doesn't happen, I don't care how it doesn't happen.

Dr. N also said the cholesterol wasn't really a big deal. He said dogs don't get hardening of the arteries, so higher cholesterol isn't really a big deal to them. If it got too high it might indicate a liver problem, since the liver processes cholesterol, but Tyler's liver numbers were great, so there was no concern there. He said it could have been elevated by the change in diet back in January, when I put him on the dry food for awhile - if it had a higher fat content than Tyler was used to (and it probably does, as his home-cooked diet is very low in fat), that could have raised it significantly in the 5 months he was on it. I'll see if it comes down after I put him back on the home cooked diet.

So, all in all ... great news! Tyler remains wonderfully healthy for his age, which I still credit to the home cooked diet ... and probably, to be fair, is also due in part to him just having a healthy, strong constitution. So, yay us!

Tyler - Possible Good News

I'm hesitant to jump for joy yet, until I have more information, but I have some promising news. I called the vet's office this morning and asked them to fax me a copy of Tyler's blood test results from last week, and the test results from when he had this same series of blood work done a year ago. At first the girl I talked to was hesitant and said she'd "have to check" with Dr. DQ. I was like, "Uh-huh, sure." Becuase I'm thinking, if you tell me Dr. DQ won't give me a copy of those tests, I'm coming down there and it won't be pretty.

But she did fax them, they were waiting for me when I got to work. And I discovered an interesting thing.

The 'reference range' for BUN (blood urea nitrogen, a waste product of the kidneys that gets elevated when they're not filtering properly) is 8 to 30. Tyler's number this year was 29. Tyler's number when he had this test fourteen months ago was ... 29.

The creatinine reference range is .5 to 2.0. Tyler's number this year is 2.1, and his number last year was 2.0.

Okay ... so all of us non-vets, what does this tell us? First, his numbers have been almost identical for over a year. There has been no change in one number, and a miniscule change in the other. Even without a degree I'd suggest that implies that he's not on the verge of imminent kidney failure, as Ms. DQ seemed to think. (I'd be willing to bet she never bothered to look at last year's test results to see how much of a change there had even been; that's the first thing I wanted to check, because it would be an entirely different story if, for example, his BUN had gone from, say, 10 last year to 29 this year - then we'd be looking at a whole different scenario).

Second, when I told her Tyler was exhibiting no symptoms of reduced kidney function (excess water consumption and urination), she condescendingly advised that I probably just "didn't notice."

Well, now that we know his numbers have been the same for fourteen months (and I don't know how long before that, since last year was the first time we did this complete blood profile), I'm pretty sure I'd have noticed a change in his water drinkage and peeing in fourteen months.

But of course telling her that he wasn't exhibiting the expected symptoms, rather than encouraging her to consider she might be mistaken, merely made her assume that I was the one who was mistaken.

Once again Dr. DQ is pissing me off.

Third, these numbers were almost identical last year, and no one red-flagged them then, calling me up telling me his kidneys were failing and I should put him on a prescription kidney diet and just wait for them to get worse. And he's been fine.

Although I'm a little confused about that very point - since they were on the high end of normal last year, I'm wondering why no one mentioned to me that they were starting to get elevated, and we might want to take steps then to keep them from getting any worse. Had I known they were elevated then, I would have done then what I'm doing now - looking for natural, holistic ways to bring those numbers back down, before it turns into a crisis.

I don't know whether no one mentioned it because of my biggest conventional medicine pet peeve: that they don't bother to take a 'prevention' stance on these things, but prefer to wait till it's too late and disease is already present before doing anything; or if it's because it's actually not a big deal until it's well out of the normal range. I won't know that until I talk to Dr. N.

I did schedule an appointment with him for Thursday. I'm going to discuss with him what could have these numbers hovering on the high end of normal for so long, is it possible that's just okay for Tyler, and doesn't mean impending kidney failure? Even though they haven't changed in so long, I'd still be happier bringing them down a few points, but since they've been so stable and aren't elevated into the danger range, I'd venture to guess it might not be too difficult to bring them down.

I'm glad I asked for the test results, as Ms. Genius DQ didn't mention something that I do find a mild concern. Tyler's cholesterol went from 156 last year to 290 this year, a significant increase. The reference range cutoff is 300, so it wasn't flagged as high yet, but again - something I'd like to decrease now before it becomes a problem. And it just adds to my growing annoyance that no one bothered to mention that. Just waiting until it's so high it's a problem instead of trying to reduce it before it is - that's what really aggravates me!

Well, that's where things are now. I don't think it's the imminent disaster I was concerned about it being a few days ago; I'm less impressed than ever with "Dr." DQ's mishandling of Tyler's health yet again; I'm going to see Dr. N and see what he has to say, and if that isn't looking promising, then I'll find us a holistic vet, where I'm sure I can learn what he needs to keep these numbers from getting out of hand.

I'm feeling encouraged. It doesn't look like the end of the line just yet.

I'm Going To Become A Dog Nutritionist

I've been researching like mad all weekend on health care for dogs with kidney problems. Talk about major confusion.

I have always believed that we (people in general) are poisoning and killing ourselves with toxins left and right. The (crap) food we eat, full of preservatives and chemicals that nature never intended us to put in our bodies; the (crap) beverages we drink, same thing; the air and water we've contaminated, and the voluntary poisons like cigarettes and alcohol, just to name a few ways we're killing ourselves.

Do I do it? Oh yeah, in spades. Just because I still do it, doesn't mean I don't understand how bad it is. I'm just stubborn and stupid.

Everyone who knows me knows I worship the ground Tyler walks on, I'm insanely committed to this dog. When he was about 4 years old I began to get the idea that what's good for people might just well be good for dogs. I never considered him "just a dog." In fact, I 'fired' my former vet and started going to a new one because when my former vet was pressuring me to have Tyler neutered, and I was balking, the vet looked at me like I was stupid and said, "He's just a dog." What would possess someone with such an attitude to go into veterinary medicine is beyond me. (No. It's not. It was money).

To be fair, turned out they were right about the neutering - should have done it. But that wasn't why I quit going there. I quit going because I don't want anyone taking care of Tyler who would say "he's just a dog." Those people just don't get it.

