I have been visiting family in Wisconsin since Saturday.  I am staying with my mom while I am here.  Yesterday I visited with an old friend and her family and then all of us went to my sister's on the lake.  We took a long boat ride, it was so beautifu out...80 degrees or warmer.  Very relaxing.

 

Today it is in the low 50's.  Crazy weather.  My mom and I went to the Olive Garden for lunch and then this evening I am going to see the opening of the movie Sex and the City .  My brother works for a local T.V. station and he has two free tickets.  Should be fun.

 

My husband stayed home to take care of our two puppies.  I miss them so much, I almost didn't make the trip.  I needed a break though.  I have been taking care of our female dog non-stop.  She has some serious health issues and needs a lot of attention.

 

That's about it for now.  More about my trip when I get back.

 

Damselfly Lady

 

 

Here is the question of the day.

 

Why is it, when one thing in my life is not going well, everything else seems to fall by the wayside?  I don’t want to do anything productive.  I have all these great goals but, I don’t have the energy or wherewithal to do them.

 

It isn’t just the current problem, this happens to me all the time.  I guess I am only able to focus on one thing…the problem, when a crisis comes up.  Everything else will just have to wait.  Is this the norm?  Do others handle crises differently?

 

I sometimes think I might be using the crisis to avoid doing the things that need getting done.  I am an average procrastinator by nature, but have improved over the course of my life.  I have found that if I do something right away, then it is more apt to get done than if I put it off and heap it on the ‘to do’ pile

 

Sometimes it truly is a matter of energy.  The current problem is our little Charlotte; she needs more attention with her new medical condition than she has needed in the past.  So I am worn out by the end of the day, with work and taking care of her and the house and my husband…you get the picture.

 

I think if I were to try to compartmentalize my life a little better maybe I could change this behavior.  Only allow so many hours of the day to be taken up by the crisis of the moment, then for the rest of the day, I need to go about my life as normally as possible.  Is that even doable?  Doesn’t sound like it to me, but I know some people have pulled it off.  I am going to try it for a week.  Notice I say try…I hear Yoda in the back of my brain saying…”there is no try, only do!”

 

Well that’s what has been rambling around my head the past week or so.  I am a thinker if you haven’t figured that out already.  Way too much thinking.  On the up-side a thinker is usually a problem solver and that is me too. 

 

Switching gears here…Thursday is usually my Sur*vivor night, but alas Sur*vivor is no more…at least until the fall.  Not happy with the outcome of this Sur*vivor.  So I am going out to dinner with some friends tonight.  Hubby is staying home.

 

EOM

 

 

 

 

Well, it has been a trying time for me and my family this past month.  Beginning in April around the 10th I think my female dog, Charlotte, came down with a rare, strange condition called Myositis.  If you are interested in the details the link below does a good job of describing the condition. http://www.vetspecialists.co.uk/06_Animal_Welfare/Neurology_Facts/Myositis.html

 

Charlotte is on steroids, which has several very unpleasant side effects of its own.  Poor thing has her muscles wasting and drinks and pees a lot more than normal.  She is tired all the time and I am sure wonders what happened to her.  For the umpteenth time I wish dogs could understand humans and vice versa.  We are finished with one month of steroids at full-strength and are into our 2nd week of a reduced dose of the steroids.  She also has developed a urinary track infection.  More peeing. 

 

In addition to all that has happened with Charlotte my mom is in the hospital.  She went in for a procedure on her heart a month ago and has had continuing problems since.  She has a pace maker, which they have had to replace and she has fluid in her lungs and a staff infection.  They can't seem to tell us why exactly she has the fluid, they drained it once and it came back.  If her body doesn't take care of it on its own they will need to put in a chest tube to drain the fluid.  My mom is 76 years old.  She is in relatively good health otherwise. 

 

I have a planned trip to see her at the end of the month, but now I am debating whether or not to move that up.  It is such a difficult decision given that my little Charlotte is also sick.  If anything would happen to her while I was gone, I don't know what I would do.  On the other hand I worry about something worse happening to my mom and that would also put me over the edge. 

 

It has been a very difficult time, trying to take care of Charlotte, the house, working AND worrying about my mom.  I keep waiting for life to get easier...I don't see that happening.

 

We lost our first dog and my father five years ago around this time.  I am seeing some scary, strange parallels to that situation now.  It was a very dark time in my life...please Lord don't make me go through that again.

 

 

I recently navigated to a blog I had never seen before.  Very informative.  It looks like he makes money blogging.  He is giving away a free USB pen, so go over and take a look.

