Finally, an update!

Well apparently when I updated last (two months ago!) I said I was going to talk about books, movies and a new school year. I have absolutely no idea what I planned to say about books other then I read a lot through the month of August. When I say a lot I mean at least 6 books a week. Naturally, I've slowed down a lot now that school has started but I am excited about a book club I've joined at work. There are twelve of us that are reading two teen lit books a month and we're meeting monthly to talk about the pros and cons of each book. In February I get to pick the books for that month. I'm pretty happy. This is my kind of thing.

Now my movie story is that we went to Saskatchewan to see a drive-in. We went to the closest drive-in around which is five and a half hours away. I searched on-line for a decent campground but couldn't find anything close. We wound up at a campground in the middle of the city. I had read that it was rustic and isolated enough and most of it was. Unfortunately, our site was one of five that bordered a fence and looked out to a parking lot and apartment building. Sonia said she felt like she was camping out in the backyard like we did when we were kids. It was rather lame. On the other hand, the movie was great. The drive-in was exactly as drive-ins should be and we saw some decent movies (Sisterhood-of-the-traveling-pants, Batman, and Ironman). By Ironman, Sonia was freezing to death because it was 1:00 a.m. and we had a window open so we didn't fog up. I couldn't figure out how to have the car run without my lights automatically turning on so we sat and froze (I have since got it worked out!). Eventually Sonia spent a half-hour in the concession building trying to warm up. I toughed it out though. We had booked ourselves at the campground until the Monday but we left a day earlier because there didn't seem to a be a point to just sitting around the campground looking at the cars come and go from the parking lot. We would certainly go back to that drive-in although rumor has it that this was it's last year. We wouldn't go back to that campground though.

This school year has had it's ups and downs so far. Apparently, because this is my third year, I'm in the in-crowd now. I have teachers pop by to talk. Teachers invite me join them while they chat in the hall. Teachers who invite me out for drinks or to small parties. It is weird... Other pluses are that my new principal is great. She is my kind of person. An outspoken, practical, strong woman is someone I am comfortable with. The atmosphere at the school amongst staff if significantly better. This year's crop of kids on the other hand... Actually, we were just talking in the staff room that our 7s this year are either the sweetest kids ever or hell-on-wheels. We have very few kids in between. I am again finding myself struggling with classroom management and I am tired and stressed. I need more effective strategies. I have put this in my growth plan this year which means I will have to talk to my principal about what is going on. I think this principal is someone who won't just give me a simple idea, pat me on my head and say good luck. I think she will be someone who will actually come into my room regularly, give me strategies, follow up with me on how things are going, etc. This idea makes me want to throw-up but also makes me excited. I am always just on the cusp of loving my job. If I could just get my classes more functional, I think I would truly enjoy my work.

Okay, next update I will talk about the wedding fever in Edmonton and about my dates with my nephew...

Summer!

This is probably going to be a couple of posts as I have much to cover (April to August is a rather large chunk of time to discuss in a single blog!)

Hmmm... What has happened since April...

1. Sonia and I went to Idaho for a quick trip (5 days). We shopped and bought a lot of cherry coke zero (we have exactly two cans left!)We went to Silverwood Amusement Park which has some truly excellent wooden rollercoasters. All-in-all an excellent mini-holiday.

2. I bought a car... My car died on the way back from the Idaho trip and it became a large paperweight. I decided to go new. Not just any new but pretty, luxury new. I bought a dark grey Mazda 3 hatchback. I went all out and got the luxury package which includes moonroof, rain sensing wipers, internal and self-regulating thermostat, bose stereo with 6 disc changer, leather interior and all sorts of other handy features. I love my pretty new car. Word has it that middle nephew, Daniel, has declared it the nicest car he's ever been in. I love that kid!

3. School ended. I didn't find another job so I'll be back again this fall. I actually had a decent year. I have made a couple of friends on staff and feel comfortable there. My principal is retiring and we have a new one coming in. She has a reputation of being a ball-buster and so I'm kind of glad to be heading back as I'm intensely curious to see what might happen in the upcoming year. It may be a horror or it may be the coolest year I've every had. No matter what, it will be interesting.