To me, any companion pet of this caliber is more than 'just a dog,' but more importantly to me, dogs are entirely dependent upon how we treat them. They can't make their own choices on what they eat or drink, what goes into their system, how their health is maintained. That is why I felt that it was even more important to make sure I was making the best choices for him. I love this dog, and I want to take the best possible care of him that I can. I can abuse my own body all I want - I'm making my own conscious choices, even if they aren't that wise. But since he doesn't have the option, he deserves me to make the best choices for him.

So, when he was 4, I did a ton of research, and began feeding him a home-cooked diet. A decision I still believe was the best one I've made for him to date, and what I believe has kept him healthy and happy for 14 1/2 years already. At least, till now. Why this happened, I don't know, except that no living being, however well maintained, can live forever. Body systems wear down eventually, no matter what you do. (That doesn't mean I'm giving up at this early stage, though).

So anyway, I've been doing a lot of research, and a lot of thinking. I don't yet have the actual numbers from Tyler's test results, because I didn't think to ask for them on the phone (though I'm going to call tomorrow and ask them to fax me a copy). But from what I've been reading, and what the vet told me, it's looking to me like his numbers are really so low that this is in a stage where it might well be imminently treatable. I've been reading stories online about people whose dogs had BUN and creatinine levels that were significantly higher than the normal range, and which responded well to holistic treatments. Tyler's numbers are still in the normal range (albeit the very top end of it), so that encourages me that I'm really on the right track in making the effort to jump on this now with diet and nutrition, with what I figure are two possible results. Either (a) Dr. DQ was doing her usual panic-mongering, and in fact things aren't nearly as dire as she indicated, and I may be able to stabilize this situation for long enough that it will become a moot point (I do recognize that Tyler's 14 1/2 and isn't going to be around forever); or (b) the disease will progress, but holistic treatment will slow it enough to give Tyler more time and -this is vitally important - an increased quality of life during that time. (Because dragging him through life years beyond reasonable but sick and miserable isn't my idea of a good choice for him).

Either option is better than the only alternative I've been offered by Dr. DQ - throw him on this prescription kidney diet (the composition of which has been questioned by recent research) until (as is inevitable on that diet) more things go wrong, then start pumping him full of medications to keep him alive and drugged for his remaining life.

Umm, no.

The problem is, renal diets and management is one of the most complicated things on the planet. I'd rather study physics. My mom was on a renal diet for four years, and I helped her manage it, and I know how complex it is. Greg's mom was here over the weekend, and she's a nurse, and she agreed how difficult they are. Everything is so inter-related, and while one thing is bad for the kidneys, reducing that one thing can present a whole host of other problems in other systems of the body. The kidneys are one of the worst organs for this, as while all the organs are vital and all work together, the kidneys have one of the primary jobs of filtering toxins out of the body - vitally essential for life. So when you start adjusting this nutrient or that mineral, and wreaking havoc on other body systems, you will soon have a body that is shutting down on multiple levels at once. (Something that conventional medicine - whether human or animal - has not normally been trained to deal with; it's all 'treat this symptom only, and wait till something else goes wrong, then treat that).

When it was just a matter of putting together a healthy diet for a young dog, it wasn't that hard. Healthy food (when there's no underlying medical condition) is easy - whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, high quality protein. And to clean up any missed bits, a beautiful supplement called "Missing Link" which is just what it says - all the trace minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, and other obscure things that help make a body healthy which may not be included in a home-cooked diet.

But this is far, far more complex, and my head is swimming with all of the different information I've been reading this weekend.

In Tyler's care, I always wanted to do everything myself. I mean, I would love to have the resource of a holistic vet to turn to, but there aren't any in this area. The closest I've come is Dr. N at the current vet clinic, who at least seems to have some knowledge of these methods, and more importantly, is open to their use. (He was the one who once suggested I try massage and T-touch on Tyler, something I'm sure Ms. DQ would have had to work to not laugh out loud at).

But lacking that, I trusted my own research and knowledge better than just buying something someone else said was good. I took a very hands-on approach.

But this kidney thing feels a bit beyond me. I feel like I'd have to spend 6 months studying dog nutrition, and I don't have that much time. I feel an intuition that I'm very much on the right track, but that it needs addressed right now. That time is very much of the essence, and if I get on this right away, there will be a far better prognosis than if I leave him to deteriorate while I try to figure things out.

I found a website that offers a "kit" of holistic treatments for dogs with kidney problems - several different supplements, and a whole-foods home-cooked kidney diet. I don't usually go much for those types of things (the pre-packaged kits; not the home-cooked diet, which I'm all about), but I'm weighing my options in this case - time and knowledge both being in short stock on my end - of trying out the "pre-designed kidney disease treatment kit" that someone else put the research into, rather than trying to put this together all on my own. I read their website extensively, and they do 'get it.' They talk a lot about how the whole body works together as a system, and while treating the presenting problem (decreased kidney function), you also have to remember to support the rest of the body as well - the liver, heart, and other vital functions.

It sounds promising, but I want to maybe read a little more, think a little more, and weigh this decision carefully. It's a $125 investment - not unaffordable, but not cheap enough (and too important) to just say "Okay, well, I'll try it, and if it doesn't work, no harm, no foul." Because time is one thing I don't have a lot of - I feel this strong intuition that if I jump on this quickly, with the right combination of treatments, there could be a good prognosis; but if I don't, or I screw it up with the wrong stuff and waste too much time, the situation could deteriorate to a point of making it much harder to deal with.

I do want to clarify one point: I know that whatever I do, it could possibly not matter. I mean, things happen, bodies wear out. I'm not trying to make Tyler immortal. I think I sometimes frighten my friends with my over-commitment to 'fixing him.' I think they worry that I'm in denial about his age and the fact that he's not going to be around forever. For the record, that's not true. I'm (painfully) aware of that fact.

The difference is, though, that I don't believe in giving up just because he's "old." I don't believe in the idea that just because a dog is 14 (or 11 or 17 or whatever) that whatever goes wrong, you should just say "Oh well, he's old," and give up. I hate that attitude. I've known people who had dogs ranging from age 9 or 10 to 15 or older, who when their dogs developed health problems, just said "Oh well" and did nothing, and the dog died. While sometimes this was probably inevitable, I would wager that half the time it was not necessary, at least not right then.