 

 

 

I think I was eight years old that Christmas.  What I wanted more than anything else was a wrist watch.  I did not have one, so this would be my first.  Hopefully Santa would bring me the watch.  I hinted to my parents many times that Christmas.  I thought it was a lock. 

 

We always spend Christmas Eve with my mother’s mother.  We had a nice dinner and then all the children would go into the stairwell and wait for Santa to arrive.  I was there with my siblings and all my cousins.  It was so exciting, everyone whispering and trying to listen for Santa Claus. 

 

Eventually we heard the rustling and bustling of packages and then we heard the ever popular…HO HO HO!.  How exciting.  Soon our parents opened the stairwell door and out we ran.  Each child found a spot on the living room floor the oldest cousins began handing out the presents. 

 

A little aside here.  I have an older sister and we are a year apart in age.  We usually received very similar gifts each year for Christmas.

 

I was so excited I could hardly stand it.  I began opening each package anticipating my coveted watch.  Each present was very nice, but still no watch.  All of a sudden I heard my sister squeal with delight, I looked over and she had opened her present and there it was…her watch.  It was in a square Tim*ex box.

 

I was now doubly excited…I thought, OOOH, I was going to get my watch.  We always get the same things for Christmas.  I continued opening my presents and I still no watch.  I had one present left and it was in the shape of a flat large envelope.  I was crest-fallen; I knew it couldn’t be my watch because it wasn’t shaped right.  My sister’s watch came in the square box.  At that moment I looked up and saw my Mom watching me intently with a Cheshire cat grin on her face.  I was so mad, I thought what are you smiling about…I didn’t get my watch, how unfair.  She just kept smiling as I began to slowly open my last present.

 

I ripped off the wrapping paper and sure enough it was one of those padded envelopes.  I opened the end of the envelope and reached inside and pulled out the gift…you guessed it, there was my WATCH!.  I was beyond excited.  I looked at my Mom again and she was so happy.  I said to her “you took it out of the box”.  She just kept smiling.

 

The best Christmas present, to date, I have ever received…bar none.  Ahhh…daughter of little faith.  Thank you Mom and Happy Mother’s Day!

 

Well, I have been at my present position since May 31, 2005.  I truly believe that when you chase the dollar, things don't always turn out the way you would like.  As the old saying goes...money isn't everything.  The organization was just a baby when I started.  The foundation was building a new museum and I was to help raise money for the exhibit.  I handle the donor database and all that that entails.  I won't go into details, but in a fledgling organization managing the donors we have is not a full-time job.  So, I picked up some other duties along the way. 

I started to handle their computer needs, email problems, software purchases, networking and the like.  I also took on updating their website.  I love working with websites.  Anyway, my creative side picked up the tasks of designing invitations, program flyers and postcards, etc.  Well you get the picture.

 

Recently we have hired a new president.  She sat down with me to try and define what I do at the organization.  Since I do so many things, she couldn't really pigeon-hole my job to any one department.  The president is looking to decrease the budget for FY2009 and it started to look like she was trying to do this by eliminating my position.  She said that..."no, no, that wasn't it, she just wants to get a better overall view of how the organization functions.  Hmmm, sounded like double talk to me.

 

Now I was very calm about the whole meeting and told her that if she was considering letting me go that I would hope she would give me a lot of notice.  She said of course she would, but we aren't there yet.  What does that mean?

 

I left the meeting not sure where I sat.  I did tell her at the end of our meeting..."if a staff member in our organization wants a job done right they usually bring it to me."  She said that is what she had been hearing from other staff.

 

Well, as you can imagine, I have started looking for new employment.  I did mention the content of my meeting with the new president to my immediate supervisor, the director of development.  She said that is crazy, they wouldn't get rid of me.  Famous lasts words.  I said the same thing about the former president leaving.  I mentioned to a co-worker before he left that he wouldn't leave in a million years....well, in a months time he had resigned. 

 

The only constant is change.

 

I don't really want to look for a new job, but sometimes these things are out of our control.  Maybe it's time.  I haven't been very happy here, so maybe this is destiny's way of giving me a little shove.  What I want to say is..."quit pushing already, I am going". 

 

Since my meeting a week ago, things have calmed down a bit, but no news concerning my position.  I am not worried.  I can always find a job.

 

For those people who say they can't find a job, I find that hard to believe.  We may not always find a job that pays what we want, but that may come later.  Several jobs I have had led to better positions within the organization.  You never know what you may find.  And appearances can be deceiving.  I have learned that much in my 36 years in the workforce.