4. We went to Easten Europe. Two weeks in Romania, one in Budapest and one in Prague. It was so absolutely fantastic to spend that much time with Matthew and Nicole. (Although I am horrible at regularly communicating with them, they are two of my favourite people on this planet.) I loved seeing the Romania Nicole knows and meeting her family was great. Their hospitality was amazing. They clearly all love her and it was nice to briefly be part of their world. Transylvania is gorgeous and I enjoyed seeing all the sights. Romania has many places worth seeing but isn't overrun with tourists so I really enjoyed my time there. I think I would have found it more difficult if we didn't have Nicole there. She did an amazing job finding us places to stay and planning out our time. It was good to have her as a translator as well. I think Budapest was my favourite place on the trip though. It was beautiful and rich with history. I learned a lot through all my various audioguides and have a better sense of the world because of it. I think even the Botel Hotel Lisa was a good experience although we only stayed one night (issues I hadn't anticipated came up. Still a fun memory!) Prague was pretty and a nice place to wrap up our trip. All-in-all it was an excellent trip. I was concerned that spending a month together would be too difficult but I think we actually did pretty well. We had a few frustrations with each other at times but overall we got along and enjoyed each others company.

I think that is all I'll cover right now. Up next: reading, movies and a new school year.

A little video of the new puppies

Well, we have new puppies as most of you have heard. Kali was an "oopsie" puppy of some neighbours. They were just giving away the puppies so we had to go take a peek. The puppies were husky/pitbull crosses and were all so cute that S just needed to bring one home. Neither of us have ever had a true puppy before so it has been an adventure. We are still trying to house train her, teach her not to bite and to attack toys and not us.

Autumn, our Great Dane, is two years old. She is a rescued dog so she is still very new to our house. Actually, she is a more recent addition then Kali. She is a lovely, sweet dog who is much calmer than my last Dane. She is remarkably unobtrusive which is really something for a hundred and seventeen pound dog. Autumn does come with some baggage. Her pancreas has almost entirely shut down which means she needs supplements in order to digest her food. There is a powder but the sheer quantities she would need is ridiculously costly so instead she is eating raw lamb pancreas mixed with her dry food. She is doing great on the diet but it is quite pricey and once a month I have to drive two hours away to pick up the meat from a meat processing plant.
Autumn is also very shy with men. She is skittish in a way Danes are never supposed to be. She warms up fairly quickly but is still a bit jumpy. She strongly dislikes my brother who lives in my basement and won't come in the house if he is standing anywhere she can see him. I left her in his care last weekend as I went out of town and she didn't eat the whole time. We will have to work on it.

As you can see by the video, our two dogs adore each other. We, the humans in the house, are pretty much secondary. They love to wrestle, play tug-of-war and chase each other around the yard. As Kali gets bigger, we should have all out wars in the house.

Neither dog knows any basic commands so we are thinking we'll hire someone to come teach us how to teach the dogs. We are particularly disturbed by the fact they both are willing to escape the house or yard and go running through the neighbourhood. We never once had to worry about that with our last dog who would stay in the yard even if the gate was wide open. I can't trust Autumn to be off-leash at the dog park yet and I really want to take her there. It was Destiny's favourite thing and I think Autumn wold love it.

A tribute

As I think all the western world has heard at this point, last Friday, my beautiful, sweet Destiny died. She had bloat. When researching about Great Danes prior to getting one, I had read that the most common causes of death for the breed are bloat and heart attack. I didn't really know what bloat was so I paid little heed. I have now learned the hard way how horrific it can be.

I was out late Thursday night but when I got home Destiny seemed to be herself, enthusiastic about me coming home, willing to go outside, happy to go to bed. I saw nothing that indicated within 24 hours she'd be gone. She woke me up at 6:00 in the morning, trying to vomit. She tried unsuccessfully to vomit for almost a half hour. She was producing a lot of saliva but nothing was coming from her stomach. Her stomach was distended and obviously uncomfortable. I now know that these are the classic signs of bloat and I should have rushed her to emergency immediately. I didn't recognize the signs and instead thought that she was struggling to digest a new rawhide treat I had given her the day before. She has always had a sensitive stomach and I knew giving her a new treat may not sit well with her. Although she was in obvious discomfort she was still wagging her tail and coming to me for comforting.