To me dogs are angelic beings - they are just the perfect creature. They love you no matter what. They are loyal, loving, kind, playful, intelligent, and beautiful. Letting a dog's life go because one is too lazy to educate oneself to take care of him or her properly is - to me - just a flaming tragedy. The only thing worse is vets - the ones you trust - who have the same damned attitude.

When I'm convinced that I've done everything that can be done, and it's not working, then I'll deal with the rest of it. I'm very much not there yet (especially with the limited and questionable information I have at present). And, when the thing turns up that can't be fixed, I'll cope much better if I know I really did everything I could. That is, after all, all one can ask of oneself. But it's definitely not too much to ask. If I just give up and say "there's nothing I can do" when I believe different, I would not be able to forgive myself. But as I said, we're so not there yet.

Oh, one last thing I want to bore you with, then I'll close this post. There's another reason why I'm skeptical still of Dr. DQs instant diagnosis of "he's old, his kidneys are failing, just give him this food and enjoy your time together." She didn't bother to look into any other possible causes to this whole thing in the first place. For example, I have fed Tyler the home-cooked diet for over 10 years ... until just a few months ago. When we were searching for and then buying a house, I got too overwhelmed to keep up with his food, so I switched him to a high-quality, all natural dry dog food. It's still a processed dry food, but I thought it might be okay for awhile since it was 'all natural' and higher quality. He immediately began drinking a little bit more water, but I knew that was because I switched him to a dry dog food - hello, that's just common sense. There was no reason for me to see that slight increase in water consumption as a 'sign' of anything wrong.

But I do wonder if the abrupt switch to dry food, combined with the intense stress of a move to a new house (especially when he's mostly blind), and a drastic change in his schedule (i.e., me not being able to come home at lunchtime and let him out, together with me just being gone longer every day in general) could have contributed to these elevated levels, without their being any real serious kidney damage. Or, in the alternative, there are other conditions that can cause an elevated BUN and creatinine, besides "old-age kidney failure." What bugs me is Dr. DQ didn't bother to suggest or check anything else. I've read that when elevated BUN and creatinine levels show up, you should always also do urine tests for other enzyme levels needed to properly diagnosis the problem and monitor the kidney function (I'm just not sure yet what other things those tests are for - the information was vague) - but she never even suggested it. Just made the snap diagnosis that "he's old, his kidneys are failing, you'll have that, nothing you can do but try to keep him comfortable."

Well. It's obvious I have issue with anything this doctor says, and with good cause. I was thinking about it again today, and I mentioned it before, but every time I've had Tyler in to see her, she's popped off some horrid diagnosis - brain tumor, cancer - which Tyler never had. I mentioned the brain tumor issue; another time I took him in for a checkup and mentioned a small, flat, squishy lump on his side. Her immediate diagnosis was "it could be cancer," then added it might be nothing. It was nothing, he's had it for years, it never got any bigger or changed in any way.

So, she's kinda like that. And this may very well be another instance of that. And I'll tell you what, if it is, I'm going to seriously consider writing a letter to whoever manages this clinic and complaining about her. If she wants to be so damned panicky and morbid, maybe she should go into another line of work. Perhaps she should work at the pound, since she seems to enjoy morbid diagnoses of imminent death.

Well, this turned into a bit of a rant. Sorry, but there it is. I'm done. My course of action is to (a) get a copy of the blood test results so I know the actual numbers; (b) schedule an appointment with Dr. N, and get a second opinion (one that's not nearly so prone to panic), (c) research this stuff I found online and try to decide whether I want to go with a 'pre-packaged' treatment (where someone else did the research) or want to try to forge ahead on my own in this complicated environment, and (d) spoil Tyler rotten, just because he deserves it.

More Flea Market Finds; Tyler's Health

There's a cool shop near us called Wizard of Odds, which is basically a flea market mall. It's a huge old store set up with different 'booths' throughout, where people set up whatever old stuff they have to sell. This particular one is a good one, filled with treasures. We picked up several yesterday and today, all for the living room.

We found this table.



It's supposed to be a Duncan Phyfe table (whether original or reproduction I wouldn't know), and it has a leather inset in the top, which is very cool. I waffled about it for awhile, but at only $35 I decided to take a chance - and it was the right chance, because it does look great between the two chairs.


We also picked up this silver tea set, which needs polished up, but afterwards I think it will look grand.



I really love this! I hadn't thought about putting a tea set in the living room, but when we saw it, I was like, "Dude! I want that!" I thought it would go great with the theme of the living room, and I actually plan to use it - I love tea, especially in the winter. I'm not just using it for decor. (Sheesh, now I have the dubious task of "polishing the silver" - maybe I'm taking this sea captain's wife thing a bit too far). I don't know why there are two 'pitchers,' I would think with a tea set you'd only need one. So maybe one's an extra. But all this for $25 seemed a good buy.

We looked for a tea cart to set it on, but although they had three, we didn't like any of them. We'll find one, but meanwhile we can set it on the side table that's in the living room.

We also found this fireplace screen.


While it's not the most beautiful fireplace screen I've ever seen, it is pretty, and it was only $25. I've priced them. That's a good price. Later, if we find one we like better for the living room, we can move this one downstairs. We wanted a fireplace screen for the upstairs because, even though the fireplace has doors, when we want a fire we'll want the doors open - and then you need the screen (it didn't have a built-in one). The downstairs fireplace has a built-in, pull-chain screen, but the chains are broken, so it's kind of a pain - which is why this one could always serve down there if we get tired of and/or replace it in the living room.

Next to the fireplace, not very clear in this picture, are two more finds ... a set of fireplace tools (we didn't have any for upstairs - $12.00) and a bellows, not an antique but very pretty ($9).

So we got a bunch of awesome finds for the living room, for very minimal money. I'm pretty happy with that.