 

monster.com here I come.

 

 

I don't often talk about work, but today it's been on my mind.  A little background on my working history.  I started working when I was 15 years old as a carhop at the local A(and)W...yes, a carhop.  Baby root beers, mammaburgers, pappaburgers, baby burgers and the ever popular teenburger (I believe it had bacon on it).  Anyway, from there I worked at a factory for three months before my freshman year of college.  I went to the University of Wisconsin (Madison) for two years.  I worked part time at my mom's place of work while in college.  General office work.  This was pre-personal computers.  We used a Burroughs* machine to write checks to pay bills.  They had one of those large computers that used punch cards to run the programs.  You youngsters wouldn't have a clue what I am talking about.  But I digress.

 

My next job was working at an industrial distributorship in a suburb of Milwaukee.  That's right, beer, bratz, and cheese that Milwaukee, the whole nine yards.  I worked there two years and moved to an office job at a manufacturing company that made closures.  Boring I won't go into details.  I was lucky enough to get laid off after two or so years.  Lucky because I have always wondered what it would be like not to work and still get paid.  Cool for awhile, but I did feel like a deadbeat a lot of the time.  I took a job as a waitress to tide me over.

 

In 1981 I  landed a full-time job at the corporate headquarters of a midwest hotel chain.  I worked as an accounts payable clerk.

 

Anyway back to my job history.  I loved working at the hotel chain.  Employees received complimentary rooms at any of the hotels as long as they weren't at full-occupancy.  I stayed in a hotel right next to Lambeau field in Green Bay in February when it was 25 below zero.  That's Fahrenheit.  But again I digress.  I worked at the hotel chain for seven years, from 1981 to 1988.  One time I stepped into the elevator to get to my 6th floor office and who steps in with me...Bart Starr.  Now unless you are a Packer fan or a really diehard football fan you might not know who he is.  Well, he was none other than the most famous quarterback to ever play with the Green Bay Packers before Bret Favre came along.  He was very tall and handsome, he turned to me and said hi.  I just smiled back and said hi.  He is very tall.

 

I remember reading in someone's blog about setting goals and writing them down.  Well, I decided way back then to write down my long-term lifetime goals.  I kept the list with me where ever I went and pulled it out from time-to-time to remind myself what my goals ultimately were.  One of my goals was to finish my college degree.  Well, in 1988, January to be exact, I decided I had finally had it.  I quit my job, asked my parents if I could move back in with them and returned to college full-time.  My parents are wonderful and their response was..."you know you can always come home".  Wonderful parents...but that's another story.

 

I headed back to college, I applied to the University of Wisconsin extension close to where I was living and got accepted.  I majored in Math and got my teaching degree in three years.  Not too bad considering I hadn't been in college for 11 years.  I worked part-time at a local grocery store while in college.  I graduated in 1990 and found a teaching job six months after graduation.  I taught two years at a public school and then took a teaching position at a private military academy closer to my family in 1993.  I spent three years teaching at the military school.

 

This is taking longer than I thought...I just wanted to talk about a problem I am having at work and this has turned into Damselfly--This is Your Life.  Gosh I loved that show with Ralph Edwards.  I know I am again dating myself.

 

Anyhow, I met my husband the second year I was teaching at the military school.  He was another teacher at the school.  He taught History.  We met and fell madly in love :).  As close as you can get anyway.  He decided to apply to graduate school during his 2nd year and my 3rd year at the school.  He asked me to marry him and move to the town where he would be going to graduate school.  I said yes and off we both went.  To Indiana of all places.  While in Indiana I found a job at a local high school...not teaching but working in the front office as Secretary/Treasurer.  I loved that job, but the pay was pitiful...and I mean P-I-T-I-F-U-L.  I made $15,000/year, which my husband and I lived on for two years.  Did I mention that I loved that job.

 

Then my husband took a position (did you notice how I elevated it to 'position' instead of 'job', much classier given his graduate degree status) in a neighboring state.  I am not going to tell you which one, because that is getting a little too close to my current living area.  Anyhow, he took a position with the state in historic preservation.  I  found a job in the development office of the local university.  I loved that job also, it also had a pitiful salary, but my husband was working now, so it wasn't as bad.  I worked as the secretary for the alumni house.  Fun job.  We spent three years in this state and then my husband took another job in a neighboring state doing the same thing working for the state in a historic preservation capacity.  I decided to return to teaching.  I was excited to be teaching again, but a lot had changed.  One thing I noticed, the students were getting more and more disrespectful to the teachers...what's up with that?  I just couldn't stomach it, so I quit teaching and took a job working for an adoption agency.  You guessed it...I loved the job.  I was the assistant to the Executive Director as well as the office manager.  Such a great place to work and the leave time per year was phenomenal.  I worked at the agency for four years and made a hugh mistake.  I left the agency to take a position that offered me more money...and now we are at my present place of employment.  I have been working her one month shy of three years.  I am a development assistant.  Well that's not my title...

