Five Things for Friday

1. I have to say that I'm pleased by my self-sufficiency over the last week. I guess being on my own while Peter is away during the week is helping to bring it about. I learned how to use the snowblower and cleared off the driveway for the first time with it (and got completely soaked doing it!), I used the fireplace on my own (I'm no longer afraid that I'll set the house on fire), I made grilled cheese sandwiches for the first time (yup, first time), I made homemade hot cocoa for me and the boys on our snow days, I made pancakes for breakfast (I usually only make them for breakfast dinners), and I made special Valentine's Day popcorn for Sam's class valentines. They're small things, but they make me feel like maybe I really can achieve my dream of becoming more like one of my lifestyle icons, Martha Stewart!! 

2. Speaking of hot cocoa--because as nice as homemade cocoa is, most of the time it's easier to go with the instant variety--I discovered a great new brand, and it even has a British name! 

It's Ticketyboo Hot Chocolate. I ordered the Original flavor. It's delicious! 

3. My great find of the week was this connect-the-dots book, currently on sale for only $5.99 from Bas Bleu. It's called "Dot to Hot" which I think is so funny. I like complex connect-the-dots books; I think they're fun and they help keep my mind from turning into a marshmallow. This one will be no exception. I'm looking forward to "connecting" with Mr. Darcy and those other literary hotties. Ha ha!

4. Speaking of hotties, Peter sent me a bouquet of chocolate-covered strawberries from Edible Arrangements for Valentine's Day. I ate all of them over the course of two days. I had to before they went bad! I'm not going to mention how many there were, but it can't be that bad because it's fresh fruit and dark chocolate. Edible Arrangements has THE BEST chocolate-covered fruit--it's all really good quality, fresh, and super-delicious. We've tried other companies before and no one has ever been as good as them. Literally!

5. My heart is heavy because of the school shooting in Florida on Wednesday. I still feel traumatized by the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting that happened five years ago, which absolutely broke my heart and still leaves me in tears sometimes when I think about it. I feel so terrible for all of those affected by these shootings, but especially for those who lose a loved one, especially when it's their child. 

It's a sad sign of the difficult times in which we live that I have to talk to my innocent kids about what to do in an active shooter situation, and that I worry about their physical safety at school. I pray every morning for them to be safe that day. I also pray on a daily basis for those affected by these shootings and other tragedies, even months and years after the events happen.
When tragedies like school shootings and the Las Vegas massacre and the wildfires in California fade from the news, there are still so many people left with broken hearts and post-traumatic stress disorder and depression and the grief of bereavement and so many other things. My heart goes out to them. Selfishly but also sensibly, I hope and pray never to be counted among their ranks. It's such a comfort to know that one day, all will be made right, and that everyone will be reunited with their loved ones thanks to the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

To end on a more upbeat note, this weekend I'll be taking the boys to see Peter Rabbit (I like Peter Rabbit and when John was a toddler he was obsessed), Peter and I are going to have dinner at a new restaurant we've been wanting to try, I'm going to continue to be in denial about moving, and John's going to give his first talk in sacrament meeting!

The Cat Who Read the Newspaper

Brody was so smart that he read The Wall Street Journal, or at least he'd lay by it and absorb its information by osmosis.

He preferred the front page above the fold; that's where the most relevant news was. How efficient!

Done.

When he finished his reading, he'd settle in for an afternoon nap.

   

 The life of a feline genius!

*An added note: Remember the mystery series by Lilian Jackson Braun, "The Cat Who..."? Her editor was my instructor at an editing class I took at NYU in 2004. She was really nice and I almost got a job at Penguin Putnam in downtown Manhattan with the help of that connection. It could have worked out quite well but I took myself out of the running for the job when I found out I was pregnant. 

I Can See Clearly Now

Brody wasn't the only one to go through a surgical procedure last April. I finally faced my fears and had laser vision correction done, specifically PRK surgery, after nearly 25 years of wearing contacts and glasses for my very nearsighted eyes. I wanted to get Lasik instead of PRK because the recovery is supposed to be much easier, but alas, my corneas proved to be too thin. My doctor thought PRK was a better long-term option for me anyway.  

I had the procedure done on Thursday morning, April 20th, and it wasn't that bad. I hardly felt anything (that had been one of my biggest fears), and I felt pretty normal afterward, other than my vision being really blurry and having to wear funny protective goggles over my eyes. I looked ridiculous and Peter thought it was hilarious. I guess it was, as you can see below. Ha ha!

😵😵😵

It wasn't until a few hours later when the meds started wearing off and my eyes felt like they'd been filled up with burning sand that I knew what people meant when they talked about the difficult recovery from PRK. 

