MAY | VET VISITS, MAY 2-4 WEEKEND, AND SOME SPRING CLEANING

Hi, friends!  We’re leaving tomorrow to visit my sister and her family in Ontario, so my goal is to get this recap done tonight. I’m not packed and my house needs some extra TLC but, I mean, doesn’t it make more sense to do this instead? As I constantly remind myself, it always gets done! And besides, I tend to work better under pressure anyways!! (But, I should also remind myself that there is another way to do things around here other than being completely stressed and in panic mode).

Update: I did not get this finished before I left, and I indeed was in extreme panic mode the day of our flight. I swear I’ll never learn!

May was another hard month for weather as it brought even more rain, drizzle and fog here in St. John’s. Every year I look forward to spring days and every year I get so disappointed when they don’t come. Again, I’ll never learn! We did have a few sunny days, so you better believe we took advantage when we could. Actually, there were even a few days we walked Charley in the pouring rain because we just couldn’t stay in the house any longer…..we were all getting bad cabin fever!

Walking in Lower Island Cove; my hometown where my parents still live (about an hour and a half from St. John’s). Don’t let the sun fool you, it was freezing this day!

May was also a hard month for Miss Charley!  We started noticing a big difference with Charley’s hearing, so we brought her to the vet just to check that there wasn’t anything going on other than the fact that she’s 11 and getting older. Everything with her ears looked normal, and we were told that often times with older animals, owners don’t notice hearing loss gradually like you’d expect, but rather all of a sudden. It’s been so sad in the evenings now when I get home from work and Charley isn’t at the door greeting me because she can’t hear me.

While we were at the vet, they also wanted Charley to get more bloodwork done so they could check her liver because since she’s on a pain reliever (Metacam/ Meloxicam) for her joints, the medication can have an affect on the liver. Her liver levels did come back a little high, so she’s on supplements and has to get retested in a month to determine if more testing has to be done (we’re really crossing our fingers with this one that it’s nothing serious!).

We also had been noticing that she was peeing and drinking more water than usual, so the vet also recommended a urine test to go along with the bloodwork.  Her urine sample came back and she had a very severe UTI, so she was put on antibiotics for that.

And there’s more!

About a week later she started getting a really bad limp on our walks. She would be completely fine, so we would take her for a little walk, and then within 15-20 minutes of the walk, she would have such a bad limp and would stop and lift up her front paw and not walk anymore. Todd would often have to carry her home the rest of the way.

But the strange part is that later that night she’d be back to herself, and so the cycle continued for almost two weeks, until one day the limp just seemed to vanish!

Thank goodness Todd was with us because I could not carry all 65 pounds of her home!

When we were speaking to the vet (about her other issues!), she mentioned that it could be arthritis and in the next appointment we should talk about Charley getting monthly injections. Since Charley has a lot of stiffness and is starting to struggle when she gets up, we’re thinking it’s soon time to do something.

Last, but certainly not least, we found A TICK ON HER!! Ticks are extremely rare here in Newfoundland, so we were absolutely floored that she had one. My sister in Ontario is very familiar with ticks and has to do daily searches on her dog, so as soon as we saw it on Charley, I immediately facetimed her and, sure enough….she confirmed it and then helped us with how to remove it.

When we spoke to the vet about it, she told us that they’re slowly starting to see a few cases of ticks here in St. John’s.  Gosh, I hate knowing they’re here and feeling like we have to be careful and on the lookout for them here now! I’m so paranoid now walking in the woods or tall grass!

In case you’re wondering what they can look like. So gross!

We celebrated Mothers Day. We had both mine and Todd’s parents in for dinner at our cabin Saturday evening, and then on Sunday we went to Red Ochre for an early dinner.

We had the May 2-4 long weekend (aka. the Victoria Day holiday). This is a pretty big weekend for us here in Newfoundland. It kicks off the start of the “summer” season (you know I use that term loosely) and it’s when all the campgrounds across the province usually first open.

We spent the entire long weekend at our cabin (about an hour and a half from where we live), and Todd’s brother and nephew joined us.

