Well, it's now Friday morning.  I can't sleep.  I tossed and turned and dozed until about 2:30 and I've been playing with photoshop since then.  Wednesday was kind of surreal.  Even though I was going to be done with those bosses and everything, I still was concerned about the inevitable confrontation.  So I wrote a letter and put it on the Area Manager's desk while he was out.  I said a quick goodbye to the people I saw on my way out and that was that.  Yesterday I slept in.  Mid morning my new boss/manager/partner/M called and wanted to have lunch so we could exchange some stuff.  So that was fun.  She told me about why she picked me over the other guy that applied.  He had really good experience and lots of contacts that she could follow up on, but she said it was like pulling teeth to get him to give her any information.  I didn't have the experience but she felt I could learn quickly and she knew I'd have a better relationship with her and the clients because I was better socially.  I got the job because I have a brilliant personality! Lol!  I don't often have a better personality than other people!

I passed the physical but we're still waiting on the drug test for some reason.  I didn't take any drugs so I don't know what's taking so long.  We're also still waiting on the handbook.  That's supposed to get here this afternoon and I can go pick it up and look over it this weekend.  Saturday I do the defensive driving class and hopefully I'll actually start working Monday or Tuesday.

After lunch I went to my favorite plant nursery since I was in the area.  There were lots of neat things but I don't have places or money for them right now.  Someday I want a witch hazel tree.  They are so cool.  I was tired when I got home but I puttered around a little, ran the dishwasher, etc.  Then DH called and wanted to come home to get some work done.  I guess people were hassling him too much at the office.  He had me call old work to see if my last checks were ready.  They were.  He was very sweet and went in with me because I was still nervous about the confrontation and awkwardness.  I can never prepare fully for what those situations bring and I clam up and it is just a bad deal.  But DH reminded me that it is because of my disability and it isn't my fault.  He was there to support me just like I'm there to drive him around because he can't see.  The Good Lord knew I was freaking out because there was a guy there picking up an order and he had a sweet little chihuahua with him.  I got to love on the dog and it calmed me down.  The Area Manager came out with my checks and all he said was, "I wish you'd have said something sooner."  I said I couldn't risk being fired and turned around and left.  I don't know if he was talking about the disability or the lack of notice of quitting but the response worked either way.  With the way they've treated me over the last year, I had no way of knowing they wouldn't can me on the spot when they found out I was "disabled".  If you can't treat a person with dignity before you know why they act different than you, you're probably not going to treat them better afterwards.  Humans are either nice to other people or they're not.  Sometimes they can pretend for a while but sooner or later the true nature reveals itself. 

So anyway, as soon as we pulled out of the parking lot I broke down and let out all the stress that had been building up inside.  DH was so sweet and just let me cry a little.  He tried to find something to say to make me feel better but I let him know that just being there was plenty.  There were only a few tears and I was done.  By the time I got home I felt lighter than I have in ages.  DH noticed it.

So my brain has been full of possibilities since then and I couln't sleep.  I started some more seeds, looked for shelf brackets online, thought about the garden and the decorating and all the happy things that I just couldn't get interested in before.  DH got up at 5 to work some more and sent me to Starbucks for breakfast.  Yum!

So DH's job is really going well.  All the cops and other DA's and other agencies all respect him and want him to work on their projects.  He's got several really cool things going on.  So that's why he's been saying that Everything's Coming up Motsy.  He kept asking me if I felt that way too, and now I do. 

Everything really is coming up Motsy.  :-)

Here are some pictures.

Bones on the afghan, showing the fluffiness of it.

The completed afghan

Matt's Christmas lights

Matt's Christmas Lights

Matt's Christmas Lights

Daisy, photoshopped a little

Lillibutt.  She turned 8 yesterday!

Pretty bluets

Everything's Coming Up Motsy

I started this on Sunday.

Background: DH's work friends call him Motsy, a play on our last name.  I am, therefore, Mrs. Motsy. 

So lots of things have been happening but they've been either too stressful to think about in a blogging sense, or not appropriate to discuss on the public interweb at this time.  But I think I'm to a point that I can make a post.

First, the little things.

