Let's have a chat!

I've had a hard time sitting down and focusing on writing lately - so much for my word of the year!  It's Timmy T'ursday!  And OMG - the last day of February!!

So let's grab a cup of coffee and have a chat!

I'm not affiliated with Tim Horton's in any way - I just like their coffee & donuts!

This will be quick since I've come down with the plague (stuffy head, coughing, can't breathe, etc) and feel pretty lousy, so once I get dinner on the table for Randy, I'm going to bed!

Found on Facebook.....

Why do big-girl stores like Avenue carry pants that can be pulled up to your ribs?  After trying on 12 pairs Tuesday, I found a pair in a material that's nice, is long enough (what is up with ankle pants???) and looks good on me.  But the waistband hits a good 2-3 inches above my bellybutton!  Which means when I sit, it rolls down. And if I settle the waistband ~at my waist~ it feels like my butt is hanging (it's not, but still).  This isn't the first pair I've gotten from them that do that.  Another pair I have reaches the bottom of my bra.  Speaking of bras don't get me started on trying those on! 

I never have good luck clothes shopping on my own.  I have to take Miss Angela with me.  She has a knack for finding random things that I would never look twice at - and they end up being perfect!

I adulted last week and had both a dental cleaning and a physical (my first since my hysterectomy in July 2016).  Now I just have to call and schedule my mammogram.  Yay me.   

  

Are they not the most adorable?? 

💗💗💗

Here's my Valentine flowers that I bought for myself.  

Rusty adores laying on Randy while they nap. 

So, Oh my gosh - I signed up for the blogging A-Z Challenge a few minutes ago - and I have no freaking clue what I'm going to write about!!  I've been doing them every year since 2012 when I dove right in with 3 blogs!    I did all 3 for 2012 & 2013.  Then I decided to stop with my Halloween blog since I do the Countdown to Halloween linkup in October & Creepmas in December and that's plenty.   So in 2014 & 2015, I did 2 blogs.  But then I combined those & have just done this blog since. 

I'd done A to Z inspirational women, 80's hair band songs, Halloween stuff in my garage, sea stories from when I was in the Navy (that was a particular favorite of mine!) and explored the beauty & coolness of Detroit.  But now I'm drawing a blank.  

Rusty gets so excited when you touch the closet door where the harness is hanging.  

 My nephew & his family were in town last weekend so Randy & I went over to see them.  

OK, we went to see little Cam Cam!  He's 5 months old and already had figured out phones are pretty interesting!  Probably because my nephew FaceTimes my sister every day so she can see him.  

He was entertained with the SnapChat filters!

So we survived last weekend's windstorm with only a flicker in the lights and a few minor branches down.  That was crazy!  I'm so ready for winter to be over.  I can't recall Mother Nature being so bi-polar! 

I'm sure there was something else I'd planned to write about but I've ceased being able to brain.  Tomorrow's going to be insanely busy.  I'm leaving work at 1:30 so I can stop by (hopefully) 6 high schools and drop off scholarship info & applications for the VFW that I'm chairing.  Then I'm meeting Mom & the sisters for a make & take pallet art project that has a bunny on one side and a Leprechaun on the other.  Spending the night at sister's.  I better make sure I pack up all my cold meds so I can survive!   

What Up, Weekend! 2/15/19

Happy "Buy Your Own Damn Flowers" Day!  

aka the day after Valentine's where your husband is a self-proclaimed "tool" and didn't bring home anything - even after driving past probably 15 places where one could purchase any sort of little token. 

He did take me out to a nice dinner, even if he did offer to stop at CVS while I "looked the other way" so he could get a card.  

No.

And then didn't open the card I got for him because I didn't *physically* give it to him because it was laying on the kitchen table!  But he picked it up to look at the Reese's hearts that were underneath.   

Can you tell I'm still a bit cheesed about this???

Anyhoo.

I will buy my own flowers.

Because I want some!

Moving on. 

Hi!

Happy Friday!  I'm linking up with the lovely ladies Lindsay, Beth & Charlotte at the Peaceful Posse. There's too much crap & negativity in the world, so these are all positive / happy / grateful posts in this linkup.   

I'll (try to) keep the snark to a minimum, too.

Let's see. 

