Monday, March 11, 2024

Catching Up

I didn’t mean to go quite so long in between posts, so this is a little bit of a catch-up post. 

Thank you for all of your kind comments about Frankie.  I love that people who never met him cared about him.  He was special, and we miss him a lot. 

I am so happy that we’ll be having more daylight now.  And very hopeful that warm weather won’t be far behind.  I’m not a fan of the cold weather or the shorter days, and it seems like January and February are rarely good. 

On January 9th, we had torrential rain.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much rain at one time.  Our crawlspace flooded and shorted out the sump pump and furnace.  It took several days to get the crawlspace dried out enough for the HVAC company to even access the furnace. 

Here’s some video of the first day Nick set up a portable sump pump.  We bought a portable one to keep on hand for future storms, and since we didn’t know the status of the one installed under the house and there was more rain in the forecast. 


And here’s a video I took after the portable sump pump had been running for over 24 hours. 


It was a lot of water!

The HVAC company came out again when we thought we’d pumped out enough water to access the furnace, but after some more rain, they still couldn’t get to it.  They were able to access the sump pump and were nice enough to get it working again, which helped pump the water out sooner.  It’s the same company that the technician who remembered Duke after rigging up a temporary cooling system so Duke wouldn’t get too hot works for.  They are awesome. 

When the same technicians came back for the third time during the furnace underwater fiasco, we fixed up a bag of snacks for them since they had been so nice.  (It’s just one bag; just pictures of both sides.)   They seemed really surprised and happy with it.  I’m always happy when I can feed people.



The flooding had shorted out a circuit board in the furnace, and they had to order a replacement.  They were awesome about looking for ways to get it cheaper, and we ended up spending about half of what the highest cost would have been.  Like I said, they’re awesome.

By the time everything dried out and the part came in, it was January 19th before the furnace was fixed, which was just in time for temperatures that dropped down to the single digits.  Being without heat for ten days definitely wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.  Our neighbors loaned us a space heater, and we bought two additional space heaters.  The house was chilly but not unbearable.  We weren’t comfortable with the idea of both of us leaving the house with the space heaters on, and we didn’t want to turn them off and leave the cats at home to be cold.  So, we had to do some schedule rearranging.  I turned a few usual office days into work-from-home days, and took a day off on a day that I had to be in the office.  January is one of my busiest months at work, so I’m glad Nick was able to take the day to be at home. 

One of the things that goes on at work in January is an annual meeting that covers mandatory training and any policy updates.  They also present awards named our motto of RITE (Relevant.  Innovative.  Timely.  Engaging).  Anyone in our organization can nominate someone for each category.  I was pleasantly surprised to be a recipient of the Engaging Award for my work on some of our programs.  It was a nice confidence boost!  All of my coworkers have a lot more education and experience than I do, and most of my work is the behind-the-scenes type.  So, it meant a lot to me that they nominated me. 

Work has been really busy for both of us.  Nick does a fair amount of teaching this time of year (in addition to his usual job) for mandatory training that has to be done.  Due to a shortage of people, he has done even more lately.  We’re short-staffed at my job, too, and I got assigned to a project that will last most of the year, with most of my part being toward the beginning of the project.  It’s a mix of terrifying and exciting to be involved in.  I’m learning a lot, which is always a good thing. 

The middle of February brought what we’re pretty sure was the flu.  Nick started getting sick the third weekend of the month, and I thought I had dodged it up until the following Thursday.  We didn’t get tested for the flu, but our symptoms matched, and our COVID tests were negative.  I did a home test, and Nick had to take one when he went back to work.  That one was apparently also supposed to test for if you had recently had COVID and was negative.  So we’re calling it the flu.  We’re both back at work and feeling better; we're just still coughing some and really tired. 

Charlie is the world’s best cuddle buddy and was very happy with the amount of time I spent in the recliner under blankets. 



Despite everything that went on in January and February, we did have two fun days of outings to parks.   I’ll post about those soon.  In the meantime, here’s a peek at one of the trails at Fort Ninety-Six. 


How were January and February for you?  Are you happy about the longer days and warmer weather? 

Sunday, February 18, 2024

I Thought We Would Have More Time Before I Had to Write This Frankie Post

As I mentioned in some of my posts, Frankie had been having some health problems.  He had hyperthyroid, kidney disease, and most likely lymphoma.  We weren’t pursuing aggressive treatment and chose to focus on his quality of life. 


