I'm Fine.....

Just wanted to let you all know that I am fine, pretty much.  I have not slept much all week long, just a few hours a night.  I am so glad this is Friday and I can sleep in late tomorrow.  Usually I just get to sleep between 4 and 5 a.m. and then the alarm goes off at 6:20 so I can be babysitting my granddaughter by a little after 7.  I can stay awake while I am watching her because we are constantly playing and if she takes a morning nap...usually does for 45 min or an hour then I sleep with her, then I come home at noon and take a nap.  Today on the way home I was too sleepy to drive safely and realized I have got to get some sleep. I have had insomnia for a very long time but losing Max was a very hard thing and has not helped me sleep....I just lay awake thinking about him, bills, my kids and grandkids, the nice things all you guys have written me and the encouragement and words of comfort, what all i need to be doing around here, wondering if I will ever get another job, etc...just think of anything and everything but sleep but I am hanging in there and every day is better as far as me bawling....I didn't cry once today so, there.  All my adult life I have had trouble sleeping at night but in the daytime all I have to do is shut my eyes and I am out.  My internal clock is just out of sync I think.  I am not scared at night...just wide awake.  Tomorrow I simply must clean house like a mad woman, like I told you I was going to do last Saturday but then I didn't and Max started having his seizures Saturday night and my life went to hell in a hand basket but......Christmas is coming and I have things I have got to do so I have got to make myself get up tomorrow and clean this house from ceiling to floor, end to end.  Sunday my daughters and grandsons are coming over and I hope to have that marathon day of playing games that I planned for last Sunday.  I will be making chili and cookies and I think some more of that honey popcorn I wrote about several posts back.  I am through with my Christmas shopping...I just get presents for my grandkids so I just have to wrap those and I will be done.  I would like to take my grandsons to see Christmas lights Sunday evening if we can.  It is suppose to start snowing Sunday night and Monday.  Weatherman says this storm could turn in to a big one and parts of our area could get 10 inches if conditions stay just right.  I don't mind a lot of snow like that except worry for everyone who has to get out and drive in it....which would be me every morning that I babysit.  If I were king of the world whenever it snowed I would shut everything down.  We don't get snow here that often and to me it is just crazy for people to be out driving in it.  Since we don't get snow that often my city doesn't have the snow equipment places up north probably have.  We have dump trucks loaded with sand to sand the streets and road graders but only enough that they can do the major streets.  When I worked for the library we would have storms making streets so unsafe that the city buses would not run but yet we had to be at work at the library.  I never quite understood that......too dangerous for buses to run but ok for employees to be out drivng in their cars to get to work.  Oh well, anyway, you may not hear from me for a few days while I am cleaning and doing things with my grandsons and then coping with lots of snow but I will be back eventually.  I am going to force myself to stay off the computer until I get my house totally clean.  When I am depressed or worried or stressed or my dog has died and I want to NOT think about things I get on the AARP website and play mahjongg....for hours on end...I can not play that game and think of anything else so I find myself just playing and playing, even when I no longer really want to....I tell myself just one more game and an hour later I am still playing.  Anyway, give me a few days to get some things done but don't worry that I am not posting.  I am fine....missing my Max baby, but I so appreciate all the emails I got and the comforting words.  They really do help, and I needed to hear from you so thank you.  Now, since it is almost 1 a.m. I am going to make some sleepytime tea and try to go to sleep.  Have a good weekend, y'all.

I'm Proud of You, Trey

Trey & Max

My son just earned his Associates degree from Amarillo College.  I am so very proud of him.  Next he is applying to the University of Washington in Seattle to earn his Bachelor's degree and then earn a Master's in Library Science.  He has loved books and libraries since he was old enough to know what a book was, and I could not be more pleased.   

A Card From My Veterinarian

I received a card in the mail today.  I appreciate my vet and his staff for the good care they have always given my dogs and the compassion they have extended to me.  On the front of the card it says:

Just this side of Heaven lies the Rainbow Bridge. When a beloved pet dies, it goes to the Rainbow Bridge.  It makes friends with other animals and frolics over rolling hills and peaceful, lush meadows of green.  Our pets do not thirst or hunger.  The old and sick are made young once more; the maimed and the ill become healed and strong.  They are as healthy and playful as we remember them in days gone by.  Though happy and content, they still miss someone very special, someone they had to leave behind.  Together, the animals chase and play, but the day comes when a pet will suddenly stop and look into the distance...bright eyes intent, eager body quiviering.  suddenly recognizing you, your pet bounds quickly across the green fields and into your embrace.  You celebrate in joyous reunion. You will never again separate.  Happy tears and kisses are warm and plenty; your hands caress the face you missed. You look once more into the loving eyes of your pet and know you never really parted.  You realize that though out of sight, your love has been remembered.  And now, you cross the rainbow bridge together...

