Progress!

It’s a beautiful day today. Indiana does Fall well: crisp air, sunshine, beautiful foliage.

But it’s a total bummer because I have a massive stack of midterm essays to grade by midnight tonight. I’m making the most of it with a big Coop-snuggle under our amazing quilt sent by a kind, talented dog-loving friend, hot tea, and my favorite markers.

Anyway, back to PROGRESS!

Last week, Emmett, Cooper, and Newt were due for their annuals (we’re skipping Lukey’s… he’s there every three weeks already). The receptionist at our vet, who’s known this herd since we moved here in 2008, said, “Oh, just bring them all at once!”

Once I stopped laughing and wiping the tears from my eyes…

I took Emmett and Newt together last week, and Cooper went yesterday. Getting Newt in her carrier went just fine, thanks to the towel method, and both were very well behaved. We’ve had a potential Cushing’s diagnosis floating around Emmett for years, but he has so many other issues–thyroid, liver, and the cancer biggie–that it got pushed aside numerous times. He’s now panting pretty much constantly, and his vet wants to revisit that possibility. She needs to make sure the test medication doesn’t interfere with his chemo first (SIGH.), then we’ll get that scheduled. She also suggested the constant panting could be a stress response to the progression of Lukey’s cancer. Hmm. Has anyone had experience with that before? It’s a thought, anyway.

Newt has tartar. Other than that she was the picture of health.

Then, The Bean.

Not so happy to be at his annual checkup…

A photo posted by Maggie Marton (@maggiemarton) on Oct 19, 2015 at 1:23pm PDT

We sent him to doggy daycare on Monday, hoping to chill him out a bit. Vet visits are not usually great for him. I don’t know if it was the day at daycare or how much we’ve been working on his reactions, but it was his best visit ever. By far–like, miles and miles. He growled at one guy who was pacing around the lobby but nothing else. He even let the tech trim his nails, which has never, ever happened. We had a long wait, though. We were put into a room, thank goodness, but we sat in there for about half an hour. All the sounds from the clinic plus being there in the first place plus a dog in the lobby who was growling and snarling the whole time… It was a miracle he didn’t totally flip. But, we played a new game to keep him busy and distracted! I think it’s called “How many shredded carrots can Cooper catch in 15 seconds!”

It served its purpose to keep him a little focused and calm, though if you watch his ears in the longer of the two videos, it’s clear that I wasn’t fooling him at. all. He was listening to everything going on behind him!

I was so, so, soooo proud of his progress, though. And he got a clean bill of health to boot!

As for other progress… we spent last weekend up at the house painting. Our budget is small (read: cans of paint) so we focused on what we could do that would have maximum impact. We picked three rooms: the living room, the office, and the kitchen. I figure, if we have those three spaces in good shape, we can move in and live our lives while we clean/tweak the others. (Yep, we’re still cleaning. You don’t even want to know…)

Here was the office before we moved in. It’s the room above the garage and has one teeny, tiny window. And it was… what is this color? burgundy?

Funny story for you: I picked out the paint color and we’re doing all the trim white. My mom was so, so nice and said she’d pick up the paint and start it while we were still in Bloomington. I told her, “Thanks! It’s Gray Owl!” She went and bought it. Painted the room. Called and said, “I don’t think this is the right color.” No joke, there is a paint called GrAy Owl and a paint called GrEy Owl. She bought the E. Ah, well! Here’s our new Grey Owl office!

John and I are going to have to share this space, so I’m looking for ideas on how to divide it up so that we’re not, like, touching. 🙂 Any ideas or suggestions are MUCH appreciated!

Onto the living room… I think some of you guys saw Lukey contemplating living room paint colors in the “before” pic I posted on Instagram:

Sorry it’s blurry. That room is just so dang dark. Or, I should say… it WAS! Also funny story… those shelves by the fireplace? We were really surprised to see them there because the sellers had this whole addendum to the sales contract about how the decorative shelves weren’t included in the sale. Until we went to take them down and realized… the wall’s coming with. Shoot. So, to incorporate them, we decided that in addition to the trim, we’d paint ’em white!

Yes, that’s Emmett sticking his nose in the paint again. The boy is covered. n

Anyway, while we were doing that, we were thinking… heck, while we’re at it, maybe we can lighten up the fireplace! So, I found a tutorial, bought the primer, and here’s the current state of the painting room and trim and the primed fireplace. It will be white next weekend! (Also, note Emmett passed out in the corner… priming that thing took HOURS.)

I’ll try to get a daylight pic when it’s finished, but I feel like we’ve really lightened it up already. Next up: the kitchen! Isn’t it incredible what a few cans of paint can do?

I think our official move-in is going to happen November 5, so we have to boogie!

That’s our progress! As for me, I now need to make progress on these midterms, then tonight I’m going to catch up on all my favorite blogs! Here’s to progress!

How’s your week going? I hope really well!