I'm not, however, happy with Tyler's trip to the vet yesterday. He had a yearly blood test done, a 'senior wellness profile,' which they recommend once a year, a practice with which I agree (since he is 14 1/2 years old). Last year's was perfect. This year the vet called me with the results today, and said everything was perfect, except one thing. His BUN and creatinine were elevated, which she said indicated the beginning stages of chronic renal failure.

To clarify two points, chronic renal failure (CRF) is a diminishing of the kidneys' function over time, not that they've completely stopped working. That would be acute renal failure, and an immediate emergency. Not to make light of CRF, as it is serious, and there's no 'fixing' it, you can only hope to slow the progression. Ultimately, in people as well as animals, it is fatal ... although whether or not it can be slowed to the point that something else is probably going to kill you first still remains the question to be answered.

The second point is that the vet did tell me that his levels were just right at the cut-off point of the 'normal' range. Meaning, they were elevated to the highest level of the normal range, but they weren't elevated beyond normal yet. That is in its own odd way, good news - at least they're not blown clear out of the normal range already. I guess it's kind of like 'catching it early.'

However, the other bad news is, for some stupid reason, in dogs, by the time the levels are easing out of the normal range, the dog's kidney function is already reduced to about 30%. Why in God's name they don't adjust their 'normal' range or devise a better test, I don't know ... but that's the way it is. I read online that even when a dog's BUN and creatinine levels are in the 'normal' range that just means their kidney function is 'at least 30%.' That seems kind of useless to me.

Moving on ... I don't yet know what to think about this. On the one hand, I was feeling kind of devastated. But on the other hand, as always with things like this, I was determined to find out as much as possible, and see what our options are for slowing the progression of this problem, and what the realistic prognosis is.

I did a little checking online, but that was more than less than unhelpful. (And I always taking anything I read online about things like this with a grain of salt, anyway). A couple websites said things like "In CRF, with proper care and maintenance, your dog may yet live months or years." Okay, I don't want to hear anything with "months" as a timeline. But then other websites I checked out said that with proper care and maintenance, a dog can go on to lead a mostly normal life, with little diminishment of quality or maybe even length of life (in other words, with proper care they'll likely die from something else before CRF will kill them).

So I don't know yet what to think. I have to find out more.

One other piece of information I'm weighing. The vet's office that I take Tyler to has about 9 vets that all work in rotation, so unless you request a specific vet and schedule your appointment accordingly, you just get whoever's on duty. Since Tyler's appointment yesterday was just for a checkup, I didn't request a specific vet. And I got stuck with Dr. DQ (Drama Queen), a vet I have had issues with in the past.

The reason I call her the Drama Queen is because she seems to have a penchant for diagnosing the worst case scenario first, then maybe tossing out other less dire predictions as an afterthought. It's almost as if she enjoys playing 'doom and gloom' with people.

I remember the first time she did this to me, I took Tyler in for something that turned out to be mild (so mild that I don't remember now what it even was), and her first response was that it very well may be a brain tumor. Only after I freaked out did she say, "Well, it might be this other thing," as if she very much didn't think that was likely ... and it turned out to in fact be 'that other thing.' She did that to me a second time, and I refused to see her anymore ... everytime I would call for an appointment, I would request a specific other vet that I had also seen there before, who I like much better. He's very cool, not prone to panic-mongering and dire diagnoses, approves of the holistic methods I prefer to use with Tyler's care and food, and is just all around a much better vet, in my opinion.

This time I didn't request him, because Tyler was only having blood work, so I didn't think it would matter who we saw. But since I drew Dr. DQ, she was the one who ultimately interpreted the blood test results, then called me.

Her only suggestion at this time is to put him on a special food (which I can only get by prescription, i.e., from them) which is very low in protein, the 'recomended' first defense against worsening renal failure.

I just read online today that this former approach - drastically reducing protein intake in CRF - is now coming under question. It may not be the best approach, after all. But apparently the jury's still out on that one, so I don't know.

I also read something that makes perfect sense to me. Dogs with CRF will urinate a lot more, because the reduced functioning of the kidneys cause more toxins to accumulate in the body, so to try and compensate, more urine is produced to try to flush these toxins from the body. So, dehydration is a real concern. For this reason, two of the first early symptoms of CRF are drinking more water and urinating more frequently (symptoms which, by the way, Tyler has not yet exhibited; although when I told Dr. DQ that, she said I probably just "didn't notice"). And because of that, it's important to keep the dog as hydrated as possible.

One of the recommendations to help with this is to feed canned or moist food instead of dry food. Well, to me, that just makes sense. But Dr. DQ offered me either the dry or canned version of their 'special kidney diet food', and never suggested the the canned would be better for him.

That's just one of the many things she does that concerns me. In all of my dealings with her, she strikes me as one of those types of 'doctors' who only looks at treating the tiny range of symptoms that she's looking at at this very moment, without concerning herself with the potential problems that treatment could later cause, figuring that "when that happens, we'll just add more drugs and chemicals to the treatment regime to treat the new problem." She as much as told me that - she said there's medication for CRF, but we don't need to put Tyler on it yet.

While of course I don't want to throw him on a medication he doesn't need, it's that mindset - we'll just deal with this one tiny aspect of the issue, and ignore everything else until we cause more problems, then treat those problems with more drugs, etc., etc. - that's the mindset that drives me nuts. Rather than focusing on mitigating damage and slowing disease progression, she seems to focus on just one aspect of the problem, with the idea that "when" - not if but when - more symptoms show up, then we'll add more treatments. I don't like that way to handle it. I'd rather do everything - everything - that has a chance of slowing the progression of the disease, now, rather than waiting till it gets worse.

I feel like I'm not explaining this well, but it's the best I can do right now.

Oh well, I'll stop going on about it. I've decided that I'm going to request a follow-up appointment with the vet I like, and get a second opinion on all this, and see what his thoughts are. And get as much information as I can for the best way to handle this.

For the record, I'm not trying to look for excuses to be in denial about this, or pretend it isn't happening. I know, sad and painful as it is, that Tyler's 14 1/2 years old, and that he's inevitably going to develop health problems, that he's not going to be around forever. I get that.

But I'm far from ready to just say, "Oh well, he's got this, all I can do is make him comfortable and basically give up." Not there yet, by a long shot.

