Another bad day

Why do the really, really bad days have to be capped off with a cake order and a tight deadline?  About a year ago, my neighbor lady fell and was taken to the hospital, but still passed away.  It was about 3am and I had to go home and get a couple hours of sleep before finishing and setting up a wedding cake.  Not fun.  Today I had to take her husband's dog to the vet, then come home and get a cake done before running the cake over to town and bringing the dog home.  Only thing is, it was really bad and they had to put her down.  Now I'm in no mood to do a cake, although I know it must be done.  I have done it before.  You just do it.  Press on.  No time to stop and cry like I'd really like to be doing.  I guess we're not even bringing her back to the farm to bury her.  I really don't know what to do about that.  I really needed that grave.  I don't even have a picture of her.


I'm really sorry if anyone is actually reading this.  I know I'm usually rather chipper and wordy with my posts.  This one just isn't.  It's not how I feel and I had to do something with it.  Just not my day.  The kids are out hanging a bird feeder to try to cheer me up.  I know it's really hard on them, too.  This dog used to come over with the neighbor's son when we were building this house.  (The super sad part about that is that today would have been his 57th birthday.)  I had always wanted a St. Bernard, and his dad had one, so he brought her over a lot.  Then I started checking in on his folks there at the farm and eventually started taking care of her, too.  Matthew and I would take her on pickup rides when she was bored.  Even got her a new pink collar.


Sometime last month, one of her hip joints went out and she started carrying a back leg.  Then just a couple days ago, she must have fallen and broken her back leg that she was carrying.  There's just very little that can be done for a dog that size with bad hips.  I don't think the choice was wrong at all.  I know she was in a lot of pain.  I just wasn't done with her.  All about me, ya know.


Anyway, good bye Polly.  I really love you.

Pretty is as Pretty Does

Daddy's little girl... or at least her cat!


Looks innocent, doesn't she?  This might be the orneriest cat I know, and yet she remains on the throne around here.  Why?  Because Daddy likes her.  She's supposed to be Mallory's cat, but Mallory knows that's a deal gone bad.  He is such a sucker for a pretty girl! =)  Talk about girls trying to get by on good looks...

She really is funny, though.  She hardly has a voice at all, so she looks up at you and does this little chirp.  She also has a fondness of hiding under things and grabbing your shoes (or socks) as you go by.  Or hiding in wait under the dishwasher door when it's open.  Thus the name Chirpy Twerpy.  

She has so much hair that she looks like she's walking around in her baggie jammies.  I think Michael sees more of a flowing bridal gown or something.  She can just do no wrong in his eyes.  Even though we constantly find her sleeping on the dining room table and knocking folded clothes off the laundry table.  No one else gets away with that!


Oh, well.  I guess until I lose my status with him, I'll just let sleeping cats lie...

Happy New Year!

I never make resolutions, mainly because I don't like to focus on what I seem to fail most miserably at doing in the first place. I would like, however, to focus on those things which make my life more meaningful. I don't know that I ever wrote anything meaningful in my blogs, but I do know that I found a lot of joy in the moments, thinking to myself that I would go home and blog about this. We shall see. If this one post is all that ever happens this year, well at least I didn't do any worse than last year!

Poor, cold Bonnie

Well, the St Bernard just couldn't be happier about this weather, but our Golden Retriever is beginning to feel her age. I had seen her holding up a foot now and then, but couldn't decide if her feet were just cold or if one was hurting. After Clyde took her for a run out to the other side of the road, I started to think it didn't really matter either way!! He was running around busting through snow drifts and she was doing well just to keep herself going toward the house! She looked so pathetic that I let her in the mud room to warm up a bit. Well, we don't really have anywhere to relax there anymore, so I let her come in, but just inside the door. I got the door shut and she laid down in front of it. Her eyes kept saying, "I'm a good dog. I'll stay right here!!" We got the little snowballs off her eyelashes and dug a few out of her paws and she spent a couple hours there, napping in peace and a little bit of warmth. Every once in a while, she would raise her head and get up to stretch, but then start panting like crazy. The third time, she looked at us like she was ready to go back out. Michael opened the door and she headed right out. Most likely to see what rules Clyde had broken while she was gone!! He seems totally unaffected by the cold!!

Important Medical Statistics

Not making any good guy vs bad guy judgements, but check this out:

Doctors
(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.
(B) Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000.
(C) Accidental deaths per physician is 17.1%.
Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services.

Now think about this: Guns:
(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000. (Yes, that's 80 million)
(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.
(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.00188%.
Statistics courtesy of FBI

So, statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.

Remember, 'Guns don't kill people, doctors do.'

FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.

Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand!!!!!

[Out of concern for the public at large, I withheld the statistics on lawyers for fear the shock would cause people to panic and seek medical attention!]

Worm Mucking with my boys

Apparently there is a certain procedure involved in collecting night crawlers for fishing. I got the call this morning that the water would be turned on around 4pm. We told Michael when he got home, but he wasn't up for the challenge. The boys called my dad, but weren't having much luck with him, either. So I made the mistake of saying, "So it's up to Mom??" They scooped that one up!! They found me a pair of boots and a headlamp and were going to help me set my alarm. That was where I drew the line. I'm sorry, but a few worms at 9:30 is better than no worms at all. So we went out there and found that, sure enough, there would be a few early worms. (Yeah, that was bad.) So I learned that those little suckers are incredibly fast!! You don't just pick them up!! You come close and they scoot down their holes faster than you can get your finger curled around them!! You really have to do a palm grab, hold tight, and PULL!! Michael said that's really the midnight difference. If we had waited a bit longer, more of them would be completely out of their holes and not as easily able to flash down them.

Well, my boys are pretty proud of old Mom! I kept up pretty well and they think I got as many as they did. Better than nothing, anyway!

Lessons Learned

Well, everyone learns at a different rate, but I believe my kids may have leapt ahead today. Chores have been slipping a bit in urgency and this morning we found a very messy kitchen and a dishwasher that hadn't been run. Remembering back to the lessons of his mother, Michael had them completely unload the dishwasher and wash everything by hand. Apparently, when he and his brother were little, they didn't clean their dishes very well and their mom unloaded all the cupboards and made them rewash everything. The kids were reminded several times throughout this recollection that they had no dishwasher to help! There was plenty of time for reminiscing during this procedure!

This was certainly a time of life lessons. We'll see the outcome in the future!