74.6.71.#.

OK ... I have one question, I check Sitemeter more frequently than I ever should. Honestly. As you know, most of the people who read this blog are ME. I check it and re check it and check it again. I fear that someone will read my writing and then I fear that no one will. Yikes help me@!

So as I check that Sitemeter place I find that there is a frequent checker and the information that is gleaned is that the checker is 74.6.71.#. -- I don't know who you are and I don't really want to but honestly couldn't you some time just say hi.....read this and pffft or whatever.


Just Sayin

Stains and all

Our holiday was so nice, except for the weather which was wildly blowing wind and driving pounding rain. The fam arrived around 2pm and the eating of everything in the house began. This year it was just my brother-in-law and his family. He has two girls and they are just so great...one is 19 and the other is about 23. They are a joy. We just talked and laughed and for two young women, they have the memory thing going. I always have used the same crocheted table cloth for ever at every holiday and for many many years now the holidays have mostly been at our house. Although all the family wasn't here for Thanksgiving (they will be on Christmas Eve), I still did the usuals. All the nieces and nephews look for the cloth and ask about the stains. "This one," I will say, "is where your grandmother spilled the gravy and here, the blue stain, is where the candle dripped on Christmas Day 1990. It fell over when your Uncle so and so passed the plate of cranberry sauce and I know that because here, here is the stain from that." They love that cloth and have told me that I have to leave it to each and every one in my will. I love that they love the thing and the foolish stories made up long ago about stains that I just couldn't remove and the Scottish penny pinching that kept me from buying another. The big thing about that table cloth is that my grandmother crocheted it and so....how could anyone not use it on a family day, stains and all. (To tell the truth, the stains aren't really that obvious....except for the blue one.) Have a wonderful day and share some family memories...that's how we live on here on this planet.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everybody. We are smoking our turkey. I use the word we loosely. By we I mean my husband. We are having family late in the day since some have to work. The work of people in nursing homes never ends or takes a holiday. Anyway. The husband, he is smoking the bird and cooking up a storm. He loves to do it and I love to watch.

Big surprise! We are keeping the rescue dog who arrived last saturday. She is such a wonderful dog. She is loving to all and fun and smart and beautiful. And that is just the beginning. More on her later.

Hope everyone has a great day with good friends and family and pets and good food and on and on I go.

Wrong holiday but God Bless Us Everyone.

Some of my Week (weak?)

Well this week has been so tough. Yeah, I know it's only Wednesday. I am thanking God that He only made the week 7 days long. I'll just hit the highlights. Vegetable soup. I love it and make it in vast quantities since the Jenny Craig way allows free vegetables and beef broth, low sodium of course. The soup can be eaten in vast quantities all day long and not interfere with the diet. I am now only semi-Jenny but determined to keep going in a less costly way. Enter the soup which I make every other week or so since, let me repeat, I make huge amounts. Well there I was, making huge amounts and it was on the stove and I have made two trips to the store since I forgot we ran out of carrots and hubby needed onions for the beef stock he was going to make. Bubble, bubble soup on the stove. Enter my helpful husband who, perhaps like most husbands, has a habit of being helpful when I am doing just about anything. He rearranges, alters, moves, suggests, you know, helpful things, the kind that make your teeth ache and shoulders seize up with the tension of not saying much more than "Thank you Honey, I appreciate your helpful hints and actions." Right. The lid is lifted, the soup is stirred and he says, "This might taste even better with some tomato paste", of course he said that as he was adding the paste. The paste was in a tube, had been opened, had been stored unrefrigerated in a cabinet. As he added it he read the refrigerate after opening direction on the tube. Voila, ruined soup.

Then the bloodwork I have to have done on a regular basis. No big deal. Usually the order is good for 90 days from the doctor's visit but the rules? they have changed. Thirty days from the visit the order is gone. I called both doctors who wrote these things over a week ago to have them renewed so I could go in this morning and wrap it up. Fasting. Got to the lab at 7:30, filled out the paper work and at 7:40, record time by the way, I am called in. There I find only one of the tests has been re-ordered and it is the stupid one, the one that was just an after thought, the might as well check this too as long as we're doing all of this other stuff. That one. Here I am, back home with every bit of my blood still coursing through me instead of some in a test tube.

Sigh. There's a lot more but those are the two that are making me filled with rage. Forget about the Democrats and cut and run and OMG George McGovern???????? WTF and I mean that in the most civilized way. I know God is on His throne and in charge and always with us. I want lightening bolts to come down in the very near vicinity of the big mouthed gloating fools who should have gone off to the Zen seminaries they so admired in the 60's and contemplated their own navels instead of inflicting their wacko lunacies on the rest of us.

Peace, Man.

Where's my dog??????