There was a photo booth at the company Christmas party back in December, but the color printer wasn't working so all of the photos we got were in sepia tone.

We were all really surprised when the HR witch lady came around with color copies!

Yeah - more ice. 

But it looks really cool on the car!

Wonder how Slash feels about this?   Found these at Lowe's and had a good laugh.

This is my great-great grandmother on Dad's side, Lotty Owens.  She was born in the mid 1850s.  Judging by that smirk, I bet she was a character!

My sisters & I went over to a cousin's house last weekend who had a big box full of old photos and we had a nice afternoon of visiting & reminiscing.

Some of them I wondered how she got hold of - like an entire album of Laurie's when she was little!

Check out our 15th / 2nd birthday pic 

(I was born on her 13th birthday so she had to share)!

OMG - this is 17 year old me!  

I'd already had my hair cut for bootcamp so this was the summer after I graduated.

I look like a boy.  The one on the right?  I'm totally Tom Cruise. 

Have you seen this meme going around Facebook?

Sounds good but it would have to be an indoor holiday

since I'm not slogging around in this mess to put out ~anything~.

What you can't see is the layer of ice on top of the snow. 

 Speaking of FB - this popped up in my memories from 4 years ago...

Miss Angela's first trip to Nationals!

Can you just feel the excitement in that shot?  I love it. 

 Kudos to JamFest for giving each dancer medals and and really nice jackets when they won.  

 Another nice picture of one of the big maples out front.  

Why have I never noticed how cool the sky looks thru them before now?

Well, I couldn't stay mad at him.  

We went to grab coffee from Tim Horton's when he got home from work.

And he drew me flowers!

An Ode to my Jack-A-Poo

Last Monday, around 0615, my sweet old man crossed the Rainbow Bridge. 

Right after Halloween last year, his health started to decline.  I had taken him into the vet because we thought he was having a reaction to the grain-free food my sister had given us after her dog passed.  But no. The heart disease that we knew he had was rearing its ugly head.  He slowed down.  He felt the cold more.  His paws were swollen.   He was on 2 different heart meds, plus a water pill.  His weight dropped 10 pounds in those couple months.  He still loved to eat, tho!  I'd wrap his meds in lunchmeat or cheese and he'd eat them right up.  We'd been giving him canned food and he loved that, but wasn't interested too much in the hard food anymore, so we'd leave that down for him for whenever he chose to grab a nugget or two. 

He really went downhill last weekend.  I took him outside as usual Saturday morning and noticed he was panting.  I kept an eye on him and his breathing seemed labored.  The vet had told us to watch for that and to call them if it did. 

Sunday we'd let him outside and he'd just stand and stare across the yard.  And since his hearing had gone a year or so ago, we'd have to get his attention and beckon to him to come.  Randy and I stood out there and watched him for a while and talked about considering making a decision that we hadn't wanted to make.  It was probably time.  Either way, I was calling the vet first thing when they opened Monday morning. 

He only did minimal mooching during the SuperBowl.  He enjoyed some kielbasa and mini corn dogs, then went and laid down in the hallway, being his usual speedbump self.  He was really restless Sunday night.  He kept moving from the pile of dirty clothes at the foot of our bed, to the bare floor, to the bathroom rug, to his crate in the living room.  I laid in bed and watched him for a while.  He was laying outside of our bathroom with his head up but looking the other way, toward the bedroom door. After a long time, he finally put this head down and sighed - his usual sign of going to sleep.  

Monday I got up and we went outside like usual.  He took a pee and I noticed (it was barely 6am so I wasn't completely awake yet) he was a bit stumbly as he wandered off toward the back of the yard.  I looked up at the tree branches like I always do, taking deep breaths of the cold air.  Then I looked back down, it looked like he was laying in the yard.  I thought maybe he'd fallen over while trying to poo again, so I went out to rescue him.  As soon as the light from my phone washed over him, he looked up at me and then his head lolled back.  I freaked and called Randy who was still in bed.  By the time Randy got some sweats on and came outside, I had carried him up to the back porch, but he was already gone.

**********

A coworker had told me about a neighbor of her mom's who had a Beagle puppy that they wanted to get rid of.  Their Great Dane was "using him as a chew toy" and asked if we'd be interested.  I called Randy, who always had Beagles while growing up, and he immediately said yes.  

