Tyler's Personal Hell Week

Tyler's had a bad week. And so, therefore, have I. Actually this started a few weeks ago, but peaked this week.

Sometime near the end of August three things hit Tyler all at once. First, after being allergy-free for a year and a half, the allergies returned with a vengeance. He was biting, scratching, chewing, and pawing at his face constantly - he was miserable.

I wasn't sure what caused it, as I've never been sure what caused it. He is apparently uber sensitive to fleas - more than just the average annoyance, he has like a violent reaction to them. But I hadn't seen any fleas on him or in the house, and he hadn't had any since we left the old place.

The second thing that happened is he began having trouble with his eyes. They were super itchy, and this icky discharge was gumming them up. I figured it was because of the allergies.

The third thing was more disturbing. This seemed to happen abruptly, just like, he woke up like this one morning. He became completely unable to navigate around the house. He couldn't move anywhere without walking into something - the walls, the furniture, everything in his path. It was as if you'd taken a dog with sight, made him blind, then put him in an unfamiliar environment.

He's had cataracts for some years, and I knew his sight was pretty bad. Initially I thought maybe his eyes had finally totally bitten the dust - that he went from 'mostly' blind to 'totally' blind.

But he'd always navigated around the house more or less fine, even with the cataracts worsening over time. Also, everything I'd read or been told said that when dogs lose their sight, it's not really that traumatic to them, and if they are in a familiar environment, they adapt very well. Nothing in Tyler's environment had changed (we especially hadn't moved any walls!) so if it was just his eyesight finally going out completely, that wouldn't explain his sudden confusion and loss of navigation skills.

I still thought it was a sight problem, though, so initially I went to the pet store and got some sterile eye rinse to help with the itchiness and discharge in his eyes. I also had some antibiotic ointment for his eyes, as he'd had a brief round of this back in the summer, which had cleared up quickly. So I used that again.

But none of that worked, and last weekend he'd gotten worse, so Monday I took him to the vet. The vet said it was an eye infection and to keep using the ointment. But as for the loss of navigation skills, the vet thought he might have CDS - Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome, or "Doggy Alzheimer's." Well, that kind of sucked.

But he said there's a good medicine for it that has proven to work well, called Anipryl. He said we'd try it for a month, and see how he did.

The odd thing was, the very next morning he was better - he navigated through the house just as he has been doing for the past year and a half, without any real problems. I wondered if it even was CDS, since the medication shouldn't have worked that fast - he'd only had the one dose - and it should take up to two weeks to see any improvement.

Unfortunately, in exchange for that, his eyes got much worse. By Thursday night he had just stopped opening them at all. He simply refused to open them, no matter what he was doing - which made him go back to walking into everything constantly. He was practically squinting them shut, he reminded me a little of Mr. Magoo.

When he still wouldn't even open his eyes on Friday morning, I decided he had to go back to the vet.

This time they told me to continue the antibiotic ointment, but also prescribed an oral antibiotic too, and some artificial tears to help keep his eyes lubricated.

The change has been remarkable. In just one day his eyes have really cleared up, and he'll now keep them mostly open most of the time. He's been trotting around the house with almost no issues at all (a beautiful thing!). We've gone for walks, during which he trotted the whole time, as if he felt fine. His navigation problems appear to be gone, or mostly gone.

So, finally, I think he's on the mend. He's still itchy, though, and the vet did find a flea on him - just one, but there's rarely 'just one.' He said this is a particularly bad year for them. That particularly sucks, because I've always tried to avoid inundating Tyler with chemical flea treatments, as I don't think putting chemicals in his body is good for him. But if fleas have finally invaded our new yard and home, I may have to resort to that stuff - because he's miserable with the constant itching.

One other piece of news: I've always tried to treat Tyler holistically and very healthily - home cooked food, no chemicals, etc. The vets I've taken him to have ranged from not really minding that I do it but not really understanding it, to downright against it. Now that he's starting to have more problems, I've decided that this holistic thing - especially nutrition and his diet - is starting to get beyond my skill. So I scheduled him an appointment with a holistic vet over in Beaver, PA next month.

