Saturday, June 28, 2008

man....it's SMOKIN!

Not sure if all of you are aware that there is a fairly large fire taking place in the SouthWest valley or not. If you live here, though, it would be pretty hard to miss.

Joe and I went to the dog park on Thursday night and were pleasantly surprised by the mix of clouds, the smell of rain, and the sudden drop of 10 degrees...making the experience at the dog park more bearable. There were a few storms going on locally (not in Phoenix, but South of Phoenix and East of Phoenix), so we thought that we might get some rain. However...upon closer look, we discovered that the huge dark clouds blanketing the sky above were smoke clouds. Not rain clouds.

Hmph.

No rain that day.

Yesterday, I spent most of the day in Tempe. Before I headed back to the apartment, I took Lucy to a different dog park to get some energy out. This dog park was in Tempe and it appeared that there were snowflakes falling. Or...should i say "ashflakes". It was weird. I kept seeing these white things falling. It looked like snow, but that would be an impossibility considering it was 110 degrees outside. Nope...not snow. It was ash.

There is an article about the Ethan Fire here, if you're interested.

Also, these are a few pictures I snapped while at the dog park. It looks like a nice big rain cloud, doesn't it? Yeah...it's actually just a huge plume of smoke.

[Please excuse the picture quality. These were taken with my cell phone.]




Thursday, June 19, 2008

and i thought Boston drivers were bad....

Thursday Comment #1
People who live in Phoenix don't know what a rotary is. There is this rotary (ok...technically I guess you would call it a "roundabout") around a fountain on the street right next to the apartment complex. I was driving to the apartment for lunch one day to let Lucy out of the crate for a little while and I was stuck behind a genuis. He enters the rotary. Then I enter behind him. All of a sudden, he stops right in the middle of the rotary to let another car enter the rotary. Are you KIDDING?!?!? You don't STOP in rotaries! To make matters worse...I've seen this happen more than once.

Thursday Comment #2
The biggest douche bag in the universe lives in Paradise Valley and drives a Maserati. Apparently when you are loaded and have a car that costs as much as a 4 bedroom house, driving rules don't apply to you.

Thursday Comment #3
My last day of work is tomorrow. For those who don't know (or don't remember), I've been laid off from my current position due to the terrible economy. The company I was working for mainly worked with partnership marketing for financial institutions in the credit and loan industry. And since the credit and loan industry has been hit pretty badly this year, the business owners have decided to shut everything down. I've started to look for new jobs, but I'm really unsure of what I really want to do. I have a strong desire to be creative, go into publishing or graphic design or something related to the advertising/marketing world. I think that is where I'd be most happy. But I also have a strong desire to actually make money. And in order to continue making what I've been making the past few years, it looks like being an Executive Assistant is the way to go. I'm not really certified for anything else. So it's going to be tough. Do I just settle for something that will enable us to live comfortably or do I go for something I'm really interested in and won't feel like poking my eyes out at the end of each day?

Thursday Comment #4
***POSITIVE COMMENT ALERT! POSITIVE COMMENT ALERT!***
Joe's catheter is gone. Adios. Au revoir. Arrivederci. Sayonara. Peace out. Buh bye. GONE! Not sure if it will happen tonight, but he'll get to go swimming very soon and take a nice long shower with no fear of getting an infection! YAY!!! Dialysis is still kicking his butt and his left arm is like a pincushion, but he's still on the road to getting a nice healthy kidney, thanks to his sister, Jen. What do you do for someone who gives you a kidney? A simple "thank you" card definitely isn't enough. I mean...it's saving his life, in the simplest of terms. It's the most awesome gift ever!

Thursday Comment #5
***SAPPY COMMENT ALERT! SAPPY COMMENT ALERT!***
Joe is amazing. It's been such a tough year for him having to deal with a life threatening disease and having to go through all of the treatment for it. I mean, the choice is easy, really: do the treatment or let your kidneys fail and die. The choice is easy. But it's just a hard thing to have to go through. It's really part of our daily life now, but every once in a while I just wonder "Why him? Why so young?" and I think to myself that he's just such a strong person for going through it so gracefully. I LOVE YOU, JOE!! It's all working out...

