Month: October 2016

Milo’s Vet Visit

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A month or two ago I noticed a bump above Milo’s tail. It felt pretty hard so I assumed it was a tumor. He’s nearly two and a half years old so surgery isn’t an option, therefore I just kept an eye on it figuring I’d have to have him euthanized if it got too large and affected his quality of life. The other day I noticed there was a second bump forming and was getting quite big quickly which concerned me. When I pressed on it, this time around it felt more like it was filled with fluid so I made a vet appointment to see whether it was an abscess they could drain.

The good news is that it was a big abscess (the vet and her tech took him into a separate room to take care of it and were gone fifteen minutes) but he’s otherwise healthy. The bad news is we’re now $153 poorer. We have spent so much at the vet in the past two months which sucks. Some people would suggest I just have these guys put to sleep when they start having health issues but I can’t do that. They may not be a dog or cat but they are still my pets which I love. The timing just sucks with Joe not working.

In any case, the little guy lost 40 grams from having the abscess drained! I have a cream to put on it plus oral medications I have to give him twice a day so now I have to get up even earlier to make sure I have time to do that before work. Plus Milo is a big baby. He cries (squeaks) when I give him the medicine. He basically does that whenever you do anything he doesn’t like (when I give him a bath, for example, or when the vet was holding him on his back to examine his belly). Gizmo doesn’t like when I give him medicine either but he doesn’t carry on like Milo does. I should have Joe take a video of it later this week when I’m giving it to him. It’s kinda funny what a drama queen this boy is.

Sunday Funday

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Sunday we met up with B and his g/f to go miniature golfing at Wilderness Falls since he had a Groupon that was expiring in a couple of days. It was fun even though it was a little overcast and windy. Afterward he generously treated us to lunch at Bulldog Alehouse where we all had boneless wings. Maybe it was just my imagination but the wings at the Bolingbrook location are larger and more tender than the wings at the one we usually go to in Carol Stream. Plus it seemed like they used more sauce. We had debated whether they were going to come back to our place after lunch but it was already almost 5 pm by the time we were done bullshitting so they decided to head home to carve pumpkins.

I wanted to get to bed early to try and reset my schedule after going to bed at 1:30 am Saturday night / Sunday morning so I made sure to be in bed by 10 pm. And then I proceeded to lie there awake until almost midnight when I finally caved and took a MidNite pill. That helped me fall asleep, but I still kept waking up all night so that sucked. I hope I don’t get a repeat of that tonight!

Saturday Halloween Celebration

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Saturday we headed to my parents house to celebrate Halloween. It’s the second time we’ve been there in two weeks – our first visit was Friday the 14th to help J with his computer which wouldn’t boot up. We determined there was a problem with his hard drive so we ventured over to the dreadful Best Buy (not many options in the area where he lives) to buy a new one and reinstall Windows on it. That worked for a day or two but then he messaged me to say it wouldn’t turn on at all.

So Saturday we stopped at Micro Center to buy a new power supply, met up with K to have lunch at a place called Durbins in Palos Hills, and then went over to my parents to fix J’s computer. The new power supply solved the powering up issue but strangely the computer doesn’t like when we try to plug in the old hard drive. It keeps trying to boot from that Windows installation (which is corrupt) even though it’s not the main hard drive. So for now we removed it and my brother at least has a working computer until we figure out how to get it to see the old drive as secondary so we can determine whether we can recover his personal files.

My other brother, B, and his g/f came over as well and we had dinner and played Uno Attack. I brought Gizmo with us but kept him in the car and just checked on him from time to time since I needed to give him his evening dose of medicine. Luckily it was pretty nice out so the car was a comfortable temperature for him.

Our Lazy Anniversary

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Sunday was our 11 year wedding anniversary (we’ve been together nearly 16 years). Since money is tight we agreed not to exchange gifts but we did order an electronic gift card for Claim Jumper thanks to our Discover cash back rewards. We love their steaks so we tend to eat there once every few years, typically on our anniversary.

Then inertia struck. Sunday evening rolled around and we didn’t feel like going out so we ordered pizza (using our Lou Malnati’s gift card) and decided we’d visit Claim Jumper on Monday evening instead. We reasoned it wouldn’t be as crowded and since we had errands to run that day we’d already be out. Except on Monday we got up early, got our errands out of the way, and when dinnertime rolled around were busy with stuff around the house and didn’t feel like going out again.

So that’s how we did absolutely nothing to celebrate our anniversary. Woo hoo, marriage!

On the plus side when we are in the mood for a good steak we have the $50 gift card and shouldn’t spend too much out of pocket if we split a nice filet and another entree.

Halloween Activities

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Saturday B came over to hang out. When he first arrived he was hungry so we ran out for some food. After eating we made a trip to the library to grab a movie (we chose Shaun of the Dead) we could play while carving pumpkins. B wanted to get some exercise so we also took a walk around the park before heading home.

We made caramel apples first since they need to cool in the fridge for an hour before you can eat them.

Caramel Apple

We didn’t have a lot of nuts so mine isn’t as nutty as I would prefer but overall it still came out delicious because we sprung for Honeycrisp apples which weren’t too bad since Caputos had them for 99 cents per pound for a one day sale on Friday. I love them because they are so big a juicy and we cheat by using the unwrapped caramels.

I had forgotten how tiring pumpkin carving can be and I have a lot of respect for people who chose elaborate designs. I chose a simple jack-o-lantern and was still whining about my arm hurting after carving the eyes.

Pumpkin

Joe cut it open and helped me scrape the inside and he also did the mouth for me because I’m a big baby. I did pick out all the seeds from the three pumpkins so could roast them, however. Joe found directions that used butter in addition to salt so they came out a little different but still good. We send B home with half of them since we made a lot. I didn’t get a photo but B carved a skull and Joe went with two bats. You probably can’t tell from the photo but my pumpkin has some nasty spots on the right side but it’s holding up ok outside which might be thanks to the vasoline I rubbed all over the cut spots. Watch it get all nasty on Halloween since it’s supposed to be 75 degrees!

The evening ended with a trip to a couple of houses in a neighboring town that are known for having really cool decorations.