Candlelight Evening

Last night, we celebrated Earth Hour with lots of candles.  It was truly dark everywhere in the house except in the great room where we spent the evening. We didn't quite last the whole hour in darkness but almost.  As we were looking outside, we could see that Huntsville was well lit as were many houses that we could see down in the valley. Oh well, we did our part and it was fun.

This past week went by very fast.  We started the week by going to the vet with Cooper for what was to be his pre-op blood work.  Indulge me in filling you in on the latest with the Coop (this is really for the benefit of my friends who have dogs).  Two weeks ago, we noticed that Cooper's front tooth (the incisor) was discoloured.  Not sure why we didn't notice it before because we brush his teeth and look in his mouth often.  We immediately went online to get more information.  It was clear to us that a discoloured tooth usually means a dead tooth.  So, we called to make an appointment with our vet, Dr. Jason.  Unfortunately, he was away on March break so we met with another vet instead (in hindsight, we could have waited for his return).  She was quick to suggest that the tooth should be extracted.  That's it.  So we made the surgery appointment for March 25. Needless to say that we were quite perturbed by this. When we got home,  we did more research and quickly realized that we hadn't explored all the options with her or ourselves.  So, we decided to wait for the return of Dr. Jason and get his opinion once we did more homework.  So, last Monday, we met Dr. Jason and spent a good 30 minutes with him.  He took the time to examine Cooper and to explain to us what this discoloured tooth really means.  It is a dead tooth, no doubt about it, however, because the tooth is intact (as in not cracked), there is very limited chance of infection.  His recommendation to us was to do nothing and keep an eye on it.  What is interesting is that his approach was completely different than the first vet we saw.  At the very least, he would not have recommended an extraction but a root canal in order to preserve the tooth.  Of course, for us, the big question was:  how did this happen to begin with?  No one has the answer to that question, not even Dr. Jason. Playing tug, chewing on a hard bone, playing with another dog, who knows? There is no point in beating ourselves up about whether this could have been prevented.  Dogs will be dogs and as our good friend Darlah would say, 'it is what it is'. 

So, lesson learned:  always know your options and do your homework before making a decision. We trust Dr. Jason to help us do just that. So tomorrow, instead of having a tooth extracted, Cooper will be playing and having fun!

This past week also brought the sound of music to our house.  Russell surprised me with a Yamaha Digital Workstation, an early birthday gift.  I've wanted to play a keyboard for quite some time but never thought that I would have the time to do so.  Now that we are settled in, I find myself with more time to do the things that I didn't have time to do in the past. I am "musical" to a certain extent and have always played music by ear when I was, shall I say, younger.  Having said this, I will start music lessons this coming Thursday so that I can take full advantage of my new keyboard.  It is not as intuitive as I thought so I need some lessons to get going.  So far, I have played two songs:  Spanish Eyes and Lara's theme.  Russell and Cooper are a little tired of hearing the same songs over and over again......those are easy songs to play and I will expand my repertoire once I know how to play the keyboard properly.  More on this in future blogs!

Enough about Cooper and me.  What about Russell?  Well, he will start fitness classes this coming Tuesday, twice a week. Kudos for Russell for taking the initiative to sign up for those classes.  I am happy as this will give him the motivation that he needs to resume his fitness regimen. Dare I say that those classes are for "Adults 55+".  Even if I wanted to join him, I couldn't ...not for the next 4 months anyway. Truly! 

We watched two movies last week:  Zero Dark Thirty and Life of Pi.  Life of Pi is truly a magical movie and it made us cry.  The cinematography is amazing.  I highly recommend it.

Red wine and candlelight.....our Earth Hour celebration.

That's about it for our news this week.  Spring has arrived but the warm and sunny weather is slow in coming.  I wish you all a great week, short work week for many people,  leading up to Easter weekend.