Friday, December 02, 2011

Cold morning!

It's currently 32° and the temp is expected to drop a few more degrees before dawn.  I'm guessing winter is finally here!  It's so funny how we complain about the heat of summer and wish for winter, then we gripe about the cold of winter and wish for summer!

Shirley is really having such troubles.  About 3 months ago she was diagnosed with petite mals and put on phenobarbytol (sp?) twice a day.  It took about a month to get the dosage regulated, but I haven't seen a seizure in weeks now.  The pheno has caused her already heavy weight to rage out of control and that's giving her bad hips fits.  She fell while trying to get in a chair over the weekend and hurt her bad hip again, then on Wednesday night she injured her good hip and was totally unable to walk for 12 or so hours. I called the vet & made an appointment, but she began hobbling around so I cancelled the appointment.  This morning she's really stove up again & I had to carry her outside.  Don't know what to do.  There's really nothing the vet can do and she's miserable.  I hate to think of having her put down, but it's in my mind.

My friend Norma died a month ago.  She called me just to chat on Tuesday afternoon and was dead the next morning.  I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around this!

Don't know why this season of holidays makes me so blue, but it really does...always has.

Tomorrow my sister & I will be taking our stepfather, Bert, to breakfast to celebrate  his 94th birthday!  He's absolutely amazing, golfs every day, drives and lives alone.  He keeps a really neat house and is always dressed to kill!

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Stormy, stormy night!

The sky was dark and full of movement all day yesterday and along with the strong winds really let us know that a storm was coming!  The animals and I woke up around 2:30 or 3:00 this morning to shrilling winds, rattling windows and one lighting flash after another.  The rain was coming down so fast and furious that even with my bad hearing and all of the other noises I could hear it splashing when it hit.  Everything was standing in water (even the driveway and patio), but it has now drained away except for a few places here and there.  It's really chilly outside now and the forecasters are saying we could go down to the upper 30s tonight!

I had my yearly check up with my dermatologist yesterday.  There was a small spot on my right arm that he biopsied and he scheduled me for surgery to remove a "golf ball and a half" size fatty tumor on my back that he's been keeping an eye on for a couple of years.  I'm certainly not looking forward to the removal, but the benefits will be great.  The place is in my upper back near my spine and as it has grown it has become increasingly uncomfortable to drive and even to relax in my chair.  I find myself sitting funny to compensate for what feels like a boulder in my back and this has really done a number on my scoliosis.  So I tell myself once more that the benefits will be great.

Before my appointment yesterday my sister and I met at Ruby Tuesday's for lunch.  It was absolutely delicious and as always, there was a lot of food.  We each left with a to-go box and I finished mine this morning early in the storm.

Ran by Walmart on the way home and picked up some seeds and 2 solar spot lights for the patio.  Since I don't have a light out there it's rather hard to use at night.  I got them out in time for them to collect enough to shine through the entire storm!  They do make a major difference.  It isn't bright out there, but you can see where you're going!

Just as I was almost home yesterday I spotted a very little dog running down the middle of the road right on the white line, just like Shirley was in NC.  I stopped and picked her up, I knew she wasn't from this neighborhood and she was obviously lost.  Had on a collar, but no ID.  Brought her home, put her in the back yard and let my two idiots out.  It was touch and go there for a minute as I was afraid the little one would kill my two, but they worked it out and no one was hurt!  It was a hoot!  Last week Norma had told me that Leah Jane was bringing her cousin's oldest (17) Yorkie home with her and her car was at her house when I passed by.  So after making certain that the dogs would be okay together I went in and picked up the phone to call Leah Jane and it rang in my hand.  It was LJ.  I said when I answered, "I heard you were bringing a dog home with you"  she said "I did and it's lost". When I told here that it actually wasn't lost, but in my back yard she was thrilled and down in a minute to get her!  Whew!  The last thing I need is another animal!

Not much going on.  Will let you know when there is.

Friday, April 01, 2011

Long time no see...

It's been months since I've posted due to multiple reasons, can't think of one right now!

Hi!  It's good to see you!

Not so sure where I left off, so I'll try to do a quick catch up.

The dining room was finished around the middle of November, had 2 chairs recovered and delivered the day before Thanksgiving, had 4 women who had no family close for Thanksgiving dinner, did nothing for Christmas and the same goes for New Years Eve.  We had a really short, but hard winter. 'bout froze my butt off!  Got a new heating/cooling system installed and noticed an immediate reduction in my electric bill!  I think we're looking at a pretty hot and early summer...well, it's already gotten up to 89 degrees 2 different days in March!  Can't believe it's already April!  Saturday was a year since Mother died.  Goodness died 3 weeks ago. I've started ripping out the nasty wall to wall carpet in my bedroom...I'm finding that a major job that really does a number on my back...slow and steady wins the race...this may take me years as I'm having to jockey around the furniture and I'm not the strongest person in the world. Plywood underneath, not sure what I'll do about that, maybe just paint it for now.  The three planter I got for the patio last summer bombed. When I dumped them out I realized why...even with 6" of rock for drainage they held much too much water and everything drowned because there were no drainage holes, so last week I drilled multiple holes in them and replanted.  One has a golden rain tree, one an althea and one a flowering plum and each is liberally sprinkled with saved marigold seeds...we'll see how that turns out.  I got 2 pumpkins for halloween/thanksgiving decorations, awfully pretty until they started rotting.  Tossed the largest one into one of the patio planters and when I dumped it the pumpkin was on the bottom of a nice rich pile of dirt.  I now have the prettiest pumpkin plants...not sure what I'm going to do with them, probably just leave them where they are and hope for a pumpkin or 2 for the season!  The yard was beautiful this spring.  Everything bloomed quite early and the storms we had this week tore all of the blossoms to smithereens.  Irises have put up bloom stalks and look very promising.  As always there is so much yard work I need to do.  Saturday my sister and I went to Tallahassee Mall very early and stood in line with many others for rain barrels.  Mine's already full!  Jazzy had her 3rd birthday on the 15th of February and it was like a switch was flipped.  She's a grown up!

There, I think I've hit most of the high (and low) points of the void in blogging, I'll post more if I think of them later.

Rosie, thank you for getting me back up and running!