I’ve Been A Busy Beaver

Since last posting, I’ve been very busy!  But not with projects.  Over the long weekend [Memorial Day] I visited my brother & his family in Arlington, Virginia.  He has 4 kids ranging from almost 7 to just turned 16.  I respect his wishes to not post pics of them online, so here are my favorite non-kid shots.  I love my brother’s Hawaiian shirt with battleships [it was Hawaiian shirt day at my niece’s school]:

I stayed in my nephew’s room, and heard a ruckus in the tree one morning.  It was a squirrel hanging upside down by his back feet eating serviceberries!  Can you see him in the center of the first pic?  I’ve never heard of serviceberries, or serviceberry trees, but apparently they’re a thing.  And birds & squirrels love them:

       

Halfway through my trip, hubby flew down and stayed overnight with me.  His nephew’s bar mitzvah was the same weekend, and only 30 minutes from my brother’s house.  I don’t have any pics of the mitzvah, but I was able to snag a gigantic balloon for my nieces.  It was so hard to squish it into the backseat of hubby’s rental car!  But my nieces loved it.  The youngest wrote a note which she taped onto it, saying “do not touch the balloon”:

       

I love her spelling of balloon 🙂

On Sunday evening my brother and I headed to the fancy grocery store near his house.  Upon stepping out of his Jeep I realized I still had my [mis-matched] house slippers on – d’oh!  Ever since hurting my feet studying 4 years of karate I need to wear special slippers [#affiliate] with arch supports.  But I usually don’t wear them out of the house… [I have worn them to work twice by accident, which is why I keep a spare pair of shoes in my office closet!]:

My brother & sister-in-law’s screened in porch is magical:

I spent a lot of time out there because, quite unfortunately, I’m very allergic to their dog, Hope:

This was the first time I’d met her.  I’m still having breathing & coughing issues, and it’s been 8 full days since I’ve been home.  This has been my life for the past 8½ days:

I’m nervous about what to do next year when I visit…  I would hate to stay at a hotel but I might have to.  Meh.  I hate being allergic to everything with fur!  It’s SO not fair.  After 10 years of cat allergy shots I’m able to live with cats, but still require monthly maintenance shots, and probably always will.  If I wanted to get dog allergy shots I’d have to start from scratch and get weekly shots for a year, followed by shots every other week for a year, followed by shots every 3 weeks for a year, followed by monthly maintenance shots for at least 2 years.  Allergy shots are a large commitment sigh.

On the plus side, this past Sunday, June 4th, was hubby & my 5th year wedding anniversary 🙂  He sent me amazingly beautiful & fragrant raspberry colored roses to my office last Friday:

       

I brought them home & have since changed their water, so they’re not arranged quite as nicely, but they’re still gorgeous!  He also gave me a large box of chocolates because he knows the way to my heart <3.  I can’t believe it’s been 5 years!  His mom said it best:  “2 lost souls who finally found each other”.  Soooooooooooo true.

On the negative side, my laptop broke.  It’s been dying for a long time, but Saturday morning I was greeted with the following messages:

       

I knew it was bad when I saw “Please install an operating system”.  But I knew it was REALLY bad when I saw “Hard Disk Not Exist”.  That’s hard-core bad!  But it made me giggle all the same.  Thankfully I store ALL my files & photos in the cloud, so I didn’t lose anything.  I am still shopping for a new laptop.  Until then, I’ll be sharing hubby’s.

I also lost access to my Instagram account – apparently it was disabled for violating their terms of service, which is bullshit since I hardly ever post anything.  But whatever.  I got so frustrated trying to get it back that I ended up just signing up for a new account.  You can access it via the little Instagram link at the top right of my page.

On the plus side, all the rain we’ve been having has made my garden plants grow like crazy.  Including the lilac which I cut down to a stump last Fall.  Here’s a pic from last Fall & a pic from a couple weeks ago:

        

This year it produced one blossom, which was super fragrant:

       

I look forward to seeing what it does next Spring!  The Petunias I planted out back are doing amazingly well, as is my red daisy:

      

       

      

Three weekends ago we finally buried our 5 beloved girl rats Lava, Aloha, Kona, Nibbler, and Clarabell.  We buried them next to our front stoop, and laid granite blocks on top, and some flowers:

Now all we have for rats is Franc with his snaggle tooth.  But he’s such a sweet boy, and so happy – look at that big smile:

On a sad note, we had to take Bonkers to the vet for an emergency visit Monday because he kept collapsing and crying.  The vet said he was extremely dehydrated, which was surprising because he drinks so much water.  She suspected kidney failure because that would mean no matter how much he drinks it wouldn’t get absorbed.  They did blood work which confirmed the diagnosis.  So we ordered some special renal food, and we need to give him IV fluids through the skin in his back twice a week.  Here’s the IV bag:

It’s pretty gross, but I can handle it.  He seems to perk up soon after he gets fluids.  He’s not collapsing anymore, she thinks that was because he had gotten so weak from chronic dehydration.  Sucks.  He’s enjoying some sun while I write this post:

       

We’ll take it day by day, week by week, and make the best decisions we can for him.  There’s no way of knowing how old he is, since we got him from the shelter.  The vet’s best guess is 14 to 17.  Sucks.

And due to the rain I’ve only gotten to ride my motorcycle to work once so far this year:

I’m hoping tomorrow will be another clear day.  It seems that even on sunny days it rains either in the morning or the afternoon.  MEH!