Pirates At War Practice (duh)

I did get to go to War Practice yesterday, if only day-tripping. I was kind of bummed, because this event is so notoriously cold, but this year the weather was actually pretty nice - and I couldn't spend the weekend, because I didn't have a dog-sitter.

But I went out for awhile during the day on Saturday, then came home to take care of Tyler for awhile - feed, walk, brush, play for an hour or so - then went back out to hang out for awhile in the evening. I came home around midnight, so I got to spend a decent amount of time, and the drive home wasn't too bad.

I didn't get a lot of pictures, only two. The motley crue around the campfire when I returned in the evening ...

... and, who knew? Captain Jack Sparrow was merchanting at War Practice. I snapped a shot of him and the Dread Reverend plotting some scheme or other.



Today the weather took a downward turn, it's cold ... so no yard work today. Yesterday was fun, but tiring, so I may just take today as a relaxing do nothing day. Or I could work on the Imaginarium, which is still pretty much a disaster area.

I'd like to work on my garb, sorting it out, planning or making new pieces, because I've gotten really re-psyched about the SCA this year ... but it's frustrating - I still haven't figured out how I'm going to go to Pennsic, with no dog sitter. Because I don't believe Tyler's "only" a dog, and he's wildly spoiled, I am extremely particular about who watches him. Maybe to an unnecessary extreme, but ... that's me. With him losing his eyesight and hearing, I am far more particular than I used to be about how he's cared for. He needs more care and attention now than he used to.

I know, I'm probably over-protective of him, but I don't care. He's 14 1/2, he deserves to have these 'later years' be soft and cushiony for him. I'd rather spoil him now while he's here, and have no regrets later.

Of course, I do sometimes remind myself, it's only a week ... how bad could it be? Even if he was upset, he'd probably recover quickly once I came home.

Sigh. Well, we'll see. There have been a few offers, I'm weighing things out and thinking. But since I'm still unsure, it's hard to get psyched about garb and Pennsic.

On the other hand, chances are I'll find a way to go at least some of the time, even if I have to do like I did for War Practice, and day trip. That actually has its advantages, and I've threatened to do it before even when I had a dog-sitter. Because being out there non-stop for days on end can get exhausting. It's always ungodly hot, and the heat really gets to me ... I wilt like an unwatered houseplant, have no energy, I'm tired all the time. It's easy to romanticize Pennsic, because it's such a magical place, but the bare bones reality of it is that I spend 75% of Pennsic sitting around in camp bored because I don't have the energy to do anything, and I can't even take a nap because it's 110 degrees in my tent (not that that would help, because I'm not sleepy, just physically exhausted from the heat). The only time I perk up is around sundown, or on the rare, freakishly cloudy or cool day.

Daytripping has many advantages. Not being out in the heat 24/7 for 10 days, when I am there, I may have more tolerance for it. I wouldn't have to worry about a giant cooler and 10 days' worth of food. I wouldn't have to worry about garb because I'd be home every night, I could wash things out if I needed to. "Real" showers, and a clean cool bed to sleep in every single night. If it pours rain, I don't have to go deal with it.

The only down sides would be the expense of the gas money to drive back and forth (it's 40 minutes one-way, not horrible, but not cheap either); and the mile-long trek from the parking lot to camp twice a day every day I'm there (hey, I'd probably lose weight!). But that's only two negatives for a bunch of positives.

Hmmm. That bears serious consideration.

So, having my garb unpacked, mended or whatever needs done, and ready to go would still be a wise investment of time.

There - I think I talked myself into it, I might spend today working on garb and planning the logistics of a day-trip Pennsic.

The Dining Room Garden Project

Here's what I want to work on first, gardening-wise.

This is the overall front of the house. I chopped off a little to the left - there's a whole 'nother tree over there, and a little bit of yard. But this portion is sufficient for looking at the potential dining room garden.

You can see the front door, with the porch and it's railing, in that stone-surrounded bit that sticks out in the middle. The entrance to that porch is currently on the right side of the porch, by way of a sidewalk that runs along the front of the house. We want to change that, so the steps come up at the front of the porch, and a stone path winds down and around, just behind the tree, then curves out in front of the lamp post, to the driveway.

Behind the tree where you can't really see it is another door, which is the dining room door - and around that is where I want to put the dining room garden.

Here's a series of closer pictures, the first one shows the tree and the light post, between which the new front path will run; and the dining room door, under the larger awning.

This entire section is basically going to become the dining room garden.



So the dining room garden will eventually cover both patches of dirt to either side of the dining room door, the sidewalk, and across to where that line of the shrubs on the left currently is, over to where the new front path runs. Despite the sidewalk, it'll eventually be all one contiguous gardeny area.

Originally I'd planned to bust up and haul out the sidewalk there, and have solid garden all the way out to the new front path. But then ... remembering my vow to approach all of my home renovation projects frugally, and with as minimal effort as possible to still get what I want, I decided that was going to be too expensive, and too labor intensive, for a basically unnecessary reason.

So Plan B became to leave that sidewalk in place, and do several things. First, we need the sidewalk as far as the steps to the dining room door anyway, as we're still going to use that door for our daily comings and goings. But on past that, I'm going to set up a little table and chairs, a little outside sitting area, right on the concrete walk. Past that, where there no longer really needs to be concrete for any purpose, I'll probably incorporate a section of container garden. I wouldn't mind incorporating some type of water feature out there, and that's also a possibility - find or make an above-ground fountain, and set it on the concrete walkway, surrounded by container plants. That way, it has a stable base.

The only downsides I see to using a lot of container plants on that sidewalk is (a) watering (more about that below), and (b) lack of winter interest, and a bare concrete walkway throughout the winter, unless I figure out something else to do then ... which, with a little thought, I'm sure I can. Hey ... I could use that whole area as a focus for a seasonally themed display, autumn and Halloween in the fall, Christmas decor from Thanksgiving till January, ... hmmm. That has potential. And there are plenty of outdoor electrical outlets in the area, too.

I may also lay brick over the sidewalk ... since the sidewalk's already there, I don't have to worry about digging and putting the right base under the brick to keep them stable through the seasons. Just lay them out, and voila ... instant brick pathway! Yeah, we'll have to take one step up (the height of a brick) from the driveway onto the walk, but that's not such a big deal. We'll also have to find a nice way to make it transition well, but I'm sure I can come up with something.

