Jack And His Blue Suede ♫♫……Robe

Well, it would not be right if I didn’t show you all Jack’s new robe. It is a beautiful blue. Mama sent it to him. I had to change it a little as Jack will not let you put his feet through anything so I made it armless and it just lays over his back with a tie under like the old one did. But doesn’t he look handsome.

Now to add a funny story to this. Son was standing at the door and I asked him if he would tighten up the neck ties on Jack’s robe as I didn’t get it pulled up far enough. Well, he squatted down and proceeded to untie the ties and was about to retie it when Jack started this rumble growl…don’t worry it is not a bad growl…and he started popping his jaws at son swinging his head from side to side popping his jaws. And son started laughing and said..”you are gonna have to do this Mom…he thinks I am trying to take his new robe”.  I cracked up.  Jack is very spoiled to his robe. It really does help his poor arthritic hips as you can see in the second picture by how he sits that he can’t sit normal.

We have had some of the most beautiful clouds at night. I have not seen such lights. Someone said it had something to do with something in the solar system. I don’t know but I do love it.

For A Little Fun- Mishka

I can’t sleep and so was looking at youtube. I love Mishka, the talking dog. They have one series where she answers questions from fans. But this video is my favorite…where Mishka says I love you and other cute things. Just keep watching for it does one video after the other.

Mishka singing in the shower

And Jack could have taken snow lessons from Mishka

And Mishka on television

videos by   gardea23

♫♫Christmas is A Coming♫♫…..And So Is A Snow Storm.

Christmas is a coming

the geese are getting fat

please to put a penny

in an old man’s hat

if you haven’t got a penny

a half a penny will do

if you haven’t got a half a penny

then may God bless you

video by xstchr

Today was the day to get the outside decorations up. While we were working on them, we learned that tomorrow a massive snow storm is due to hit and the report said 4-8 inches of snow with higher amounts of snow in Huerfano County and Pueblo.  Well, that is us, so we are about to be hit with a big storm and lots of snow. I love it.

video by DreamsILive

I will post pictures we take tonight later on, showing things lit up. Son put up our nativity with Joseph, Mary, Baby Jesus, a donkey and two lambs, large blow up Christmas balls on the tree, a polar bear that inflates with a Christmas hat on and one bush with lights on it.

We got the Christmas ball ornaments a few years ago and I love them. One year a lady showed up at the door and had one in her hand and wanted to know was it ours. Son, who always handles all that kind of stuff was behind me and I said the lady wanted to know had he lost his ball. I didn’t realize how that sounded at the time and son just about died. He says I can say things so naively and never even know what I have said.

I sat on a stool helping…of course you know I was a lot of help. LOL.  Here I am sitting on my stool and propping on my forearm crutches.

Son used the air compressor to inflate all the Christmas balls. I just love how they look in the tree.

And he set up the polar bear. He had to put bricks in the bottom of the polar bear to keep the wind from taking him off. I think he is so cute.

And I am saving the nativity to show later this evening when it is dark, cause it is so pretty lit up. He also put lights on the bush next to the bear.

And of course, Jack supervised from the door. Ha Ha

video by CookiesDen2 .

Euphoria Still Lingers

The euphoria and joy that permeated our lives yesterday still linger today. We vowed yesterday not to discuss the van at all so as to not ruin our Thanksgiving. And oh what a memorable one it was and still is as we dig into those left overs.

“This day and your life…are God’s gift to you, so give thanks and be joyful always!”

There was only one flaw in our Thanksgiving and I had the giggles while son was saying…”it is not funny”  but he too was smiling.  We relented and let Jack have some turkey and gravy. Well, last nite, Jack decided to sleep back in his cubbie in son’s room. Son said he heard this horrible scratching on the metal box by his bedroom door and it was Jack wanting to go out. I had to laugh as son said “not once…no no no…not twice…but FIVE times. How did that little turkey make all that???”  He had come through my bedroom door saying “that’s it…no more thanksgiving food for Jack!!”  I thanked him for letting me sleep.

All you need in the world is love and laughter. That’s all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other.

August Wilson

Today, we went out and looked at the van. I am still thankful we were able to get it home and that it happened when it did and NOT when I was heading to Colorado Springs for the heart stuff. As we checked it over, we realized this is more of a job than son and I can do. Yes I am mechanical. We are new here, but our neighbor has a shop behind his house, so son asked him if he would come take a look and see what it would cost to fix it. He told us what he would charge to jut take it apart and see what is wrong. And then we will go from there.

Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.

Henry Ward Beecher

A HUGE thank you to those of you that have donated towards the expense of repairing the van to help us get the van going again so that I do not have to ride in the little Jeep to the hospital. It touches my heart more than you will know. As soon as we know the cost, and are able to get it fixed, then I will remove the paypal link. We are not out to make money off everyone.  We are just two people having a crisis and needing help.

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

And your kindness has touched my heart in a way I can not put words too. I have “felt” your kindness to the depths of my soul.