                                                                  M. A. Preston

On the inside it says:

Our loved companions never really leave us.  They live on in the happy memories of the times shared together.  Please accept our sincerest sympathy for your loss.   Dr. Wise and staff

A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day in my world

I have bawled since Max started doing the seizure thingys saturday night at 10:30.  Dr Wise is a real nice vet, prob my age or older and has a practice out here in the middle of us poor people.  He was very compassionate.  I think Max knew he was going to die that day because Monday morning he woke me up about 1 a.m. and he wanted to eat...when he wanted something he pawed me in a certain way and I would say do you want out, do you want to eat, do you want a cookie, do you want under the blanket....until I guessed right and he would let me know.  He was really a smart dog.  Anyway he ate in the middle of the night for the first time in 24 hours or so, and then he wanted in my lap and gave me lots of kisses and hugged me and we talked.  He and I stayed up most of the rest of the night until about 5 a.m. and we both went to sleep.  When I finally got up and put him and the girls outside he seemed to be doing real good, walked all over the yard and checked everything out and smelled everything...stayed outside more than he has in a long time.  When I put the leash on him to go to the vet's he was excited to have a leash on because he knew that meant going for a ride or a walk and beat us out the door.   At the vet's he walked just fine, not wobbly like he was Sunday morning .... had plenty of energy to hop off the scale and take off into a doorway next to the scale.  He had his ears perked up like when he felt good while the vet was examining him and taking blood.  Acted much better than he did on Sunday except for his body cavity was so bloated looking.  When the vet discovered his stomach was full of blood he told me Max was going to die before night unless we could stop the internal bleeding.  He told me we had two options, he would do exploratory surgery and if there was something he could do he would but if not he would just sew him up and call me, or I could have him put him down right then but that it was critical that we do something for him right then or he would just bleed out.  Because of his lab work they did real quick he was hopeful and said if he could remove the tumor that was bleeding out Max would have quite a few years left even though he was 11, so casey and I were really hopeful too and opted for the surgery.  When they took Max off to prep him for the surgery Max looked me right in the eye and I told him it was going to be all right and he was a good boy.  I asked the vet if I could take Max to a park one more time and to let Trey see him just in case but the vet said no we really didn't have time, he would bleed to death first.  Said he would call us in about an hour when he saw what was in there but it was just 30 minutes when he called and said Max had cancer just everywhere and there wasn't anything he could do for him....so we told him to go ahead and put him down, he said if he didn't max would die shortly anyway and I didn't want him to just lay there and bleed to death.  We had just picked up Trey when the vet called so we came home and Trey and I dug a grave, we went to the vet's and Casey and Trey went inside and got Max.  He was in a black trash bag inside a box but when Trey set him in my lap I opened it up.  Max didn't look dead.  I could see his big brown eyes.  He was limp but it was my Maxie.  I told Trey and Casey I didn't think he was really dead but they kept telling me yes he was.  Trey said he didn't have a pulse and Dr Wise would have made sure.  I just didn't want him to be dead.  When we got home I sat on the swing outside and took him out of the box and held him so my girl dogs and Casey's dog could smell him.  I had heard that if you let them smell a dead dog the other dogs would understand that he was gone but I don't think my dogs got it.  The girls obviously were looking for him when we went to bed last night and when I came home from babysitting today.  After the dogs smelled him and I cuddled him awhile and Trey hugged him we wrapped him in a blanket and Trey, Casey and I buried him.  It was just awful.  It has been drizzling and misting and cold ever since and that is pretty much how I feel....like a cold, dreary, sad, drippy day. Max hated being cold.  I wish I had cremated him instead but it all happened so fast I didn't call about it before we buried him.  I don't know what I would have done without my daughter and son.  After we finished Casey and I took Trey home and I texted my daughter-in-law to see if I could come hug my granddaughter since we were so close.  It was the only thing I could think of that might make me feel any better. 

