Fun Monday: Life Highs....

Mariposa asks us to write about 3-5 highs in our lives.

When I read this assignment, I thought, "Ahhh, no problem. Sign me up." Next time, I'll think harder.

It's pretty easy to come up with 3-5....I'm one of those over-educated people (i.e. I couldn't find my path in life so I stayed in school for a long time). Each time I graduated or changed direction and was actually accepted in a school or training program for the next segment of my meandering road to where I am now, there was an incredible thrill. As a person who had (or still has) some self-esteem issues, I was thrilled (no the appropriate term would be shocked) that I had managed to make the next turn in my life's journey. However, a list like this is a little boring

So, the big thrills?

1. Graduating from high school. I don't have a picture, but it was a huge thrill for me. I come from a family where education is highly regarded. Graduating from HS was expected, and a minor milestone in my family, but for me, it meant I was on my way. In my mind, I was finally an adult (ahh, the misconceptions of youth).

2. My first car. Another rite of passage. In my family, one was given a car for completing college. I chose a Toyota Corolla hatchback with sun-roof. That car was mine for the next 13 years. That care gave me independence (with good gas mileage on the side). I wracked up 167,000 miles on it with the maintenance that a graduate student could afford (not much). I replaced the spark plugs for the first time at 105,000 miles. The mechanic told me he didn't see any functional surfaces, but the car had still been running (For some reason, he seemed to be laughing hysterically when he called me to ask when I had last replaced the spark plugs....never?). That car was a good one. They just don't make like that anymore. Of course, when I replaced it, I hadn't realized what a rough I had been experiencing. Those sorts of things creep up on you.

3. Graduating from medical school. This day represented the end of my official schooling, although I still had about 7 years of training ahead of me. When I was in college, I dreamed of medical school, but I lacked confidence. Graduate school prior to medical school gave me that confidence (and also convinced me that medicine was my calling). The medical school road was a good, but bumpy one. I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer during my first year. The regular stresses of medical school combined with hormonal stressers....was... interesting (I need a "big grin" emoticon after that one). My treating endocrinologist hooded me at graduation. His picture is to the right. Amazing what one can find on the internet. Note to self: need to scan in some of those graduation pictures.....

4. Buying my first home. I have printed pictures but not many digital pictures. This house was over 50 years old and 1100 square feet with 3 bedrooms (small!) and one bath. These days, it would be advertised as a "cottage." Owning a home meant that I could finally have a dog: something that I had wanted since leaving home. The house was an odd thing. It had been owned by a "contractor" who had jerry-mandered lots of things (oh, the stories I heard from the neighbors about some of the "contracting."). The house had the original tile -- yellow with black trim. At first, I hated that, but grew to kind of like it over time. It was just the right size for me and my 4-legged kids.

So those are some of the thrills.

Finally, for those of you who are dog lovers, I recently experienced the miracle of a litter of pups. The has certainly been a high for me, although I realize that it must pale in comparison to having a child.

Having pups may take more intestinal fortitude than I have -- Gabi failed to dilate and so had to have a c-section. Unfortunately, I HAD to be a work, after being up with her through the night. Through the support of several people, all went well, and Gabi and pups have been doing great. Despite having a c-section, Gabi has bonded well with her pups. She left them for more than 30 seconds when they were 3 days old. We went to the whippet ranch and she knew that she had been left behind (and was not pleased). For those interested in wasting 3:30 minutes watching blind wigglers....click the link (By the way, it is the same one that is on Gabi's blog, so if you have seen that, don't bother. Hopefully, I'll have a new one in a few days).


