Goals for 2013

I don't know that I have a specific project for this journal for 2013. I've tried to do that for the past 6 years with varying success, but I think I'll leave it alone for now. I do have several goals for my life in 2013, and checking in with those and doing the snapshots ought to fill up this journal nicely.

Goals for 2013:

• Lead an Urban Nature Walk each month (there's one planned for this Sunday--how that goes will determine whether I follow through on this goal).
• Make a batch of beer (I don't even own the equipment yet--this was one of my goals for immediately after moving to the Dedham House, and I chickened out of it) (Chickened out is a funny way of putting it because I chickened out of keeping hens for eggs until Alexis got involved and made things happen. Too bad she doensn't drink beer.)
• Learn to play one song on an instrument and sing and play it somewhere. (I've been pretending to do this with plastic electronic instruments for 5 years. If I had been playing a real drumkit/guitar/whatever I'd have at least one song down by now.)
• Expand our vegetable garden.
• Resume podcasting.
• Begin visiting livejournal friends in real life space.

Those are pretty personal and selfish but I'm at work on my lunchbreak so I can't think of the Good Works and Family goals at the moment. I appear to be going to serve another term as president of AAZK, and we may get a little more involved with our pit bull rescue agency (our current foster needs heart surgery and it's going to cost the rescue a pretty penny--more on that later when I post the next snapshot). My dad is going to start his first full year of retirement, and I'd like to hang out with him whenever I can. I haven't seen my in-laws in a long time, and it looks like dog issues are going to make it happen later rather than sooner. Also car troubles.

3:00 snapshot #1146: pups

I honestly didn't mean to have such a sad look on my face for this snapshot, but it is kind of a sad topic. Turtle here turns out to have a congenital heart defect called Pulmonary Valve Stenosis which means that one of his heart valves is kind of closed. It causes his heart to work harder to get the blood through the smaller opening, which causes the muscles of the heart to get bigger. Left alone it will probably eventually cause heart failure.

The good news is that Pittie Love Rescue has agreed to pay for the surgery he needs to correct it. They go in through a blood vessel and insert a balloon to the site of the faulty valve, and inflate it to widen the opening. Apparently this surgery is very safe and the dog will go on to live a normal healthy life afterward. We have a family ready to adopt Turtle once he recovers from his surgery. We take him in to see the cardiologist for a consult on Saturday.

The hospital is giving the rescue a little break on cost of the surgery, but it's still expected to go into the thousands. This will hit the budget of the rescue pretty hard. The friends of turtle on facebook have been generous, even those who feel very broke and overextended because of the holiday have chipped in five dollars. Sorry to ask for money again but I love this little guy and I'm very grateful that the rescue organization has agreed to do this surgery to improve the quality and quantity of his life. He literally loves every human and dog that he meets, I hope he gets to do so for many years.

http://www.pittieloverescue.org/help/donate/