By 7:30 a.m., she was in a great deal of pain. She was whining and pacing. I knew then that she needed to go the the vet for treatment but this was the time right in between the emergency hospital closing and her regular vet opening. I decided to wait until 9:00 when her usual vet opened before seeking treatment. I called them at 9:00 when they opened, said that my dog had been trying unsuccessfully to throw up and that she was in a lot of pain now. The receptionist didn't immediately recognize the signs either. She told be to bring the dog in 10:20 for an appointment. We saw the vet quickly once we got there. Destiny was lethargic at this point and clearly miserable. A woman in the waiting room even mentioned how you could see the misery on the dog's face. The vet didn't mention bloat at this time either but took Destiny to run test and do x-rays on her abdomen. He called me at home at 11:45 and said her stomach had twisted and needed immediate surgery. I gave permission and they prepped her for surgery. I called back at 3:00 and was told that she had made it through surgery and that she was still in critical condition. They asked me to come back just before they closed so we could move her to the emergency vet for overnight care.

I got to the clinic at 5:30 p.m. and the doctor told me Destiny was in crisis. Her stomach had portions (60%) that had died and needed to be removed which was done during the surgery and in the last 15 minutes her heart had started going. He said he would go with her to the emergency so he could keep heart monitoring machines on her in transport. We followed behind the SUV carrying Destiny and the vet. At one point they started driving faster and weaving in and out of traffic. We knew that she was in trouble. When we got the hospital, Destiny had already been taken to the back. We sat in the waiting room for about 15 minutes and then they moved us to the tastefully painted room with the calming pictures and plush leather couches and we knew that we would not be getting good news. The lab tech told us when leaving us in the room that they were performing CPR on Destiny at the time. Ten minutes later the vet came and told us that she was gone. They brought her in on the hospital bed so we could say good-bye. It was quite a blow to go from having a happy, healthy dog to a dead one in twelve hours. We said our farewells and came home to tell our loved-ones.

In the past week, God has been very good. He has gathered people around me who comfort. (My work even gave me a gift basket!) My mum mentioned the other day how good it was that this had happened on a vacation day as it could have happened a few days later and Destiny could have died untreated and in agony in her kennel. I've been reading a lot about bloat in the internet. I have regrets as I should have recogonized the signs at 6:00 and she could have been in surgery within the hour instead of 6 hours after the symptoms started. Reading online has helped in that I read stories of people who did everything perfect and still lost their dogs. The websites all point out how deadly it is and how quickly it can come on. I wish I would have known more and done more but I am not blaming myself for her death. It was sudden and horrible and unexpected. Not even the vet recognized it instantly.

I am missing her a lot. She was a rescued dog who had a lot of anxieties. She needed steady reassuring from me. I still sneeze and expect her to see that as an invitation to come visit. I tense up every time a doorbell rings on t.v. as that usually results in some very loud barking.

I really miss having her greet me when I come home. Her enthusiasm at seeing me occasionally left bruises (ridiculous tail!) but she could bring joy to a crappy day. I loved it when she sat on my lap or the couch keeping at least three paws on the floor thereby following the letter if not the heart of the stay-off-the-furniture rule.

I loved watching her run at the off-leash park. Her pure joy at the freedom to explore and the gentleness at which she approached other dogs always made me proud. She had the most beautiful markings and she literally stopped traffic as people watched her. She was always so very patient with people and tolerant of their attentions. My sister dog-sat for a few days this past summer and when she returned Destiny she complained to me that I should have warned her what this would actually involve. "Everything took forever when you had her with you because everyone who sees her needs to come and meet her and talk to you!"

Destiny loved her stuffed animals. It was the strangest thing. This giant, regal looking dog saw all stuffed animals as hers and would play with them every day. She would seek them out, sleep with them, toss them around, play tug-of-war with them, dump them in my lap so I would play too. If I bought a new stuffy home for her, she would find it before I even took it out of the bag and it would rapidly become her new favourite. She never chased a ball or wrestled but she did love her little animals.

Some of my favourite times with Destiny were on our lazy days. She was not a morning dog and would often stay in bed while I got ready for work. Sometimes I would have to stand at the bottom of the stairs and call for her to come down to go outside before I left. On the days where I got to sleep in, she would cuddle up to me and we would spend time just being happy lying there together. Then when I started to look like I was getting ready to get up she would throw herself over me and lay on top of me to keep me in bed. I'd start laughing as I was pinned to the bed by my 125 pound dog and she'd lick my chin and push at my hands to keep petting her. I'd have to wrestle her off me while she grinned at me and tried to keep me in place.