Max Has Passed Away



2000 - 2011

Max was truly the absolutely best dog in the world.  He started off life with a couple who thought they would breed him and make lots of money.  Trouble was they didn't really want a dog.  They put an ad in the paper after having him and a female dog for just a few weeks.  One of my daughters saw the ad and even though we had a schnauzer she thought we needed to go see this one.  After much begging from my children I told them okayyy, we will go look...(yeah, right)..  The couple who had him "just got tired of messing with them."  It was a cold November day and they took us outside where the dogs lived.  Hiding underneath some lawn furniture was this tiny little ball of light brown fur, just a baby.  He had so many dead leaves matted in his filthy fur he looked like he had been tarred and feathered.  They had named him Boonie because they "had to drive way out in the boondocks" to get him from a breeder.  The female dog they also didn't want was named "that squattin' dog."  These were not dog people.  My son, Trey, told me Mom, we can't leave that little dog here to go through life being called Boonie so we brought him home and named him Max.  I took him to the groomer and when she brought him out to me I said no, that isn't MY dog.  She said sure it is, we just cleaned him up!  Here was a beautiful, snow white, absolutely gorgeous dog.  Those people have no idea what they threw away.  He was the smartest, sweetest, gentlest, loving dog ever....and gorgeous.  He is the only dog I know that actually gave hugs.  He would put both his feet around our necks and press his cheek to ours.  He loved his family and had the greatest personality.  He thought his role in life was to let people pet him.  He never met a stranger and loved to go for walks.  He loved people food, the milk left after I ate my cereal, and going to a park.  He did not know he was a dog.  He wasn't just a pet, he was my very best friend, confidante, companion, hugged me through many heartaches and let me cry into his fur.  He brought me a lot of joy, laughs, love.  He gave me kisses and loved me unconditionally and you can't ask for anything better than that.  Rest in peace, Max baby.  I will never stop missing you.

The Help,,,the movie

We just finished watching The Help.  It has been 2 years since I read the book and I don't remember it exactly but I can tell you the book is always much better than the movie....and this was a really good movie.  I am glad they skirted around violence and didn't actually show it.  The movie takes place in the south in the 60's and deals with the mentality of the area in that time.  Southern men evidently took the Lord's name in vain often.  That was the only thing I didn't like about the movie.  I guess that is the way it was but I wish they had used other words.  I loved the actors that portrayed Minnie,  Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis who plays Aibileen.  This movie made me want to go to my son's home and hug my toddler granddaughter tight.  It made me want to call up my black friends and apologize for what their ancestors had to live through.  It made me want to applaud when Minnie takes a pie to a former employer and when she leaves her abusive husband.  It made me want to embrace women who feel left out and made to feel inferior and befriend them. It made me want to encourage everyone to follow their dreams.  it made me want to read the book again.  And, LOL, it made me really crave my momma's chocolate pie! 

