kimmers for life

Updates from the cough syrup fog

I've been seriously under the weather lately... I don't know if it's bronchitis or the beginnings of bronchial pneumonia or WHAT, but I'm miserable in the extreme, and to make matters worse, I'm too damn busy to schedule a doctor's appointment and at least get some relief in the form of a lovely, lovely prescription or five.

All of this to say, this update may be a little bullet pointish. Because that's kind of all I have in me, right now.

First up! Dunkin is doing much better. He went for his follow up xray yesterday, and the surgeon said that the break is healing really well, and in about two weeks he can go back to all his usual activities. (I guiltily admitted that we have not been doing well AT ALL with restraining him from his usual activities, especially in the last week or so, but the surgeon was basically like, ehhhhh. He's healing well, so whatever. Relief!)

However, he now needs MORE surgery, because his two upper baby canine teeth are not loosening at all, and the adult teeth are already half grown in. So, the baby teeth need to be pulled, and that is only done under anesthesia. Fortunately, the surgeon offered to cut us a break on the money. Good thing Dunkin's so damn cute, that's all I can say!

Next: I got a job! A pretty great one, or at least it seems great so far. I'm still in training right now, but I'll be working as an SAT prep tutor. The money is good, the hours are flexible, and I'll be able to work it around my school schedule once my classes start, which is fantastic. I'm relieved to be done with the job search relatively quickly, and thrilled to be lucky enough to have snagged a job that will be great experience for when I make my career change.

And it has to be said: I am SO BEYOND EXCITED to be out of cubicle hell!! This job is great in part because it's so independent. I don't have to report to a supervisor. I don't even have to report to an OFFICE! I get assigned clients, and I managed them myself and submit my hours worked online. No office politics, no micromanaging, no getting up early to drive day after day to a job I'm not passionate about. I really couldn't be happier.

Finally, I will leave you with an example of my brain in the midst of this sickness fog. The other day I'm inching forward in traffic when some ahole honks their horn at me. I immediately get super flustered, trying to figure out what I had done to deserve the honk.

Then I realized that *I* had accidentally hit my own horn.

Prognosis: expensive

A doctor from the veterinarian called me this morning to inform me that Dunkin fractured his foot in the worst possible place possible in terms of healing, and therefore surgery was the suggested resolution. The surgeon told me that we could try a splint instead, and it MIGHT heal, but realistically odds were good that the fracture would not heal with a splint, surgery would be needed several weeks from now, and waiting to have the surgery would lesson the ultimate success rate of the procedure. In other words, Dunkin could end up partially crippled.

Just to fully flesh out our options:

Option A, The Splint: total cost, $600 (which we had already paid at our emergency visit last night) plus 3 to 6 charges of $75 to $150 each time his bandages needed to be changed. Recovery time, 6 to 8 weeks of extremely limited mobility (and therefore lots and lots of sedatives). Scariness factor, moderate.

Option B, The Surgery: total cost, the $600 that we already paid, PLUS and additional $2600 and maybe one or two $75 to $150 bandage change appointments. The surgery involves putting in a bone plate and pins. The surgeon told me that fortunately, Dunkin is close enough to being full grown that the surgery will not need to be redone until Dunkin hits old age and his bones start shifting, at which point sometimes the plate starts to cause discomfort and needs to be adjusted. It's not a certainty but even worst case scenario it's many years away, given the life span of Miniature Pinschers (long - easily 15+ years). After the surgery Dunkin would need to wear bandages for 2 weeks or so, primarily to keep swelling to a minimum. He would still need very restricted mobility, but less so than with the splint, because apparently putting weight on the bone as it heals is crucial to the healing process for this type of fracture (the splint prevents putting weight on the bone). Scariness factor: OFF THE CHARTS, OH MY GOD, MY PRECIOUS BABY JUST WENT UNDER ANASTHESIA LAST NIGHT FOR HIS XRAYS, AND NOW HE HAS TO GO UNDER AGAIN, ALREADY?! MY 6 MONTH OLD BABY WILL HAVE PINS AND A PLATE IN HIS LEG FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE?!?! And oh, holy hell, my freaking bank account is already -$600 thanks to last night, so green lighting this surgery means whipping out my JUST PAID OFF HSBC card and charging $2600, which we will probably still be paying off 3 freaking years from now. And also: We're getting married in a year and a half and so far we have a grand total of $0 saved for that.

