My Invisalign adventure...

pretty much sucks, but I will have straight teeth for the first time in my life. I can already feel the difference in my bite and I have only been doing the treatment since the beginning of March. I never had bad teeth hygiene, but I was a terrible at flossing. Mainly because the floss would get stuck in my bottom teeth, sometimes shred, and sometime break. What does this have to do with anything? Well I spent my Saturday Morning at Walgreen's insanity buying $20 of floss and toothpaste. Even though I wanted to scream at a few customers "it's only $1 maybe you should read the sale signs better" who would have ever thought the following sentence would come out of my mouth? I love to brush, floss, and waterpik my teeth at the very least 4 times a day.....I am going to have great gum health after all! I guess as much as my adventure pretty much sucks I have got more out of it then just straight teeth.

Making Career Advancing Decisions???

A career isn't what it used to be. Who has a job and a life anymore? If you want to make it up the corporate ladder you have to sacrifice some of your personal decisions in order to get the visibility and exposure you need to make it to the next level. Playing the career game means learning the rules and making tough decisions. When is enough, enough? Even when you aren't being asked to make the sacrifice if you don't you will be making a career limiting move by passing up on the opportunity. Oh yeah you always hear there are a lot of other opportunities that are going to be coming up. Until I see it I don't believe it because I have been made those promises before and I have yet to reap the benefits of those "empty" promises.

By now my Mom is reading this and freaking out...don't worry Mom I am not missing any weddings, births, or other family events. (I have learned my lesson missing Summer's wedding I will never live that down)

When Should I take a job that pays less because it means more or you will have more of your own time? How do I know when it's time to say no? How do I know when it's time to go?

Is it worth letting people down, not making plans, and/or hurting the ones you love to stay on top? In my case pay my Vet bills (just kidding kind of)...but when it's you making a living on your own sometimes you feel as if you have to do what you have to do to make that happen.

Can't we have a healthy Household???

So as Sly gets better, I end up with a respiratory infection followed by an asthma attach which has kept me in bed for the better part of three days. The funny part is I haven't had a serious attack since I left Idaho, so I had forgot what a big pain in the butt not being able to breath is.

It looks as if we are all on the mend and should start packing our stuff soon. I hope not to get distracted by being able to stream Netflix on my Wii. I am going to have to get a little more discipline then this.

Also I have decided to go on a mission to Monterrey Mexico the end of June. I will post more as I have more information, but I am very excited about it. The only thing I am looking forward to more is the birth of my niece Lily Grace. What an exciting Summer!

Catch up! March/April

I started my Invisalign the first of March and boy has it been an adjustment. Just about the time I am getting use to them the tray gets switched out and we start all over. It has been very interesting first my teeth were sooo close together it hurt to floss and now I have to about 3 or 4 times a day. Second I have a fear of public bathrooms thanks to my Grandma Helen and I find myself having to brush my teeth in them now. We have went from Grandma saying "Don't touch anything" to being able to brush my teeth in there BIG ADJUSTMENT for me HUGE!

I am also start to pack my things up once again, but I am excited and looking forward to living on the ground floor again. I am just waiting for them to put in the new carpet and kitchen counters. I will have a garage which isn't big enough for my car, but great space for all my brew stuff. I am looking forward to a new adventure and be done with these stupid Realtors bringing strangers through my house all the time. It amazes me how people have no respect for other peoples stuff. I am just about at the end of my rope, but there is a light at the in of the tunnel. I will definitely miss Belmont and this area, but I am not that far away. Besides the new place has a lot more room so I can have more people over!

The Art of the Homebrew!

Well ok maybe not so much the art, but a big huge Science project going on in my back room. I am having so much fun with it before St. Patty's day I found myself in a spot I had never been before. I had so much beer I didn't know what to do with it. The problem with that is all I wanted to do was brew more....quick fix??? Have a party! So 909 Academy became the Homebrew Bar....Aftan and Jeff set up a corner of their house to look like an actual Bar. It was so much fun and everyone really liked the Beer which of course what an ego booster for me. So now that I have some room we are back to brewing and bottling this weekend. Excited to see how the new beers turn out!

It's a Dog's Life

Well after years of being sick and the last few months of WAY TOO many vet visits Sly has IBD (same as Crohn's disease in humans). It has been a rough couple of months, but I think we can say he is on the mend. Right now he is not as energetic as usual, but they say that is due to the steroids. He is starting to come off them, but it will probably still be a few months. He will be all ready to go home for his trip to Idaho. Beware he can't have anything no matter how cute he looks to you. Feed Nick if you want, but the person responsible for feeding Sly will have to take him for a month and pay the Vet Bills....which mean I am just going to have to watch him like a Hawk at all times.

Sly be Sick once again.....

But I caught it early enough this time thank goodness. He was just acting off and starting peeing on the floor. At first I thought he was being naughty because of Nick, but then one night he did it right in front of me then rolled over on his back…it about broke my heart because it happened again about an hour later. I took him in last Thursday and she thought he might have Kidney/Bladder infection and/or stones, but the tests didn’t show anything but an elevated white blood cell count so she put him on amoxicillin. I was really frustrated because I had just spent another $500 for them to tell me what they always tell me….his white blood cell count is high he must have an infection, but we don’t know what kind.

We had a horrible weekend he wouldn’t pee and he would hold it until he couldn’t hold it any longer, had more accidents, and stopped drinking water all together. So Monday back to the vet we went….she still thought maybe stones so I left him so they could take x-rays, shove a catheter up him, inject him with fluids and more blood work. They estimated this would cost me another $600 and that I should come back at 2:30pm so I could see how to inject fluids into him myself…FUN, FUN, FUN! So I took the day off and decided to go check out that place in San Mateo while I waited (I liked it and will probably move in more about that later) on the way the vet called me and she told me this big long story which lead to the fact that she thought he had a stomach occlusion and wanted to have the radiologist come in and take a look. I said sure whatever needs to be done…she said it’s going to be expensive (oh great I am going to have to start living in my car).

After a long day there were no tumors which I know she was really worried about and as soon as they gave him the fluids he acted like nothing was wrong (money well spent we should have just gave him fluids in the first place)…his blood test come back the next day to show that is Cortisol levels were low which suggested Atypical Addison’s disease. Short story long we are going to the Vet Monday to do a confirmation test and if it turns out that it is Addison's it will be easily managed…(My coworker's Dog has had Addison’s since he was a puppy). So now that I have spent 2 months rent on him this week and probably enough to buy a ford focus during his lifetime we might (fingers crossed) have an answer, so we need to keep the stress levels down this weekend. HIGH MAINTENANCE DOG!!!

The best part when I told the breeder she should contact the owners of the other dogs from that litter (the female from Sly's litter was recently put down and her symptoms were the same as Addison’s too) she blew me off and just wanted to know how Nick was….I really wanted to cuss her out, but I left it at that. I tried to do the right and and what she does or doesn't do with the information is on her shoulders now!