Now, go check out the others on the list:

1. Beedancer 2. brocasarea 3. Grace 4. Hootin Anni 5. ChrisB 6. SWAMP~WITCH aka: Swampy 7. M (the misanthrope)

8. Mamalang 9. IamwhoIam 10. KarmynR 11. Swampangel65 12. Sarah 13. HulaGirl 14. Jan

15. Faye 16. celeste 17. iPost 18. Margaret, Soon To Be Mama 19. BS 20. Melanie 21. You're next!

Blind wigglers

I am truly amazed at how much time I can spend just staring at these blind wiggling puppies. After 3 days of constant attention, Gabi finally left their side for more than the most rapid of runs outside to take care of business. To be honest, it scared me....I thought something was wrong, but I think she finally realized that the would be OK....for 10 minutes!

I have given them temporary names. Just place holders. Sweets and Katie are nearly identical, although Katie is the smallest in the litter.
At times, I think they haven't changed much, but then I watched a video that I made of the puppsters...they have truly filled out in the past 3 days. I can see them moving faster (oh, my....). They swim across the whelping box.

BTW, warning....I have told that the desire to gaze gets worse when they have eyes that are open.

The wait is over!

After what seemed like an eternity, the puppies made their entrance at about 11 am yesterday. Gabi had gone into labor over 24 hours previously. She started hard labor at about 7 am, but didn't have a puppy after 3 hours so was taken in for evaluation. Unfortunately, she required a c-section.

I can not tell you all the relief that I felt when Gabi was back home with her kids. She was groggy for a while, but almost as soon as she woke, she started licking and tending to her new crew of 5: 4 girls and one boy. Although going into this, I wanted a girl from the litter, the little boy has the mark of his mother (white head, with a patch around an ear). Only time will tell. Check out Gabi's blog for a photo album.

Waiting

This was supposed to have been the weekend that Gabi had her puppies....but nature has chosen not to have that come to be. She is looking rotund, but according to people "in the know" still has a little bit of a tuck up suggesting that the puppies have not moved back.

Dogs, like humans, have a slight variability to the length of gestation -- that accompanied by the fact that sperm can live in the reproductive tract for a few days before ovulation occurs makes for some variability that is "normal."

Last week, she had many of the signs. A temperature drop which got me excited but did not persist. Discomfort, and inability to sleep at night (which translated into my inability to sleep at night. When I left work on Friday, I knew those little puppies were coming soon. Last night. I was relatively confident that they weren't coming, yet. Last night, she seemed to sleep better than she has in ages. I, however, can not sleep.

Yesterday morning, all of the girls went into a chewing fest (btw, Gabi has yet to do a nesting thing). It was kind of amusing -- the girls all lined up and chewing on something....aggressively.

But back to Gabi. I joke that she isn't having the puppies until she farms out the unpleasant aspects to Mati. Somehow, she got Mati to have the morning sickness. Proof to my theory is the the last picture which was taken last night. Note how she is lying on the couch with her legs UP in the air. Yup....she's trying to keep those puppies in until she makes Gabi appropriate arrangements. Sad thing: I don't think Mati is signing up for this one....

Today, I was out just taking fun shots of the dogs and I got this one. It is far from perfect, but somehow, catching old man Darby from behind appeals to me. I thought I was going to lost this dog when he was 5 years old. He went into liver failure, and on biopsy had extensive cirrhosis (scarring of the liver). The liver failure was an acute process on top of a bad chronic one. Interestingly, through some dietary and supplement adjustments, he is doing better now than he was last year....and he is now 9 years old.

Gabi continues to grow. She looks a little bigger every day. Right now, comparing her to friends whippets at the stage she isn't looking HUGE. I am hoping that she has 4 puppsters inside....but only time will tell.

Sometimes.....

You know, I always thought that I would grow up, get married, and have 2.5 kids. Somehow, in the midst of going to school, being shy, going to school, being shy...that just never happened. I am OK with that. I have replaced the concept of husband and children with a bunch of very lovely dogs who love me unconditionally despite my hellacious work schedule. Sometimes, you just have to adjust.

