Cold turkey hurts!

So two days ago, I took the advice of the Skinny Bitches and decided to give up coffee. After reading their extensive list of how bad caffeine is for you, you might, too. Since I drink two cups every morning and a cup or two in the afternoon every once in a while, I figured it would be no big deal to simply cut coffee out of my routine.
Boy, was I wrong.
I started this experiment yesterday (Sunday) and have suffered with a nagging headache ever since. This afternoon at work, I finally broke down and had a Diet Coke, which has less caffeine but which the Bitches also disapprove of.
But I was clearly in desperate need of some caffeine, because after about half a can, the headache was gone. So I was headache-free and actually productive for the final two hours of work today. Oh well, it's Monday.
Not one to be daunted, I still plan to eliminate caffeine from my diet, but I've realized I'll have to ease myself into it.
I always knew caffeine was addictive, but I guess I thought I wasn't addicted. Go figure.
So now I'm off to the store to get some half-caf to get me through the rest of the week. Baby steps, right?

Vacation recap

I've got a double case of the Sunday blues tonight, because I'm down to the final hours of my precious vacation. Reality sets in again bright and early tomorrow morning, but tonight I'm reminiscing about my wonderful week of freedom.
Because I'm so Type A, I thought I'd make a list of things I accomplished on my vacation:

1. Rest — I slept when I wanted and blobbed out on the couch when the mood struck. Resting was the No. 1 goal of my vacation, and I'm happy to say I did it!
2. Cleaning — A week off work gave me the time to do the deep cleaning that I just can't make myself do on weekends or after work. Although cleaning is never fun, at least I could do it in bits and spurts throughout the week, rather than wasting an entire weekend doing it.
3. Decorating — Never mind that we've been in the new house for three months now, I finally got around to unpacking the last few boxes (although I will admit, one box remains, but I'm OK with that) and hanging a few things on the walls. It's hard to stay motivated to unwrap knick-knacks and decorate when you move as often as we do, but it does make the place feel homier.
4. Sewing — I finished a project and started another! No photos yet, but I'll post some soon.
5. Trip to Lafayette — Although it was cut short by several factors, we did make it down south and visited family and friends. We even shopped a little! Alas, no king cake. But, my hips are thanking me. We did eat well — very well — while we were there, though.
6. Problem solved — A problem with extremely red and irritated eyes threw a little bit of a kink in my vacation bliss, but happily, by the end of my week, we'd solved the problem. Even though it means forfeiting my contacts (after more than 10 years!) and going back to glasses, I'm OK with it. It was time for me to get a "new look" anyway.

So even though vacations aren't meant for "accomplishing things," I cannot, by nature, allow myself to bum out completely unless I'm on the beach. All things considered, my vacation was a smashing success. The only bad thing is it had to end. Oh, and it wasn't on the beach. Maybe next year. But this time, a stay-at-home vacation wasn't so bad.

This is what happens when we're not at home

Yes, that's Caddy perched on my Southern Living on the kitchen table. Go figure. Nick sneaked up on her to get this picture.

In other news, I am finally taking my well-earned, precious week of vacation! It's been since August 2007 — our honeymoon — since I've had any vacation, so I'm savoring it. Too bad that my boss called me one day into my vacation :( and un-fun stuff awaits me once I get back to the office. Oh well, I'm doing my best to keep those things out of my mind.
A trip to Lafayette should do the trick! We're south-bound today and have no agenda except to visit family and friends and do whatever the heck we feel like doing. We also have a dollar or two to spend while we're there, so I'm really looking forward to it! And yes, I will eat some king cake while we're there!
Although this vacation doesn't involve a trip to the beach, sometimes just messing around at home and resting is a great way to spend a week. So, that's what I'm doing.

How to cure boredom at work

I'll admit, I walked into the first day at work in 2009 not too enthused about starting another year. Even in my business, the daily grind can get monotonous after a little while. So, how could I reignite excitement about the work I spend 40+ hours a week doing?
It occurred to me to take on a project — a yearlong one. Instead of getting depressed and discouraged by the backwoods attitudes I encounter here, I challenged myself to try to change them. After all, I have the perfect platform to educate, inspire and encourage people to do good things. I remembered the power of the pen!
And so, I've started a project that seems to have gotten off to a good start. It's all about "going green," and trying to give valuable (at least, valuable to me) newspaper space to the local people who are making an effort to become more environmentally sensitive.
This isn't a stretch for our paper, which has advocated for water conservation for years.
And you know what I've found already? It's the people with the negative attitudes who are the most vocal. There actually are people right here who are quietly participating in the green revolution. And I can't wait to shine the spotlight on them.
Hey, I think I'm getting a little excited!