Nick and I discussed the options for about three seconds, and then I called the veterinarian and greenlighted the surgery. Because honestly, everything else aside? Dunkin is our baby. I honestly don't think it would be possible for me to love that little guy more than I do. He's just the best dog, in so many ways. When I come home he races to the door and throws himself at me, whether I've been gone for five hours or five minutes. He spends 90% of his day in my lap or Nick's. He sleeps curled up in bed with us. When he eats dinner, he brings his favorite stuffed toy over to his bowl and props it up at the rim of the bowl so the stuffie can eat too. Twice now he has lost a tooth and tucked it under his pillow. He was housebroken practically overnight. He plays and cuddles with Jasper. He's gentle with little kids. He loves his brother Harley and gets excited when we say Harley's name. He knows HIS name and always, ALWAYS looks at me when I say it.

When we added Dunkin to our family we accepted responsibility for him for his whole life, and that's not something we take lightly. Dunkin loves us and he trusts us to take care of him, whether that means brushing his teeth or wiping his butt or happily embracing more credit card debt and just being so damn grateful that this was something that could be fixed, because four months in we already can't imagine our lives without him in them.

Dunkin had his surgery today and it went very well. We are bringing him home tomorrow afternoon and I am counting down the hours until I can cuddle and reassure and spoil the crap out of my sweet boy.

I just hope he's not too mad at me when he wakes up ball-less. Sorry baby. Mama didn't want to put you under anasthesia AGAIN in a few short weeks, and the surgeon gave that mentality a thumbs up. Sorry!

It's gonna be a late night

So.

I was in the middle of typing up an ecstatic post about how NICK AND I GOT ENGAGED IN DISNEY!!!! (except with quite a few more exclamation points) when I heard a very abrupt thump next to me.

Followed immediately by frantic, hysterical cries of pain.

From Dunkin.

MY BABY.

Who was sleeping on the back of the couch when he rolled in his sleep and fell on the floor AND FRACTURED HIS FRONT LEG.

As soon as Dunkin stood up Nick and I immediately knew he was Hurt, his foot was bent too far not to be broken or at least dislocated, and did I mention the HEARTBREAKING CRIES OF PAIN. We rushed him right to the vet and he's still there now, heavily sedated and waiting to have xrays taken. Sometime in the next few hours the vet will call us and let us know exactly where the fracture is located, which will determine whether it needs to be splinted or operated on.

In the meantime I will be trying not to completely freak out. Please cross your fingers for him!!

(Proposal story details coming soon. Once MY BABY is home again.)

Currently searching for that perfect fall scarf

Ok, I'm back. I had to take some time off to sort of settle into my new unemployed life a bit. I still read all of you obsessively, but somehow posting or even commenting just seemed like THE MOST OVERWHELMING TASK IN THE WORLD, OH MY GOD. So I gave myself a pass for a while and just... didn't.

This is the first time in about 12 years that I haven't had a job, and it's been sort of wonderful and sort of panic-inducing, all at the same time. Initially I experienced a week or two of freaked out, how did this happen, what do I do now, what am I going to do with my liiiiiiiiiife panic, but I think I'm past that now and I'm in a good place. I'm working on my grad school applications. I'm thinking about who to ask for letters of recommendation. I took the Praxis II exam on Saturday. My Praxis I waiver came in the mail last week. Nick and I are leaving for a week in Florida tomorrow, and when we get back I'm going to start taking advantage of all of this new free time by hitting the gym and finally getting exactly where I want to be physically. Six months of working from home and being overwhelmingly stressed out about work 24/7 has definitely taken a toll on my body, in the form of about 15 excess pounds that I can't wait to be rid of. My current (lovely, extravagant, flatscreens on every machine and of course waaaaaay too expensive) gym membership ends on January 31st (after which I will be moving to a much cheaper gym) so my goal is to work hard and make the most of the four months I have left there and be mostly maintaining come February 1st. And I'll be updating here about my progress every so often, if only to shame me into actually following through!