This was December 2004.

This toy didn't last long.  He happily destroyed almost every toy we ever got for him. 

Clearly not a fan of that snow!

The people we got him from *claimed* he was purebred Beagle but conveniently couldn't find his papers due to moving.  I didn't care about that - I wanted his medical records, which also happened to be lost.  I learned soon after that, he most likely had no medical records.

A month after we'd brought him home, I had him at the vet. I don't remember his exact symptoms, but he was sick.  He was supposed to stay overnight at the vet, but they called me later saying I needed to take him to the animal emergency room NOW because he had parvo.  I put him in the front seat of my car and while I was driving, he managed to weasel himself (and the cone he was wearing) across my lap.  He already knew I was his mommy. 

He spent 3 days in isolation at the emergency vet and we went to go see him every day.  We had to wear paper gowns over our clothes and step into a bleach bath when we left the room.   Happily - he survived (obviously!!) and we brought him home a couple days before Christmas.  He was still on meds and Randy and I had to learn how to give him fluids using an IV.  That was not fun at all. 

The Christmas rolled around.  He manged to get into our Christmas stockings and the little shit ate over a pound of chocolate!  With him still recovering from parvo, we knew we had to do something quickly.  Randy looked online and learned that hydrogen peroxide will induce vomiting in dogs.  So I held him over the kitchen sink and Randy poured a couple tablespoons-ful into his mouth and BAM.  We didn't have long to wait.   After he'd emptied his tummy, I sat on the floor and Jack buried his head under my arm and hid for a while. 

People always asked if he was named after Jack Sparrow with his 'eye liner'.

He had the most wonderfully expressive eyes. 

He loved to tear up tennis balls!

Ball?

Sometimes we wondered if he thought he was a cat, since we had 2 when we brought him home. 

He loved to go for walks!

Tired after a case of the Zoomies at Aunt Laurie's house. 

Quit taking pics and let's go for a walk!

He always 'helped' me set up for Halloween.

This is one of my favorite pictures, my 'pack' of Beagles.  

One of his favorite places on earth was Laurie's house. 

 The first time he met one of the horses was so cute!  I'd taken him to the barn with me and opened Captain (the gray horse)'s stall.  Being a typical Beagle, he had his nose to the ground and followed me into the stall.  He stopped when he ran into a hoof and sniffed it.  I watched him stop and just stare at that huge hoof, then his eyes slowly travel up Captain's leg and finally at Captain who had his head down, looking.  When Jack realized he was looking at a really big animal, he yelped and ran out of the stall.  It was so funny!  So I picked him up and carried him back to meet Captain from a less scary angle.  After that, he was never afraid of the horses and would happily go into their stalls and roam around under them, grabbing the occasional "snack" and cleaning up any spilled grain. 

I'm so glad the horses were used to him, because when he got older and his hearing went, he wasn't as careful as to where he was, but they watched for him and would go around him when he was laying in the middle of the barn. 

He will always be my baby boy. 

 It looks like him & Rusty are both judging me.   

I probably had food. 

All the dogs had been banished from the kitchen at Thanksgiving - but this way he could be sure not to miss any food particles that may have hit the floor. 

 

 I got him his coat this past fall.  He got a lot of use out of it!

We had that darn Polar Vortex come thru recently and it was so cold in our house!  

Here, he's sharing his blanket with Rusty. 

I could share 1000 more stories about going for walks, getting into trouble, chasing squirrels, going up north, etc.  We all loved him so much. 

After he passed, I called this place called Faithful Companion which is a pet cremation place.  These people were so nice!  From the very gentle sounding man on the phone who helped us make the arrangements, to the retired K9 policeman who came to our house (Randy says he got a police escort) to pick him up and gave us all the time we needed to say goodbye, to the nice man who brought him back home to us the next day (and tried not to laugh at Rusty checking out the bag holding the urn) - they all made this situation a little less painful.   

 This beautiful cherrywood box is what is what is currently holding his ashes.  

This spring, we're going to spread some in our back yard and some up in Laurie's pasture where her dogs Morgan and Barney (as well as horses Captain and Princess) are buried. 

This frame now holds photos of all of our angel babies. 

Skeeter

Chester

Maggie

Jack

💗💗 RIP 💗💗