Recovery

Well I'm not exactly getting off to a good start this year with blogging! It turns out when I'm sick I don't do much of anything, including blogging. Imagine that. I'm on my tenth and last day of steroids in an attempt to get over the never ending cold I caught sometime last month. It's now traveled through the family and we're all hunkered down trying to recuperate. There's been a lot of couch sitting and Playstation playing going on. It's been relaxing and I'm happy to say I think we are all on the mend.....if only I could get rid of the dizziness.

Sophie has mended well from her surgery. The stitches were removed and the scar is hardly noticeable now that the fur is regrowing. She's back to her ornery self keeping all the crumbs licked clean from the table and barking us awake at 6 am. Fun times!

We've had some remarkably nice weather lately with it even hitting 70 degrees last week. I wonder if we'll get any snow this winter at all. I hope we do, at least once. With it being mild out I asked Sean if he'd mind doing a cleaning of the horse pen. We try to get it cleaned up every couple of months but it's all weather permitting. You don't venture in there with the little tractor if it's muddy, there would be no getting it out. I sure appreciate him doing that job.

Sometimes when you've been cooped up in your house for a long period of time it's nice to just get out for an afternoon. That's just what Greta and I did last weekend. She needed new gym shoes (growing like a week that one) and I needed a nice big ice tea from Panera. Greta got a giant heart sugar cookie and we took one home for Wesley. It was a nice Mother/Daughter time, something we don't get to do much these days.

Franken-Sophie

Nearly twelve years ago I was out driving around one day and decided to stop at the Humane Society to say hi to the animals. This was a common practice back then. I'd stop in and go from kennel to kennel giving them scratches. I don't think I really intended on leaving there with a dog that day, but I did. In one of the kennels was a sweet looking retriever named Brandy. She was 9 months old and happy to see me. They brought her into a small room and she immediately climbed into my lap. She was fully grown so this was no easy feat. All I could imagine was her out frolicking with our golden retriever, Cisco, and so I brought her home. She never looked like a Brandy, so she became a Sophie. Sophie immediately assumed her role as Alpha dog and started bossing her new brothers around the second she set foot in the house. It's been that way for twelve years, except now she bosses all of us around.

She can be a real pain in the rear at times but she's part of the family. Over the years we've come to accept her idiosyncrasies. We know to guard our food at all times otherwise it will swiftly be plucked from our plate. There is a dedicated spray bottle full of water at the table for this specific purpose. A Sophie nose near your plate gets sprayed, oh how she hates the spray bottle. You can't leave her out in the yard or she will jump up on the window to tell you she needs to come inside. God forbid she's outside when neighbor starts shooting his gun (or canon) as she will break the window trying to get in. This is just the short list of nuances that come to my brain, but believe me there are pages I could write.

About a month ago we felt a lump on her neck. It was about the size of a chicken egg. This was right before Christmas and I told her we'd go into the vet after Christmas. Two weeks later it was the size of a goose egg. It was growing fast. So last week I took her in. The vet said it was most likely cancer and we'd need to get it off of her as quickly as possible if that was the route I wanted to take. The other route would be to put her down. The surgery was under $300 bucks so we signed her up to have it removed. He bumped her to the top of the surgery list and got her in two days later (last Thursday).

I've got to be honest, I didn't think she'd make it through surgery.  In my head I gave her about a 20% chance of coming home. I cried when I dropped her off and said my goodbyes. The kids gave her a hug before going to school, we talked about what might happen. I prepared them so it wasn't a huge shock.

Then, by golly, she made it through surgery. They worked and worked and got it all. I love our vets.

What I wasn't prepared for is how she would look when she came home. For them to remove this giant tumor from her neck, they had to cut a lot off. The scar goes from the bottom of her neck to the top. It's gruesome. Greta was scared of her for about a day.

Sophie is slowly recovering. She sleeps a lot (as most old dogs do). This weekend she started playing again with Cody which was good to see. They love to go into the couple of acres behind the house and do their morning perimeter run. It made me smile to see her loafing along. We're not ready to be without our Alpha-Sophie.....although we might need to rename her Franken-Sophie at least for the time being.

The Chicken Butler

My husband has been one busy man over the holiday break. He had two weeks off and spent the majority of it working on something for me (what a sweet man I married). The dining room table was covered in wires, circuits, soldering irons, twinkling lights and humming motors.

 He got to utilize so many of his gadgets for this project, I think he was in hog heaven. The 3D printer, the table saw, milling machine and the lathe all got used. Once he was done inside putting all this stuff together (I'd like you to believe I know what all this stuff is, but I don't), he headed out to the shop to work on the other half of the project.