We're going to have to weigh the options of either moving the former concrete steps, currently on the side of the porch at the end of the concrete sidewalk, around to the front of the porch where we want our new path to be ... or of just leaving them, and building wooden steps at the front. The deciding factor will be which is cheaper, because after doing some research I discovered moving concrete steps ain't easy. Some contractors won't even do it, so we have to see whether we can find someone who will, and whether they'll charge us more than it would cost to build new wooden steps instead.

If they stay here, that's okay ... I'll incorporate them right into the garden. I can set containers on them and have a multi-level plant display, or something like that.

I'm incredibly psyched about all this. This place just has such great potential! I mean, it's already beautiful, but has so much potential to really stand out, and show off its character. I have grand plans, eventually, for the whole front yard. After I complete the dining room garden, I also want to work on the area in front of the big front window (to the left of the front door as you're looking at the picture), and then build beds around the trees and extending out, and eventually linking those together in the middle, in front of the new path to the front door. Eventually I'd like to cover the entire yard from about the midway point on up to the house with flower beds, shrubs and ground cover, and even more eventually extend them partially down into the lower half of the yard, toward the street, at least on the perimeter - for two reasons - first, because it will just look freaking awesome, and second, because I'm all about doing away with as much lawn as I can get away with ... to have less mowing, and to conserve watering. This lawn is really beautiful, because the former owners took care of it ... but it's too nice to let die out in the middle of summer because I can't afford to water it, and after getting our first water bill, I don't see watering a lawn for several months being in our budget.

So ... do away with most of the lawn, and replace it with drought-tolerant ground cover and plants, watered with a soaker hose system run off of rain barrels. I'll come near to eliminating my need for 'purchased water' for this garden if I plan well. That's why I'm cautious about getting too many container plants on that sidewalk ... I don't think the soaker hose concept is going to work for them. Of course, I could always water them with a watering can filled from the rain barrel (assuming we get enough rain for all this), but then we're getting labor intensive, and another of my lofty goals is to have all this beautiful gardeny goodness with minimal maintenance effort.

Yeah. I don't want much.

Another really cool thing about these gardens is, the three front windows - dining room, spare bedroom, and living room on the other side of the front door - are all big windows, out of which you can see really well. The living room window goes almost all the way down to the floor, which gives an awesome view right out into the yard. That means the double fun/challenge of basically building a two-sided garden - one that looks great from the street, and also from indoors, where we'll be able to see it really well from those windows. Which means foregoing the typical from-the-street layout of tall plants in back, medium plants in the middle, and short plants in the front. If I do that, all I'll see out my windows is the flat facade of the back row stuff. So I have to make the garden 3D from two sides. How fun is that!?

But to focus back in on the near future, my first order of business in the dining room garden is to take out the shrubs directly in front of the house (most of which are dead or half-dead anyway), dig up those beds and condition them with some good compost, and plan my plantings. More on that in a future post.

Extreme Blog Makeover

I decided it was time to re-do the blog. (A) I rarely if ever do any fiber arts anymore, much less blog about them, so "Fiber Freak" was pretty outdated. (2) The entire blog has been taken over by my obsession with the new house, the projects and plans we have here, and that's what I really want to blog about. (iii) My 'creative artistry' has expanded beyond mere fiber arts, to include all manner of artsy things - gardening, decorating, cooking, calligraphy, etc. - and I wanted to reflect my new, broader horizons.

Eventually I'll be re-doing the categories as well, but that's a project for later. I have a local inspector showing up in about 15 minutes to inspect the electrical work I had to have done a week or so ago. I am hoping that he doesn't find anything else he wants fixed, as the home warranty is supposed to cover the previous repairs (to the tune of $860, I'm really glad!) but won't cover anything required only to bring something up to code - the type of thing the inspector might find. I'd rather not have to spend any more time on wiring, and would prefer to devote any spare cash I find in the next few weeks to the dining room and front garden.

That's all for now. More homeowner blather and garden pictures this weekend.

Got The Brain Back

I got my computer fixed. Man, was I relieved! I didn't realize how much I'd miss it, until I didn't have it - only for about a week, or less. The hard drive had crashed on me, and I ordered a new one from Toshiba Direct - they had a good price, and I figured it might be safer to put in the same hard drive it had before.

So it arrived Tuesday, we popped it in, fortunately I had the restore disks, and in a few hours I was good to go. It's a little frustrating having to set everything up all over again - the desktop and all that - but at least I didn't have to buy a new computer!

I got my photo editing software set back up, so I'm good to go with that too.

And as for the living room, as I've let it settle in, it's growing on me more and more. I think this last arrangement is The One. I've got to get the rug, and work on the curtains soon. It's been challenging, it seems like I just can't find the time to get to all these projects I want to do, so things just aren't moving as quickly as I'd like.

Well, I'm not the first homeowner, by a long shot, to have the joyful challenge of doing makeovers and fix-ups while trying to get on with life. I'm sure it'll all come together. I do, however, have to get a bit more energetic.

I'm also flipping excited about the gardens! I'm dying to get to work on the front landscaping, where I have grand plans. Hopefully this weekend and next (a long holiday weekend with a couple vacation days to boot!) I'll get a lot done. Pictures soon!

Garage Sale Finds

A neighbor a few doors down was having a garage sale this weekend, and we decided to wander over. I'm glad we did ... we got several great finds. (And I do have some pictures ... I didn't get my computer fixed yet, the hard drive should be arriving Tuesday - but I managed without my photo editing software this time).

First I snagged this:


They called it a buffet, and while it is going in the dining room, that's not what we'll be using it for. We'd already decided that the front door into the dining room was too handy by half, and despite not wanting to turn the dining room into the 'mud room' or foyer, we knew we'd end up using that door most of the time. ('We' being me, Greg, and the kids). The main front door, into the living room, is too inconvenient for everyday coming and going, especially for bringing in groceries; and the door from the kitchen into the garage isn't very convenient for several reasons. So the dining room door was going to be it.