In keeping with my Fresh Start mentality, yesterday at my hair appointment I made a snap decision and cut off about 6 inches of my hair. Lately I've been bored with my look. Partly it's that I've fallen out of love with a good portion of my wardrobe. Partly it's frustration over these extra pounds. And partly it's that although I love the IDEA of long hair, in practice my hair is so fine and there is so damn much of it, that I mostly just end up tangled and completely devoid of body. Pre-cut, my hair was a few inches past my shoulders and it was definitely fully in that tangled, heavy mess stage... so I decided to try something new. As I explained to my mom, I can't afford a new fall wardrobe, and getting in shape will take some time, but a fun new haircut is an instant change. The new cut is fun, choppy layers that stop just above my shoulders, and I added some sideswept bangs. After my vacation I'll post some before and after pics. It's definitely a shock but so far I'm loving it! (A week from now I may be questioning the wisdom of chopping my hair two days before a trip to Disney!)

In other news, my favorite season is almost upon us and I couldn't be more excited. One of my favorite fall obsessions is scarves - I could spend hours at the mall just browsing for them. Solids, prints, brights, jewel tones, average length or trailing the floor - I love them all. So you can imagine my excitement when I stumbled upon Loves Life's Scarf Swap! I love getting packages in the mail almost as much as I love a gorgeous winter scarf, so this swap is the perfect thing for me. If you want to sign up, you have until the 21st to go over to Loves Life, follow her, add your name to her Mr. Linky and leave her a comment with your email address. That's it! She will email you your swap partner and then the fun begins. I'll post pictures here of the scarf I send and the one I receive. If you decide to sign up too, let me know so I can come stalk your scarves too.

See you in a week!

Fiction Fridays: Agnes and the Hitman

I've always been a voracious reader. It's what got me started blogging in the first place - I was reading blogs for YEARS before I ever started writing one. When I find a really great book I love to pass it on to anyone whose eyes don't glaze over when I gush on and on about it. So, inspired partly by Jenners and her book reviews and partly by Mama Kat's discussion at the blog frog, I've decided to start Fiction Fridays, where I will review the books I'm currently in love with. No cute button because I have zero idea how to make one! If I manage to figure that out I will remedy that. In the meantime, here's the first review:

Jennifer Crusie is one of my all time favorite female authors. She's one of the few authors who fall into my Buy The Hardcover The Day It Comes Out Because Waiting For Paperback Would Kill Me category. Her writing is sharp and witty and her characters banter cleverly back and forth in a way that makes me fall deeply in love with each and every one of them, often within a few pages. You want to become best friends with her heroines and you want to marry her heroes. Her female characters are smart, funny and independent and her men are all the things men should be - strong, protective, funny, and sexy as hell. 

I also appreciate that her heroines are not virgins, and she never, ever uses phrases like "her heaving bosom" or "his throbbing manhood". These kinds of things are what make it SO OVERWHELMING sometimes to navigate the romance section of the bookstore. When I read a romance novel, I want to be able to picture MYSELF in the starring role. I don't want some unattainably perfect, devastatingly beautiful heroine being dramatically wooed by some over the top, hypothetical Prince Charming. I want a female who sometimes makes the wrong decisions in life and love! A man who screws up occasionally! Messy sex that makes me alternately swoon and laugh out loud! You should finish a good romance novel and think, that could happen to me, not not in a million years, because I'm not her and guys like that don't exist outside of romance novels.

Ok stepping off the soapbox. To summarize: her characters are real and imperfect, and the sex is dirty and fun.

