Maisy and I went to the vet yesterday. We sat in the car and waited to be called. I had to walk her to the foyer, hang her leash on a hook, leave my debit card in a tray, and head back to the car as they took her back to examine her, and wait for a call from the doc.
Turns out, they said they could not hear anything in her lungs but that it seemed she had an irritated throat from most likely allergies. They asked if I wanted an x-ray to be sure but suggested it was fine to just try the allergy meds and see if they helped her. They said that if that doesn’t solve the issue then we can bring her back and do an x-ray. The problem DOES come and go. The vet said if it was a heart problem it would not come and go but would be persistent. She said that she still does have the heart murmur but her lungs seemed fine.
So I guess that is good news. I figured we’d be starting heart meds from here out. The vet could be wrong without having the x-ray to be sure, so I guess we wait and see. Here’s what we were given. One has an antihistamine in it and the other is an anti inflammatory. They did not want to put her on steroids as that can enhance the heart murmur into a heart condition.
One is Hydroxyzine and the other is Rimadyl. We have to start the Rimadyl this afternoon – she said to wait a day before beginning it. The rimadyl is also for pain but mainly they wanted her to have it for inflammation. I will give it to her today if she is coughing but if the one med does the trick not sure we’ll need the other. Might do some research on the drugs. Can you tell I’m always picky about these things?
I think the Hydroxyzine helped yesterday. It was about a 2 hour ordeal at the vet. I vow to switch vets, to one that is not quite so busy. However, they seem to do a good job, they have a history of our pets, and are often open til 6 or 7, and they will allow the walk ins although it’s a very long wait to be worked in. I didn’t want to be out of the house for 2 hours yesterday on my vacation day but I love my Maisy so off I went to do it.
When we got through it was waaaaay past lunch and I had a distinct craving for Taco Bell. I almost turned right to go thru the drive thru and get something to take home. However, this big ugly dark cloud was coming and it looked scary. Having not paid a lot of attention to the weather, I decided it best just to go home, plus with Maisy in the car – she’d be wanting my taco, lol.
So home we went where the plumber was there working up a deal with George.
Turns out we are going to be replacing our plumbing pipes. We’ve had issues since we have been here. Most all of our neighbors have also had to redo part or all of theirs over the recent few years. In the last two weeks the issues in our house have worsened. Usually George has been able to remedy it. But we could let the plumber doctor it, and continue to have issues and have to call them or it could break and we really have a problem. I teasingly said I should wait for that to happen so then as the pipes busted I’d eventually get new flooring. I told George I was ok with the upgrade to the pipes to avoid damage issues as long as he agreed I could get my flooring and updates to the kitchen before long (flooring, counter top, stove upgrades). He said we had begun our home improvement season. This is a good thing. I’m even willing to forego our Christmas giving to one another (ok a few little things to open maybe). So we are getting the pipes pretty much a complete overhaul, complete with adding a filter to the tankless water heater which means all taps will have pure and clean water. And I get a new toilet out of the deal. lol I am getting rid of the old gold toilet. We will be going to Lowe’s to pick out the new one. I’m going white. And our water pressure will be better as well.
So the roofer will be here next week to fix the chimney – concreting over the chimney of the fireplace that is never used and probably unsafe to use at this point and will be fixing all around the fireplace so that the roof does not leak in the sunroom anymore.
Here is where I sat most of yesterday creating the next iMovie video of our girls trip to Tulsa. It is true what they say about these videos – that for every minute of video footage, it’s about an hour’s worth of work. The Tulsa video is, I believe, my longest creation to date and I think my best work so far as I’m coming around the learning curve. Of course I bought Movavi and still need to do some things with it. And as I am seeing other do will eventually move toward Final Cut Pro – but we’ll save that for much much later. It’s an iMovie on Steroids with many bells and whistles and for professional video. I want to do a professional video but I’m not a pro! It seems that our vacays have always been when it’s dark and dreary, so most of my footage is just dark and dim.