Hopefully this vet can help me get Tyler back on track and keep him as healthy as possible with his current issues, and can also advise me on the flea problem. I'm also going to talk to him about the CDS ... as I said, it's supposed to take up to 2 weeks for that medicine to have any effect, and the fact that Tyler instantly got better when his eyes cleared up makes me wonder if it's CDS, or just that his eyes were so screwed up, and he was too miserable to open them or think clearly. I'm not going to just arbitrarily take him off of it - seeing him like that was awful, and I know he was stressed and unhappy about it as well - but I am going to talk to the new vet about whether there might be a way to test-wean him off of it, and see whether he really needs it. Not only do I not like giving Tyler any medication he doesn't need, but it's also ungodly expensive (a month's worth was $85!). If he needs it, I have no problem getting it for him - but I sure don't want to keep him on it if not.

I'm glad Tyler's feeling better, because next weekend we're OFF TO THE BEACH!!!! A thousand times yay! Tyler goes with us on this trip, and I hoped he'd be able to enjoy it - to feel okay, and have his eyes cleared up, and not be walking into everything or confused. It will be somewhat challenging for him anyway, with his cataracts - adjusting to the new home for a week has always had its moments of walking into things, but for the most part he's done really well with it, and learns his way around quickly. But adding the problem of any cognitive dysfunction (if there is any) would just make it really hard. But I'm hopeful he'll do fine with it.

As a treat for him, and for the trip (to have some place both comfortable and familiar for him to sleep), I bought him a new doggy bed tonight. Well, he climbed into it when I brought it home, and the only thing he's gotten out of it for was dinner. I think he's in love, and I may have a difficult time getting him out of it to go outside tonight!


But I'm glad he likes it - he's always been very picky about dog beds. When he was younger, I bought him several dog beds that he wanted nothing to do with, and would never sleep in. Apparently I picked a good one this time. Well, that, and he's much more all about the comfort anymore - which is fine, he deserves it.

More Dining Room Progress.

I did end up going back and getting a sample bottle of paint in the other trim color, the one I'd first picked out and then got nervous it was too dark. I should have followed my first intuition.

Before ...


After ...



Well, only the vertical strip is done; when I took this picture I hadn't done the top yet, or the door trim (that strip in the far right side of the picture). But I decided I liked the darker color much better, so I've since finished painting the entire window trim that color. I haven't done the door yet. Maybe after we install the door.

I also cleaned everything out of the dining room that didn't belong there, and ... ta-da ... fixed the dining room table! We now have a bonified dining room!


I'd always thought fixing the table was going to be something complex that I couldn't do myself. Ha. I crawled under it and looked today, and it's just a cross-piece that was loose in it's slot. I fixed it with some shims. It's probably not a thorough permanent fix, it'll probably become somewhat loose again, especially if we lean on the table a lot while eating (which I tend to do). But it'll work for now, and we're planning to replace the table soon anyway.

There's still lots to do, but ... even just having this much done has made a HUGE difference in here! I can't get over how much nicer it looks.

So, woo-hoo! A real place to eat meals. And it only took a year and 8 months.

Progress. Has. Ensued.

As I've said many times before, I'm so sick of nothing getting done around here. We've lived here a year and a half, and it just feels like nothing's getting done!

I know that's not entirely true. We've done a lot. But it doesn't feel like much, probably because I keep hopping from project to project without ever really finishing anything. It's a constant source of frustration (and undermines what progress we have made) that every room in the house is some degree of 'not done.' The dining room, the bedrooms, the living room - there isn't one room that's finished, comfortable and inviting.

I finally figured out that if I want these rooms to be 'done', I had to get busy, get motivated, and focus on just one room at a time - and keep focusing on that room until it was done, and ignore all the other projects clamoring for my attention.

My first choice was the dining room, which was the least done room in the house - and the one with, by far, the most issues. It's also a room I spend a whole lot of time in, as it's my main hang-out room on the first floor. And, I'm sick to death of having (allegedly) a dining room, but having no place to eat a meal, except at the island in the kitchen, or downstairs on the couch with my plate on a chair in front of me. I was finding it increasingly ridiculous to have a house this big, and no 'real' place to eat. (Why haven't we used the dining room? Because the table that's in there is broken - you can't put any weight on it or the top tilts annoyingly; it's just there because we never bothered to fix it or put it anywhere else).

I made up my mind that this room was going to be done (complete with nice table and seating accommodations) before the holidays. Before Thanksgiving.

So ... this weekend I dived seriously into the dining room.

Now, I'd come to a second realization about the house projects. One of the reasons nothing was getting finished was because there was so much to do that I'd get overwhelmed before I even started. So I made up my mind that I had to wrap my head around the idea of just doing one or two small things at a time, not getting overwhelmed, and slowly, by baby steps, it would all get done.

