things happened this week
And I didn't blog about any of it! What's up with that? I did write a bazillion reviews on my book blog, but other than that? I didn't blog at all. That was not my plan!I had a very nice, busy week off from work. There were some downsides (like Annie not doing well at all) but mostly I was content all week.I shall sum up my week in photos (apologies to J for the photo heavy post. =P)Tuesday we went out and about and I found boots! The wonderful leather ones that my mother-in-law got me in 2008 have started to give up on life. The souls are worn down and have no grips. I'm even slipping indoors. They are also starting to leak, so I thought I would just get a pair on sale for the end of this winter. Imagine my surprise when I couldn't find anything in my size! Argh. Walmart won with a $15 pair of boots that fit and don't leak.
I feel quite sure-footed now! I am ready to tackle the steep hill that I have to climb to get to the gym twice a week for my Body Design class.
We were out all day looking for boots. I almost gave up but we stopped at Walmart after dinner and I was in luck.
With my new boots ready for action we went to the Ecomuseum on the West Island on Wednesday. We chose Wednesday since Thursday and Friday were supposed to be raining a lot. Turned out Wednesday was cool and over cast and Thursday was the nicest February day in ever. Argh.
I am super impressed with the camera on my iPhone 4. I didn't even take my little pocket camera because I didn't want to carry it around. I was VERY impressed with the photos in their original state but of course I am obsessed with Instagram (have an iPhone? then GET IT!) and I had to edit my favourite photos.
We were very impressed with the Ecomuseum. It's about a 45+ minute walk outdoors and there's this indoor night time sort of thing (the frogs and creepy owl were in that space). Anything in an aquarium, my photos came out very well. I am so excited! My point and click camera does not like low-light photos. Even the almost pitch black section that Mr. Creepy Owl was in - the photos came out. Yay! Anyhow, if you come to Montreal and want to spend $12.50 and see animals that are being cared for (the animals there are all either injured or abandoned, they are not fancy kept for show things). The raccoons and bears were hibernating so we couldn't see them. I would like to go back in the late spring or early fall and take a look around then as well.
Thursday was a lazy day for most of the day, but in the evening I had my monthly trivia charity event and Shawn filled in for our missing fourth.
The money collected goes to Centraide (The United Way in the rest of the world, of course it is called something different in Quebec because this is a stupid province). Our team is made up of admin staff from the Music faculty, hence the name. ;)
Friday was a weird day. We went out to breakfast, had issues getting to a breakfast place which sort of added some stress into our relaxing day, then we went to see a movie (I Am Number 4 - only because it was the least bad looking movie out. It was... meh... although I now want to read the book, which I didn't care about over the summer). We came home and I was fighting a horrible migraine - I had forgotten about the caffeine in the soft drink. I have cut out all caffeine because I have been having awful month-long migraines and it's been helping. So that one small beverage I had - killed me. And then...
I haven't said anything on the blog, but Annie's not been doing very well. She should be turning 13 two weeks from Monday, and I have asked her to please hang on until then, but some days I feel the worst. Since the summer she's been going on these hunger strikes, she'd have more good days than bad, but now it's the complete opposite. She's lost so much weight because she won't eat anything, for a while all she'd eat was the Beneful wet food and now she's turning up her nose at that too. At least she's not pooping blood anymore, that was January's fun time. Her legs bother her a lot and between the probable arthritis and her lack of strength from not eating, Annie can't stand up very well or walk very far. She's better outside than inside (wood floors = slip and slide).
This weekend I have managed to get her to eat a few Kraft singles, an entire small bag of little chewy treats and just tonight half of a tiny bowl of tomato soup. I just want her to eat. Poor thing.
She's got huge lumps, 3 I think, around her throat and I don't know if this is causing her to have difficulty eating? She doesn't get sick after eating and she's going to the bathroom just fine. She's not ready to go yet, but she's on a pretty downward slope. She still gets up to greet us when we come down in the morning and when we get home, so we're happy with that.
She went about 2 weeks in January, while pooping blood, without eating and then had almost two weeks of eating everything in sight. Luckily the wet food went on sale that week and we could pick up enough to keep her in eating. She should have 3 containers of food at least a day and she wasn't even eating half of one and then she was eating two a day. I am wondering if she's going to bounce back like that again. We've stopped taking her on walks because just a walk around the block knocks her out for 3-4 days after. It's sad.
Jinx doesn't quite get what's going on so he's eating all sorts of things he shouldn't be right now but in small doses so he doesn't gain 100 lbs while Annie loses weight. He's also too dopey to figure out that Annie is very fragile now so he still tries to jump on her or push her out of the way when we give her attention and he doesn't understand why we yell at him. I feel bad, but right now Annie needs the extra care and he needs to stop being such a jealous boots and suck it up.
I am having a very hard time with this, hence the lack of writing about it. Friday Annie had such a bad night I could not stop crying and crying. Then our dryer stopped working with two loads of wet clothes to hang all over the house. I just couldn't cope.
Shawn called his dad for advice about the dryer Saturday morning and his parents ended up coming over - with a brand new LG front-loading washer and dryer for us. 0.O
This was very surprising and unexpected and I was just so... thankful. We joked that we need to call my father-in-law for advice more often. ;) I was also happy they came with their dog, Hex so Jinx had someone to play with and we could all be distracted from the Annie issues. And I am happy they got to see her just in case something happens.
So that was my week. I was so stressed and anxious yesterday that I didn't go to choir or church, but my in-law's were also here until close to 3pm so it would have just been too much to handle. I couldn't breathe Friday night and the thought that I had to go back to work on Monday was just too much.
Then our internet stopped working. A videotron guy was here today to fix it even though it was working by this morning. We got a new modem, they think maybe that was the problem. But they don't know. We are not impressed with videotron I can tell you.
I am ending my week off feeling more anxious than when I started the vacation. I can focus on all the wonderful stuff that happened but in the end, when I close my eyes to sleep, all I see is Annabelle. It's not easy.
But I'll leave you with one final photo (happy, J? ;)) to make you smile - goofy Jinx!