Sometimes, the lack of a man around the house does have it's disadvantages though. Although it would be nice to have a trailer to use as I travel the country with my dogs, I have always maintained that I don't want to have more vehicle (or attachments to my vehicle) than I can manage. This philosophy on life has served me well..

Now that I have the property 12 miles from my house, I do need a utility trailer to transport my 1000 lb 48 inch mower (read mower from hell....but that is another story). This weekend, Atwoods, a local home and ranch store, had a sale on utility trailers. Four different flavors were available : light weight and heavier, 5 x 8 foot and 6 x 10 foot. After much measuring, and the advice of a good ol' boy waiting in his truck, and I chose the "heavy" construction 5 x 8 foot trailer. Although the trailers were all chained, I had picked up the hitch and rolled the trailer. It seemed light and manageable, and the good ol' boys warning about flimsy tires had me very worried about the lighter weight trailer.

Buying the trailer has actually taken days and days. There are so many things that I didn't want to admit that I don't know/understand. Simple things like how to use a hitch. But I had done my surveillance, nonchalantly examining the trucks in the parking lot at Home Depot and Atwoods. I came prepared with the appropriate size ball on my hitch, I knew where the electrical connections were. Who said that this city girl can't figure stuff out?

I bought the trailer. Although I have never towed a thing in my life, I drove the thing home without cutting anyone off or mis-gauging a turn. My plan, until I get a storage shed, was to keep the trailer in the garage, next to Daisy, with the wagons and mower stored on the trailer. I cleared out the garage....everything seemed to be going well. But all plans like this have to have a flaw.

1. The driveway. It has an incline. It may be mild but it is there.....

2. The garage. The floor has no traction.

I was pulling the trailer up the driveway, when suddenly, I just didn't have enough weight to pull it up. I tried to stop, but the trailer was slowly dragging me towards my brand new pick up truck. In desperation, I manage to turn it so that it lost momentum. While trying to hold onto the trailer so that it won't start moving again, I reach for some bricks to put behind the wheels. Sigh. I went inside,to let my quaking muscles stop quaking and tried again. Sometimes, despite my determination, I just don't have strength for some activities. Cursing myself for being the weaker sex....I was stuck. What to do? Call someone? Possibly, but I don't want to do that every time I need to use the trailer.

Hmmmmm.

What does any woman do when there is really a problem?Change shoes!! That's the ticket. Sometimes, it is OK being the weaker sex.... (OK, I am using some literary license here...this is not the way I deal with most problems in my life).

Yup. When the tough don't way enough, just change shoes.

I was wearing old running shoes. No traction. I changed into my newer running shoes -- they have these columns that give nice cushioning when I run, but they also gave just enough traction for me to haul the trailer up the driveway and into the garage. It's all about having the right shoes....or is that the right equipment. Without a lot of sweat, some not-so feminine grunting, and acquisition of blisters across the palm of my right hand, I did get the trailer IN the garage. Everything fits!

Of course, right now I am having some pretty crushing chest pain. I figure my ribs have separated from my sternum in protest of the heavy labor (believe me, it IS musculo-skeletal pain).

I'm thinking that shed that will allow storage of the trailer and mower without an incline....that needs to happen, soon. The other option would be to back the trailer into the garage. But this is one girl that knows her limitations....and backing up trailers is not on my list of approved procedures.

Sometimes...it pays to have the right shoes. Really.



For anyone who is interested, Gabi probably is in whelp (or is having the worst false pregnancy, EVER. Pups are due in two weeks, but she has started writing in her blog, which she gave up last spring (something about me being too busy and hogging the computer).

Introducing

Some of the guys. The whippets are still banished from the land as there are cow-types roaming. However, I must admit that the cow-types are handsome in their own kind of way. Introducing Mr. 370. Is he not just a HUNK?

Then, there is poor Mr. 836. He's having a bad hair day.....and nose day....and, well, he just wasn't thinking he was going to do a photo-shoot when he got up this morning.

Despite the ruffled look, he is kind of cute, no?