But I didn't want everyone's shoes being piled around that door all the time. We talked about getting one of those entry-way benches with the cubbies underneath for shoes. But when we found this buffet (for only $35), I had visions. For starters, those two sections with shelves on the sides have glass-fronted doors. I intend to install some fabric 'curtains' on the inside of that glass to block the view, and each one of those shelves will be a place to stash shoes. I have old towels which I can line them with in the winter or when it's wet, to keep the inside clean and dry. Then there are the drawers, which will be perfect for hats and gloves in the winter, and for Tyler's collar and leash and raincoat, for walks. It's flipping perfect!

I'm going to paint it, probably - we're trying to get away from the dark wood in this room, although once we paint the walls, and re-do the floor, maybe the wood of something like this won't be 'too much' - so maybe I'll wait and see.

I'm kind of excited too, because I figured the top of this would be an ideal place for a few plants. It's a south-facing window, shaded by an awning and a large tree out front - so it's not going to get a ton of direct sunlight, but it will get bright diffused light, and a lot of houseplants would grow well under those conditions. I've always wished I could have a few houseplants, but at the old house, there just wasn't any place to put them. This will be a good spot for a little experimentation.

The second find was a lamp base which we felt would fit right into our sea captain's parlor decor for the living room.


(And for only $4.00, we figured it was worth trying out. Have you priced lamps lately? Yikes!) It is an electric light, not a lamp ... it is lacking a shade at the moment, which I'll put together as a 'Victorian-style' lamp shade, something like this ...



... courtesy of Antique Lamp Supply. Maybe not quite this 'fancy,' I'll have to tailor the shade to go with the lamp. But you get the idea.

I think it'll go quite well. Speaking of which, I can't stand it, I have to post some pictures of the furniture. This is its current arrangement, although we've moved it around 5 or 6 times since we got it. It'll take awhile to be sure how we're going to put it all together, although this is my favorite at the moment.



There are still a lot of things we need to pull it together. We want to get a rug for the middle of the floor, to sort of 'anchor' that furniture together. We plan to get a coffee table, though it has to be 'just the right one' to fit in. We will be re-doing the window treatments as soon as possible, as those vertical blinds and peach-color valances really need to go. But I think it's coming together nicely.

I think that about wraps up today's finds ... some other, smaller, cool stuff, but nothing else specifically for the house.

I'm dying to get busy on that dining room, but we haven't settled on a paint color yet. We'll have to work a little harder on that this week.

Guess What I'm Getting Tomorrow ...

The furniture's arriving tomorrow morning! I'm giddy. I can't wait. Once we get the furniture in the living room, then we can pick out a rug, and work on changing the window treatments, and it'll start coming together into our own sea captain's parlor.

Unfortunately, I don't know when I'll get to post pictures of it, because I killed my computer this week. The hard drive is dead, dead, dead. Fortunately, it gave me some warning, and I was able to get - I think - everything important off the computer onto an external we have. And also fortunately, it's brain still works, it's just the hard drive. So I am planning to get a new hard drive ($80 for a 250GB from Toshiba, I can live with that - bigger than it had before), and hopefully resurrect the thing soon.

I'm borrowing the Dread Reverend's computer for online stuff, but he doesn't have my photo editing software that I use to make the pictures blog-friendly (i.e., under 50MB).

It was a mildly difficult decision to get a new hard drive rather than using it as an excuse to splurge on a new computer. I'm obsessed with netbooks, and want one in a bad way. Only because I've been obsessed for some time with the smallest possible working computer I can get. Unlike many people who want the laptop but the big ass screen, my main goal is just to have a computer that's small enough to carry around in my purse. When I got my current laptop, I got the smallest one I could afford. The Sony Vaio was a tiny bit smaller, but almost $1,000 more, and I said, umm, no. My Toshiba Satellite is the next tiniest one I could find, and is pretty petite - and plenty powerful - but not quite small enough to tote around with me.

A netbook would probably fit the bill for uber-tiny, and they're not that expensive ... but they just can't do everything yet. For example, it wouldn't be able to run my photo editing software, or my music editing software. So it will be the ultimate splurge, because what'll end up happening is, I'll make sure I have a computer that will run that stuff, then I'll indulge in a netbook just for online stuff and text stuff (which I do a lot of).

But it is a splurge, so ... it'll have to wait, and I did the fiscally responsible thing of opting to fix the 'old' computer first.

But hey - new furniture tomorrow! Woo-hoo!! (Rhys - before you ask - no, I didn't get the Scotchguard. So be warned).

Lest I get kicked off my fiber-arts related web rings (if I haven't already), I want you to know that I did at least eye the knitting tonight a bit. I seriously considered getting out the sweater, trying to figure out where I am on it, and getting busy on it again. I'm actually afraid. I don't know if I can remember what the heck I was doing, I don't know if there will be a big sloppy bunch of rows across the middle of the back from picking it up again after so long, and my knitting not being 'on par' with the rest of what I've already done. It's just frustrating.

Probably to ease myself back into it, I should start with a pair of socks. That's probably a grand idea. And I already have sock yarn. And always need good socks. Hmmm. That might just entice me.

I'm also dying to work on some garb, after the coronation last week. But it's hard to get too psyched about garb because I'm really afraid I won't be able to go to any events this year. I don't know who I'm going to get to watch Tyler. I refuse to just board him, and with his eyesight and hearing going, it's not that easy to just take him somewhere. I don't want to traumatize him too much by not only leaving him for 9 days, but also leaving him in an unfamiliar house where he doesn't know his way around. When he was younger, he was more adaptable and might find such things an adventure. But now, I think he'd just find it traumatic, and I won't do that to him.

So I'm checking into finding someone who can come to my house and watch him. And of course I have to be careful who I give the run of my house to for a week. I haven't found anyone yet, but there's time.

So I suppose I could justify making garb on the grounds that if I do find someone, I'll need the stuff. Hmmm. Something to think about.

House Projects

Yesterday (Sunday) was a great house project day. I'd been wanting to do that for awhile, but it seemed every weekend something was interfering. (Well, that, and we only finally officially finished moving a couple weekends ago). This weekend it finally fell into place.