So it all started with just wanting to make some new curtains for the window. That's it ... just curtains. How hard can that be? I just decided that the place to start was by getting rid of the damned vertical blinds (which we couldn't close anymore anyway, because the credenza's in the way) and the crappy, dirty, plain vanilla valance that has been up there since we moved in. Just that. Just make new curtains.

Mushrooming ensued.

I decided to use a pattern for the curtains, because I wanted something a little 'special,' a little off the beaten path, and didn't trust my make-it-up-as-you-go-along abilities in that arena. Finding a pattern I liked proved to be challenging, but eventually I did.

That was Saturday. I was going to go ahead and buy the fabric the same day, but realized I had forgotten to bring a sample of the wall paint with me - and as it's an odd shade of green, I wanted to make sure that I bought fabric that went with it. I decided to go home, read over the pattern instructions so I could make sure I got everything I needed, and go back the next day with my paint sample.

Sunday I went fabric shopping. I wanted something unique. Well, I found it. But more on that in a minute.

I started the curtains on Sunday afternoon. This took most of the rest of that day.

But part-way through making the curtain, it dawned on me - oh crap, it won't do any good to put these beautiful new curtains up on that crappy wall. You see, when we painted the dining room before, we only painted three walls. The fourth wall - the outside wall, with the window and door, had a better quality paneling on it, it was actually kind of pretty (though dark). We thought we might toy with the idea of keeping that as paneling.

Some time ago I'd decided that wasn't going to work, as the room looked kind of stupid with three walls painted a light green, and one wall a very dark paneling. But I'd never gotten around to painting it. When I first thought about curtains, I initially only thought about curtains (baby steps, remember). So I never thought about the wall - until I found such pretty material, then started caring what the rest of the wall looked like.

So, I decided to paint the fourth wall before I put the curtains up. But then I realized I'd also have to paint the window trim for it to do any good - the trim in that room was also very, very dark wood grain - it isn't even all wood, some of it is plastic made to look like wood. Very tacky with my nice new curtains.

But we'd never picked out trim color yet, so we didn't have that paint.

Okay - so now, paint the fourth wall, and pick out trim color, and go to Home Despot and pick up the trim paint, and then paint the trim. And then finish the curtains.

Did I mention there was mushrooming?

But ... after working on the curtain for hours Sunday, then working on the dining room and finishing the curtain from about 8:00 a.m. till about 6:00 p.m. Monday, it turned out to be SO extremely worth it! I was astounded at how well things turned out.

Here's the overview shot. We still haven't replaced the door, but that's in the works. This picture doesn't really do the curtains justice.



They're even lined, and have this neat piping trim. I've never made lined curtains before, and never successfully used piping either, but this went really well.



I love this little detail, too, though it barely shows up in the photo - there's a place where I ran blue cord through two buttonholes sewn into the curtain, and gathered it up, and tied the cord - it's a nice little touch.



So now you can see why I was so pleased with the stuff I found. Although I would never have thought of "paisley" when thinking about the dining room curtains, this turned out perfect. The 'theme' of the dining room is 'beach house' - and the swirly-ness of the paisley makes me think of water or the ocean - perfectly appropriate. The colors are absolutely perfect for this room. Though there isn't a lot of green, what is there matches our odd-shade green walls. The fabric has a lot of blue and shades of beige in it, and those are two of the trim colors we'd been considering anyway. The lining fabric reminds me of sand. So the whole thing was just perfect.

When I first hung these up, I was amazed. I'd seen them come together, I knew how nice they looked - but somehow, hanging them up made it more than the sum of its parts. I was astounded at how great they looked. Heck, they look like professional-made curtains, with that trim and lining. Yeah, I'm kind of inordinately pleased with myself over this.

I am not entirely happy with the trim color we picked out, though. I had picked out something a little darker - almost the same color of the piping trim on the curtains - but got nervous it'd be too dark, so went a few shades lighter. Now I kind of wish I'd gotten the darker, and may very well go back and get that instead. While I want it to look 'beach-housy,' I didn't want it to look so pastel candy-coated.

I'd mentioned the door's in the works - we've picked out a new door, just have to get it and install it. It's got a full center glass panel, top to bottom - to let in more light, as this room's so dark. That's why I didn't bother painting the door (though I considered it) - I figured, why waste the time (when I'd already been working on this project for 10 hours today alone) when we're going to be replacing the door so soon.