I just ordered some tea!  One day I was listening to The Splendid Table on NPR and they had this tea expert who lives in Minnesota.  He was really cool and so I visited his website (www.teasource.com), which also was really cool.  I have wanted to order some tea for a while from him but I had enough here at home that I couldn't really justify it.  But I've been drinking the tea I have and I'm running out.  What a pity!  I have to order more!!  I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to order, but that's not a problem because he has tea samplers!  I got the rare tea sampler that has Namring Upper State Darjeeling, High Mountain Oolong, Dark Green Needle, and Black Bud.  I'm the least excited about the green tea because I prefer black teas, but I'm also open to the possibility that I've never had such a high quality green tea.  It may be very yummy.  $20 with shipping for about 40 cups.  And I think that's for one steeping each and I like to have at least two steepings from each batch of leaves.  With regular grocery store tea bags, the second cup can be bitter.  But high quality loosleaf teas have lots of neat subtleties that come out on subsequent steepings.

Subtleties is a very awkward word to spell.

Today I'm going to plant some onions.  I don't exactly know WHERE yet, but whatever.  They'll probably end up in Bed 3, in the front.  I would love to revamp my vegetable bed in the back but I don't think it'll happen this year.  I do have some ideas for my veggies this year that will hopefully allow me to actually get fruit, unlike last year.  Stupid record breaking heat and drought.  I'm going to shade the tomatoes, and remember to fertilize them on schedule.  I'm going to grow some bush pattypan squash under cover and hand pollinate, and the other half I'll try wrapping the stems with foil, or maybe strips of row cover.  With the vining squash, I'll do the wrapping thing.  And also, some of them will be in the container garden, that has weed mat underneath.  I'm trying as many Squash Vine Borer preventatives as I can because I'm determined to get squash!  In the future maybe I can be more scientific about it but this year I just want squash.  I'm going to put the fertilizer schedule in my phone calender so I remember to do it.

I tried to move my giant Datura a few weeks ago but the roots went under the foundation of the house.  I'll just try to keep it pruned.  If that doesn't work, I'll just kill that one and plant another somewhere else.  I want to buy some seeds of the blackcurrant variety and put them somewhere.  They are gorgeous!  Deep purple and kinda frilly.

I also bought my first rain barrel.  I have been looking around for months and doing a bunch of research to find the best deal.  I found it at Sam's.  65 gallons for $78.  Can't beat that anywhere.  Well, maybe if I wanted a big underground thing I could get a better value but I can't afford that.  I had to stay in the $100 range.  I even looked at homemade options but none matched this one.  I hope to get that installed today or maybe this week while it's nice out.

This has been sucha wierd winter.  Looking back, I could have kept cool season crops going pretty much the whole time.  But I don't think I would have kept up with them even if I had planted them.  Too much other stuff going on.

I went to the Neuropsychologist and had cognitive testing.  It was quite enlightening.  The first notable result was that the stress of the past year or so has impacted my effective functioning and my IQ result was significantly lower than previous scores.  I'm still in the high average range, but that is lower than what I've always been before.  It was a very blatant reminder that long term stress is very, very bad for you.

I scored in the superior range for simple speeded attention, vocabulary, manual dexterity, and motor speed, and the ability to solve everyday problems.  The tester lady said I had one of the best times she's ever seen on the dexterity test, with both hands.  I was in the 99% on the problem solving thing, although I'm not exactly sure what that means.

Now for the interesting part.  My attention tests were all over the place.  Sometimes I was superior and others I was below average.  Mildly impaired semantic verbal fluency, moderately impaired phenomic verbal fluency, "the latter scores appear to reflect a slowed speed of verbal information processing."  Finally, I showed moderate levels of depression, and profoundly elevated levels of longstanding nervous tension.

My diagnoses were PDD-NOS: Sensory Processing Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.  It explaines why I showed many of the characteristics of the Autism Spectrum. 

From sinenetwork.org: Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD, formerly known as "sensory integration dysfunction") is a condition that exists when sensory signals don't get organized into appropriate responses. Pioneering occupational therapist and neuroscientist A. Jean Ayres, PhD, likened SPD to a neurological "traffic jam" that prevents certain parts of the brain from receiving the information needed to interpret sensory information correctly. A person with SPD finds it difficult to process and act upon information received through the senses, which creates challenges in performing countless everyday tasks. Motor clumsiness, behavioral problems, anxiety, depression, school failure, and other impacts may result if the disorder is not treated effectively.

So basically, my brain recieves all the input all the time and can't control how much of it I'm aware of, or how I respond to it.  I get overwhelmed easily and kind of freak out.  The main problem at my current job is what happens when I'm acutely stressed out by a boss yelling at me in front of everyone.  I freeze up and start crying.  Then I get in trouble for crying.  And that makes me cry more.  I can't find any words with which to defend myself.  I'm overwhelmed by the fact that I'm in trouble and I don't really understand why.  It's just bad.

