Moving Out, Moving On, Moving In

After two months of preparation - studying for her nursing boards, shopping for furniture, spending time with friends, passing her boards and packing ...

the time had come to pack up the moving truck for our trip to Tennessee.

Annie came along to help out and see a little bit of Nashville at the same time.

But before we left, Aunty Linda came over from across the street for a tearful good-bye.

Vance drove the rental truck and the rest of us took turns

driving Kerry's car.

The scenery was beautiful along the way, especially in the mountains of Virginia.

There were certainly indications that we were in the south.  

When I saw this cross, I wondered what it belonged to.

It was part of a church!  Come on!  Is it really necessary to be that large?

In the middle of the afternoon on the second day,  we arrived at Kerry's apartment.

We began the long process of emptying the truck and putting together all of the IKEA furniture!

Vance doubted Annie's ability to put together the kitchen table, but she proved him wrong!

There was time for other things too - like trying out restaurants in the area.

We also walked around Vanderbilt Medical Center.

The Loveless Cafe was one of our favorite restaurants...

The homemade biscuits were heavenly...

the waitress was the nicest and friendliest...

the art was interesting...

and there was a ton of mouth-watering southern comfort food!

Vance gave it his all to get a picture of the three girls in front of the sign.

The only things in focus were the cars on the road behind us!

Annie and I took a break from assembling furniture to visit an old southern plantation called Belle Meade.

The grounds were beautiful!  

You could almost imagine what it was like to live here back in the 1800's!

Vance finished up the last of the furniture pieces the day we left.

Kerry's apartment, which she shares with 2 other new nurses at Vanderbilt, was beginning to shape up.

Would you like a tour of the downstairs?

The entrance to the apartment is through this door.  Upstairs are 3 bedrooms and two bathrooms (not in any way fit to be shown!)

Through the double glass doors is a small deck...

Dining room

Kitchen...

with laundry room.

View from the kitchen into the living room.  

The dining room is behind the refrigerator.

There's also a half bath off the living room.

I'll end with this picture because there were no happy pictures

on the day we left.

I remember when I moved away from home (Vermont). 

I was lonely.  

I ached for the familiar.

I hated eating dinner alone.

But it lessens with time.

The unfamiliar starts to feel like home.

You make acquaintances, then friends.

No matter what, though, it always felt so good to go back home.

It Runs in the Family

Hypothyroidism.

It seems to run in my family.  

My sister, my daughter and I are all afflicted.

Now there's one more family member to add to the list.

My 5 year old dog, Halle, was diagnosed a few weeks ago.

Beginning last December, we noticed little things about her.  

1.  In the beginning, she seemed a little stiff when she got up from her dog bed - not all the time though.  She would walk it off and be fine in no time.  

2.  As the winter got colder, she would go outside to go potty and was back at the door within minutes to come back inside. She's a Finnish Lapphund, a snow dog.  She always loved romping around in the snow or even just napping in it. This was strange, but she was eating well and otherwise acting normal.

3.  Her eyes started running a lot.  I was always wiping them.  I thought she had blocked tear ducts and brought her to the vet to have them flushed. It did no good.  Anti-inflammatory eye drops did not help either.  But her eyes were not red either. 

4.  One day in February, I noticed she was limping while we were out on a walk.  It was about the same time I noticed that she no longer ran up the stairs.  She would plod slowly and deliberately up from one step to the next.  Back to the vet we went.  The vet prescribed pain meds to see if it would help. It didn't.  X-rays showed nothing abnormal either.  Lyme test was also negative.  She had gained 10 pounds from lack of exercise.

5.  The breeder suggested a canine chiropractor.  I found one about 45 minutes away and waited 6 weeks to get an appointment.  She found nothing out of whack with her spine.  She was also a naturopath, and agreed that something wasn't right.  She thought Halle looked somewhat depressed.  She asked a lot of questions.  One question she asked was if there were any autoimmune diseases in my family.  I thought she meant in Halle's line, but she actually meant our human family.  She said often a pet's illness is the same as a human member of the family.  I assured her there was no one with an autoimmune disease of any kind.  One thing she noticed, however, that we hadn't was a bald spot on Halle's nose.  I checked pictures and it had not been there the month before.  In addition, she had grown some funky white fuzzy fur on her legs  that had never been there before.  And the fur under her collar was coarse and dry.

6.  I thought about the question the naturopath had asked about family illness.  Loss of hair, lethargic, didn't want to stay out in the cold.  Could it possibly be that her thyroid wasn't functioning correctly?

