Happy Holidays 2014

Tomorrow is Christmas Day and I wanted to upload a few pictures from our annual holiday photo card session. The theme for this year was "from the hood", and we all wore matching hoodies for the family photo. Wishing everyone warm and cozy holiday season filled with love and laughter!

ghetto fabulous

"That's how I roll."

straight up gangsta...

From the hood wit love!

Happy 10! Project: Fly High!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day and officially the last day of the Happy 10! Project. It's been an amazing year, and I'm a bit sad to see it come to an end. To commemorate the end of this monumental project, I picked "Fly High" as the theme for our last photoshoot. It's a reminder that although we can't stop time, we are the pilots in control of our own destiny. We can only hope for many, many more years with Misty and Jasper, but in the meantime we'll appreciate each and every day we have to spend with them!

Always aim high and let your dreams fly!

Happy 10! Project: Jasper Turns 10 Part 2

Back in March, I made a Birthday Chalkboard poster for Misty, so of course I had to do one for my Jasper as well. I had planned to make a real chalkboard this time and even bought a can of chalkboard paint awhile ago, but timing did not work out and I had to resort to photoshop magic once again. You can view my quick tutorial on how I created the chalkboard digitally, here.

Misty: March 1st

Jasper: November 1st

Happy 10! Project: Jasper Turns 10!

We celebrated Jasper's big 10th Birthday last Saturday. Having done Misty's Birthday bash back in March, preparation this time around was a lot easier and things went relatively smooth, overall. We're so thankful for the last 10 years with him--he has made our lives definitely more "interesting" and has taught us many valuable life lessons so far. Happy Birthday to my sweet boy!

"It's my Birthday!"

"I'm 10 today!"

Birthday party with my bestie!!

"Coconut vegan cake was delicious!"

"Can I have some more?"

Happy 10! Project: Ghosts of Halloween

We spent some time last weekend to do the Halloween photoshoot. It almost seemed silly to be thinking about Halloween costumes when it's pretty much been Halloween all year long in our house with all the different themes we've done so far! So, for this session I wanted to keep it simple and decided to do a ghost theme--get some white fabric, cut out some holes, drape over the dogs, take the pictures and be done! Easy, right? Well...not quite. Turns out my dogs don't like to be covered up in sheets...go figure. So, we had to work quickly and improvise the costume a bit...at the end, we managed to capture a few adorable shots and had a lot to laugh about.

"What? I'm still a ghost!"

ghost family

Ikea lights were perfect for this photoshoot.

"I'm a scary ghost...or just yawning"

"Where are the treats?"

the only shot of the "original" ghost costumes.

Happy 10! Project: Back To School

I can't believe it's the last day of September! This is a photoshoot I had planned to do much earlier in the month, but everything was put on hold due to Misty's medical condition which I have been blogging about. Our life pretty much came to an abrupt stop right after the Labor Day weekend when it all started, and her injury has been all consuming since then. Thankfully though, she has been making steady recovery for the past 2 weeks, and we're now able to regain some normalcy back in our life. She even felt up to joining in for a quick photo session--September wouldn't be complete without a back-to-school theme!

time to crack open a book!

cool, even with crooked glasses

smartest dog on the block

busy online shopping studying

coke bottle glasses!

Welcome back, Misty!

9.3.2014: Uncertain time

We had a very stressful Labor Day weekend. What was suppose to be a quiet and restful 3 days turned into a huge emotional ordeal. We woke up early Saturday morning to find Misty in a puddle of her urine on our bedroom floor. Although a bit shocked, we did not panic and calmly cleaned up the mess. We did not want to upset our dog, who remained lying down on her side as if she was embarrased by her accident, or just clueless as to what had happened. After giving her a bath, she slept comfortably on our bed while we looked up incontinence on the Internet. Our initial thought was that it was a beginning stage of age-related incontinence--nothing too serious and certainly nothing we can't handle. We were planning a visit to the vet after the holiday weekend. However, after about 20 minutes, we noticed a slight tremor and general weakness about her and decided to take her in immediately.

So, we spent most of Saturday waiting anxiously as they ran various diagnostic tests on our dog. Our doctor wanted to rule out any internal problems such as bleeding or kidney stones. Also, we found a new lump on her front leg which the doctor thought looked more suspicious, like a bone cancer which can quickly spread to the lungs. It was just this past May when we had the whole biopsy ordeal with her hind leg, so we felt a bit dazed by how we were in this situation again so soon.