Needless to say,this disorder has made me a prime target of bullying and harassment for the past year or so.  It is easy to bully the one who is different from everyone else, especially if that person cries easily.  It is easy to get behind and support a bully when the target is obviously so weak and incompetent.

Except that I'm not weak OR incompetent.  I ran that bindery for about two years.  I just process things a little differently and have unusual weaknesses.  Having unusual weaknesses means I have unusual strengths.  That I'm no longer allowed to utilize at my job.

The neuropsychologist, along with my primary care physician and my endocrinologist, have encouraged me to find another job.  So I did.

One day I went onto monster.com and looked at the two openings related to my degree.  I posted my resume and cover letter to the first one and was working on the second.  Fifteen minutes after I posted the first application I got an email from the company requesting a phone interview.  I emailed back and thirty minutes later I was talking to my future new boss.  He was very excited and had me set up an interview with the branch manager.  I did that later in the week, she thought I was awesome (her words) and we had a final dinner date interview with the both of them the other night.

First, I just want to say that this feeling of being wanted professionally is really indescribeable.  Already, my friends and family have noticed a difference in my dimeanor and I am happier, walking lighter and taller, and more confident.

They want me because of the way I see the world, the way I probe all the way to the bottom of a question, the way I research things as a matter of course.  They want me for my organization skills and my streamlining skills.  They want me because my lifestyle of continuus improvement is the same as their business model.  They want my for my passion, not only for the environment, but for helping and supporting other people.  They want me.

My job title is Field Sampling Technician but I get the feeling that there's a huge amount of other things involved.  From my conversations with them, it seems that the field sampling part is pretty tiny and the business support part and the customer support part and the research part is the bulk of my job.  But I won't really know for a few more days.

Today, Monday, I took a vacation day and did the pre-employment physical.  The physical therapist joked that I was applying to be a body builder.  She said it was the most involved physical she's ever done.

First, I lifted 8 pounds from the floor to my waist 4 times.  No big deal.  Then I did it with 12 pounds, then 15, 23, 28, 33, 38, 43, 48, and 53 pounds.  That was tiring.  Then I did the same reps and weight progression but this time from my waist to my shoulders.  I only got to 43 pounds that time.  By the time I had to climb the ladder to the 4th rung and back 4 times, my muscles were jello.  Then I got to carry 60 pounds around for a few feet, squat for 5 minutes and kneel for 5 minutes.  She had to monitor my heart rate the whole time too.

I hope I didn't fail because I was too tired to lift 48 and 53 pounds from my waist to my shoulders 4 times.

Did I mention I was sore from gardening yesterday?

Oh, and also, when I tried to take a nap yesterday I couldn't because my heart wouldn't stop pounding.  I finally clocked it at 120 bpm.  Tachycardia is anything above 100 while resting.  After about 2 hours of that I finally called the doctor and he called in some beta blockers.  He said I probably got a bottle of thyroid meds that was concentrated too much.  Apparently that happens with Armor.  I'm supposed to take half a pill until my next appointment.  So my body's a little off from that as well.

By the time I got home I was mush.  I laid down on the couch and didn't move.  Correction: couldn't move.   DH started freaking and I had to explain why this was an unusual series of events and I'll be fine and whatever else I could think of.  He's not always good with perspective.  I napped for a while and feel a little better, albeit sore.  Work will be fun tomorrow.  DH said I can quit Wednesday.  Yeeeee!!!  No more that job!

Oh crap.  I just remembered I have to make cookies.  Good thing I have a hand mixer!  No way I'm hand-creaming the batter tonight.

I think I'm going to wait to post this until I do leave my current job.  DH wants me to make as much money as I can so I don't need them firing me before Wednesday...

I just realized I've been gone a long time!

Well.  The Staph healed up nicely once the necrotic tissue was gone.  It was not MRSA, but probably the same strain that Dad apparently carries.  Yeah, my Dad is a Staph carrier.  Turns out, about 30% of the population is like that.  So if you find out that you or someone you love carries this bug around, you/they should use Lever2000 soap (according to Dad's doctor) to help keep the bacteria in check.  My wrist now has a dark pink curcular spot that feels kind of numb.  Sometimes it aches if I use my wrist too much.  The end.  :-)

So then it was time for Christmas.  I tried desperately to balance resting/healing with preparing for the festivities.  I didn't succeed very well.  Christmas Eve we went to my Aunt's parent's house on my Dad's side.  Gotta love explaning relations.  Anyway, that was pretty fun, except DH had a cold.  He went home and I went to see my aunt and uncle's "new" renovated house.  It was cool.