 

To be continued...

 

P.S. I hate it when people continue a story, but this is getting way too long.  Have heart I will finish it.

 

 

 

Well, my female puppy is about the same.  We are two weeks into the four weeks of full-strength steroids she is taking.  So she is still drinking and peeing a lot.  A LOT.  Her lethargy is the same. 

 

My mom is still in the hospital.  They couldn't get her heart to a normal rhythm, so they decided to shock it into it.  They have done this twice before and it has worked, so I hope it works this time.  I spoke with her yesterday and she seemed to think it had worked.  She may go home today or tomorrow.

 

Gosh, getting older is a pain in the butt.  Here is what I looked like at 17 years old...if only I could stay looking 17 forever.

 

 

Happy hump day everyone!

Well I have been having a difficulty time this past week and a half.  Early last week our female dog was having trouble eating her dog biscuits and she whimpered a little when I would open her mouth to give her her pills.  I took her to our Vet and he said she might have a condition similar to TMJ in humans.  Her muscles around her jaw and head were inflamed.  He gave me some antibiotics for a possible infection along with prednisone(steroid) for the inflammation.  Of course along with prednisone comes a lot more drinking and of course, you guessed it...peeing, a lot of peeing.  When we are home we have to take her out almost every hour, otherwise we will have an accident.

 

On Monday I came home from lunch and she looked very strange.  Her face looked gaunt and sunken-in.  I freaked-out of course.  I loaded her and her brother into the car and drove to our Vet's office.  Luckily he was able to see her right away.  He said this was a progression of the condition and that the prednisone had reduced the swelling and that her muscles were atrophying.  Hopefully the prednisone would stop the muscles from getting any worse.  I was very concerned so my Vet recommended an internal medicine specialist for dogs...I said yes, that would be a good idea.  We went to see the specialist on Wednesday.  She confirmed my Vet's diagnosis.  She did give me a better idea of what the condition is.  My dog's immune system was attacking her body...specifically her jaw muscle.  I asked about the possibility of the other muscles in her body being affected.  She said, no, that the jaw muscle is made of different material than other muscles in her body, so the immune system only attacks the jaw muscle.  I asked if her muscle would return to normal after the medicine had time to work...she said sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't.  It depends on how much damage was done before she started taking the prednisone.

 

Another side affect of this whole problem is lethargy.  She doesn't seem to even want to go for a walk.  She is able to walk, but acts like she is too weak to go for a walk.  So now we have...peeing all lthe time and no walking.

 

I can't even express to you how much I love my dogs.  If you have read any of my other posts concerning them you would have some idea.  They are my family and all that that entails.  I am only as happy as my dogs are healthy.  I know that is not always good to depend on my dogs health for my happiness...but there it is.  They are a part of me.

 

Now, another stress this week is...my mother has had surgery on her heart.  She has a pacemaker and there is a new procedure that if successful will reduce her medications by two, I believe.  She had the surgery on Tuesday, and is doing okay, still having trouble getting her breathing back to full capacity.  She might go home from the hospital tomorrow or Sunday.

 

When I spoke with her yesterday I mentioned that my dog was sick.  She never asked me what was wrong with her, how she was, will she be okay.  Now I know what you are going to say...she just had surgery...cut her some slack.  I did, I dropped the subject and talked about something else.  I love my mother very much, but she has never understood how important my dogs are to me.  She does not get it...that they are members of my family.  And before you ask, yes I have tried to explain it to her many times...she will never understand.

 

Case in point.  When I spoke with her today on the phone, she mentioned my dog and asked what was wrong with her.  I told her a summarized version of the above...her very first comment to me was "Well, maybe you will have to put her to SLEEP".  Death was her first choice for treatment.  Hmmmmm.  Not my first choice, and hopefully not my last choice.  All animal lovers out there can imagine how her comment made me feel.  I struggle every single day watching her deal with the steroid side-effects.  She is such a little trouper, she has been through so much already.  Just under two years ago she ruptured a disk in her back and had to have back surgery.  It took her quite a while to recover, and she still does not have much strength in her hind legs, but she is our little miracle puppy. 

