Thus Says Suzanne...

new machine

There is nothing special about this picture, but that's what you get when you shoot with your phone.  And, there is nothing particularly special about this washing machine other than the fact that it works.  I considered LG's suggestion about the duet but holy cow they are expensive, and since I actually throw rugs in the machine on a regular basis I don't want anything I feel I need to baby.  This is essentially the newer version of the same thing I've been using for the last 13 years so I'm sure it will be fine.

Because I was whining about the hassle involved in fetching the new machine, hauling it home, unloading it, swapping it out for the old machine, and hauling away the old machine, Mosker suggested I just pay for Lowe's to take care of that for me, indicating she thought it might be in the neighborhood of about $30.  Information only, it's actually $79, and they only install it if you also purchase new hoses.  Because I just wanted to cross this off the list I went ahead and paid the fee, but I have to ask myself why I kept the truck if I'm just going to pay someone else to do my hauling for me.

Oh, it's scheduled for delivery on Saturday morning.

I can predict the future

I see myself shopping for a new washing machine this afternoon.  I bought this one 13 years ago and it's had a couple repairs along the way but the last time the repairman was out he said the next time it broke I should just buy a new one.  That was at least five or six years ago.  This morning I went to take my quilt out but it was soaking wet.  When I tried to run the spin cycle to get out the water I heard an un-good sound.  She's a goner.  Looks like I'll be heading over to Sam's Club and/or Lowe's for a replacement today.

Bina goes to the vet, again

I swear, this dog is going to send me to the poorhouse.  Over the last two or three days she hasn't seemed quite herself, and for the last couple days she's been off her food which for her is a sure sign things are not going in a good direction.  Yesterday she kept going to the water dish but not drinking, which also is not good.  Though the vet was fully booked for the rest of the week when he learned it was me calling he agreed to see her in the afternoon.

Turns out Bina had an abscess under her tongue in the neck area.  I'll spare you the details but after I made the call to the vet I checked on her and it was clear that something had just ruptured.  The good news is that she started feeling better pretty much right after that.  She's now on double antibiotics and we're hoping that will resolve it.  If not, then next week he'll have to do exploratory surgery to see if he can find what he belives is probably a foxtail that burrowed into the skin in that region. 

So, another $150+ later Bina has once again been to the vet.  Sigh. 

hidden benefits

I stopped by my office yesterday to check my mail.  While I was there I asked a colleague if she knew how much it would cost to add the youngster to my health insurance (the amount was not as scary as I feared).  She went on to tell me that anyone covered under the hospital's plan basically pays nothing out of pocket for any services received in the hospital.  She said that includes laboratory work, x-rays, procedures, etc.  Apparently the bill goes to the insurance company and the hospital writes off the balance for hospital employees and their family members covered under the hospital's insurance plan.  I'm happy to have something nice to say about my employer this morning.

farmer's market

We have a weekly farmer's market here in town.  The youngster and I went last night and this was our haul.  I had read about the olive oil in the paper a few years ago.  The oil is currently judged fourth best in the world. 

the real deal

Things have been crazy lately in terms of scheduling, even crazier than usual.  After signing the adoption placement papers on Monday I didn't give much thought to how it would affect our schedule.

My foster agency social worker called me earlier today to ask if I still wanted to have our weekly meeting.  I'm thinking yes, of course.  She agreed that would be fine, and then went on to tell me it would be our last one because the youngster is no longer part of the foster care system.  Wasn't expecting that.  She's been my security blanket and I will miss our Wednesday meetings.

We're losing behavioral therapy services (long story, and if I think about it right now I'll get angry all over again) on Tuesday so that drops another three appointments a week. 

I'm starting to think that after more than two and a half years of truly intense scheduling I might actually have a chance at a personal life again.

preadoptive placement

Yesterday I signed the paperwork that changes the youngster's status from foster placement to a preadoptive placement.  Around the middle of July I have another meeting with our adoptions worker and at that time she should have the finalization date. 

We're looking at a finalization date (we think) at around the end of July, first part of August. 

back to one

As of Wednesday evening I am back down to one child.  There are very, very, very good reasons for this.

On Monday morning I get the full disclosure on the youngster's life so far, and I then sign adoption placement papers.  After that there will be a post-placement visit, and my social worker from the state adoptions unit will schedule a court date with the judge to finalize the adoption.  The youngster should have her new forever last name by the time school resumes in the fall.

I will not be taking any more foster placements.  I will not try to adopt a second child.

last day of school

Today is the last day of school for the girls.  When they come home they'll both be fourth graders.  I plan to do a home version of summer school this year.  If you have any great ideas of things they can work on while I'm working I'd love to hear about them.  (Anything that keeps them separated, without laying eyes on each other or requiring that they speak to each other would be particularly welcome.)

busy, busy, busy

Allrighty then.  This is the part where I try to pretend it hasn't been almost a month since making an entry.  In my defense, I've been hard-core busy.  So busy in fact that I had to take a vacation from work this last week to start to get caught up on all the stuff I'm behind on.

Bella's cancer returned all the way and we ran out of treatment options for her.  She was having a hard time moving around and the vet and I believed the cancer had metastasized to her bones.  When she started having difficulty walking the vet put her on some pain medicine that helped her for almost a week.  Ultimately I had to make the hard decision that I didn't want to make. 

The phone was out of service (again) for about two weeks.  Actually, DSL still worked but I had no dial tone, and anyone who called got a busy signal.  When the phone guy came out on Thursday he spent two hours working on the problem.  Seemed like as soon as he was done the phone started ringing and it hasn't stopped since.  It's good that it works again but I hate the sound of a ringing phone.

The water heater needed some work as well as the flame sensor was shot.  I could light the pilot still, and the heater would stay on enough to heat the water once, but then the pilot would go out.  I had a plumber come out on Thursday to replace that.

The satellite dish was out of alignment so though I was still receiving some channels, I wasn't getting most of them, and I wasn't getting fresh programming information from the satellite so I had no program guide and because of that nothing would record.  Had a guy out yesterday to work on that.  While he was here he felt it best to replace some wires that were borderline.

I finished filling out some more adoption paperwork.  My adoption worker wants to come out so that I can sign adoption placement papers (after getting some information I wasn't entitled to as the youngster's foster parent), and she will then set a date with the court to finalize the adoption.  YAY!

Did I mention I'm refinancing the house?  The appraisal crew for the bank wants to come out tomorrow to see what the house is worth.  It will be worth more once I put the new roof on, but though I had hoped to get some roofers out this week to give me an estimate I didn't make it that far down my list. 

The car is working out great and I've decided I really like it. I added dual DVD players for the weekly trips out of the county.  The girls sometimes like to ride in the truck for the sake of novelty, but they clearly prefer the car. 

The new youngster (or the "Newster") has some of her own challenging behaviors and there have been some exciting moments.  But like water dripping on a stone the girl can argue, a lot, so much in fact that I've begun to count how many times in a day she argues with me.