Goodbye, Georgia. We Love You.

I can't believe this. Even a day later it's just not sinking in. My beautiful, gorgeous and goofy long-haired tortie, Georgia, died last night. Out of the blue. Suddenly and devastatingly. She was just nine years old. She was healthy. She was here one minute and gone the next. I can only believe that she must have had a heart attack, stroke or aneurysm. I came home from book club, greeted my kitties when I came in the back door, went upstairs to check on O and say hi to M - M and I came back downstairs not five minutes later and there she was - on the floor - dead. She was not there when I walked through the kitchen just five minutes earlier. All I can think is that she was in the basement when I got home, heard me come in, came upstairs to say hi - and then something went horribly wrong. She was still warm when we found her. We tried to find a heart beat, but she was gone.

She was my Iowa kitty. My Hawkeye. My sweet Georgia brown. My G-Pup. I adopted Georgia from the Iowa City animal shelter the first semester of my Ph.D. program at UI. She was goofy and fluffy and a big talker - she chirped - and she liked to lick the salt from M's watch. She loved to sit in my lap and was the Alpha Queen of our house. She used to sleep on our bed every night - stretched out in between us. She was Benny's buddy. O called her George-wa.

She used many of her nine lives along the way - but I was sure she had at least 7 or 8 more years with us. She survived spider bites, licking lead from under our sink, two teeth cleanings almost gone horribly wrong (she did not do well with anesthesia), kidney problems...I just don't understand it. She was not on this earth long enough.

I miss her terribly. There's a hole in my heart.



What will Sophie, Jimmy and Walter do without her?

Sitting Room Pics

Lots and lots of pics of our sitting room transformation! Enjoy!



A small tormado destroyed the block city, but I hear everyone was okay.

Happy Birthday, Jimmy

You are five years old today! We love you, Jimmy Pants :)

Changing locations and fun things to do

Yesterday I considered changing over to a LiveJournal blog instead of sticking with Blogger - but then I discovered that there are features I want that I can only get if I pay LJ for my account. It's not a huge expense, but I thought that was a bit annoying. Guess I'll stay here for a while.

It's the day before Thanksgiving and I'm up on campus but I did the nice professor thing and gave my Wednesday class a "research day" - you know how that goes. I'm sure they will all use this time to get crackin' on their papers that are due in about 3 weeks. Sure they will.

I'm going to tidy up my mess of an office and then I'm outta here to do a little shopping and clean the house. Because this cycle appears to have been a bust yet again, I am going to treat myself to a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape - I'm bringing it to Thanksgiving tomorrow at the ILs and will share with whomever is interested, but if no one is, then more for me!! Let's hope the city-owned liquor store in my one horse town has some...

I am also on the hunt for an ornament for a fun exchange in which I am participating - and I should really start my holiday shopping. I always have big plans to create beautiful knitted gifts, and then I end up with a half-finished scarf, one mitten and no presents. I'll still try though - keeps my hands out of the munchie stuff late at night.

Check back later today for before and after pics of our sitting room. M painted it yesterday and it's beee-you-ti-ful. Every once and a while we hit it out of the park with colors, and this was one of those times. This room is where our tree will go - most likely today as O can wait no longer - so we wanted to get some color on those walls. Now we just need some furniture to magically appear...maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket. As they say in Jersey, "You gotta be in it to win it!"

Finding other things to make me happy...

Some of you may know that the process of trying to get knocked up - when you are really trying - is anything but fun, romantic, stress-free, sexy...you get the picture. I know it's only been three cycles, but I'm apparently old, so that amps things up a bit. Anyway, last night I realized that cycle#4 is looming in the next day or two, so I tried to focus on other things - anything else - that could help lighten my mood.