My goal with the Tulsa girls trip video was to show what we did but to show it with the feelings that we were feeling. I specifically chose music that depicted our anxiousness about the virus as it was unfolding, yet our excitement to be together, to shop, to eat and do the things we love to do together. I feel I did that.
I was better organized with creating this video. I organized my files first as I’ve been trained by these video creators on You Tube. The usual method is just to start dragging files in from my photos directly into the iMovie media file. NO – did NOT do that this time. I created a file on my computer first and then uploaded all of them at one time into my iMovie media folder.
I also picked out songs ahead of time that matched the various moods of the different scenes of the video. I’m loving the use of Epidemic Sound. George thinks it’s hilarious that I downloaded Epidemic Sound during the Pandemic. He actually thought I came across it because of COVID-19, lol. But no – a lot of the video creators are using this one. It has all kinds of music you can use by mood, or genre. And has sound effects too. It’s most awesome. I believe that I can download and use in my iTunes for personal use as well. Unlimited downloads for $15.99 month with a free trial period and the music sounds awesome.
So next I want to learn a few things about adding Text and Graphics and learn tips for simplifying the process. For example, I’m needing to learn all the Mac short cut keys. I’ve tried to avoid this but apparently it’s a good thing with the Mac as it really IS a short cut worth knowing. For example if you shorten all your photos to 3 seconds instead of the 4 that it auto drops into the iMovie, you can hit Control A or something like that – no I’ve not learned them all yet, and it will mimic all the pics to be like the current one you just changed. That saves a LOT of time.
So now that this video is done, I can focus on making some that are just about our week or whatever is going on with the Less Hustle More Coffee household, lol! So I guess I need to move on to getting around THOSE learning curves – and the big one of filming myself and being able to get through that, the confidence, the audio of it and sound quality, the lighting, and perfecting THAT process. These videos will be quite a bit different as they are capture more live video and less photos. And will need to tell a story of sorts as best I can piece it together. But I’m looking forward to trying. My fear of doing this is there will be nothing interesting to capture, especially during the Pandemic where outings are minimal except work and of course work is off the table. There will be no video at work. Even though that would probably the most interesting footage of all. lol lol lol Talk about watching THE OFFICE. lol Version 2! So no – nothing from there – the TROLLERS who TROLL and WATCH need not worry. Place your heart to rest. It’s all gonna be ok.
So it’s looking like tomorrow will be the day I’ll post the YouTube on here. It’ll be posted to YouTube itself in an hour and 24 minutes of which was a 3 hour upload. But I wanted good quality.
I will also have to figure out space as I get more of these under my belt. I guess they will have to be parked on another drive or another website somewhere. As I have found in doing this, one expense leads into another. lol
But like I said I’m easing up on my hair and nails expenses. And may stop my audio book subscription since I’m not getting much of them read. My trip into work is pretty quick these days. And there are always podcasts and I can always buy a book or two when I do have time to listen to them. So we’ll see.
Here’s what I did during our Netflix session of watching the new season of “Dead to Me” last night. I finally got the ends off of the “Dip” that was on my nails. My gosh it tears your nails all up. They are so tender and brittle. As mentioned I’m going to do my own for a while. And going to get some new polish colors too. So obviously “doing nails” is on the list. Hey this is a reality blog so you get the raw real me – well most of the time.
Well it’s 10 a.m. and I need to hop onto getting ready for the upcoming work week as we will be spending time with Mom tomorrow and of course I goofed off (geeked off) lol yesterday so I must get some things done. Here’s a list of to do’s. It doesn’t show everything in each section. I also don’t use the sections like they want you to. I use it like this:
Urgent – in Pink – is Urgent but “This week”
Not Urgent in Green- is really usually fairly Urgent but most likely not til the following week.
Not Important in Blue – is stuff that is important to me but not likely to get to until I have time to! Usually hobby related.
Grey area is stuff that will be postponed til later on in the year. It’s fun to kinda reshuffle this as one week morphs into the next. This is the “Focus Matrix App” and it’s the premium version so it’s on the iMac and my phone. And it syncs.
And I must really go and tackle life before I blink and today is gone too!
Ya’ll take care and hope your weekend is a fantastic one!