Poor Max; and 7 Layer Dip or burrito mixture, and my weird sense of humor

Well, scratch the grandsons are coming for 9 hours plans and a marathon of game playing at my house.  My daughter got her shift changed so she could be home with them...which is good because I don't want them to see Max today.  He had another go round of seizures last night.  One around 10:30, midnight and around 3 a.m.  We will be at the vet's when he opens on Monday.  It is scarey and traumatic for Max and for me.  He is very wobbly the few steps he will try to take so I carried him outside to do his calls of nature and that all seems to be working fine, and have him on a soft pillow by the heater vent.  I stayed up until about 4 a.m. holding him in my lap until he stopped breathing hard and seemed to want down so I am worn out today.  Casey is on her way over and we are going to watch The Help and eat 7 layer dip.  Surely you make 7 Layer Dip???  If not here is what you do:
1.  take a large can of refried beans and warm in a saucepan
pour into a dish...I suggest a 9 x 11 cake pan
top with:
2.   lots of shredded cheddar cheese
3.  a can of diced black olives
4.  a can of chopped green chilis
5.  salsa.....like Pace Picante sauce, homemade, or my favorite, a local brand Tascosa Picante Sauce
6.  guacamole
7.  sour cream
          layer those in any order you want but I like my cheese on top of the hot beans so it melts
serve with Tostitos Brand Scoops or any tortilla chip of your liking along with Dr Pepper to drink and that is just a pretty darn good meal.
     Actually I never layer this in a dish because one son doesn't like black olives or guacamole and my grandsons don't like sour cream so I just put all the ingredients on the counter, set out bowls and let everyone make their own dip like they want it.  I prefer guacamole made with fresh avacodos and one of those packet seasoning mixes that you can get at the grocery store but if avacodos are too expensive (I don't live where they are grown so they are trucked in and are often high or don't look all that good) I buy ready made guacamole.....it is in our produce section right by the lettuce at my store and the brand name is Wholly Guacamole all natural Classic.  While you are at the store buy some flour tortillas and use the leftover dip to make the world's best burritos.  If you have leftover taco meat you can add that to the mixture for your burritos.  I like onion in everything so I add diced onion to mine.
    Thinking about Dr Pepper.....twenty or thirty years ago I read this entry in Readers Digest Life in These United States column and it just tickled my funny bone.  I have a weird sense of humor I gather.  Sometimes something tickles my funny bone that doesn't seem to crack other people up that much.  The RD entry was a frazzled business woman who was in an unfamiliar part of the country for a meeting.  She went to a fast food place and ordered a meal.  The order taker asked what would she like for her drink and, not knowing what was offered in that part of the country...Coke, Pepsi, Dr Pepper, Mr. Pibb etc so she asked for "any dark carbonated beverage".  When the employee...who obviously thought her request was humorous... handed her the drink he said "and here is a complimentary white paper cylinder sucking device."  (Yes, I remember when straws were made out of paper).  I know, I'm weird but that just cracked me up!  Even now, every time the lady at the Toot n Totum driveup window hands me my 44 oz Dr Pepper and what I see as my "red plastic cylinder sucking device" I smile!   :)  A couple of years ago the library got a new book...Cake Wrecks: When Professional Cakes Go Hilariously Wrong by Jen Yates.  My daughter was driving us home and I was reading it in the car.  It not only tickled my funny bone...it shook it silly.  I laughed so hard I just roared, hiccuped, tears poured down my face.  I laughed so hard I was gasping for air in the middle of an asthma attack but I kept reading it out loud to her and laughing til my daughter told me "MOM! Put that book down right now before you die! We will have to put in your obituary that you laughed yourself into a deadly asthma attack!" I didn't put it down.  I just laughed, cried, gasped for air and enjoyed it.  I don't know why it struck me so funny but it did.  I bought a copy for my sister.  She thought some of the cakes were funny but she didn't laugh until she cried and gasped for air.  Months later I checked it out again and yep, it still struck me insanely funny.  I am just weird that way.  Did you laugh, cry, gasp for air, ROFLOL???

2 INGREDIENT FRUIT DIP or FRUIT PIZZA COOKIE

My sister just asked for this recipe...... it couldn't be easier and is soooooo good.  We eat it with apple slices and think it tastes like carameled apples.
MARSHMALLOW FRUIT DIP
1 (9 oz.) jar marshmallow creme
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
Combine marshmallow creme and cream cheese in bowl; blend well. Chill in refrigerator. Serve with pineapple chunks, mandarin orange sections, strawberries, grapes, bananas (i have never successfully dipped a banana but it would be good on a cookie) and apple wedges.  If you so inclined you could make a sugar cookies.....don't overbake so they will be soft, frost with this dip and place little slices of fruit on top for a little fruit pizza..... an eat-as-you-make-it cookie as if you let the fruit sit for long it wouldn't be very pretty and you don't want to leave the cream cheese mixture out of the fridge for hours.

Cookies! Games! Grandkids! Good Times!

Oh my goodness!  These are GOOD cookies!  And all you have to do is heat up the oven, open the package, break apart the pieces and bake.  I never met a cookie I didn't like, I don't think, and I am not even all that big on mint and chocolate combo but these are really good cookies.  At my Wal-Mart they are $2.50 a pkg for 24 cookies. 