The test results came back and they were mostly good news--no internal issues, and the mass on her joint is a soft tissue and not in her bone. It doesn't rule out cancer altogether and we'll have to get another biopsy done on it in the near future, but at least it isn't the fatal bone cancer that we were afraid of. Her x-rays did show an advanced arthritic condition on her hips, which the doctor said was "one of the worst she's seen in a while". She's convinced that Misty was in a lot of pain due to her arthritis and this is what was causing her weakness and her incontinence. Misty received a laser treatment to reduce the inflammation and we left the office feeling relieved for the most part that it wasn't anything serious and started her on arthritis/pain medicine that evening.

8.30.2014: Right after we came back from the vet's office

It's now Wednesday, and Misty isn't feeling too much better...or maybe even worse. The 2 medicines that was given were Rimadyl (NSAIDS) and Tramadol (narcotics). The doctor told us that these med should make her feel much better in 24-48 hours, but did caution us to look for signs of side effects of Rimadyl, such as vomiting, refusal to eat, and confusion. Although she wasn't vomiting, her appetite has gradually declined since Saturday and she's now eating very little and needs a lot of coaxing and hand feeding, and she's very lethargic and weak, sleeping most of the day and night. We also noticed she seemed more dazed and off balance. We did some research about Rimadyl and were alarmed by a ton of negative opinions and personal experiences on the internet--stories of people losing their pets after administering Rimadyl for as little as few days or weeks due to sudden liver failure and internal bleeding. So, yesterday we stopped the med and today, there's no change. I went out and got fish oil for her based on recommendations by our doctor and others. We are also continuing to give her glucosamine supplement which she has been on for awhile now.

At this point, we are just closely monitoring her condition. If she doesn't improve after couple of days, we'll have to take her back in, or sooner if her condition worsens. It's just the most terrible, helpless feeling at the moment...

Update 9.4.2014:
Misty refused to eat her food last night, so I cooked some chicken for her and she ate that just fine. This morning, she had a hard time eating again and couldn't finish even her favorite chicken...I don't know what to make of it. She's also not drinking any water unless we hand feed her. I don't know if lowering her head down to eat/drink is hurting her, since she's taking food/water only from our hands. On a more positive note, she seems to be better in terms of balance and she's a bit more alert, making eye contact with us and listening to what we're saying. She seems to be comfortable when lying down and sleeping, but appears very weak on her feet, panting heavily and staring out into space while standing still in place. Convinced she's in pain, this morning we decided to put her back on Rimadyl, but at half the dosage. We'll see how she does...

Update 9.5.2014:
Misty showed some signs of improvement late yesterday afternoon! After sleeping the whole day, she got up by herself for the first time and came looking for me, wagging her tail. She appeared much more alert and had her appetite back and gulped down her dinner. The rest of the evening was really good--she was moving around better, wasn't panting as much and was in a great spirit all around. I don't know if the improvement is due to Rimadyl or fish oil, or neither or both...at this point, we don't care and just want to see her get better. She slept well overnight, but then was once again lethargic in the morning. Even so, we feel she's looking better than she has in any other morning so far, so we're hopeful she'll continue to regain her strength. We gave her another dose of Rimadyl this morning, still not 100% comfortable with it, but for now we feel it's for the best to keep her on it.

Update 9.8.2014:
Misty's condition over the weekend was stable for the most part. She's still pretty slow and weak on her feet and is sleeping a lot during the day, but much more alert. This morning, we decided that she's now stable enough to go in for her biopsy on her front leg, so we went ahead and made an appointment for this Friday. Hopefully, we'll get good news but it'll be once again quite stressful until we find out.

9.6.2014: Looking much more alert and comfortable!

Update 9.13.2014

What a difference a few days make...we never made it in for Misty's biopsy yesterday as her condition took a nose dive. It started to get worse progressively since about the middle of the week. On significant incident did happen on Tuesday evening when my other dog tried to hump her while outside to pee. This is a pretty common behavior that's been going on for 10 years--whenever Jasper gets excited by either Misty's or the neighborhood dogs' barking or some other noise outside, he would try to hump Misty, which we think is just a dominance behavior. This has not been an issue in the past and I can recall only a couple of times when Misty either retaliated or cried out in discomfort. Well, she yelped when it happened on Tuesday. It was only for a brief second and she was fine afterwards, but I can't help but wonder if that may have contributed to her getting worse. On Thursday, she was looking especially terrible, unable to walk more than 20 steps and unable to even squat to pee. We decided to increase her Rimadyl dosage back up to 75mg, twice a day.

On Friday morning, after canceling her biopsy appointment, I went ahead and emailed our vet, detailing everything that's been observed for the past 2 weeks. She was very concerned and now believed Misty may have additional back pain unrelated to arthritis in her hips. She mentioned herniated disk, a condition that I was already suspicious of from the very beginning. Although I don't doubt that Misty has arthritis, this particular incident seemed way too much "all of a sudden" for it to be just arthritis. Our vet suggested that we bring Misty back in for a followup exam and to maybe try steroids, which may help with the inflammation related to the possible disk injury.