Then we have to buy the top molding, paint that, and install it. Primer and paint the ceiling. There's still baseboard to pick out and get, and trim paint for that.

Then there's the really expensive component of this room - I want a banquette. It's sort of like booth seating, with benches with backs that go around one corner of the room, then a rectangle shaped table, with chairs on the other side. That's going to be the priciest thing in this renovation, but ... I decided it's far smarter in our case to buy it instead of trying to build it.

Lots to do before Thanksgiving, but I have faith.

Osprey in NE Ohio

My boyfriend is a field tech for a cell tower company. Today he found this at one of his towers.


That whole platform is now one big nest.

Sweet! The really cool thing is, since these birds are protected, neither the tower company nor the carriers who use the tower can disturb the nest for any reason. They have to limit their activity around the tower and nest site. Their regulatory compliance department works with the Department of Natural Resources and other agencies to protect wildlife in situations like this. Even if they're only doing it to comply with the laws [as opposed to being big green tree huggers ;o) ], I still think that's awesome.

Home From War

Pennsic was fantastic this year. Very close to one of the best ever.

The weather was great - it only rained twice, both at night, so no biggie. The one night it was just a brief downpour an hour or two before dawn. The second time it did rain for several hours after midnight, but we took advantage of it - a campmate and I went on a walkabout around the lake in the rain with a bottle of Ryan's Irish cream. It was a beautiful thing. (Getting soaked in the rain once during Pennsic is no big deal - I had dry garb, and the tent didn't leak - it's only when it rains for days on end and everything's wet that it gets annoying).

The days were (as usual) ungodly hot. Though many people said the heat was particularly bad this year, so it wasn't just me. I pretty much stayed in camp during the day, not venturing out until after sundown. In past years that used to really bug me, as I'd get bored, but this year I was smart - I made sure I brought things to do, and when I got too hot in my little personal pavilion up by my tent, I went down into the shade of the trees to hang out with the Shire of Hornwood (they technically camp 'next door' to us, but really our camps just merge into one big camp) and cooled off. So it wasn't too bad.

I didn't make it to any of the classes I considered taking, but I did do one new thing this year - went to opening ceremonies. It was pretty cool, and I got some nice pictures there. During opening ceremonies, the King and Queen of each of the 19 kingdoms in the SCA march in a big procession with their entourage up to the dais (set up in front of the castle fort). Then some of them give speeches, and War is "officially declared."













We had a catastrophic failure of our shade fly ...



... but it'll be replaced before next Pennsic, so it's all good.

Here's a picture of our neighbors, the Shire of Hornwood:



The last Friday of War was a Friday the 13th, and the Chalkman Pub played it up - you had to walk under a ladder to get in, and by the ladder was a broken mirror.



Speaking of the Chalkman, I forgot what should have been a big deal. Every year on the middle Friday the Chalkman has a music competition. The band, in its various iterations, has entered it for quite a few years, but never won. This year we won the overall slot. Pretty awesome.

We spent our last night at Pennsic 'holding court' in front of our gate, heckling passers-by and trying to give away the rest of the beer in our keg, so it could be stored to turn in for the deposit when next year's keg is picked up. (That's Robin, of course, in the picture - I wasn't in it because I had to take the picture).



And that's about all the Pennsic pictures. I didn't take a lot this year, except at opening ceremonies. But we had a lot of fun. And (as always) have a lot of plans for how to spruce up the camp next year. But more on that another time.

Slogging through.

The crash hit, yesterday. I just couldn't make myself do anything last night, and in fact I ended up going to bed about 9:00 p.m. Consequently, I woke up at 5:00 a.m., but that's another story.

This is a bad time for it to hit, as these are going to be the busiest days of my last week - at least, busiest by need, not desperation. There's lots of stuff I couldn't (or didn't want to) do till the last minute, and that last minute is pretty much in the next 42 hours or so. I am doing all my laundry now, have all my garb to pack (didn't want it scrunched up in a tote any longer than necessary), and last minute things to pack I can't pack earlier because I'm using them up until I'm almost ready to leave. There's half of Tyler's food still to cook and freeze (I should have done that yesterday but ... didn't). And of course the entire truck packing is yet to come.

I managed to get a few things done tonight, but not as much as I'd have liked. Tomorrow's going to be a bit frenzied.

