Tuesday, March 20, 2012

introducing sam


introducing sam
Originally uploaded by Julep67
Four years ago today, Sam adopted us. He was a seven month old puppy at that time.

Looking back, Mark and I didn't know much about taking care of a puppy but we quickly learned.

In some ways, I can't believe that he's been with us for four years already and, in other ways, I can't remember what our lives were like before he got here.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

the sickness

Our house has been under a cloud of grossness for about a week now. Last weekend, after returning to Kingston from a whirlwind road trip to Toronto, I started feeling like I was coming down with something. Couldn't put my finger on it but I was cold and tired and grouchy. By Monday afternoon, I knew I was sick and I spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, tucked up in bed or under the covers on the sofa.

I had a flu I think. Really harsh headache, body aches, fever, congestion. Add to that, lack of sleep and it was really pretty horrible. Unfortunately, it would seem like a walk in the park compared to what was around the corner. In the wee small hours of Wednesday (at 1:18 a.m. to be precise), Mark woke me up to tell me he was having a kidney stone attack. He was practically paralyzed by the pain so I had to get up to get him some of his pain killers (he's had the attacks before and is currently awaiting an update from our local urology clinic about next steps for treating them).

As I type this, it's Sunday evening and he's still not passed the stone. It's been absolutely horrible to watch him in pain like this over the past few days. He's been in touch with his doctor's office and the urology clinic. Unfortunately, when it's "march break" it's not possible to connect with anyone about your condition. Tomorrow he'll go back to his family doctor to try to get this moving along. It's been almost a week now and it's no way to live.

So we've made a great pair this week. Our pact that only one of us is allowed to be sick at one time has been blown to smithereens. I've been trying to take care of him while I'm still getting over the flu. The poor dogs don't know which end is up because one or both of us has been home with them almost constantly for the best part of a week.

To add insult to injury, the weather has been unbelievably gorgeous outside and we’ve not been able to get out to enjoy it (unless you count me running to the grocery store for 30 minutes after work on Friday, which I don’t think you should). Once spring officially starts this week, I hope we are both feeling better. This week has been a blur and I think that’s good. It would be really depressing to be able to actually remember much of it.

Thursday, March 01, 2012

Happy Birthday Nana

Today is my nana's birthday.

She passed away in 1997 but I still miss her, every day. I've been going through my old photos again and found an album containing photos from Christmas 1985. They would have been taken mostly by me, with my first 35 mm camera.

This particular photo is one I'd forgotten about, all of my cousins with my Nana, in her house on Jasper Avenue in Smiths Falls. We didn't all get together very often so when we did, it was extra special.