Still no guesses? I'll help you out. He made me an automated chicken coop door opener. You see, the chickens like to head outside at day break and I like them to be shut away safe at sunset. Some days I'm not on time and this contraption will help them be shut away safely.

I've got to say he outdid himself on this. It is very cool. It doesn't just open and shut the coop door, it also turns on and off the coop light at sunrise and sunset. There is also a webcam set up so I can go to a webpage and check to see if all five of the hens are safely inside before the door closes. The door is also programmed to open and close with the changing times of sunrise and sunset (earlier in the winter, later in the summer). He really did think of everything. It will make my life a lot simpler which is always appreciated. Below is small video of it in installed in the coop (disregard the messy coop, it doesn't get cleaned much in winter). Thanks Hubby, you rock!

Last Hurrah

Having the kids home for two weeks was nice. I'm not sure any of us put on real clothes the entire time. Jammies and fleeces were fine with us. In fact before yesterday I'm not sure we all got in the car together for the entire break. But since they were returning to school today I decided to take them out for one last hurrah. We brainstormed and picked a favorite restaurant before going to see Alvin and the Chipmunks: Road Chip. It was cute, although I remember "resting" my eyes for a small portion of it.

Then on the way home I decided Greta needed a hair cut and since we were there I'd get Wesley one too. He's never gotten a "real" haircut from a professional hair dresser. I've always cut his hair but was curious how my haircuts hold up to a professional one. Turns out they are pretty similar. Only difference I could tell was at the neckline. She did a great job shaping it, I'll have to work on that. I'll probably just keep trimming it at home. Greta on the other hand, her hair looks so fresh right out of the hair dressers. They do a nice job of trimming her curls, something I've never gotten the hang of.

Happy New Year everyone!

Blog Book

I started this blog way back in August of 2007 right after Wesley was born. I've always wanted to turn it into a book and I finally got around to it this year. As it turns out there aren't a huge amount of options out there for turning a blog into a book. There is the option where you create your book, page by page, importing pictures and text from your blog. This is a time consuming and expensive option but yields the nicest book. I started with this option. Blurb is a nice site to create a book. I downloaded the software and launched the daunting process of copying and pasting each post and finding each high quality picture from a CD (from 2007 mind you). It took half a day to get a few pages done and I gave up. It would have easily taken a couple of weeks to bring in all 68 posts from 2007. I wasn't willing to invest that kind of time, I wanted something easier. Not to mention the next book would be for 2008 which contained 282 posts(!).

So I continued on my search for an easy to make blog book. I ran across IntoRealPages.com. They provide the other option to bloggers that want a book. You just enter your domain name and dates you'd like covered in your book and they do the rest. It's beautifully formatted and not all that expensive. It was like night and day compared to Blurb. Oddly enough I didn't realize they were not in the US until I placed my order and had to pay for DHL overseas shipping. They are a Netherlands based company, Groningen to be precise. I ordered the first year of the blog with 68 blog entries and it was $32 plus $14 shipping. I had it in less than two weeks. I plan to order the next year soon and try and do a year every so often until I have a nice set of blog books for all nine of the years I've been blogging. Since they are mostly about the kids, I think it's a pretty nice set of baby books for them to read.

Family Pictures

We haven't had family pictures taken in nearly four years, it was time. I didn't know the first thing about finding a photographer and I wanted a little more than the traditional JC Penny photo. Then my old roommate from college started posting family photos she'd taken and they were lovely. Turns out she's been taking classes, buying photography equipment and started a business. I booked her over the Thanksgiving break and she did a really nice job!

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. We sure did. My folks came over for Christmas morning and we all had a nice time together. The kids got some wonderful gifts that they are enjoying. Merry Christmas!

Two strings of lights went out on my tree about a week ago, one at the top and one around the middle. It's too much work to dig them out from under all the ornaments. I'll need some new lights for next year.

The kids set out some of their favorite stuffed animals on the couch next to the tree so they can meet Santa when he comes. I thought that was too cute.

Decemeber Odds and Ends

This is an odds and ends post. Stuff that doesn't warrant it's own topic but still good to write down for some reason or another.

-Greta was the first in her kindergarten class to lose a tooth. Then a week later she lost another. We knew tooth pulling would be a far different story than it was for her brother. You see Wesley lets us lasso them with a loop of floss. He's so used to this painless method that it doesn't phase him anymore. I mentioned this method to Greta and she fell into a crumpled mess of sobs on the floor. The mere mention of pulling a tooth and she turns white and runs from the room. She gets the dramatic flare from her mother. I got my ears pierced when I was in 5th grade. Every time I tried to put an earring in I would nearly pass out. I let them close up and 28 years later got them pierced again. This time it "took". Once you get an epidural your fear of needle like objects goes out the window.

