Introducing…

Kara spooning with her new baby brother

Salinger

No closer to a name

We sat down this afternoon determined to find a name for the puppy. All we did was generate a new list. We expanded it to scientists and authors. Here’s the list. Vote for your favorite!

Help! I need a name!

This is our new puppy.

He came to live with us a week and a day ago and he’s still nameless. His mother was a golden retriever and his father was a black lab and he’s 9 weeks old today. We like to stick with literary names (Hamlet, Silas, Puck, and Brutus are a sampling of previous and current pet names) but nothing seems to feel right. Any suggestions?

Photo Friday-Tranquility

My Girls-TranquilityOriginally uploaded by NotACrayon

I’m getting back in the game!

I was forced to use an old photo for this Photo Friday theme. With the nasty weather we’ve had lately and the funk I’ve been in with the flu on top of my deep loathing for my job I couldn’t come up with a single tranquil thing in my life this week.

I had to go all the way back to last spring. It was my last semester of undergrad. I was working on my thesis, preparing for my defense, studying for my finals and major field assessment test, relieved nothing happened to my brother at VT, gearing up for another (failed) TTC cycle, looking for a job, trying to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, the list goes on and on. April 24th was one of the first really beautiful days of spring. The grass was finally turning green and the grey of winter was gone!

I came home from class last spring to find the house empty. I knew R was home, her car was in the driveway. After checking upstairs I went into the back yard and this is what I found. My girls were taking full advantage of the beautiful day by lounging in the sun belly up. I was jealous. I had a quick bite to eat, kissed my family goodbye, and headed back to campus.

Have I mentioned lately that I’m a dork?

So I went to this site with the intention of checking out the rating on my blog. It’s PG-13 for those of you that would care about that sort of thing. I ran across the 8th grade science quiz and it made me think of the stupid show (is it even still on?) where contestants compete against 5th graders. I only watched it a few times but was amazed that people actually didn’t know things. Where did they find these people? But I digress…back to the quiz, I’m a dork and didn’t even get a question wrong.

Free Online Dating

Brutus hasn’t had a seizure since Saturday. We still don’t know if we’re inseminating this month. AF was expected yesterday and is late again. Maybe it will be late enough to throw R’s cycles off 1 week so we can insem in July.
We’re going to Pittsburgh this weekend to celebrate our 9 year anniversary (the 10th is our anniversary). Pittsburgh may seem like a strange place to celebrate, but it’s where we were both living when we met.
Vee, I’ll get a post up about the weak ovulation thing soon. With the trip this weekend and the fact that next week is the last week of my teaching position things will be a bit crazy but I’ll try to compile all the info we’ve been given soon.

Et tu, Brute? *Updated

Brutus

Originally uploaded by NotACrayon
My little Brutus is very sick. He’s 14 and has a serious heart condition. My mom called at 6am and she doesn’t think he is going to make it through the day. He’s lethargic and seems depressed. He was diagnosed with a pretty serious heart murmur 2 years ago and was doing OK. He’s been getting sicker in the past week. He collapsed on Wednesday and again this morning. The vet can’t do anything for him because his problem requires surgery and they won’t do surgery on a dog his age. It doesn’t help that he’s a yorkie and tiny.
My little Brutus was the first dog I ever called my own. My mom bred Yorkshire Terriers and he was born when we were reading Julius Casear in 10th grade. We were able to sell all of his littermates, but no one wanted Brutus. He was an oversized Yorkie (11 pounds) and was too big to register (AKC regulations limit Yorkies to 7 lbs). Because of his size the name seemed appropriate. He has the attitude to go along with it. He has never been aware that he wasn’t a big dog. Just last month he took on a possum that dared to venture up onto HIS porch. He was constantly getting into fights with dogs that were 10 times his size. You couldn’t convince him that he was too small to fight dogs who ate things his size for breakfast. He could (and often did) back any Rottweiler or Chow into a corner.
When I moved out of the house my mom wouldn’t let me take Brutus with me. I was devastated and so was he. My mom took him to the vet a few weeks after I left because she thought he was sick. The vet couldn’t find anything wrong with him and diagnosed him with depression. He perked up when I came home though. Brutus was always the first one to greet me when I came home. If he took a running start he could jump high enough to hit the handle and let himself out the screen door. He would run up to my car and jump into my lap as soon as I opened the door. This backfired one day when he ran under my car about 2 months after I got my license and I ran over him. He survived with only one broken bone and had a slight limp once he got older and arthritis set in. When he ran he would hold the back leg that had been broken off the ground, it never slowed him down.
I have never slept a night in my house after I got Brutus without him by my side. After I moved out and came back to visit I wasn’t even allowed to go to the bathroom without Brutus. He would paw and bark at any door that separated the two of us.
I hope he makes it through the day. I hope he makes it another 13 days. I will be leaving for NC on the 13th of July and hope that he’ll be there to greet me as I pull in the driveway. I want to snuggle with him and be able to say goodbye to my little buddy.

*Update: Brutus started having seizures Saturday afternoon. My mom took him back to the vet. They did some blood work to see what was causing the seizures. None of the options (brain tumor, heart disease, or liver disease) are very promising. He’s going back in today for a chest x-ray. If it is something manageable he will be put on phenobarbital to control the seizures. The only problem with the phenobarbital is it can take a week to 10 days to actually control the seizures. I’m still hoping that I will get to see him in 2 weeks. I hope I’m not setting myself up for a heartbreak.

Damn

It looks like we may not get a TWW this month. R had a slightly positive OPK last night & a very dark OPK and definitely positive one this morning. We’re waiting on the temp to confirm it tomorrow, but it looks like she’s going to ovulate before we can even get to visit our donor. Not much EWCM, but we’ve noticed that there’s not much of that with the Clomid. I have to teach tomorrow morning at 7am & then we were planning on hitting the road. That still means our first insem wouldn’t be until at least 6pm. We don’t want to spend the money ($300) to take the furry kids to camp for the weekend, the $200 in gas to get there & back, and the three lost days of work for each of us for a long shot. I can’t believe that at one time I thought KD insems were going to be cheaper than buying frozen. We hope we can try in July but it looks like we may be moving the week R ovulates. The good news is that when we move our donor will only be 150 miles away.

My Girls

My Girls

Originally uploaded by NotACrayon.

My girl & Kara were relaxing in the sun this afternoon, just thought I’d share!

My Very First Photo Friday

So I’ve been meaning to start participating in Photo Friday for quite some time, but never got around to it. I was going to start last week with what makes my body unique (my widow’s peak) & the batteries in the camera were dead. By the time I got around to getting batteries the topic has changed so, drum roll please, here is my couch. I never actually get to sit on my couch. It belongs to the furry kids. R & I sit on the love seat usually. Sometimes they share the couch with us, but it’s rare. The back cushions are flattened out from the cats. Dexter weighted 23 pounds before he got sick and he would squash the cushion to the right. Silas and Puck are usually on the back with Kara on the left and Hamlet on the right. So, without further ado:

Forgot to add the Newest Member of the Family

This is Kara, adopted during what was supposed to be our 2nd attempt in September that never really happened. I asked R if I got a new pet every cycle we didn’t get pregnant. She laughed at me and said “hell no”!