He was losing weight but still eating, and he didn’t seem to be in pain.  We took him for thyroid testing on December 27th, and his weight was down a little, but the bloodwork showed that the thyroid medication was helping. 

At around 1:00 pm on January 5th, when I was working from home, Frankie collapsed in the living room.  He had eaten his breakfast that morning, had been in a chair looking out the window, then went and spent some time in their little cardboard scratch house.  He came out of the house and just collapsed.

I picked him up, and he was limp.  He was breathing, but he was limp.  I called Nick and the vet’s office.  Dr. D isn’t in the office on Fridays, and the vet who was covering her (that I’m not overly fond of anyway) was out of the office, so they told us to go to the emergency vet.  We called to say we were on the way and rushed to the emergency vet. 

I held Frankie, wrapped in one of his favorite blankets, and Nick and I both talked to him and told him what a good cat he was and how much we loved him. 


Frankie died in my arms as we were handing him to the vet staff.  They took him back, but there was nothing to be done at that point.  It wasn’t very long before they came into the room and told us he was gone.  They were extremely kind and brought him back into the room and gave us time to be with him before they came in and asked how we wanted to handle his body.

We’ve opted for cremation with all of our pets, so we knew we were going that route.  We keep everyone’s ashes together, and there’s some measure of closure when we bring them home.  I really wanted to take Frankie to Dr. D’s office for that.  They’re wonderful at the emergency vet, but it’s just not the same as at Dr. D’s office where they knew Frankie and know us.  Nick called and arranged for us to take Frankie to Dr. D's office. 

As soon as we walked in with him at Dr. D’s office, I knew we had made the right decision.  They took him, wrapped in his blanket, and promised to take care of him, and told us how much they would miss seeing him. 

Frankie’s ashes are home now, and we’re slowly adjusting to our new normal of only having four cats.

My dad said he always thought Frankie was the most interesting cat we’d ever had, and that was a great way to describe Frankie. 


He was obsessed with hair products, particularly gels and pastes.  I don’t use a lot of hair products, and he was always delighted whenever someone who does came over.  He loved sniffing my mom’s hair, he loved his Aunt Gabby’s hair even more, and his Aunt Amy’s hair was the absolute best.  I had short hair when we got Frankie, and when he was little, any time someone with long hair came over, he would always play with their hair.

Frankie never found a box or a bag that he didn’t want to get in.








He was the smallest kitten we’ve ever had.  He was even still fuzzy when we brought him home.




Frankie was also one of the wildest kittens we’ve ever had.  He’s asleep in most of his kitten pictures because that was usually the only time we could get a picture of him that wasn’t blurry. 






He only had 14 years, but I think they were good years.  At times, I wonder if we should have been more aggressive in his treatment and maybe had more time, but then I remember how much he hated the vet and taking medication.  I really don’t think he was in pain, even on his last day.  He did things he loved doing that day.  So that makes me think that maybe we made the right choice, even if it’s the one that ultimately broke our hearts a little sooner.  














Sunday, December 31, 2023

Twenty-Three Pictures for the End of 2023

I decided to do a wrap-up post for the year by sharing twenty-three pictures from the year.  In looking through pictures for this post, I realized that I didn’t take very many pictures this year.  I can’t remember the last time I had so few pictures for a year.  That’s something to work on in 2024.

These are a mix of cellphone and camera pictures.  I’m sharing some of them because I think they’re really good pictures, some because they’re something important from the year, and some because they’re special now.

Let’s start with some pictures of flowers.  Because I always take lots of pictures of flowers.  




The crocheted cat couch that I made for Gabby and Amy is the biggest crochet project I’ve ever finished, so that was a highlight from the year. 


It’s Dobby-approved.

 

The Carl Sandburg Home. 


I’m glad I took pictures of Howard and Frankie cuddling together.



I befriended the free-range chickens.  Can you believe they used to run from me?  Now, I half-way expect them to follow me into the house one day.


Kiawah Island, SC.  

More flowers.  Always.  

 





View of the Ravenel Bridge from Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, SC. 


 Mortimer and Charlie.


Colonial Dorchester, SC.

 




Angel Oak, Johns Island, SC.