Back to School

This week I've been going to various orientation things for my PhD program. The hardest thing was picking classes. Because I'm coming in with a master's degree it makes things more complicated, mostly because I have less time to complete the course requirements. One big chunk to get through is the outside minor. I think I'm going to do a minor in Social Science Approaches to Health & Healing Systems (isn't that a mouthful?), which amounts to taking 4 courses. But, I also want to make sure that whatever I minor in is going to be helpful for my career. The other courses I have to take are sociological theory and advanced research techniques.

It's funny, you'd think by age 27 and with 2 degrees I'd have more of an idea what I want to do when I'm done with school this round, but it seems like every time a new door opens, you've got a million more paths to choose from.

Fall Flowers

A trip to the local WalMart resulted in me bringing back some orange and purple mums for the front walk. The puny shrubs don't really do much for the space, and at least these add some color. I was too cheap to spring for more of them, as much as I'd love to see a big bursting heap of flowers. But it's some progress!

Not sure what we're going to do to hide the plastic downspout extender. But now at least our yard is looking slightly more festive.

Rewley Boogaloo, we'll miss you

Well, the surgery revealed problems way worse than anyone expected and Rewley's not coming home. It turns out Rewley's small intestine had telescoped into the large intestine and scarred up, basically meaning both small and large intestine were not working. The vet had never seen anything like it apart from reading about it years ago in vet school as a very rare case. He seemed to think that this was probably something he was born with, or that happened soon after he was born given the extent of the damage. What's remarkable is that he could still digest any food at that point, and this just made the surgical discovery even more surprising. The vet said he could try removing the damaged tissue, but it was so extensive he probably wouldn't even wake up, and if he did, his chance of survival (and it would be a miserable existence) was slim.

He was a tough little puppy who must have been feeling just awful but still ran up to every stranger to lick them. It's going to feel a lot more empty in our new house without him.

Surgery

Tomorrow morning we're taking Rewley in for surgery. Our vet consulted with a specialist in internal medicine and after giving Rewley an ultrasound, they think he might have a partial obstruction that wasn't detected in the ultrasound nor in x-rays following a barium series. All his blood tests and parasite tests came up normal, too. It's really scary to take the little guy in for surgery, but we know that if we don't, he won't have much of a chance of getting better. The poor little guy has been mopey on and off since we brought him back from the emergency hospital. Every day we thought he was getting better, he'd feel worse the next day. He's lost weight and just mopes around barely interested in his toys. We've tried every medication that might help, as well as a limited diet in case it was allergies, and we've run out of options besides surgery.

We can't be certain what's going on in his little tummy until his surgery is done, but we do know that this will give us some answers and hopefully fix things up so he can be a crazy puppy again. It just breaks our hearts to see him so uncomfortable. The recovery should be similar to a spay, we're told, so that's good.

So please think happy thoughts of good health for our little puppy!

Our House, per request

Here's our new house (picture taken during a rain storm when we had our inspection). We're thinking of changing the color of the shutters once we have some money burning a hole in our pockets.

From Dresden

And here's the back yard as viewed from the deck

From Dresden

We've got a lot of ideas for the yard, but probably won't start making any progress until late fall or next spring.

The interior is not yet ready for its photo shoot, as it seems a cardboard box factory exploded all over the place. The dog doesn't seem to mind, though. Once we can get some furniture, we'll have some places to put all this stuff. It's funny to try to put away some of the things, because they're from our "single" lives and our separate apartments from 2007, so for example I have a dozen or so fancy martini glasses, and Paul has lots of beer glasses, but now we have dozens of wine glasses (I'm not exaggerating), so we could probably fill half of our kitchen cabinets with glassware alone! So I'm saving our bubble wrap for storing the excess once we get a better handle on our inventory. That said, do let us know if you need bubble wrap! We've got TONS! (It was really handy working for an industrial supply company at the time)

We'll sure be able to have one heck of a party once we have some seating for guests!

Paul's an official graduate!

We had meant to reschedule Paul's August 1 graduation ceremony date at Oxford so that we could actually attend, but between rushing the dog back and forth to the hospital and the whole house hunt and then closing, that didn't happen. So Paul received a notice that since he wasn't there in person, they read his name anyway and he's an official graduate.

It is kind of a strange system compared to American universities where everyone graduates the same day.

Anyway, I'm sure we'll find another reason to go back to England.

We're homeowners!

Despite some crazy events leading up to it (like our key not opening the car door a half hour before the closing), we are now officially homeowners. It is a really great feeling to know you don't have to move out in a year, or deal with random maintenance people letting themselves into your home. Plus, we have a yard which is just fantastic for the dog. So far his favorite thing about the house is that he can chase grasshoppers in the lawn (if you can call it that!). Getting him back in the house, on the other hand, is a lot harder!

Otherwise the house is a total mess, since we have a lot of boxes of stuff but no furniture except a couple chairs and a kitchen table. But we'll get there eventually. The best part is having a bed to sleep on that no one else has ever slept on. We also got to pick out all the appliances since it's a new house. Finally, after 2 years, we can use all those awesome wedding presents we got!

We love the location because we are in a subdivision that's a bit out in the country. Really, it's just a few minutes drive from Indiana University, but it's far enough away that you have to drive past cows to get here. And when we went to change the address on our drivers licenses today, the local BMV office was using a cowbell on the door to announce your arrival.