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Joe here

Yay ! My catheter is finally out, now I can freely shower whenever I want ! How in Gods name do they expect people to not shower for the length of time they have a catheter in ? I had mine for 3 months, and they told me not to shower, because of the risk of infection. It's over 100 hundred degrees, I need to shower thanks. I did shower every other day, and I cleaned and redressed my bandage really well. I did not swim though, because of the chemical in pools, and risk of infection in lakes. While I was there I got my fistula mapped too ! I was sedated so I don't really remember it, but I do have a huge needle hole where they inserted a probe with a camera and a balloon attachment. They took pictures of the fistula for my dialysis unit, since some of the people there can't find it, and I get stuck multiple times to find a spot with good flow. Maybe if I get motivated (or T does it) we'll scan the pictures they gave me of the inside of my arm. I meant to ask for the catheter back after the procedure, but I was very groggy and forgot. here's what it looked like:

Click Here

and Here

in 2 days I can go swimming ! WOOFRIGGENHOO !!! I'm looking forward to swimming, because it's 113 degrees today.

Monday, June 16, 2008

in the immortal words of STEAM

na na na na

na na na na

hey hey hey

GOODBYE!

Joe is getting his catheter out tomorrow because they've been using his fistula successfully now. YAHOO!!! This means he can probably fully go swimming this weekend. It's so exciting!! [by "fully" I mean that he won't have to only go up to waist anymore]

So.......

Bye-bye, catheter. We'll really miss you catheter.....................NOT!!!

Monday, June 9, 2008

$4.15 and counting...

I won't mention anything else about the astronomical price of gasoline other than the fact that seeing nothing lower than $4.15 for gas at every gas station makes me seriously want to hurl.

How are the prices in other parts of the country? New Hampshire folks? California folks?

I have never seen gas prices so high in my entire life! And I'm seriously disgusted by this trend.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

happy june!

Yes...it's true. We were not able to go camping last weekend because it was WAY TOO COLD. But...we DID stay busy and ended up having fun nonetheless (..........right, Joe?). Plus, the Phoenix climate is definitely making up for last weekend because it's been in the low 100's and is forecast to be 103/104 pretty much ALL week this coming week.

As for Memorial Day weekend, however, it was sad not being able to go camping, but we had lots of fun Phoenix-style. We hung out with the family a lot, spent a lot of time with Lucy, went to the Wildlife World Zoo, had a nice time at my parent's neighbor's house, etc. etc. etc. And this weekend has been nice, too. Since Joe's birthday was on Thursday, we decided to have a nice birthday celebration for him yesterday.

About the zoo. Cleanliness-wise, the Wildlife World Zoo (WAY OUT near Luke Air Force Base) was definitely not as clean as the Phoenix Zoo. However...you could get a lot more close to the animals at this zoo...which was really neat. We even got to feed a giraffe! Do you KNOW how exciting this is? Giraffes have long been my favorite animal and, while plopping food on a giraffe's abnormally long tongue is kind of gross, it was still so neat to see this animal up close. And there were other neat animals, too. The capuchin monkeys were adorable. The African wild dogs were neat! There were cute meercats and porcupines. Lots of deer and antelope. The white tigers and tiger babies were awesome. And the petting zoo was pretty cool, too [even if we were the oldest people in there]! Here are some pictures:




As for everything else going on...
  • Joe should [hopefully] be getting his catheter taken out soon (once they keep proving that his fistula keeps working as it should.
  • On a bad note...I have been laid off from my job. It comes at a rather inopportune time; but, really...is getting laid off ever at an opportune time? It's a bummer and I have my work cut out for me in finding a new job, but perhaps it's a blessing in disguise. Sometimes it seems like setbacks keep happening for us lately...so maybe this will help me find something that will the start of something really good.
  • On a GOOD note...we had a nice birthday celebration for Joe on Saturday: Went swimming in my parent's newly redone pool (we even got Lucy to get in and swam around a little!). Had a delicious birthday meal complete with steak, potatoes, pasta salad, cucumber salad, corn on the cob, strawberry shortcake and....watermelon. Yep. We all weigh about 400 pound each now. We played Balderdash. All in all, it was a really fun day! So all of you in New Hampshire can rest assured that we treated Joe nice and good on his birthday!
  • On another good note...Lucy is adorable. Definitely a pain and DEFINITELY in need of more obedience training...but adorable nonetheless. We took her to this "famous" dog park out in Gilbert earlier today to check it out. Apparently, they have this lake there where dogs can jump in and swim and chase after balls and all that good stuff. And in another section of the park there are a few little obstacle things for dogs to play on. It was actually pretty neat...until Lucy figured out how to swim around to the outside of the fenced in area (meaning we had to climb around the fence and chase her down to get her back in the dog park area. Yep. Definitely in need of more obedience training. But all in all, we love her so much. Which is why we picked the BEST picture of her for our blog header! he he he he



We hope you all are well!

Until next time...

XOXO
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