It hurt. I cried, the tears leaking out of my beleagured lasered eyes and pooling into those stupid goggles, which I had to keep on until the following day. But it was only really bad that first day, and the pain meds helped. I was prescribed Percocet for the pain. As you probably know, there's a big problem with this kind of drug abuse in the country right now, and I'm happy to report that I was in absolutely no danger of getting addicted, because it made me throw up every time I took it. By the next day I'd had enough and took ibuprofen instead. Much better!

The first few days were blurry and my inner vampire came out as I stayed inside away from sunlight and babied my tender eyes as much as I could, resting and listening to audio books and taking naps. 

Exiled to bed

I'd been reading a really good mystery thriller (The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware) before the surgery and I was eager to start reading it again, so by that Sunday I did just that, even though I had to close one eye and squint with the other. I read through the haze and it was worth it! That book was so good and I couldn't put it down. I don't think it put too much strain on my eyes because they recovered beautifully from the surgery. My vision progressively cleared as the weeks went by, and my eyes felt great. There were no problems or complications. I'm happy to report that I now have 20/20 vision in my left eye and 20/40(!!) in my right. 

I really love being able to see clearly out of my own eyes without contacts or glasses. It's awesome to wake up in the morning without everything being blurry, and to to be able to go swimming without worrying about getting water in my eyes, and to not have to put contacts in and take them out every day and continuously order more. I really should have done this years ago. It's one of the best things I've ever done for myself!

This was my last-ever bottle of contacts disinfectant. My usual sense of nostalgia wasn't present at all. 

I don't miss wearing contacts or glasses a single bit!

Kitty Chemo

Our vet gave us the option of giving Brody a chemotherapy type of drug that had been shown to help slow the growth of tumors in cats, so it seemed worth a shot. 

The first week or two that he was on the drug, Brody seemed fine, but then the side effects became apparent and, as side effects tend to be, they weren't good. He was losing his normally robust appetite, he was throwing up and losing weight, he was tired a lot, he was shedding fur like a maniac, and his beautiful white whiskers were falling out. 

This wasn't the Brody we knew and loved, and it was hard to see him this way, so I made the decision to discontinue giving him the drug so that he could be happier and healthier (ironically) for the remaining time he had left. As far as pets go, what's the use of trying to extend their life if they're just going to be sick and miserable and not themselves during it? Especially when there's no guarantee that the drug will even work? There is no joie de vivre in that. 

Looking back on it, I don't regret this decision at all, and I wish I'd never even given him the drug in the first place. I don't think it did him any good, and although it was worth a try--I always would have guiltily wondered if it would have saved him if we hadn't tried it--in the end, it made no difference. 

While he was on the drug, I comforted him and gently massaged his increasingly thin neck and his sweet little head.

One of his favorite spots to rest was behind the chaise lounge in the living room underneath the windows. It was a cozy, mostly hidden, warm spot. I would have chosen it too if I were a cat. 

You can see here how his whiskers weren't very full anymore, especially on the left side, and his shedding fur.

 Rehab in a sun spot 

The kids and I had fun playing a game with Brody at dinner sometimes in which, if I was able to catch him, I'd hold him in my arms and we'd ask him "Yes" or "No" questions. If he meowed after the question, it was a "yes," and if he was quiet it was a "no." They were mostly silly questions (because it was a silly game), like "Will the Patriots win the game this weekend?" and from me, "Brody, do you love me?" (he usually remained silent 😆), and "Hey Brody, do you like my butt?" {Laughter erupts. Boys!} It was pretty entertaining and Brody was resigned to being a pretty good sport about it.

 I really miss that game now. I miss the kitty even more.

Un-Victorian Behavior

I've been enjoying the second season of Victoria on PBS, but I've been bothered by one of the side storylines in which two of the men who worked for Victoria were attracted to each other. I was curious about one of them, Lord Alfred Paget, who I'd heard about before, so I did some online investigating to find out more about him. I was surprised to learn that he wasn't gay at all; he was married and had 14 kids! And contrary to what's on the show, he and the other man didn't even work for Victoria at the same time. There is no evidence or even speculation that either of them were gay.

This bothers me. The writer of the show, Daisy Goodwin, has invented a scenario to make this beautiful historical drama fit in with today's culture. In an interview about it she says that there were just as many gay people back then as there are now, and she insinuates that Victoria would have approved of the (non-existent) relationship if she'd known. I find both of these to be wildly speculative statements, and irrelevant ones since the men didn't have that kind of a relationship at all. I think it's a real dishonor to their memory and to who they really were. 

I thought that a show like Victoria would surely be safe from this kind of storyline. I'm disappointed that it isn't, although I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised since it's been creeping into so many shows, even high-quality ones, slowly but steadily over the years. I believe the next episode unfortunately features a kiss between the two men, and then one of them gets killed in the season finale (spoiler alert, sorry!). So thankfully--hopefully--that's as far as the show will go with that. While people have the right to live that kind of lifestyle (including people who I know and love), my personal and religious beliefs are that it's not God's way, and I'd really rather not see it in my entertainment. I'll continue to watch Victoria, but if another storyline like that crops up, I'm probably done. :-( 

Other than that, I really do like this show!