I had dreamed of getting a Great Dane from the time I'd seen my first one at the age of ten. I am so grateful that the first one I got lived up to my dreams and I will miss her terribly.

Welcome to December!

Life has been absurdly busy. I just finished my first term report cards. This meant a lot of extra work for me. I've marked a lot and spent a truckload of time at work lately. This has been fine and expected except then I got sick. I've had a cold for eight days now. This is annoying as it is the third cold I have had since August. It seems every time I get stressed or really tired, I get walloped with a cold. Right now my voice is just shot. Anyway, I finished report cards at 10:30 last night and tonight I get to proof read them. Although it is nice to have the report cards finished, I feel like school should be done now. At my last school we had to finish report cards just before Christmas break. Once report cards were done, we were off for vacation. It sucks that I still have three weeks to teach before I finally get a break. I am still relatively happy with how this year is going but it has seemed like an exceptionally long time between September and now and three weeks until Christmas still seems a really long time to go.

This weekend I went to an Advent Retreat at Gull Lake Camp. It was really nice to get away for a weekend- even on a report card weekend. We had a lot of free time in which I read. So happy. So long since I got to read and the weekend before my church had a booksale and I bought 23 books for two bucks a piece. They had been screaming to me for a whole week but I couldn't answer their call as I had those dang report cards to get done. The retreat was nice as there wasn't a lot of people there and most of the folks there were from my church so it was very comfortable. I went in stressed, tired and sick. I walked out relaxed, calm and sick. Stupid cold. I think I'll go back again next year. It was a really great way to kick off the Christmas season.

On Thursday we are going to a party that is all about putting together meals. You pre-order your meals off a menu and then the company does all the prep work. We go, put all the preportioned food together into freezer packs and take them home to pull out when we need them. It is a bit expensive but the variety will be great and knowing we don't need to plan a meal will be good too. We may eat out less if we know we have good food at home.

It is ridiculously cold here. -28 with windchill tonight(-18 F) and lots and lots of snow. Winter took its time arriving but when it showed up it came with a vengence. We are all just trying to stay warm here.

SchoolHouse Rock - Grammar The Tale Of Mr Morton

Tired, so tired...

I'm in a mood. I am ridiculously tired. I've spent the last two days feeling fuzzy headed and tired. I don't feel sick though so I'm wondering if my medications may be off.

I'm grumpy with my students. I have the unfortunate reputation as being the nice teacher. I don't know how to be mean apparently. I am honestly meaner than I was in the past but still my kids tell me I'm the nice teacher. They try to take advantage of me and I am frustrated. What is it with people who think that because I am not on their case every last second that means they can do what they want. I have been reminding myself that there are only about 5 kids in each class of thirty who are obnoxious (except for 7A which has 10 jerks in a class of 22) This morning, I was in the hallway supervising the movement between classes when the students in my room got into a fight. Moments before I came back into the room, one girl came out in tears saying that one of the guys had thrown a hard candy at her and hit her in the face. She was in tears and had a red mark on her cheek. I sent the boy to the office before class had even started. sigh... I bought some candy from Costco last weekend and I've been randomly handing out to kids that make me happy. I thought even if it didn't make a difference in behaviour in the class, it would help me remember that most of my kids are truly great kids.

My car is annoying me too. I got it back from the mechanics a month ago. The transmission works again but it came back with the power locks not working and the heater only works when the fan is on high. Over the past month, both my headlights have gone out. So I need to send it back to the mechanics again...

Last week we had interim report cards which are the report cards between report cards. These were accompianed by parent-teacher interviews. These went from 2:30 until 8:30 one evening. The meetings were scheduled every 15 minutes and I was booked every single times slot. Then we started taking walk-in meetings and I was getting double booked. At one point I was 5 meetings behind. It was crazy. In order to be ready for the interims, I needed to mark a pile of short stories (five classes worth = 140 stories. At average of 15 minutes per story to mark it was an additional 35 hours of work in one week.) This week, I haven't marked a thing but I'm taking in another story from one class at the end of this week and the other four owe me reports in the next two weeks. I have the real report cards due the first week of December so it will be another round of extra hours for me.

Colby's new intructor is fabulous. Cole is loving it and is totally back on track with the guitar.