Quick Update

Crazy times around here!

I started a new job a few months ago. It’s going great, I love it, I’m super happy, but… I’ve been insanely busy. A lot of time spent in front of a screen during the day. Or setting up other, bigger screens. When I get home at night, I just want to play with LJ and do craft projects and read and not look at any more screens. I would ask if there’s a way to write blog posts without using a screen, but I’m pretty sure that’s just an old-fashioned journal.

For the most part, things have been good and I’ve been feeling relaxed and happy. There have been a few little hiccups, though.

(“Hiccups”)

1. Cat pee. All over the house. (Ugh.) It took us some time to figure out which cat was responsible. Kristian ended up setting up a camera and we caught Tabitha in the act. It turns out, she has hyperthyroidism. Which means giving her a pill twice a day. Which is quite an improvement over a pee-stained house. But is still kindof a bummer.
2. Our dryer died. So… we decided to get an all new set. So… we really needed to redo that bathroom (it was pretty horrible in there). So… things went wrong. So… it stretched on and on and on and on. So… we didn’t have a washer or dryer for months. We never packed for vacations this summer. We just hauled all our dirty laundry to wherever it was that we were staying. By the end of the summer, I was hand washing my work shirts and then hoping that they’d air dry enough to wear the next day. We finally got the bathroom (mostly) up and running again and…
3. Our oven died. The range works, but the oven itself is dead. We still haven’t replaced it. Because: argh.
4. Our upstairs bathroom. The tub is still leaking. This is going to end up being a complete gut renovation. Get in line, crappy bathroom, get in line.
5. My car. It’s a TDI.

I was kinda sorta maybe ok with dead appliances and pilling the cat and owning a car that screws over the polar bears, but this last one is the final straw…

Kristian found a sore on our dog Gracie’s stomach. He mentioned it to the vet when he brought her in for her annual exam a few days later. They were concerned enough to take a biopsy, and it turns out it’s cancer. 🙁 She’s scheduled for surgery next week (move farther back in line, crappy bathroom), and that’s when we’ll find out what the extent of it is. Hopefully, it’s just the one tumor, and they can get it all out. If not? Well, I don’t want to talk about it.

It’s funny… people have asked me over the past few days how things are going, and without hesitation I say “oh, they’re pretty good.” And I’m not just doing that small-talk thing where you say that things are good without thinking too much about it. I actually feel pretty good these days. Partially, I’m in deep denial about our dog’s prognosis, but a big part of it is that life is actually pretty good these days.

(Weird, right?)

Obviously, I wish we had fully operational appliances at our house. And the cat is probably going to make me bleed a lot one of these times that I give her the thyroid medication. And I have no idea what we’re going to do about that leaky bathtub. But our family still manages to have a lot of fun. We can afford medical treatment for our pets (something that I am very, very grateful for). My new job keeps me busy, but I actually have a great work/life balance, and I love the work that I’m doing. All-in-all, life is not too bad. Life is expensive as shit these days, but it’s not too bad.

At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.