Searching for what? Well, I told you my, our, dog passed away. Eleven years of a dog in the house and prior to him ten years of another dog in the house and prior to him....well, you get it. Yes, we are missing our dog. I also told you that we are on the adopt a dog train and by golly it has pulled out of the station. Like a horse with the bit in his teeth, my husband is on the move. We head for New Hampshire today to meet a Katrina dog. He is about 3 or 4 and a Rottie of course. We met him last week but in a rather chaotic situation. He seemed like a well mannered boy and considering the circus going on around him, he behaved quite well but he was rather distracted. He was more interested in keeping his eye on the other dogs and people around him than getting to know us. So, off we go to meet him again.

Well, this is much later and we have driven through rain and wind and fog and indeed the dog, he is still distracted. He is a really nice boy but we found that he has been in a kennel for more than a year and probably longer than that. No one knows if he is house broken since he has not been in a house. The reality is we will be adopting a 4 year old puppy. Do you know Rotties? Well, a 4 month old puppy is tough enough. Add the years and the poundage and wow....so we have moved on. It probably broke my heart more than hubby's even though he was the one with the big yen. This pooch was a nice boy. He just needed a lot of us and I'm not sure we're up to it. Fortunately there are more outside the door. The liason is meeting more prospects as I write. Now we are making contact with the foster parents of a 2 year old female. She is a beauty and as sweet as can be. She has been in a home for the duration of her orphaned period and will be coming to our home this weekend. We can keep her for a day or three or forever. Her only downside is that she loves people so much. How bad can it be? We'll find out.

I am really ready to drink some wine now and relax. God Bless.

Love the Veteran.

I had so many uncles I lose count. On Veteran's Day, every one of my uncles.....they were Veterans. One was asked to return to the Philippines to be honored since he jumped on
Corregidor and was lost in action for more than six months. He, my uncle Doug, said that his father would say at the dinner table ( there were nine kids, two of my grandmother's sisters and two of my grandfather's brothers at the table -- lots of mouths to feed) that if any one left any food on their plate that they would chase a crow for a number of miles for whatever was left behind. My uncle Doug, parachuted onto Corregidor and was lost for months. He only ever said that he would have chased that crow that his father told him he would have chased. I loved my uncle a lot and more than that. He was the bomb. Thanks Uncle Doug.......... Love You....

Shaking it Off

I'm back and I'm better. Don't know how or why but I can guess that God has shakem me around and said that I am indulging myself in self pity and that's so unattractive and unproductive. I heard a fellow yesterday talk about Bishop Tutu (sp?) stating that you could be an arrogant victim or a wounded healer. I realized that arrogant victims practice very hard as I was. It's not that easy to fall into the victim place and feel entitled to special treatment because of the way the world was treating you. You really have to work at it -- so I am not going to stay in that place and hone those victim skills.

Case closed.

My husband has decided that we will be getting another dog and it won't be a puppy. We will rescue one and has pulled us into the world of dog adoption which is very comprehensive I must say. They want references and call neighbors and make house visits and contracts are signed and so on and so on. We are to meet some possible new kids and of course will want each and every one.

I'll be letting you know how it goes.

Other things have occurred which make me state loudly and clearly. God is on the throne and whatever is whirling around us, He is in charge. That should settle your inner storms. I also read today's thought in My Utmost for His Highest and it concerned the Holy Spirit praying for things that we don't know we need but do. Isn't that amazing? While we go about our business the Holy Spirit is taking care of us and those prayers go direct. When things occur, it may be that the prayers of the Holy Spirit have been answered. I have to go think on that. Ponder as they say.

God Bless and Take Care.

Grief

I'm up with the birds since the Terminix man is supposed to be here for the regular check up. My blues are bluer. We had to put our wonderful dog to sleep on tuesday. I don't know how to get rid of the pain but I know I will. He was such a good boy for all 11 years we had him. He was a clown and good friend and the joy of the neighborhood. He had certain stops he had to make daily and if his friends were in they would come out, greet him with hugs and pats and cookies. He would wag his body since his tail was docked and he was always very vocal, whining and singing as he waited for his hugs and treats. If the house was empty he would pine all the way to the next house. His whole body slumped and he had that eeyore look about him. If he met his friends on the street he had them trained to carry cookies so the greeting and hugging and treats could happen wherever they met. He would still stop at their house however, convinced that somehow they would be there too. I miss him and grieve for him and worry about my husband who is taking this even harder than I.

I thank God that we had that wonderful companion for all the time we did and thank Him again for being so merciful by allowing us to be with our pal as he drifted to sleep. His onset of terrible pain was swift and short lived, another of God's mercies.

God will ease the pain and dry our tears. He is ever with us and always merciful.