looking at the calendar

and slightly freaking out.

it's almost 2006 which means that i have three months to finish a major grant proposal (actually, that should be submitted now so they have time to evaluate it so they can graciously give me the money before i leave for baja), pack and plan to leave in april. finish the illustrations for my book and send it to the publisher to be printed. finish the illustrations and manuscript with last season's data and submit that.

it turns out the grant i was working on that had a november deadline was not the right grant to apply to. somewhere in the small print i found a statement that that division doesn't usually fund marine ecology projects. rude! so there's another division that funds international projects that doesn't have a deadline so i'm applying for that. although the idea of no deadline just really screws me up. i mean, if it wasn't for the last minute i wouldn't get anything done.

frankly this last week i've been numb with despair. i'm so overwhelmed by all that i have to do it just freezes me.

so here's to getting off my ass this week and actually accomplishing something.

housesitting

oh who am i kidding this is all about the puppies...

i had to leave my widdle puppies and come to the house i'd committed to sitting for three weeks. i'm sad. mostly because i found out when i got here these stoopid people don't have cable. wtf!

but i'm also sad because i miss the puppies =(

it's still really hard for me since i lost kayla. i still think i'm going to see her run out of the garage when i come home. i still expect her to come over to me when i'm working at my desk in the laundry room when i hear something moving around out in the garage. i think it's her and i'm just waiting for her to walk in with her big smile and her big wrecking ball of a wagging tail.

and so it's quite bittersweet that my best friend's golden retriever has 9 little beautiful puppies and they will all be given to someone else that's not me. and it kills me. as much as i would love to have one and as much as sam would LOVE for me to have one it just doesn't make sense for me to take a puppy now and then leave for mexico for 3-6 months. the puppy would only be 3 1/2 months old when i left so i couldn't just leave her with someone and i can't take such a young pet without all its vaccinations to a foreign country.

even though i've fallen madly in love with the tiniest little girl. *heartbreaking*

that's her on the bottom of that "hug." just LOOK at them little piggly arms! she's just so spectacularly tiny compared to the three big ones. the vet actually said that the small ones were normal size and the big ones were GIANTS! we took them to the vet tuesday when we lost one of the puppies tuesday morning. there were 7 females and 3 males. there were three "runts" 2 females and one male and we lost the runty male. that was really sad because i had stayed up all night with them and then left to go work out and they were alone for maybe 45 minutes and by the time F got downstairs it was dead. =( so we weren't sure if she smothered it or there was something wrong but sam's being so neurotic about the puppies we took them to the vet to give her peace of mind and the vet checked heartbeats and palates (to make sure they were developed enough for sucking) and said they looked good. so we don't know what happened with that little guy.

=(

but LOOK at my little girl's FACE!!! SO CUTE

and of course the BUTTS! AGAIN!

puppies

they're seven days old now. i was there when they were born and i stayed to help take care of them. oh they're so cute. i wish i could have one. timing's so not right.