Christmas morning I awoke to discover that DH had given me an amazing present- his cold!  We went to the inlaws and opened presents while Skyping with BIL and his wife in North Carolina.  FIL had gotten WiFi just for the occasion.  It was a big hit.  MIL and Grandma want iPads now.  :-) 

The gifts we gave weren't very inspired this year.  All the sickness and surgeries kind of sapped our creativity.  MIL got a DVD of M.A.S.H., FIL got a nifty folding saw.  Grandparents and BIL got gift cards.  DH got a cold brew coffee system.  Apparently it makes better coffee than even the french press.  The one taste I had was not better.  I may need to try again.  He got some other techy gadgets that I can't remember.  I got a handmade crochet hook! Size M.  Tuvok ate my other size M hook.  I also got a proportional measurer thing.  Yeah, I'll take pictures...  And I got a new lens for my camera.  It is a Sigma 18-50mm.  Before, the widest lens I had was 24mm, which was plenty for 35mm format cameras, but digital has some sort of distortion thing so all the lenses work like longer ones.  That's wonderful for my telephotos but it made my 24mm into almost what a 50mm was before.  The 18mm takes good indoor shots and I can zoom short distances too.  That really comes in handy.  Changing lenses all the time gets annoying.

My Mom and her sisters (and my cousin and Dad and brother) came over on Monday.  We had a "Stitch and Talk".  Everyone brought their craft projects and some food and we sat around and visited and ate and worked on our projects all day.  That is just about the best kind of day possible.  At least for us.  Later, we went to Michael's to look at crafty things and then we went to look at Christmas lights.  We went to the Chesapeake campus and ooohed and aaaahed over those a while, then drove to my boss's house to look at his lights.  He has 5 acres packed full of lights and inflateables and stuff.  My family was like WWWWOOOOOOAH!!!  I felt pride, even though I had nothing to do with his lights.  Lol!

We went to visit our friends in Norman for New Years Eve.  The boys played their nerdy Star Wars game and my friend and I talked and I worked on my afghan I'm making.  Then her younger daughter woke up and we watched her until midnight happened and then we went home.  I don't know what it is about a baby, but you don't talk or do anything but stare at the kid and watch whatever she does.  Very strange.  Must be something hardwired in so the kid doesn't get hurt or run off or whatever.  Even though she didn't feel very good, she was still a pleasent baby.  Every so often she'd make a miserable face, bury herself in her mom's chest and say, Buahhhh....   That was about the only evidence that she was sick.  Other than the river of snot...  lol.  Poor kid.

Tuesday was the Fiesta Bowl.  OSU won!!!!  Barely.  But still.  We're Number #3!!!!  This is the first time in my life that I've been a fan of a winning team!!! 

So we're just about caught up.  But it is 9:00 so I'm going to cut it off here.  Good night.

Update

I didn't have to go to the hospital.  But she did do minor surgery on me and removed the ball of necrotic tissue.  I hate lidocaine injections.  After I got home and got over the minor shock I felt much better.  I had been feeling weak and shaky for several days and I no longer felt that way.  So that's good.  She instructed me to keep up with debriedment and stuff.  I see her again in the morning.  That is all.

Health Issues Continue

Ok, so things were starting to get back to normal.  I was having trouble recovering from the flu and subsequent respiratory infection.  The actual sickness was gone but my body takes a long time to get back to 100%, or what passes for 100% these days.  DH was being really understanding and I got to do a lot of resting at home.  Work was crazy.  Everyone wants their stuff before Christmas.  So that was draining some of my energy and making my recovery slower.  But I was getting there.

Last Friday I was running the inserter most of the day.  I noticed a little zit-like thing on my wrist.  I scratched it, as I am prone to do, and didn't think anything else about it.  Then Saturday night we were at Dave and Froggi's having DEVINE Shrimp and sun dried tomato Risotto and playing spades. OMG it was soooo good!  But anyway, I noticed the spot on my wrist was inflamed.  Instinctively, I knew it was a staph infection.  It didn't look like a normal wound infection.  On Sunday I rinsed it out with salt water but that didn't help.  Monday at work it really started to hurt.  It hurt to use my hand and to have it at my side while I walked, because of the throbbing.  So after work we went to the urgent care clinic and they gave me antibiotics for a regular staph infection, and told me to see my PCP if it got worse or didn't get better in 3 days. 

