Amendment #2 Frustration

I want to take a moment to vent about my frustration regarding Amendment #2 passing.
I don't understand how the majority of Floridians fail to see same sex marriage, or any gay rights for that matter, as a civil rights issue. I am particularly frustrated at the same sex marriage ban because the ONLY reason people use to support the ban is a religious one. Yesterday, I heard someone say "Vote Yes on #2: God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve". I'm sorry, did you forget that we live in the United States where we have separation of church and state???? Uurgh!!!

Labor Day

These days Nick and I look forward to a holiday weekend just to catch up. Nick worked on his Sociological Theory book most of the day while I did some random cleaning around the house.

Around 2:30pm, I thought I should go back to my old tradition of cooking a few meals and freezing them for the week. I have not cooked in a few weeks due to lack of time and motivation. (when you're nauseous most of the time, cooking does not sound fun). I didn't have a plan of what to make, I just took out almost all of the pots I own and put them on the stove to pre-heat. I knew I'd be making a soup and a casserole of some kind.

The end result: a chicken and stuffing casserole, a chicken pot pie, a beef base vegetable soup, "mediterranean style" (olive oil, onions and herbs) chicken breasts and homemade scalloped herb potatoes. I also have left over chicken pot pie filling for later this week. (Note: the breaded chicken tenders shown on the left of the above picture were not part of any of my meals- that's just what Nick had for lunch to hold himself over for the good stuff)

The casserole and the chicken pot pie do not look very pretty but they're tasty (if I say so myself!). We'll see how long this food lasts or if I even feel like eating it this week. :)

Tropical Storm Fay

Nick and I have never been ones to prepare for a hurricane so when they announced TS Fay, we both just laughed at the government/media attempts to get people to buy stuff for the sake of improving our economy. Shame on us! We didn't realize Fay was going to stick around THIS freaking long. I now realize the hazards of constant rain.

We're experiencing some difficulties in our house. When we moved in, I had the house pressure washed and noticed that there were some leaks on three of our downstairs windows. It hasn't been a problem because they only leak when there's constant, hard hitting water directly on the windows and until now that hasn't happened. TS Fay brought the leaks back. Nick was caught by surprise when our bamboo blinds came crashing down on the floor. It turnes out it's not the window that leaks, there must be a crack on the side of our house because it was leaking through the anchors on the top of the window. The bamboo blinds were acting as rain chains and absorbed all the water- until it got so heavy that the anchors came out of the drywall. Being that neither of us are handy, we really don't have tools to fix stuff around our house. We can't use putty b/c the top of the window frame is soaked. Nick came up with a cheap solution. He folded paper towels and taped them to the holes. He had to change them out every couple of hours but they stopped the water from dripping onto our wood floors. Nick and I both had a moment of regret about the wood floors b/c we wouldn't be so worried if we had tile down but I'm worried if the floors get wet they'll buckle. We're calling professionals to find out exactly where the crack/leak is coming from.

Here's a picture of our make-do patch:

Our Baby Recuperates from Surgery

Baby hasn't visited the vet in a while but this month he met the quota. Nick took him to the Dr. last week because Baby's right eye was so red and full of gunk, we knew it was probably an infection. He did have conjunctivitis (pink eye) and has been on antibiotics since. When Nick came back from the vet last week he bathed Baby and found a growth on Baby's lip. It was gross- like a big pink mole with red dots on it. Today was Baby's follow up appointment for the conjunctivitis.

Once we told the Dr. about the growth, he suggested we remove it. Baby has his own health insurance plan and the plan covers one dental cleaning a year. Since they have to put him under full anesthesia for his dental cleaning, we usually take advantage of that and take care of any other things that need to be done w/full anesthesia. Since he hasn't had his dental cleaning this year, the Dr. suggested we do it today and take care of the growth on his lip plus a growth on his belly (he's had one of these before and it was just a mass of fat). We didn't expect to have it done so soon but since Nick and I were both off from work today we decided to do it.

When we picked Baby up from the vet, they explained what he can do and what he should refrain from doing. He has stitches on his lip so they're afraid he'll scratch his face and pull them out. The nurse said "you can bring him back in 2 weeks for us to remove them but given his demeanor he probably won't let us, so they'll eventually dissolve". I kept thinking what does she mean by "his demeanor"??? Now, everyone that has met Baby knows that it takes a while for him to warm up to strangers. However, he has never acted up against a nurse/Dr or groomer. He only misbehaves in his own territory so I was actually surprised when she said that. So, we'll have to wait until the stitches dissolve. What Baby doesn't realize is that "his demeanor" has cost him about 3 weeks of "cone punishment". He must wear a cone around his neck to keep him from ripping the stitches off his lip and cost me even more money to put him under anesthesia again.

This is like a Mastercard commercial:

Vet visit: $50

Doggie dental cleaning: $100

Doggie Blood work and urine analysis: $89

Surgery to remove two growths: $100

Antibiotics for 3 weeks: $85

Seeing your doggie wear a cone: Priceless

The doggie health plan covers a lot but we still ended up paying $200 to cover medication and other stuff. It turns out Baby has an urine infection as well.

Mamma Mia!

On Friday night, my mom and I got to see the broadway show Mamma Mia! at Bob Carr in Orlando. I didn't know what the story was about until I went to see the show. Even though I'm not a musicals fan, the show was great. Towards the end I did want the singing to end but I made it through and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Another update for those who haven't realized it yet...
From now on, most of the updates will be posted on our new blog:
http://www.guittars.blogspot.com/

I will still keep this blog for random non-baby related stories.