How I Do Laundry…

1. Walk into laundry room and stop in my tracks.

2. Look at the laundry the kids have thrown all over the floor and wonder how they manage to pass PE in school when they have never been able to throw dirty laundry into a hamper with any accuracy.

3. Notice all of the detritus mixed in with the dirty clothes all over the floor.

4. Try to remember why I thought having children was a good idea.

5. Leave laundry room to look for rubber gloves because there’s no way I’m sorting through *that* without protection.

6. End up in kitchen, where I’m distracted by the dirty dishes that accumulated overnight.

7. Do dishes.

8. Put all empty water bottles into recycling container.

9. Empty the now full recycling container into the larger recycling bin in the garage.

10. Look at food in the freezer in the garage.

11. Ponder what to make for dinner later.

12. Realize I haven’t eaten breakfast yet.

13. Eat breakfast.

14. Go back to laundry room, realize I still don’t have the rubber gloves and fantasize about setting the laundry on fire.

15. Wonder why there’s a suitcase in the middle of the laundry room floor.

16. Think about how nice new luggage would be.

17. Browse luggage on ebags.com

18. Get an e-mail reminding me Mr. Grumpy’s birthday is next week.

19. Look for gift ideas on amazon.com

20. Notice one of my favorite authors has a new book out & add it to my Wishlist.

21. Realize we’ll probably be moving on my birthday.

22. Remember that the shelves in the laundry room need to be cleared off and the stuff on the shelves boxed up.

23. Decide that I will delegate the task of clearing off the shelves to someone else.

24. Remember I really need to get the laundry done.

25. Write blog post.

So…

I decided to put my blog back up because I thought that would be better than having nothing here. 

Things That Have Happened Since My Last Post

Mr. Grumpy came home from Iraq in January.

Mr. Grumpy is now in the process of retiring from the Air Force.

The Grumpy Family is now in the process of getting ready to move NEXT MONTH.

We’re all doing well and in good health.

A day without the kids.

I slept in until 10 am.

I ate breakfast and then played Family Feud Online for a few hours.

I ate lunch then took a shower.

I checked out the after-Christmas sale at the BX, washed the car and picked up groceries just for me.

After putting the groceries away, I goofed off online for a couple of hours.

I was attacked by a small grey cat.

I had cheese and crackers for dinner, with veggies from a veggie tray.

I fought off a small grey cat who really likes Port Wine cheese.

I tried to teach the aforementioned small grey cat some tricks for treats.

I goofed off online for a little while longer.

I realized I’m really boring.

Let it snow!

Last Wednesday, December 17, it snowed here!  I’m talking about a real honest-to-goodness snow!  It was AWESOME!

It’s all gone now but we enjoyed it while it lasted.

Good news.

I took Lily, my dog, to the vet on Friday afternoon and the vet was able to offer some hope.   She thinks Lily has something called Geriatric Vestibular Disorder and the symptoms of this disorder are spot-on with what Lily has shown. The symptoms are also, quite often, confused with those of a stroke.

Essentially, GVD makes the dog feel off balance and seasick, thus making it hard for the dog to ever feel comfortable which leads to the pacing and odd behaviour.  Of course, feeling queasy all the time also effects the appetite.

The vet said I could try giving Lily 25mg/day of motion sickness meds and it should alleviate her symptoms. 

I opted to try that and, so far, it seems to be doing the trick! Lily is eating well and she’s able to relax and nap.

The kids and I are much relieved!

A Difficult Decision

I don’t write about my dog, Lily, much.  She doesn’t do anything odd, she stays out of trouble, she’s mostly quiet and she’s just a good good dog.  However, she’s now 15 and that means she’s pretty much elderly. 

When I took her to the vet, several months ago, the vet noticed that one of her pupils was not reactive to light. She put Lily through the paces and noticed some unevenness in her gait.  I’d written it off as her just being less spry and less flexible due to her age. The vet did a few more things and told me she felt Lily had had a stroke recently.  I guess, in dogs, it’s not always as obvious as with people and can easily be missed.

At that time, I was given the option of putting her through a bunch of tests with no guarantee they’d find anything or be able to fix whatever had caused the stroke, or just letting her live her life without the stress of tests and vet visits.  I knew that, given her age, we most likely would not have a great deal of time left with her and I didn’t want that time to be stressful for her.  I wanted whatever time she had left to be normal and stress-free.

Early Thanksgiving morning, Lily suddenly stood next to me and looked at me with the strangest expression I’ve ever seen.  I knew something was wrong and got down on the floor with her. I sat with her until she felt up to moving.  When she tried to move, she seemed to have lost all sense of balance and was unable to stand upright and could barely walk. I believe she had another stroke.

Being that it was very early in the AM and we don’t exactly live all that close to anywhere that I could take her, I spent the rest of the morning at Lily’s side. She’s such a good dog, even though she was obviously unwell she tried to get to the door so she could go to the bathroom outside. I ended up carrying her out and being her support so she could do her business.

The kids were very worried and I told them I would give her until the day after Thanksgiving and, if there was no improvement, I would have to take her to the vet to be put to sleep.  She showed a little improvement so I decided to take a wait and see approach.  Over the weekend, she regained most of her mobility but she’s just not herself. She’s not drinking very much, she’ll eat only if I offer her special foods and she’s started to have trembling and panting spells.  She’s begun behaving oddly too.  She’s become incredibly clingy, she does not want me out of her sight for even a second.  She’s tried to climb into the shower with me which is very strange because she HATES baths and getting wet. 

We only have a vet on base on Fridays, so I made an appointment for her for Friday afternoon.  Even though I can see that she’s not herself and I know she is the equivelant of a 105 year old lady, I’m still struggling with this decision.

I’m sorry.

I apologize for not sending out any Thanksgiving greetings last week. 

Things got a bit stressful around here and quite a few things I’d hoped to do did not get done.

This is just too funny.

Naked Mohawk-Baby Carrot Jockeys

“Carve whatever you want.”

I told my 16 year old son to carve whatever he wanted to into one of the pumpkins I picked up for Halloween.

And he did.

 

(Yes, I know I need to mow the lawn.)

What’s New.

Well, Mr. Grumpy has returned to the sandbox.  We really enjoyed having him home for a couple of weeks. I’ll be so glad when this deployment is OVER.

GrumpySon is now 16 years old! How the heck did that happen?  It seems like it was just yesterday he was toddling around and pretending our coffee table was the wheel on “Wheel of Fortune”.   He’s growing up TOO FAST!

I had most of my hair chopped off just prior to Mr. Grumpy coming home for R&R.  I love it, the kids love it, Mr. Grumpy asked how it was any different. (Butthead.)

I got a new car! It’s a 5-door Toyota Yaris liftback and it is cute as a button.  I love it!

Well, I think that’s everything new and or noteworthy and I need to finish decorating for Halloween.