One of the side effects of Levaquin is insomnia.  I slept about 2 hours Monday night.  I was doing remarkably well on Tuesday until 3:00 when I hit the wall.  I was weak and feeling faint so I went home.  The work load had calmed down significantly so it wasn't a big deal.  That night, more insomnia.  DH gave me a cocktail of pain meds, a muscle relaxer, and an antihistamine and I did finally sleep but I was in no condition to go to work in the morning.  My wrist was worse too.  So DH got me an appointment at the doctor.

That was Wednesday.  Dr. K was really concerned and switched my meds to a MRSA antibiotic.  Which makes me sick to my stomach and shaky.  She told me to stay home till Monday and come back on Friday.

Yesterday I pretty much laid around.  Watched a lot of TV.  When I redressed the wound last night it was worse.  A much bigger opening and it looked angry.  DH kinda freaked and called the on call doc but he wasn't concerned.  So today at 2:30 I go back to Dr. K.  I think if I really am getting worse I may have to go to the hospital.  We'll see.

This morning I gardened to keep my mind off of things.  I finally got my daffodils and pansies planted.  But now I'm pretty weak and shaky so that might not have been such a good idea!  Oh well.

You probably think I fell of the planet.  Some days I wish I could.  I'm learning how to stand up for myself, how to stop a meltdown when my emotions start overwhelming me.  I'm learning how to convince myself that I'm not bad and the ones who are lying about me are the bad people.

DH keeps saying I should just quit and find another job.  If I do that, they win.  I'm not going to let them win.  If I leave, there's no one to dispute all the lies and rumors. 

Things are eventful on the home front.  Three weeks ago I got the flu.  Well, I'm pretty sure it was the flu.  It was too nasty for a cold and people who got a flu shot didn't get sick.  Came down with it on a Thursday, and that weekend we went to Kansas City to visit DH's grandparents and go to the Chiefs game.  I was miserable but we aren't going to have that kind of opportunity again.  DH really wanted to go to the game.  I had never been to a pro football game.  It was pretty neat.  Would have been neater if the Chiefs had won... 

I went to work on Monday for two reasons: 1. the last time I called in sick, someone told every single coworker and boss he could find that I was faking it. and 2. the last time I called in not-sick (asked permission!) I got yelled at and fined a vacation day.  So now I have a new rule applied to only me.  If I'm not sick, I have to take a vacation day.  So yes, I took a vacation day to go to my doctor appts.

But anyway.  I went in just long enough to show everyone that I really was very sick and I left about 10:00.  So there.  Lie about that one, I dare you.

I didn't really feel better Tuesday morning but I had the same plan; show everyone I was sick and go home.  Well, I started to feel better and made it the whole day.  The sinus and chest congestion was still bad but I was no longer 'sick' sick.  By that time DH got sick.  He stayed home from Tuesday on.  I admit I was pretty jealous.  On Friday I came home and he asked me to get up and get something for him (even though his flu was better) and I kind of unleashed on him.  Told him I only got 3/4 of one day off and I went on a trip while I was sick, plus my mucus wasn't going away and I still felt like crap and I was exhausted and I wasn't taking care of him any more until I got some sleep.  And then I immediately apologized of course!

He was having stomach pain, he thought from eating too much pizza at lunch.  I gave him some alka-seltzer and went to bed.  He woke me up at 1:00am to go to the ER.  Nothing was helping and the pain was up to an 8 out of 10.  He kept apologizing because of my outburst earlier and I had to keep convincing him that I had no idea he was in this much pain when I said that. 

So we sat in the ER until about 4, went back, the doc poked on him a minute and decided on a CAT scan.  During the scan I took a 20 minute nap, bringing my total to 3:20.  But it really helped.  Doc said they were sending the results to Australia to be read since it was daytime there.  Less mistakes from grogginess.  We had a 45 minute wait ahead of us, except this time DH got some IV pain meds.  By 45 minutes, they meant 5 minutes.  We barely got settled and he came back and said DH had appendicitis!  I thought he was joking; DH actually laughed at him!  He was like, no, seriously.  You're having surgery today.

