This post is going to be a bit different from others I've written. It's part reflection, part update on how life is going. I'm calling this series "Life Log" and I'll post updates periodically.

I started this blog with the intention of sharing experiences that have shaped how I think and work, but I also want to share what goes on outside of work, in life.

The past few weeks have been pretty busy, and this is probably the worst time for me to start writing a blog where I put random words on the internet that maybe some people will read. If anything, writing these posts is more for me than for anyone else. Of course, if someone enjoys them then that makes me very happy!

The toothless dog

Our dog Sasha is 8 years old this year. At a recent vet visit, the veterinarian noticed that one of her front teeth was grey. It was a sign that the tooth had been damaged at the root and was likely dead. A dead tooth can rot and poison the bloodstream, leading to sepsis, which would be very serious. We decided to be cautious and get the tooth removed.

So a couple weeks ago, Sasha had an appointment where she had to go under anesthesia to get the tooth removed. It's normally a routine surgery, but in this case there was a complication getting the tooth out. She was under for several hours. That should have been the end of the story, but a few days later her stitches started to rip, and the hole where the tooth had been removed became visible.

We took her back to the vet, and they inspected it and said not to worry, just clean it daily with chlorhexidine and rinse it. Well, it wasn't even a day later that all the stitches ripped out and the tooth cavity was fully exposed. This meant that she needed to get her wound cleaned twice daily to keep food from compacting in it. I'm very thankful Sarah isn't squeamish!

Sasha also had to switch to homemade food because she couldn't eat her kibble, so she got pampered with a turkey, rice, pea, and sweet potato mixture. It honestly smelled pretty good. I would have eaten it myself if it had some seasoning. She's finally on the mend, and the hole is starting to heal.

A baby that won't sleep

In other news, our daughter Shea has somehow become a worse sleeper. She is just over three months old now and she already wasn't a great sleeper, but it's gotten even more brutal. At night she's only sleeping in short stretches, and then we have to wake up, feed her, change her diaper, and put her back down. Needless to say, we haven't been sleeping much.

In the past week, she's dropped to only one-hour stretches, which means we go through that whole cycle and somehow have to squeeze in sleep within the one hour she's down. We're praying this ends soon so we can get back to three hours of sleep.

It's been a ridiculous cycle of "well, it can't get worse", and then somehow it does. At each stage, we've thought: if we could just get four hours, that would be amazing. Then we were down to three, and living two hours at a time, thinking, "if we could just get back to three." Now we're down to one, thinking, "if we could just get back to two." It's kind of absurd.

Staying indoors

In case you've missed the news, northern Ontario has had some significant wildfires this season. This week we had some fairly severe smoke in the air. We are hundreds of kilometres away from the nearest fire but that didn't stop the wind from blowing it our way. Wednesday this week was almost apocalyptic outside. It had mostly blown over by Friday. I hope that the people in the communities near Thunder Bay are safe and out of harm's way.

Closing thoughts

I'm hopeful my posts are interesting or funny for someone. I'm at least having fun writing it. Sarah thinks I should call my blog "Confessions from a Rocking Chair," since most of it is written one-handed on my phone, in the dark, while I'm rocking Shea to sleep.

Oh, and one note on AI usage. Someone had asked me if I was using AI to write my posts. I am not, but I am using it to help with proofreading as an editor (see my AI policy for more details). On a couple of my earlier posts, it reframed some of the language on my points which made it sound robotic and not human. I really appreciated the feedback and have limited my AI editing significantly, hopefully it shows.