(I will just say here that I have not read anything else by Bob Mayer except for the other novel he wrote with Crusie, Don't Look Down (also fantastic). Their collaborations involve her writing the female POV scenes and his writing the male POV scenes.  They each choose some plot point they want the story to incorporate, and they just kind of jump right in and see what happens. I am blown away by how well their writing styles complement each other. These two books have made me determined to read Mayer's other books ASAP.)

In Agnes and the Hitman, Anges is a warm, feisty chef with an unfortunate penchant for taking a frying pan to her cheating fiances. She and her adopted bloodhound Rhett have just moved into Agnes' Southern dream home, but for some reason armed men are showing up left and right in foiled dognapping attempts. Shane is a retired mobster's nephew, working in a questionable profession himself, called into town to watch over Agnes as a favor to his uncle. Add in a dirtbag fiance, a best friend's crazy mother, a mob wedding that needs to happen at any cost, and a decades old murder mystery, and you've got a book you will open, fall immediately into, and emerge from only when finished.

I cannot say enough good things about this book. It's one that I reread whenever I want a really good escape. The first time I finished it I turned to Nick and said, "If I were to write a book, I would want it to be this exact book". I've had similar feelings about almost all of Crusie's books. They always seem to have the perfect balance of realism and fantasy. The characters are flawed enough to be relatable, there are enough setbacks for the outcome to be believable, and the endings are always completely satisfying. Predictable? Maybe, but what romance novel isn't in the end? Crusie incorporates enough surprises along the way to keep things from being too formulaic. There's usually some sort of mystery element involved, and that keeps the plot moving quickly along and allows for plenty of character development. I would reccommend Agnes and the Hitman to anyone looking for a great modern romance.

If any of you have read this or another of Crusie's books, what do you think?

Enter the "crisis" part of my quarter life crisis

So...

I got fired from my job today.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think that's about all there is to say about that.

Taking the path less traveled

I'm going back to school this spring for my Masters in Education.

I have no fucking clue what I'll do for work once classes start in May.

By fall 2011 I'll be teaching high school English.

If this is a quarter life crisis, it feels pretty damn fantastic.

Sometimes, Always, Never

This post is stolen from Amber at Girl With The Red Hair. Thanks for the inspiration Amber! 

(Every time I post a meme, I have this internal struggle where I try to decide if people will think that my meme is a cop out for not having anything to write about that day. To which I say, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't, but you're a big fat liar if you say you read these things and don't immediately want to do one yourself. Moving on.) 

I always...

• ...have a hard time getting up in the morning. Doesn't matter how early I go to bed the night before, if I wake up before 7 I'm cranky, sluggish and sick to my stomach. This isn't just work days either. I could have the most fantastic morning planned, I'll still be groaning when my alarm clock goes off.
• ...say good-bye to the animals when I leave the house, and tell them when I'll be back. Nick used to think this was crazy but he's become slowly brainwashed over time.
• ...make/order more food than I can actually eat.
• ...cry when animal cruelty commercials come on. I also cried at the Planet Earth movie. And Nick has banned me from watching those Animal Cops shows, which I love, because I can't get through an episode without tearing up.
• ...make resolutions that I can't seem to stick to. Like when I joined the gym in JANUARY hoping to be bikini ready long before summer, and it's now JULY and I've barely gone at all let alone 3 to 4 times a week and I'm totally panicked that there's no time to drop some pounds and tone up before my trip to Florida in September, omg WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF EVERY TIME?!

I sometimes...

• ...read entire novels in one sitting. In fact I would say I do this about 70 to 80% of the time. Once I get into a book, I'm totally engrossed and will happily read for hours and hours at a time. I'm also a very fast reader, so this "one sitting" thing is more easily accomplished than you might think.
• ...wish I could go back to school and get my MFA. But I don't really have the money for it right now, and I'm not sure what I'd do with it if I got it. I'd like to get into writing somehow, but the exact path hasn't really sorted itself out for me yet. Maybe an MFA isn't even necessary. Then again, "take a year off and write a novel" doesn't fit into my budget either!
• ...dream of moving to the south. I hate the cold and I spend most of the winter daydreaming of this kind of move. I've also lived in CT my whole life, and I want to try something different on for a while and see how it works for me. I hesitate because I'm not that many years away from wanting kids, and I sort of hate to move far away from my parents because I know what wonderful grandparents they'll be.