...So DH got admitted and sent up to a room while I went home and fed the pets and me, and packed a bag.  I texted Mom and she was like We're on our way!!!!  and I was like No! Wait!  That's not what I meant!  I was just letting you know.  You don't need to come!  Apparently they can't take no for an answer.  They showed up like an hour later.  I did get about 45 minutes more sleep before they got there though so that was nice.  The nurse brought me a cot and DH didn't even ask for one!  I was curled up in the window seat when he came in.  And of course in my sick/exhausted state I said, Is that for me?!?  Lol!  Duh.  That cot was pretty much my bed and chair and table for the whole weekend.  I scooted it up right next to the bed so I could touch DH's arm when I layed down.

So anyway, the surgeon came to visit and said it looked and smelled and talked exactly like appendicitis so once he got an emergency hand surgery out of the way, DH was up next.  They took him at 11:00 and we went down to the surgery waiting room and watched OSU beat up on Texas Tech.  FIL showed up too.  I worked on Tuvok's wool sweater, but then realized I did it wrong so now I have to rip it all out.  Still haven't done that.  Have to work up to it. :-)

As soon as DH was sewed up, there was a code blue so the surgeon had to take care of that but then he came and said everything went fine.  So we went back up to the room.  FIL and my parents left and I think they were still in the parking lot when I fell asleep.  I woke up in time for dinner and went home to feed the pets and let the dog out.  My aunt was in town chaperoning some teenagers for the anime convention.  I met them at the sushi place and then later my aunt visited us in the hospital.  She told us some medical horror stories that I hadn't heard yet.  I was too young when they happened so I never heard about them.  My youngest aunt almost died even more than I was aware of!

But anyway, that night I slept so hard that I never knew the vitals people showed up every two hours, never knew there was a night nurse, never knew DH had a reaction to the oxycodone, nothing.  By the time I came to, the day nurse was back and DH was on percoset.  One more trip for the pets, another nap, and we got discharged around 3:00 Sunday.  I got DH set up in his recliner with all the ammenities, and I think I went to sleep again.

On Monday I was told that I wasn't expected to be there.  Whatever!  After all the crap they've put me through?!?  I wasn't sick and I didn't want to take another vacation day!  I stayed until I had to go to the Endocrinologist after lunch.  Then DH made me an appt with my GP because my sinuses were still nasty.  Not bleeding anymore, but still not better.  She gave me some antibiotics.  Also, I've gained a lot of weight.  Ugh. 

But anyway, DH got a second week off work and I started feeling better by about Wednesday.  I did nothing each evening except sit on the couch and go to bed early.

So now we're 3 weeks behind in the housework, I don't know how long since a grocery trip, and the MIL is freaking out because I didn't plant her tulips yet.

Yeah, I kinda want to fall off the planet. :-)

Also, Christmas is coming... 

Canada

Here's a post I wrote on the way home from Canada but never published:

We had beautiful weather in Canada. It was a little warm but not awful. I spent a lot of time wading in the lake to cool off. I took lots of video and I'm working on editing it into a production for people to see. I still need to add pictures and maybe try to put some text into it if I can. We caught fish for dinner two days. It is difficult to find fish this time of year. Walleye is so yummy!

I packed enough entertainment for a week of rain but we had a week of sunshine. Consequently I didn't work on my afghan at all. But I did make a catnip stuffed mouse and a stuffed dog bone, I made a sweater for Cyrus the yorkie, I identified lots of the trees around camp, and I hiked around a lot. It was a good week.

FIL taught me about camp maintenance and boat motors and I took video. I'm pretty confident we can do the whole trip on our own next year, provided we have enough money. There are lots of ways to save, but gas is still a killer. It is 2500 miles round trip, not including gas for the boats and generator. It looks like we'll end up taking our car which gets 25mpg but that's still a pretty penny. We can take the train to camp instead of the float plane and that'll be $200 instead of $1200. We can camp or stay with friends on the way up and back instead of hotels. Hotels won't take Tuvok anyway. 80lb limit on pets. So yeah, we're excited about next year.

We're on the way home today. I'm making Tuvok a wool jacket for winter. He barely has any fur underneath and he gets cold if he has to stay outside for very long (and he's not playing). I found fisherman's wool from lion brand yarn on clearance for half price and I found a pattern on ravelry.com for larger dogs. I'm modifying it a little but I think it'll work nicely. I hope he isn't afraid of it. He's such a weenie.

I miss my dog...

Also, Caribou Coffee is a wonderful place. They should replace all the Starbuckses.

I attached a picture of where our camp is. We drive to Sioux Lookout in the bottom left and fly about 20 minutes to the purple dot. Middle of nowhere Canada is the best place in the world!