The girl is back!

Our girl is enjoying her first night back at home after the nail-removal ordeal. It feels great to have her home where she belongs. She'll be on a special diet for a few days along with some antibiotics, but as soon as they brought her out to me at the vet's office I knew she was back to her old self again.
She's got quite an impressive scar on her belly and several stitches that will have to be removed, but she hasn't let me get a photo yet. Also (I found this amusing), there's a little shaved strip on her front paw where her doggie IV was.
Casey's a little restless tonight, but hopefully she'll settle down soon and everything will get back to normal around here. Well, everything except the nail-swallowing. That's really not normal.

Just call her Nails McGee

Well, Casey has outdone herself this time ...
I noticed late last week that her rear end seemed to be in pain: Her tail was tucked between her legs all the time, she groaned when she laid down, she was walking stiffly and growling if we touched her hips or back. She'd shown similar symptoms before and we'd taken her to the vet, who said it most likely was a pulled muscle.
So, I waited a few days to see if she'd get better like she did before but on Friday night, as she lay at my feet whimpering, I decided I had to take her to the vet.
Saturday morning we went to a new vet (the one we'd seen before isn't open on Saturdays) and the vet confirmed my observation: Casey was in a lot of pain. After a tip-to-tail examination, the vet gave our girl a pain shot, sent her home with some anti-inflammatory meds and told us to come back Monday so she could be x-rayed. The vet thought Casey was suffering from hip dysplasia.
After an unfortunate incident Sunday morning when I tried to give Casey her medicine (I got bit. Twice), we made it through the night and I brought her in this morning for the x-ray.
What happened next is what makes this a story worth telling:
Dr. Mounts called and said, "Well, I know what's wrong with your baby" (she's so right, Casey is my baby. Caddy is too — always has been — but I never would have guessed I would fall for a dog).
Then she said, "She swallowed a nail."
What?
Yeah, I think that would cause some pain and general grumpiness. Especially if it had been in there for a few days.
So Dr. Mounts performed emergency "foreign body removal" surgery and a few hours later she called to let me know everything had gone well.
She said the nail is about 1/2 inch long and attached to a piece of plastic. Oh yeah, and there was a rubber band in there as well.
Nick and I visited Casey after work this evening, and she was alert but definitely not herself. And who can blame her because after all, she had her tummy and her intestine both cut open and sewed back up. Ouch.
She was really pitiful looking in her big kennel at the vet's office hooked up to a "doggie IV" fluid drip. She'll have to stay there tonight and tomorrow night so they can make sure she's OK to go home.
Poor baby.
So I asked Dr. Mounts what other strange things she's removed from dogs' stomachs and here's what she said:
1. Condom
2. Tampon
3. Rocks (multiple rocks from the same dog — a daschund)
4. Towel (an entire towel)
So I guess a nail wasn't the strangest thing on her list, but shocking nonetheless. Dr. Mounts said she figured it had been in there a few days. The funny thing is Casey was still eating, drinking and pooping like normal.
By some miracle, the nail hadn't punctured her intestine, thereby making the whole ordeal much less complicated and scary.
Since all of this, I've now decided to switch vets. Vets need to be open, at least for a little while, on the weekend. Period. And, a successful nail-removal surgery will sell a dog owner on a vet any day. At least, it'll sell this dog-owner.
I wish we could've taken a few pictures of Casey with her doggie IV, because that's priceless. Although I'm sure our girl wouldn't appreciate being photographed in such a compromising position. Maybe we can swing by tomorrow and get the pics.
In the meantime, Nick and I are thanking our lucky stars she's OK and wondering how we'll get through two nights without her here with us.

Three days in

So far, 2009 hasn't been half bad. Now if only the other 362 days will follow this pattern, we can chalk it up as a good year.
Remember how I'm not making resolutions? Well, one thing that started three days ago that isn't a resolution is a lifestyle change for Nick and me: We're vegetarians. Technically, I'm a vegetarian and he's a vegetarian 90 percent of the time. He may have to indulge in a burger or, more likely for him, pasta with chicken, every once in a while at a restaurant. So far, this no-meat thing is going pretty well. I wanted to do it for health reasons, and I was shocked (and happy) when Nick said he wanted to give it a try too. I've made some delish recipes (no stinkers so far), so I think we may actually be able to stick with this. I'm sure it'll be worth it.
Besides, who wants meat when you can have this:

That's vegetarian jambalaya with coleslaw — dinner on New Year's day. Don't worry, we had our blackeye peas, too, in the form of Texas caviar. So yummy.
Thinking back on last New Year's day, I couldn't remember eating blackeyes and cabbage. Maybe that's why 2008 was a crummy year!