I never...

• ...go to bed angry. And I won't let Nick either, though he totally would. I don't like to let a fight fester. An hour or two, max, and I'm ready to talk it out and move on.
• ...yell at Dunkin without feeling tremendously guilty.
• ...miss an episode of my favorite TV shows. Let us not even talk about the time when our DVR inexplicably stopping working for four VERY CRITICAL DAYS and I had no idea until I sat down to watch a bunch of shows that WEREN'T THERE. Dark, dark days.
• ...sleep without a blanket. Even if it's really hot and only a few inches of blanket are actually on me, those few inches are critical to my falling asleep. I can't explain it, it just is.
• ...eat seafood. I've only ever actually tried shrimp (horrifying), fried haddock (ok) and salmon (ick), but I avoid all seafood like the plague. It just doesn't appeal to me, at all, even enough to try a few things. Even the smell just puts me off completely.
• ...shop alone. To me this is no fun at all. All I end up doing is second guessing every purchase. Friends are a critical part of any shopping expedition.

Your turn... What are your sometimes, always, nevers? Leave them in the comments or post them on your own blog!

Dear Keurig Coffee Maker

Dear Keurig Coffee Maker,

I think we need to have a talk about our relationship. Right about now you're probably thinking this is a Dear John letter - it's not! Let's face it, I could never let you go. I know I haven't been there for you like I used to be lately. I swear there's no one else - I would never do that to you. Things have just gotten stressful around here lately and sometimes you seem more complicated than you really are.

I mean, you seem so easy, Keurig. Push a button, choose a K-cup, and 60 seconds later I have a mugfull of steaming goodness.

Except right there, there's the first problem. Choose a K-cup. Kureig, I'm an indecisive person at the best of times. For this reason, in general I don't mess around too much with "variety". I find something I like and I stick with it. At Dunkin Donuts, I get a hazelnut coffee with extra milk and sugar. At Starbucks, either hot carmel cider or an iced carmel machiatto. At It's a Grind, a Nutty Cow. Simple, right? No decision-making required. Except I don't seem to see any of those beverages in your extensive catalogue. Is it really asking so much that you make little Dunkin Donuts K-cups? Do you even know how excited I would be? You give me Dunkin Donuts K-cups and I'll plan a vow renewal with you, Keurig. Until then, to be honest, taste testing all these new brands of coffee and trying to decide which one I like feels sort of... overwhelming? Stressful? It feels kind of like work, Keurig. And I have enough work in my life right now.

Then there's the whole "thinking ahead" angle. If I walk into the local coffee shop and order a beverage 60 seconds later I fork over my money and they hand me my beverage of choice. Easy! I don't have to think about things like do we have sugar on hand, and is the milk expired? And I don't have to stress out that if I don't drink any all of the milk, Nick will point out that our grocery budget really can't handle things like half gallons of milk that I never even break the seal on. I've got a lot on my plate right now, Keurig, and this kind of additional worry just kind of pushes me over the edge.

All of that being said, I do love you, Keurig. I love your shiny, modern looking exterior and your crisp blue LCD lights. I love that if I actually read your manual, I could program you to do cool things like wake me up in the morning. I love feeling like a Starbucks barista in my own home. And I really love that Nick just randomly bought you for me one day for no occasion at all, just because.

So I'm going to try harder, Keurig. I know we can make this work.

But seriously, think about the Dunkin Donuts thing.

Love Always,

Kimmers

If you'll just take this cup into the back room...

A phone conversation between Nick and an insured...

Nick: Hi Robert, I need to get a statement from you regarding the auto accident, but I need permission from your parents first since you are a minor.

Robert (17 years old): You need a what?

Nick: I need to get a statement regarding the accident.

Robert: Wait, you need a semen sample???

Nick: ......