Taylor had her first choc chip cookie this week.  Yes, I was the one to give it to her!  She is no longer a baby but a toddler and it is so fun to see her turning into a little girl.  She got a tea set for her birthday.  The little tea pot makes gurgling sounds when you "pour."  She pretends to pour, drink, and then turn her cup upside down and "spill" it and then grabs a wipey or blanket or whatever she can reach and pretends to wipe it up!  She likes to clean up "spills."  I love our botanical gardens.  This week they are open in the evening so that people can come out and see the gardens covered in Christmas lights.  I would love to go but it is very cold here.  Today we had what the weatherman calls frozen fog all day long...it was scarey driving at 7 a.m. and then coming home since we don't have fog like this often and certainly not all day long.  The "frozen fog" lightly fell in what the weather guy described as powdered sugar snow. It is 28 now and will get down to 18 degrees later.  Neither of my daughters thought going to the gardens to stroll around in the 20 degree weather with frozen fog falling sounded like something they wanted to do. It is at times like these that I wish I had a husband, if he could be an exceptionally good man and who enjoyed going places.  I purchased my annual gift to myself, a Mary Engelbreit wall calendar.  I love her illustrations....they are just happy!  I love new calendars too...all those blank squares to fill in with family members birthdays and such. My project for the weekend is to transfer every photo I have taken of Taylor this past year to disks to give to my daughter-in-law, her mom and her cousin that lives with them.  I have never saved photos on a disk so I will have to see if I can figure it out.  I made a photo book at Shutterfly.com from her very first photo to 1st birthday pictures and got it ordered.  Since I am almost 58 the odds of me being here when Taylor is in her 20's is slim so I plan to make a book for her each year so she will know all the things she and I did together when she was little.  Hate your job?  On the news just now they said a water main has broken in our town and city crews are out working on it.  As I said, it is 28 degrees, pitch black outside (it is a little after 6 p.m.---no telling how late they will be working on it), the frozen fog is thick, the wind is blowing...not fiercely but any wind in this temp would be miserable AND to be soaking wet working on a broken water main???? I can't imagine much that would be more miserable tonight and they don't make much money, either!  My other weekend plans?  Saturday clean house like a crazy woman, do some decorating, see if my daughter will cut my hair, watch The Help if a dvd is available to rent close by, put stew in the crockpot for Saturday dinner, and make a pot of chili to have for Sunday when my grandsons will be spending 9 hours with me.  While they are here I plan to play games all afternoon, make sugar cookies, let them wrap the presents I got for them to give their mom,  and watch a Christmas movie if there is one to be had at the neighborhood redbox dvd rental. 

LOL! This pic is upside down and I don't know how to turn it! 

She won---again!

My daughter went to her work Christmas party tonight and in a drawing she won a tv!!!  She was very excited, and I was excited for her as well.  She is finally getting her life together after some very rough times and I am proud of her for how well she is doing.  She recently moved into a nice home --- which she has not had in a long time --- and she has room on her kitchen counter for this little tv and it was just a nice thing for her to win.  When she called to tell me about it she sounded so happy...it was good to hear her sound happy.  The funny thing is that this is the 2nd tv she has won in her life.  Several years ago her apartment complex had a drawing for those tenants that paid their December rent on time and the prize was a tv.  She won that one!    I went to Wal-Mart today and did the last of my Christmas shopping for my grandchildren today.  On the way I saw Clifford! You know Clifford, the Big Red Dog from children's books?  A car dealer had an old car....like a model T but I am not sure if that is what it was but an antique car parked in front of their office with this huge, gigantic Clifford sitting in it.  Tomorrow I am going to go back and take Taylor to see if we can take her picture with Clifford.  Whem my grandsons were little I bought Clifford stuffed dogs for them on Ebay----first thing, and probably only thing, I have purchased off Ebay.  They were so cool.  I got these two big Cliffords...he is laying down and about 3 feet long.  If you squeezed a paw he barked.  When Mason and Travis were about 2 and 3 they did the funniest thing with those Cliffords.  One boy would get in a bedroom and the other boy would get in a bedroom on the opposite side of the apartment, both "riding" a Clifford and they would run towards each other.  They would meet right in front of the entry to the kitchen in their apartment, crash into each other, dramatically fall off their Clifford's and roll, get up, hug and say exactly the same thing every time.....(Mason) "I'm sahwwy Twavis, I didn't see you thewe" (or however you spell 'there' when you can't pronounce r's) then Travis would say...every time "it's okay, I wuv you anyway."  They would hug tightly, turn, get on their Clifford's and ride off in the opposite direction.  Then they would do it again.  Say the same exact thing, crash in the same exact place in the same exact way.  It was a hoot.  For months they would do that over and over and over and over every day.  They are now almost 10 and 11 and they still have those Cliffords on their beds.  For Taylor's birthday two weeks ago they gave her much a smaller Clifford and his friend, T-bone.