IVDD (Intervertebral Disk Disease) is the proper name for the said herniated disk, and although it's a very serious and scary condition, at the moment I feel somewhat relieved to at least have a more probable diagnosis. While both arthritis and IVDD are managed with NSAIDs and steroids, there's a huge difference in their treatment approach--while with arthritis mild exercise is encouraged to promote flexibility and strength, with IVDD, absolute rest is required to reduce inflammation and to stop any further damage to the spinal cord which can result in irreversible paralysis. Had I been given the proper diagnosis from the beginning, I wouldn't have let her move around so much whenever she started to feel a bit better, and we would've prevented the humping incident of Tuesday.

We are very nervous that Misty's condition will continue to progress, but at the same time I'm hopeful of her recovery with proper rest. Since yesterday, we've been very vigilant about limiting her movement. We were unsuccessfully in crating her (she couldn't turn around), so for now we're having to take turns just watching her and confining her to her bed. Last night was very tough and this morning we almost had an emotional breakdown and was on the verge of taking her back in for the steroid treatment, but after talking things out, we eventually calmed down and decided to wait it out a little bit longer to see what effects a full rest might have on her. So the roller coaster continues...

9.13.2014: Misty resting, Jasper keeping her close by

9.14.2014: sleeping pretty comfortably

Update 9.19.2014:
It's been almost a week since the last update, and I'm happy to report that Misty has made some significant progress since then. After about 3 days of confining her to a strict bed rest (even during feeding time), she started to show signs of improvement--she was much more alert, breathing normally, regained her appetite and her leg strength has improved some. We limited her movement to only very short pee breaks, and even then we supported her back and hind legs in a sling. During the day, she stayed on her bed in our living room and slept majority of the day while we watched her every second, and at nights she slept on our bed while we took turns sleeping on the floor.

Starting from Monday, we quarantined her to a makeshift kennel in the corner of the living room which didn't take too long for her to get used to. Because we really did not want to crate her, we had to get a little creative with our furniture arrangement and a baby gate that we had. It turned out to be a very cozy little "resort", and we have spent a fair share of time sitting in it as well while keeping her company.  As the week progressed, she started to sit up more, and her strength continued to improve, walking almost normally and pulling more on the leash.

We are so relieved that the bed rest seems to be working and that she's doing so much better. She's looking like her old self again, no longer spaced out in pain. We'll continue to keep her at rest for at least another week or longer. The recommended time is usually around 4-6 weeks, but I'm not sure that we'll need all of it. For the time being, she continues to take Rimadyl 75mg twice a day, glucosamine and fish oil supplements. We got some recommendations for a homeopathic alternative to Rimadyl, so we're looking into possibly trying it in the future.

9.18.2014: Misty in the "resort", starting to sit up more.

9.18.2014: Looking so~ much better!

Update 10.1.2014:

It's been 11 days since the last update, and Misty has been making steady recovery! At this point, we feel pretty comfortable letting her walk without the support of a sling, and she's been doing wonderfully in all aspects. We are still keeping her in the quarantine area during the day when we cannot keep an eye on her. Right now, the only thing that is of a concern is her skin condition--she's been breaking out in these odd dark, smelly, flaky spots all over her body which is obviously very itchy to her and she has managed to bite it raw in couple of areas when we weren't monitoring and we've had to apply antibiotic ointment and bandage it up. 

dark flaky patches all over her body

This skin condition started pretty much couple of days after her injury back in August and I'm almost convinced that it's a side effect of Rimadyl. So, on 9/22 we took her off of it and switched her to a homeopathic pain med called Zeel. It was recommended by someone who's been giving it to his arthritic dog and he swears by it and further research on the product yielded a ton of positive reviews, so we decided to give it a try. This is now the second week on it, and we can really see the difference in Misty--she's so much stronger and sleeping soundlessly through the night, and I feel her strange "rash" is also less. It also doesn't have that foul odor like when she was on Rimadyl, so I'm thinking that Rimadyl is slowly being flushed out of her system. They say that it can take up to 4-6 weeks for it to be completely washed out, so I'm hoping we're almost there! Right now though, I'm just extremely happy and over the moon to see her doing so much better!