I made my 'house notebook' I'd been wanting to make. There were so many projects I wanted or needed to do, they were all bouncing around in my head making me feel overwhelmed all the time. Not overwhelmed in a bad way, like I was freaking out about them ... just overwhelmed in a sort of "I don't know where to start first!" kind of way.

So, being the organization freak that I am, I wanted to put together a notebook with tabbed dividers for each section of the house, a place where I could list all these projects in one place, to get them out of my head and begin focusing on one section at a time. I also figured the notebook would be handy because, besides just lists of projects, I could sketch out plans and ideas, and have a place to keep information I gather, like the paint color cards, or project information I print from the internet.

Yesterday I got the notebook started, so that made me feel less overwhelmed and more motivated. Although the dining room is my first main project, there wasn't anything much I could do in there yesterday, so I went to my kitchen list.

I reorganized the pantry cupboards. A couple of them had just kind of gotten stuff tossed in them when we moved in, and were kind of a mess, and bugging me - so I fixed that. One thing I really like - the bane of my existence at the old house was the collection of plastic bowls and lids I had, which were all just crammed willy-nilly into a too-small cabinet, always a jumbled mess, could never find what I wanted when I needed it. I devoted an entire pantry cubpoard, with slide-out shelves, to the plastic bowl mess, just to have more room for it and make them easier to find.


Then I bought a small, inexpensive dish drainer to use to store the smaller lids.


This keeps the lids organized and easy to find. I left the silveware basket on the drainer, and use it for the smallest lids. This cabinet doesn't look worthy of being devoted to plastic bowls just now, because it looks rather empty - that's because most of them are in the dishwasher at the moment. Otherwise, those two shelves are pretty full. But it's fantastic, because it's so easy now to find what I need.

The second project I accomplished in the kitchen was the window frosting. The former owners built an addition on to the back of the garage, the wall of which unfortunately is just a couple feet from the kitchen window. Made the view out the kitchen window pretty icky, and it really bugged me. So much that I just kept the mini-blinds that were already installed closed all the time, because I just couldn't stand opening them and seeing nothing but siding.



But I hate mini-blinds, and the kitchen always seems kind of dark, as that's the only window. That all was really getting on my nerves. So I did some checking and decided to try window film to camouflage the view while letting in more light. I chose a frosted glass look. I'd had this for several weeks but hadn't had a large, uninterrupted chunk of time to put it up - yesterday I did.

It wasn't quite as easy as I'd hoped, but it wasn't terribly difficult. Here's a picture half-way through - definitely blocking the view!



And it turned out great!


I think it really makes a difference. It does exactly what I wanted it to do -it blocks the view, and lets in all the light possible. I will be putting a valance curtain up, but the one I want is packed somewhere and I couldn't locate it yesterday.

It seemed like only two small things, but that (and mowing the lawn) took up most of the day ... and it was enough. Baby steps.

With so many different projects to do, ranging from easy and cheap to complicated and expensive, it's hard to know where to start. I was hoping to kind of focus on one room at a time, figuring that way (a) my energies won't get so scattered till it feels like I'm constantly working on something but nothing's getting done, and (b) we can have one complete room at a time, rather than a whole bunch of half-done rooms (which also makes it feel like nothing's getting done).

Because it is the worst room in the house, I want to focus on the dining room first. It's not the easiest nor cheapest of our projects, but it needs done, it's a small room (so easier to manage and finish), and it'll make me feel a whole lot better when it's done. The first thing we have to do for that is pick out a paint color. That's next on the agenda.

Drumming For A King

I did something really fun yesterday - I played drum for a king.

For those of you who aren't familiar, in the Middle Kingdom of the SCA (where I live) a new king is chosen by right of arms (i.e., he wins a crown tournament) every six months, and he and his queen take over the office at a coronation ceremony. (that's slightly simplified, but it'll do for now).

Yesterday was the coronation of Their Royal Majesties Eikbrandr and Runa, in Cleveland, Ohio.

Some time ago the Dread Reverend (aka Lord Robin) became involved with a bardic group in the area, who happened to be involved in the hosting of the coronation, and he got invited to drum for the king's procession. He in turn invited me, and so, yesterday, we did. At the coronation ceremony, when it was time for the new king to enter, we two, along with two others, drummed a fine march. It was so cool ... we got to be up in the loft (i.e., the musician's gallery), where we could see everything.

I have some pictures to post. The coronation was held at St. Stanislaus church in Cleveland, which is an unbelievably beautiful, beautiful place.

This one's a little fuzzy, because I had the camera on super-zoom to get it, and no tripod, but it's kind of cool - it's when the new king is putting the crown on the new queen.

I had never been to a coronation before, but it was quite fun and interesting.

Every time I go to a really cool SCA event, it renews my interest in the whole thing ... I think it's time for me to look into making some new garb.

My Thoughts On The "Imminent Pandemic"

I can't help myself. I've been persuing the web for days reading up on swine flu ... oh, excuse me, H1N1 ... and there's so much confusing and contradictory information out there, I just felt compelled to gather some of the more useful information and post it here in one place.

First of all, you need to know where the outbreaks are occurring. You can start with the Google swine flu outbreak map if you have access to your computer. Or, you can use the iPhone 'swine flu tracker app' so you can panic anywhere, in real time.

Once you've established that there has been an outbreak in your community (or county, state, country, continent, or planet, depending on how sensitive your panic trigger is), the next thing to do is watch for symptoms. How exactly do you know what to watch for? Fortunately, this video will help you identify early warning signs.



If you're still unsure, get a more definitive answer at the website "DoIHavePigFlu.com". Or, to double check, try "DoIHaveSwineFlu.org".

If you're wondering how this all started, you'll be glad to know that they have, in fact, tracked down "patient zero."



Of course, an "H1Z1" mutation was inevitable. It always is.

And if you do get infected, during your quarantine do some online shopping at CafePress for some original "Swine Flu Wear" to cheer yourself up. A few of my favorites are this one and this one.

Well, that's all I have time for today. If more developments ... er, develop, I'll be sure to post them when I get around to it. If I'm not too sick to drag myself to the computer ... if the pandemic hasn't shut down the internet service ... if there's still any electric power ...