I don't know why I get so obsessed with Pennsic. Other people can take it or leave it. Even those who love it don't seem to obsess about it quite the way I do. Or ... maybe they just keep their thoughts to themselves better than I do. Judging from the Twitterverse there are those who are just as giddy and impatient as me, from those seemingly few who aren't there yet.

There are plenty of tweets coming in from Pennsic, though! I have mixed feelings about that - on the one hand, it's damned cool to be able to get real-time reports and pictures from various locations around Pennsic until I can get there ... and on the other hand, it's just kind of weird. But I check it, only once a day or so, as too much more than that starts depressing me.

Greg lost his voice already - usually doesn't happen till middle weekend. Yesterday he was barely intelligible. Today actually seemed somewhat better. I asked him to (and he said he would) rest up in the next few days, as he's always so burned out and exhausted by the time I get there, he's about ready to go home, rather than start a whole new week. I said 'save some Pennsic for me.' Hopefully that'll work out, as I'd enjoy it a whole lot more with him than without him.

Oh - I almost forgot, there was an actual point to this post. I realized why this year is so much worse than most, and it's not just my imagination. Every other single year since I started going to Pennsic (8 previous ones so far) I have always gone out first weekend - in the early years, for the whole weekend, later when I had dogsitting issues, at least for a few hours sometime over the weekend, often twice.

This has been the first year ever that I have not been there yet at all, not once, not even for a little while. I haven't trolled in, don't have my medallion yet! Usually hanging that medallion from my rear-view mirror for the week is a big deal ... it's not there this year. That's why I'm more nuts than usual about it - I didn't get my little "pre-War-week fix" this year. Might have to make other arrangements next year.

I'm off to bed, busy day tomorrow - last day of work, last evening at home. Woo-hoo! (I'm already missing Tyler, the only downside of Pennsic, but ... he's going to be in very good hands, and I'm only 45 minutes away; and he's definitely, as always, going on the next vacation to the island, already booked for the end of September).

Four. More. Days.

This has been the week from hell. Well, is being... it's not over yet. I don't ever remember this pre-Pennsic week being this hard. I suppose it always has been, but ... for some reason I don't remember it to this degree.

I'm talking, of course, about the fact that everyone I know who is going to Pennsic (with one exception) is already there, there for the whole two weeks. And my anxiety to get this week over and just get there and start my Pennsic is really at an all-time high.

Since Friday night I've just been bouncing off the walls. It seems like time has stopped, and I'm doing everything I can think of to do just to keep myself busy, and from going crazy (er). There's one big advantage to that - I've gotten more done around this house in the last three days then I did in the last 6 or 8 months. Not just Pennsic stuff - I am well-organized enough this year (! don't know how that happened !) that I don't really have all that much to do.

So I've been busying myself with other things, like insane cleaning. I scrubbed most of the kitchen, including the fridge and the microwave. I sorted and where needed washed all the blankets in the house, then stacked them neatly in the spare room. I sorted all the varied, mis-matched sheets in the house (good thing, no wonder I was so confused - I had 8 or 9 flat sheets and only two fitted sheets). I mowed the front yard, and moved a shrub that needed replanted. I cleaned the truck inside and washed the windows in it, then finally put my Emerald Isle stickers on it that I bought two years ago.

Well ... there's more, I could go on, but you get the picture.

I don't know what'll happen with another three days to go ... either I'll have trimmed the trees into topiaries, washed the siding, shampooed all the carpets, and alphabetized the spice rack and canned goods cupboard ... or I'll crash at some point. I just hope the crash doesn't hit Friday night - we're scheduled to play last at the Chalkman Music Competition (not competing, just putting on a little show with - of all things - "Purple" ... Friday night, after I have Tyler to the groomer's by 8:00 a.m., finish loading the truck, run some errands, get to Pennsic, unload the truck, park it, and trek from the parking lot ... yeah, I hope this crack phase carries me through at least Saturday morning).

By the way, Rhys, thanks for the suggestion - (painting the 55 gallon drums rather than buying store-bought rain barrels). I did consider it. Now I kind of wish I'd have considered it a little more seriously. And when are you going to come to Pennsic again? Or anything else for that matter? Miss you lots! You'll have to pull a Cian "Pennsic In A Bottle" one of these years: 24 hours at Pennsic - one bottle of rum - the Red Hand and the Sea Chameleon ... life may never be the same. ;o)