#1
M had to go back to work last night, so it was just me and O at home for the evening. We have this awesome 1890s house with a fully finished basement (an apartment, essentially), so we headed down there to hang out in the playroom. All of my music happens to be in the playroom as well :) So I throw on a little Smashing Pumpkins (1979 to make me feel all nostalgic and what not) and O and I break out his two castles and the pirate ship. The "guys" that come with these toys are mostly knights and pirates, but there is a mer-man who we affectionately refer to as "Fish Dude." O decides that Fish Dude will throw a party at the castle and everyone must attend. At this point, I've moved on to Squeeze's "Singles 45 and Under" which I haven't listened to in, oh, probably a year. Very good and O declares, "Mommy, I like this one music!" Good boy. So, all the dudes get their best armor and/or capes on and head to Fish Dude's party where there is apparently pizza for all and a little Squeeze for their listening enjoyment. We spent about an hour-and-a-half down there and it was so much fun.

#2 (total sap alert - seriously, it's so sappy, you;d swear I didn't write it)
I will admit that I am somewhat of a fanatic when it comes to college sports. For this, my father and M thank me (I swear M is nothing like my dad, though, so don't even go there!). Well, this weekend just happened to kick some serious butt here at High Plains U (where we've just completed the transition to division I athletics - no small feat). Our football team won their first conference championship since 1963, and in doing so beat our biggest rival and broke their 14-game winning streak. Our women's basketball team defeated a powerful Big 12 team to continue their undefeated season (it's early, I know, but they are quite good). And I think most significantly, our volleyball team won the conference tournament and earned the first ever NCAA tourney bid by a SoDak college sports team. This is huge. Several of the student athletes are students in my department, so I have gotten to know a few of them well. This morning, one of our volleyball players comes walking down the hallway - I haven't seen her since they won on Saturday - and I shout out a big congratulations. What does she do? She walks right over and gives me a huge hug! I just about started crying. She's such a wonderful young woman and a great student and I'm so proud of these student athletes! They've worked so hard these past few years and it makes me feel so good to see them do so well!

Okay, sap is over - back to my old snarky self...

So those should be enough warm fuzzies to get me through for a while. Oh, one more and then I promise I'll shut up...I asked O this morning if they had been talking about Thanksgiving at his DCP (daycare provider) and when he said yes I asked, "Have you talked about what you are thankful for - about what makes you happy?" and to my amazement, my argumentative little independent child said, "I'm thankful for my mommy and daddy!" Okay, even is said DCP totally primed them to say that...awwwwwww!!!!! Too sweet! Okay kid, you're off the h ook for a day or two...

Now I have a pile of grading and a major need for some sort of caffeine...

Croup

I was under the impression that croup was one of those yesteryear illnesses from, say, the Seventies, that was just no longer in style. My brother had it often and I remember it really sucked. Well, O has croup. Where did he get it? One of the other kiddoes at daycare, no doubt (I'm talking about you Alec and Ben!! I hope you both feel better soon, though). Why do parents bring their kids to daycare when they are contagious, especially contagious with yucky stuff like croup? I know the answer, but I still don't like it. It's hard to ditch your job for a day - or more - and stay home with a sick kid. I'm lucky in that my job is somewhat flexible, but still, it's quite irresponsible to send your kid out to infect other kids with nasty crap when you really could/should prevent such things. I will probably be cancelling classes on Monday if O is still bad - in part b/c he needs to get better and in part b/c I don't want him to give croup to other kids...

And I know that O will get sick - he's already had his fair share, and he's pretty healthy - but he's just been through so much lately, I don't think it's fair. Waaaah, poor us.

I just medicated the kid up with tylenol, benadryl and some prescription Robitussin with codeine. His humidifier is on and he'll be heading up to bed soon. I hope he can sleep - his cough is somethin' fierce.

And by the way, the cough syrup with codeine that I enjoyed as a kid tasted MUCH better than this stuff. I suppose that's a good thing as my mom tells me I used to fake a cough to get it. My addictions started early, I suppose. The stuff O has to take tastes like, well, yucky, grown-up Robitussin. Like he needs any more problems...