Because I can’t leave the city without getting a coffee for our drive!

Thankfully the rain stayed away for the long weekend, but it was still a chilly one!

Saturday we went with friends on an ATV run (there was about 12 of us in total), and then we went back to our friends cabin that night for some food and drinks!

We were up early the next morning (which was a little rough since we were out really late the night before) to do another ATV run with our families and this time we stopped to have a ‘boil up’ as us Newfoundlanders call it (it’s a Newfoundland tradition where a group gathers to enjoy food cooked over an open fire). Todd’s mom made fish n’ brewis, and after being on the bikes all day, it was so nice to stop and have a yummy lunch!

The Paradise Backyard ultra-marathon took place the end of May. Have you heard of this race before? All runners had to run 6.71 kilometers in one hour and it continued every hour until only one person was left standing.

This was the first time this race took place in Newfoundland. Todd knew a couple of people participating, so we went on Saturday to cheer them on and to see how impressive/crazy the race was! It was still continuing Sunday evening, so we ended up going back out. We were lucky because we were there for when the runner-up stepped down and we got to watch Peter Thompson win with an astonishing 31 laps ran! Can you imagine? Over 200 kms in 31 hours!!

Todd said he wants to sign up next year! Oh dear!!!

I got my teeth professionally whitened for the very first time. You can read all about that here.

I spent quite a bit of time over two weekends cleaning and organizing the closet and dressers in our bedroom. I went through all of my clothes to see what fit, what I wear, etc. and then I swapped out all my winter clothes with my spring/summer clothes (how bad is it that I didn’t need to do this earlier than May?!!).

Question – do you do this? Or do you keep all your clothes together in one closet? Since the seasons drastically change here, I always find it so much better having only the things that I’ll want/be able to wear in one place. Trust me when I say there’s no need having shorts in my closet after August!!

I usually switch out my clothes twice a year – once in September or October with fall/winter clothes, and another in April or May with spring/summer clothes.

I still have more clothes to go through that I’ve been keeping in storage, but it feels so good to have a big chunk of it done!

The Landells Clinic had 15% off their skin care products, so I repurchased some of my favourites. I’ve been using these products now for over a year and I love them all!

I don’t normally buy pricey face wash, but on that particular day if you bought three or more products you could get a face wash for $20. I obviously couldn’t resist the deal!

Vivier Ultra Foaming Cleanser, Vivier Skin Brightening Cream, Vivier Radiance Serum, AlumierMD Sunscreen, and AlumierMD 1% Retinol.

If I had to choose my favourite, it would probably be the Vivier Radiance Serum.  It’s the one product that I can really notice a difference with (actually, I should say it’s the one product I notice when I don’t use it).

I bought these sunglasses. I’ve had my eye on these too, and for the price, I may have to splurge and get the second pair too!

There was no book review for May, but that’s only because I’m reading the ACOTAR series and my plan is to do one big review on those books once I finish all five of them.

These are books that are completely outside of my reading comfort zone, but after hearing my sister talk about them, I decided to give them a try. I’m so happy that I did!

I read the first two books in May, and I’m hoping to have the rest finished in July (they’re quite large books and I haven’t been doing as much reading lately as usual).

May was a slow month for watching tv (I think I made up for that with what I watched in April!). The only new thing that I watched was the movie ‘The Idea of You’. Have you watched?  It’s based on a book that I didn’t read (again, my sister read it and loved it), so I was really excited to watch this. I really, really liked it! I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve watched a romance movie (or is it considered a rom-com?), so it was nice to have one to watch!

Well, that’s it for May, friends!

I can’t believe in only a few days it will be July! I also can’t believe that it’s the end of June and I’m only now getting May’s recap done. I know the summer months are a lot busier, but my goal is to get June’s recap posted really soon. The longer I wait, the harder it is for me to remember what I actually did during the month. I always have to use the pictures in my camera roll as a reminder, and I’m not the greatest at taking many pictures anymore (although I will say these recaps are starting to make me a little more accountable).

Hopefully we’ll chat soon!

Until next time.