Update 11.6.2014:

I've been meaning to write this update for awhile now, but the past several weeks have been quite hectic with travel, photoshoots, and Birthdays. A lot of good progress has been made since the last post, and we started to see some real noticeable improvement in her condition by about middle of October. At this very moment, I'm cautious to say, but I think she's 100% recovered from her back injury. She's pretty much back to her old self, running around crazy and she's got that puppy spark in her eyes again! She's eating well, and we have not detected any sort of discomfort in her movements. We have also managed to clear up her strange skin "rash" since the last post. It actually turned out to be a skin infection called, Malassezia Dermatitis. It is basically a yeast proliferation caused by a change in the skin condition--allergy, immune deficiency or hormonal imbalance can all be the cause. In Misty's case, I suspect her immune system was lowered as a result of her injury and Rimadyl wreaking havoc on her system. To clear up the infection, we used an antimicrobial shampoo and we also started her on immune boosting supplements. Her skin improved within a week!

10.19.2014: Misty feeling so much better!

10.20.2014: Playing with her toy after her bath.

This will be the last update in this long string of mini posts, which all started back in August. There's still a lot I want to write about more in detail like all the supplements, med and devices we've tried and used during this time--what worked and what didn't. So, instead I'll try to write up a new post soon summarizing all our thoughts and experiences of this ordeal. In the meantime, I'm extremely thankful for Misty's recovery!

Home Renovation 2013: Part 3--Front Room

While browsing back through my blog posts last weekend, I realized that I never finished my Home Renovation series from last year...I'm not a very good blogger, I know. So, even though it's now over a year later, I'll try to pick up where I had left off...this is now Part 3--The Front Room!

There are 2 rooms in our house that suffered from an identity crisis and this is one of them. The "front room" as we call it, is immediately to the left as you enter the front door, and was most likely the living room of the house before the major renovation/extension that occurred during the previous ownership. The extension to the back part of the house added a great room which is where we spend most of our time in watching TV and lounging around, so there was no need for a separate living room. So, for a long time the front room was a wasted empty space that was an eyesore every time we entered the house and definitely not the first impression of the house that we wanted to give off. This is how it used to look before we decided to give it a makeover:

"front room" viewed from the front door

odd recessed "nook" next to the fireplace that served no function

As can be seen from the pictures, the room was pretty much empty--we did place couple of chairs and a small table in our attempt to make it into a sitting room and while it wasn't half bad, it still lacked character and we never ended up sitting there much. So, in tackling this room, we wanted to give it a more defined purpose, and to infuse more personality and liveliness into it. So, here's how the room looks now after the transformation:

viewed from the front door

viewed from the dining room

"nook" transformation

gained storage space

charging station--keeps all messy cables hidden out of sight with its lid closed

After much brainstorming, we decided that a mini office was the best purpose for this room. Since we already have dedicated offices where we do our "real" work in, this room is intended for light work only--to sort through mails and do some reading in. It's also where we keep things like our Garmin watches and music players charged up for a quick access before heading out the door. So, here's the breakdown:

1. We kept the paint color--we like the calming effect of the existing green and it's a nice contrast to the brown wood and the neutral whites.
2. We kept the chairs in the room for now, but we feel they are too big for the room and will eventually be replaced by something more suitable.
3. Due to the small size of the room, we chose the most minimal desk and chair that would take up the least amount of visual space, and because we got everything from IKEA, it was very cheap as well.
4. Again, to keep things light and airy, we chose a leaning ladder shelf which takes up very little space while providing a ton of space for display and organization.
5. To balance out the adjacent wall, we placed a vertical mirror (already owned) with a similar wood tone.
6. The fireplace mantel now sets a nice visual tone for the whole room--we chose a mirror instead of a painting, because we don't have any painting that's worthy of a fireplace mantel and also because we wanted to try to reflect more light into the room.
7. The biggest project for this room by far was the built-in shelf on the left side of the fireplace. We were lucky to have found a base cabinet at IKEA that was both cheap and a perfect dimension for the nook. We had the top sized and cut and stained dark brown and added new chrome hardware for the doors. We added the floating  shelves on top, painted them white and added thick molding to the front for a more visual impact. All in all, we were able to essentially convert a dead space into a full functional storage/display unit which also adds to the character of the room.

Since renovating the room, we use it much more than ever before. It's very functional and now has a definite identity of its own. It's now also a very cozy and welcoming room to step into every time we come home.

Happy 10! Project: Life's a Beach

It's now August, the peak of the summer season...or at least that's what I always thought. On my morning run today, I saw a lot of activity on the streets and that's when I realized that kids are going back to school this week. Crazy! Growing up, we always went back to school after Labor Day, and August was spent mostly playing out in the sun, trying to squeeze in that last bit of the summer fun before heading back to classes. So, for this photoshoot it was only fitting to do a beach theme! My dogs really love going to the beach and playing in the water, and we were all daydreaming of our next trip down...in the meantime, I guess this will have to do.

Ready to snorkel!

"I think this is slightly too small..."

"What am I suppose to do with this thing?"

Ready for the beach!

"This is kinda' comfy..."

"This is wrinkling my style!"

"Can we go to the REAL beach now?"