7.  I took her back to my regular vet.  She had gotten even weaker.  I had to actually help her up the stairs one night.  We decided to go ahead and do blood work to try to figure it out.  I told him about my hunch about the thyroid, and he ordered a thyroid panel.  

Sure enough, she was very hypothyroid!  How weird is that? She's been on thyroid medicine for about two weeks now and she is now acting like a 5 year old dog once again!  It will take longer for her fur to get back to normal, but she has already lost some weight and her eyes are getting less runny too.

These are pictures of Halle before her symptoms began...

                                 

                                 

And here are pictures of what she looked like when she was feeling sick...

Thyroid disease can be difficult to diagnose because the symptoms can be so vague at first.  I believe I lived with it for many years until finally I diagnosed myself based on what I kinds from my daughter and my sister.  I am so happy that we discovered the cause of Halle's problems relatively early and that it's so simple to correct to get her feeling better again!

All Good Things...

This past month has been a very special time for me because my whole family was home!   We would be moving Adam to NYC on July 6 and Kerry to Nashville on July 10, so I was treasuring my time with them.  

Even though I know we will all be together in this house in the future, I also know that this was most likely the last time we would all be LIVING here together. Wow!  The magnitude of this thought brings tears to my eyes!

Seeing my garage filled with all that they would be taking with them kept reminding me of how temporary this time was.

We had talked about taking a family vacation together during this time, but the idea was nixed in favor of relaxing at home.  So we did normal things.  We watched Master Chef together on Monday nights.  The girls watched The Bachelorette (Adam would never admit to watching such a show, but he spent a lot of time standing in the kitchen while it was on, asking lots of questions!).  Some of Adam's friends spent time with us - Emily, Kayla and Pat.  Lucas came over so that Adam could whoop him at badminton.  We went to the beach.

The one thing we did most often, though, was drive to Collins Creamery in the evening for ice cream.

So on our final night all together, after having dinner at home with Grandma Alice, we headed to Collins one last time.  Kerry's friends Mel and Parker came along with us.

                                    

                                 

There were many towns having their 4th of July fireworks displays that night and we were fortunate to be able to watch them over the corn field as we ate our cones.

                                    

                      Before we left, Adam and Kerry took a picture with their grandmother.

                           Then Mel offered to take a picture of our whole family.

                           This was the last time Kerry would see Parker before leaving.

                              There would be many more good-byes to come.

                                      All good things must come to an end.

A Boy and His Dog

"In order to have a true perspective of one's importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him."   Dereke Bruce

This quote perfectly fits my son, Adam.

Our dog, Sami, adores Adam.  Our cat, Maddie, rejects any of his attempts to make friends.

Sami lived the first half (5 years) of his life with Adam living at home.  For the last 5 years, Adam had lived mostly in Vermont.  He came home only here and there for weekends or holidays, or a few months during the summer.

When Adam is home he pays a lot of attention to the dogs - he truly loves having them around.

Sami has a very special bond with Adam, though.  

When Adam is not home, Sami sleeps in my bedroom.  But whenever Adam comes home, things change.  Sami waits for me to go to bed and stays in my room until I turn out the light.  I hear him get up and saunter down the hallway, his toenails clicking on the hardwood floor.  If Adam's door is shut, he stands on his hind legs and pushes against the door while one paw pushes the door handle down.  Then he lays down next to Adam's bed and stays until morning.

Adam was home for over a month this summer and Sami was a happy boy.

                 

We have an empty space in our kitchen cabinets while we wait for a new beverage refrigerator.  Sami likes to lay in there.  Adam, being the thoughtful person that he is, made a sign and named the space "Sami's Nook".  He even decorated it with pictures of Sami's favorite things:             

Bunnies, popcorn, fans, apples...

Baywood Kennels,  the cat's litter box...

What a lucky dog!

Well, Adam has moved out once again.  

On Sunday, we drove him to New York City where he will spend the next year in graduate school.

Sami wanted to go too.

 

That night, after I turned out my light, I watched him walk down the hall to Adam's room.  He stood by the door and listened, hoping to hear Adam's fan. He looked confused.  I went and opened the bedroom door for him and watched sadly as he lay next to the empty bed.

                                    

                                        

He didn't stay.  He must have figured it out because within a few minutes I heard his nails clicking back down the hallway before he jumped onto the bottom of my bed. 

I understand, Sami. 

I miss him too.