Anyways, back to Greta. Those two teeth were loose for a month before she pulled them out on her own in the bathtub. She was so proud of herself. You have to let that one do things on her own.

My Dad took this picture and I love it. I hope you don't mind me using it Pops.

-I got to do something I've never done before. I wrote out a police report. While driving home from picking up the kids from school I witnessed my neighbor, who was preparing to turn left, get rear ended. She's a sweet elderly woman who (thankfully) was in a tank....also known as a Buick. A little Kia driven by a young mother with several children in the back seat plowed into her. The mother was distracted by her kids and didn't notice the Buick had stopped to turn in front of her.

It was quite the accident with air bags being blown and the Buick being slammed forward about 30 feet. The elderly woman wasn't hurt but rather shaken up. She didn't want to get out of the car so I stayed with her until the police showed up. The young mom was very shaken up and had cuts all over. Her kids appeared ok although they were screaming so it's hard to know. She told me she was distracted by the kids before the accident. It was scary and could have easily been far worse. Thank goodness for airbags!

-I've been busy working on sculpture orders for customers. I just finished up the last big batch and got them shipped out on Friday. I do enjoy my "office". It consists of a reclining sofa, Netflix and a warm blanket. I pull  up a TV tray and even paint the sculptures from the couch. But don't you have a work room to do all that in? Why yes I do, but it's currently housing three large desert tortoises and three cockatiels. The latter being extremely loud and obnoxious. No, I'll take the comfy couch. I like my work from home gig. It's a keeper.

My coworkers are pretty nice too. They keep me company and occasionally warm my lap.

Here is the finished batch of yorkies. The guy that ordered them is giving them to his grown kids as gifts. All the kids and their dogs will be together for Christmas so I hope it goes over well. They were fun to make.

Birthday Boy

We celebrated the Hubby's birthday this week. One of the perks of having both kids in school is the newfound ability to trot off to lunch with my spouse any time I'd like. We've had fun trying new restaurants, breaking out of our routine. Our favorite inexpensive lunch joint is Pita Pit. Think Subway but so much better. It allows me to get something vegetarian (or vegan) and Hubby can get something piled up with meat. Have I mentioned I gave up meat (and dairy for the most part)?  It's been eight months, but that's another post.

Anyways, back to his birthday. We went to PF Chang's and stuffed our faces. Lunches with the hubby have become my new "happy" time. There are no babysitters, no time needed to be home by.....it's very carefree. Sometimes we go shopping afterward or get ice cream, it's been fun.

This year I took the kids to the local dollar store to let them pick out something for their dad. It went something like this:

"Would dad want a shower curtain?" "Probably not"

"How about a candle?" "Nah, he's not really a candle guy."

"Maybe some slippers?" "Yes! He'd love a pair of slippers."

So they got him some slippers, a pair of fleece lounging pants and a Dr. Pepper.  And he loved them. We must not forget the card his parents found for him. It's become a running joke to find the most hilarious card possible for each others birthdays. I think she took the cake with this dancing, farting baby card. The kids were laughing so hard they could hardly remain upright.

Holiday Events

As the previous post indicated we went to see Santa last weekend. At the library they have all sorts of things to do with your kids to pass the (extraordinarily long) time before you get to see Santa. Every one in town comes out to this event so there is a two hour wait. It gives us time to make ornaments, eat cookies, look at trains and write letters to Santa.

Afterwards I didn't feel like making dinner so we went out to eat. I always jump at the opportunity to eat out with the family. The kids are learning how to be well behaved little people at nice restaurants. It's taken awhile and tested my patience on more than one occasion but they're doing good.

Wesley had his third grade Christmas program on Tuesday and we were treated to some really nice singing. They did a fabulous job! His class is small and it's fun seeing these kids grow up. I recently bought a nice camera with one heck of a zoom lens on it and left it at home, so here is my horrid camera phone picture from the nose bleed section. I tried.

On the way home from the program we decided to travel south to a really spectacular drive through light show. You turn your radio on to a specific station and the lights are synced with the music. We try to go each year as a holiday tradition. The kids really enjoy it as do I.

Seeing Santa

I really love our tradition of going and seeing Santa at the library each year.  The kids get so excited and we come out of there with wonderful pictures and memories. Sean and I were talking about how many more Christmas's we'll have with two little kids that still "believe". It's sad to think this could be one of the last, Wesley is 8 years old after all. I don't really remember when I stopped believing, although I did have an older sister with a big mouth. ;-)

December is flying by in a blur of Christmas lights and UPS packages on the door step. Much like it does every year. The kids will be out of school for their winter break after next week so I hope to slow down and do some fun projects with them.