We have already dug into the leftovers. Sometimes I think they taste better the second time than the first. The only thing I am funny on is I do NOT like heated up left over meat. I like turkey cold the second time around. But the smells are already floating through the air here and the feeling of thankfulness for all that the Creator has done for us are just as strong as ever.

Every sunset gives us one day less to live!
But every sunrise give us one day more to hope!
So, hope for the best.
Good Day and Good Luck!

And my hope for you all is joy and happiness and love, for those three things are more valuable than anything in this world.   I pray our Creator hold you in the palm of His hand and protect you from all harm.

Yes Virginia, There IS a Santa Claus

I am so overwhelmed today and so filled with gratitude that I am finding words hard to put together. I am sure some of you that know me well are saying “her not be able to talk?? Impossible”.  I can talk, it is I just hope to make sense when I say all of this.

The coming weeks are stress filled for me and for son with all of this critical medical facing me and yet some very special people with  huge hearts decided to make this easier. I only hope one day I can pay forward what they just did for us today. We were struggling to figure out how to get to Colorado Springs and where we would stay as there is no way I could have the heart catheterization, spend the hours required after in the hospital…after driving two hours to get there..and then drive two hours home. And we didn’t know what to do about Jack for he is a special needs dog that people do not want to have to take care of him for he requires special food, a special bed and really watching over and we didn’t have the money for a specialty clinic.

And out of the blue, a dear friend told me that they were getting us a motel room for not one but for two nights so that we could drive up the day before and I could rest. Traveling is really hard for me…even two hours. And they wanted me in the best shape possible to have the heart stuff done. I could not find the words to say what my heart was feeling. Words were not enough to express the gratitude and love I felt in my heart.

Not many people reach out in this day and time to help those that are going through tough times and stressful medical times. And unless you are there, you can not begin to know the despair of wondering will you have to do this in the hardest way possible?  How will you manage? What will you do about this or that? And they understood the tears and despair I was feeling wondering what to do with poor Jack, who would not understand being put in a vet kennel, even if we could have afforded it.  I had cried many tears trying to figure this out.

And then my dear friends Sassy and BOS just blew us away with their love and generosity and gift of the motel. But they didn’t stop there. They wanted to assure that the next few days were joyful, as stress free as possible and full of memories for son and I with such serious medical things about to happen. So, they sent son to the grocery and told him to ask for the manager. And the manager told him he had a gift card for him to buy Thanksgiving dinner.  All son could manage to say was “Really???”  “Really???” and I blubbered til I was going “he he he he” like a little kid does that has cried too much. Son came home with bags of groceries containing a big turkey that will provide sandwiches after the day is over and fruit and juice and pie fixings and all sorts of goodies. Oh my!

Our FIRST Thanksgiving in our new home and what a joyous day it will be filled with delights to fill the senses with memories galore from the wonderful smells that will go on with the turkey cooking and other foods and of course my special pumpkin pie that son will help me make but also with the wonderful Christmas lights son put up. Now there is a memory in the making for sure. Add to that wonderful holiday music and of course messaging and talking to loved ones and this holiday will go down in the hallmark of fame for the best ever.

And these two special people took us from having the heart stuff and the kidney surgery in the forefront of our lives to having this wonderful day of Thanksgiving right there in front of us..real and in 3-D.  Talk about a change of focus. And the stress of what is coming has moved back a few steps with the motel reservations and the joy of the love of these two people has stepped front and center and the encompassing love has transformed our lives right now.

All day, I thought about the  little girl named Virginia who asked the newspaper man was there really a Santa Claus. And his reply contained this line:

“Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.”

You can read the whole story of Virginia’s letter and the editor’s answer here:

http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia/

Oh yes, there is a Santa Claus AND there are Angels on earth, and the love and generosity and devotion of these two special friends have etched on our hearts in a way that no words can explain. We have a picture of Sassy out side last year at Christmas with a Santa hat on and that picture flashed before my eyes so many times today with the love Sassy and BOS bestowed on us.

And so, I raise my glass in THANKSGIVING and say:

THANK YOU Sassy and BOS from our hearts. We pray the love and goodness you did today comes back to you ten fold for you certainly deserve it. We LOVE you.

Coyote-ville and Winter Storm Warnings

We were up again last nite with Jack and his poor tummy. And since son does not want me going outside at night with Jack, I had to wake him up to take him out after I gave Jack medicine. Son had told me about hearing coyotes the other nite, but last nite was my first experience hearing them.

Colorado Division of Wildlife literature.

Once you hear a pack of coyotes, you will never forget it and they were very close. Our street is the next to last street of town. After that, it is fields and woods. As we sat on our new patio and whispered while Jack did his thing, suddenly there was this high-pitched frenzy of barking and yelping and baying sounds. It sounded like they had found something and were all jumping on it.  It went on for a few minutes and then dead silence.