 

I am devastated by all that has happened to her.  I am her owner, I am supposed to be her protector...but I can't seem to protect her from these difficult medical problems.  I am beside myself on how to handle all of this.  At this point, I just try to get through each day as best I can.

 

Well, that's what has been happening in my crazy, mixed-up world of late.

 

Damselfly Lady and mother of a very sick puppy.

 

Here is a photo of my family.  My sick littlel girl is the one in white. :...(

 

 

 

 

 

Well, another weekend has come and gone.  It rained here the entire weekend and is still raining today.  I helped out at work on Saturday, they were having an event and needed extra hands.  After 3 1/2 hours I decided to go home...the rain kept many people away.  I left around 2:30, although a co-worker told me it started to pick-up around 3:00 again. 

 

We went to see the movie Leatherheads yesterday.  It was pretty good.  I am not a big George Clooney fan, but I do like John Krasinski from The Office fame.  He cracks me up. 

 

I ordered 5 yards of mulch last week, but it hasn't stopped raining long enough for me to spread it around the yard.  Hopefully one day this week I will be able to get it distributed.  I would like to get it out of my driveway. 

 

Our neighbor invited us to her daughter's third birthday party yesterday afternoon.  She did a nice job of planning it.  She had an old fashion tea party for all the little ones.  They were all so cute with their tea cups and finger sandwiches.  She had quiche for the adults, along with beer and Champaign.  Yum!  Technically it was sparkling wine, since it wasn't from Champaign.  My husband was kind enough to point that out for me. Hmmm.

 

Have a great week everyone!

 

Damselfly Lady

 

 

 

 

 

She is my little Char Char. 

 

Damselfly Lady

 

P.S.  My husband called this morning from Seattle and told me it was snowing there when he landed.  I told him it was in the 70's here today. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2008 is a leap year, which means that it has 366 days instead of the usual 365 days that an ordinary year has. An extra day is added in a leap year—February 29—which is called an intercalary day or a leap day.

Why is a Leap Year Necessary?

Leap years are added to the calendar to keep it working properly. The 365 days of the annual calendar are meant to match up with the solar year. A solar year is the time it takes the Earth to complete its orbit around the Sun—about one year. But the actual time it takes for the Earth to travel around the Sun is in fact a little longer than that—about 365¼ days (365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, to be precise). So the calendar and the solar year don't completely match—the calendar year is a touch shorter than the solar year.

It may not seem like much of a difference, but after a few years those extra quarter days in the solar year begin to add up. After four years, for example, the four extra quarter days would make the calendar fall behind the solar year by about a day. Over the course of a century, the difference between the solar year and the calendar year would become 25 days! Instead of summer beginning in June, for example, it wouldn't start until nearly a month later, in July. As every kid looking forward to summer vacation knows—calendar or no calendar—that's way too late! So every four years a leap day is added to the calendar to allow it to catch up to the solar year.

A Quick History Lesson

The Egyptians were the first to come up with the idea of adding a leap day once every four years to keep the calendar in sync with the solar year. Later, the Romans adopted this solution for their calendar, and they became the first to designate February 29 as the leap day.

But Wait! It's Not Quite that Simple!

The math seems to work out beautifully when you add an extra day to the calendar every four years to compensate for the extra quarter of a day in the solar year. As we said earlier, however, the solar year is just about 365 ¼ days long—but not exactly! The exact length of a solar year is actually 11 minutes and 14 seconds less than 365 ¼ days. That means that even if you add a leap day every four years, the calendar would still overshoot the solar year by a little bit—11 minutes and 14 seconds per year. These minutes and seconds really start to add up: after 128 years, the calendar would gain an entire extra day. So, the leap year rule, "add a leap year every four years" was a good rule, but not good enough!

Calendar Correction, Part II

To rectify the situation, the creators of our calendar (the Gregorian calendar, introduced in 1582) decided to omit leap years three times every four hundred years. This would shorten the calendar every so often and rid it of the annual excess of 11 minutes and 14 seconds. So in addition to the rule that a leap year occurs every four years, a new rule was added: a century year is not a leap year unless it is evenly divisible by 400. This rule manages to eliminate three leap years every few hundred years.

It's Smooth Sailing for the Next 3,300 Years

This ingenious correction worked beautifully in bringing the calendar and the solar year in harmony, pretty much eliminating those pesky extra 11 minutes and 14 seconds. Now the calendar year and the solar year are just about a half a minute off. At that rate, it takes 3,300 years for the calendar year and solar year to diverge by a day.