Cute Convalescence

Brody continued to make a good recovery from his surgery in April.

I took these pictures of him when he was resting out on the screened-in porch one day.
I love how they turned out!

This is the picture I chose for a special matted frame that has this picture on one side and an impression of his paw prints on the other side.

The full scene. The cats love hanging out on the patio when the weather is nice.

These are from a different day that month, but they show how Brody and Bentwood enjoyed their "outside" time together. 

BFFs

The fresh air did Brody a lot of good during his recovery!

April Sunset

"I believe that the nicest and sweetest of days are not those which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens, but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string."  –Anne of Avonlea

Brody's Surgery

Brody had surgery on Wednesday, April 5th to attempt to remove two masses that were growing inside of him, a cancerous one in his bladder that had been getting bigger and a particularly hard-to-remove mass that was near his heart. I dropped him off that morning praying and trusting that all would go well. 

Mid-morning the vet called me during the surgery to ask if I wanted her to proceed to try and remove the mass near his heart. She said it was quite risky--riskier than they thought now that they could actually see it--and basically he had around a 50/50 chance of surviving the attempted removal. Those odds were much worse than I had thought they would be but I told her to go ahead and try to remove it, since they'd already gotten the other one out and this one near his heart could prove to be fatal if it remained. 

After that phone call I cried my eyes out and prayed my heart out that her hands would be guided by angels to successfully remove the tumor without it killing him. I felt devastated by the very real possibility that Brody might die and wouldn't be coming home, and that I wouldn't get to see him alive again, at least not in this life. 

I truly adore this mischievous, beautiful little cat and the escapades we've had with him ever since we brought him home in 2006. We got him and Bentwood from a shelter when he was just a few months old. He'd been rescued from the freezing wintry streets of Hartford, Connecticut. The rest of the litter had died but Brody survived. He's always been a fighter.

I was so relieved to get a phone call from the vet a little while later saying that he'd survived the surgery, that he was a fighter (see!), and that they'd do everything they could for him. I felt so thankful. The next few days were a roller coaster of ups and downs, because the next morning one of the vets called to say that he wasn't doing that well, but by the end of that day he was better. I visited him on both Thursday and Friday and by Saturday he was well enough to come home. After all of that, more than ever I didn't take his homecoming for granted and was so grateful to have him back.

He was pretty out of it his first few days home because of the pain meds.

I thought it was cute how he was curled up in the fetal position. 

He was resigned to being petted and photographed and fussed over by me. He didn't have much of a choice since he didn't have the energy to fight back. 😼

That Monday evening--five days after the surgery--I took him in for an emergency appointment because he wasn't eating well and he seemed dehydrated and overly out of it and I was worried about how he was doing. I'm glad I brought him in because they gave him some fluids and checked everything out. Fortunately he improved that week.

Normally he walks around and explores or hides at the vet's office, but this time all he could do was lay there. 😿

"Take me home now please."

Laying in a sunspot always feels good. He was starting to get fluffier and more himself again by this point. What a relief! 😻

More to come on what happened in the weeks following...😽 (I'm loving these cat emojis!)

Random Pics from April 2017

Blog goal for this month: Get caught up on everything I wanted to do blog posts about for last April and May. Bonus points if I get a head-start on June. I have a master plan to get all caught up with everything in my life. #ambition

Have I mentioned before that I totally and completely love our pets? 

Boo Boo is one of my favorite dogs ever. 

Here he is taking an afternoon snooze on the front porch.

And of course there's my beloved kitty Brody, who will be starring in his own blog posts this month. 

And let's not forget my darling dog-ter Violet and my trusty cat Bentwood! (Sorry, no pics.) 

I don't know, I thought President Trump looked like a Ken doll in the background of this photo.

Decorating Easter eggs

Sam got a new Lego set in his Easter basket. He's really good at putting these things together!

We got this beautiful carrot cake from the Co-op. It was a delicious Easter treat!

 Man alive, I love this kid!

Looking at the school yearbook together. (I love the other kid too, just in case you were wondering.)

The crafty boy crafting.

Sam made a small but significant spelling error on his schoolwork! 😮 

 I posted this on Facebook and people thought it was really funny! Because it is!

A perfect spring afternoon in which I sat on the front porch and watched the boys as they played with a neighborhood friend. I was recovering from eye surgery (more about that to come in another post) and my world was still blurry but I caught it clearly that afternoon through the lens of my camera. 

After being cooped up inside for a few days, it felt really good to get some fresh spring air!