My mind flickered to the pioneers who traveled out here in the covered wagons and to the early Native American’s here before them. I can’t imagine sleeping in the open like they did and hearing the sound of the coyotes as they find their food. That had to be an intimidating sound. It echoed here with the mountains behind it and the flat plains in front of it.  The sound did not even phase Jack. He just kept on wandering around looking for the perfect spot. LOL

It is funny how we take their land today and because we do, they must be killed or controlled. According to the literature I am reading, they are all over Colorado and especially in this area. I don’t care. Long as they leave me and son and Jack alone, then I am fine

Sometimes, dreams are postponed for a little while. We want to get the back yard finished now but know that it will be summer before we do. And that is ok. So, yesterday, son covered the roof of the shed with a brown tarp. He didn’t want to have the snows come and then cause flooding through the areas where the shingles had blown off.

So now all the stuff in the storage unit will be ok until spring and summer when son can build a new storage unit. and at least brown is better than bright blue. LOL  I felt like I was back in the south in hurricane country when he talked about putting a tarp over the roof of that little shed and was greatly relieved to see he bought brown.

So, we are winterizing around the house. I say “we” but it is son. I am just the “hander” if he needs something.. He got the shed covered, and the fence moved over so that we now go out the side door instead of out the sliding glass door in the back so that we can cover it and stop the leaking around the door. He is going to put the bamboo fence up between us and the neighbors today and get all the patio stuff up on the concrete patio. That way, nothing to trip over in the snow.

And speaking of snow….hahaha…my “think snow” sign must be working. Weatherbug on my computer made that alert sound and it said “Winter Storm Warning” for Walsenburg and it went on to say that 6 inches of snow is expected on Wednesday.  Oh dear, six inches of snow and we still can’t find our snow boots. We have looked everywhere and they are just plain gone. With all the moving and spending seven weeks in a motel and then all the upheaval here at the house until we got it where things were in place, those boots could have ended up anywhere.

And the wonderful news is that with all this 32 degree temperatures first thing in the mornings, our heater has YET to come on and this house is 70 degrees.  This is some insulated house and that will certainly make for lower heating bills.

I so enjoyed sitting on our new patio looking at the sky and the leaves all around. The leaves are changing here and the gold is here. I love it. I also loved catching this big jet right as the sun was starting to go down.

And one of the many times that we had to go out with Jack and his tummy last nite, son made me hot cocoa and we sat with the glow of the lights in the flower pots on the step of the patio. One time was fun. Five times….haha …became work. But Jack is worth is.

which is this in daylight

And as I sipped my hot cocoa, I was sure hoping that coyotes did not like hot cocoa cause they sounded awfully close. LOL

Pain Delirium and a Dog With a Sense of Humor

There is nothing like being in that lack of sleep, pain delirium and having a dog with a sense of humor. The past few days since the hospital fun have been short on sleep and high on pain and medicine. Which makes for that kind of delirious sleep where you wake up enough to know you are awake but can’t quite focus on what is going on.

I found sleep elusive but when it finally hit, I found I slept hard. This is the kind of sleep my sons loved when younger for they would ask me could they do something and no telling the answer I would give. I had to make a “rule” that said “if Mom is sleeping, the answers do not count” to keep from finding out later I gave them permission to ask all their friends over for a party or drive the car, etc.

Last nite, I was not sleeping well and the couple of times I slept I was in that dead zone. One of those times my Jack once again managed to trick me and I know he was sitting over there laughing like this:

video by BafoDeChucrute

First, let me explain two things. I sleep in a hospital bed with the control on that long cord. The other thing is , son has my oxygen hose strung across the ceiling and goes through a pipe up at the top of the wall over my door so that the machine is out in the other room. Because of the night lights on all over the house, that hole leaves a nice glow at night.

Now, to Jack and his sense of humor. Evidentially, I did not hear him scratching the shredding machine  wanting me to wake up because he was hungry. So, left to his own devices, Jack decides to use another method that he has been known to use in the past.  Now, had I not been sleep deprived, in pain and on medication, I might have realized this is what he was doing.

I wake up to this sensation of going upward….my legs and my feet both are moving up and first thing that crosses my mind is that God has come to get me. I am talking and saying “God is that you?”  I am looking around frantically and see this glowing tube and my exhausted brain thinks “there is the “light” everyone talks about and I start hollering  “I am coming. I see the Light. I see the light”.

Next thing I know, son is shaking me and saying  “Mama, Mama….are you ok” and when I open my eyes, I see son and think “Gosh, God took him too” and say “oh, you are here too?”  Son is well familiar with me dreaming and sees Jack sitting by the bed where the remote to the bed is hanging and figures out what is going on and starts laughing. He had heard me talking but thought at first I was talking to Jack and then realized I was dreaming again.

He tells me Jack is messing with my bed again and I look towards that side and there Jack sits with that big toothy grin only a dog can make and I swear he is laughing. So, the moral of this story is never trust a dog like Jack when you are in a hospital bed and in pain and sleeping.

And be sure and pinch your son when he comes close for mine is sticking his head in the door and saying  “seen the light mama?”  and then starts singing  ♫♫I SEE THE LIGHT♫♫ as he dances in and out the door.

Is there a “New Anatomy” Course Now?

I will be the first to say, that when the “New Math” came out, that I was not too impressed and did not want to try it. And I realize there are a lot of changes in education. But, I do have to ask after my experience two days ago at the doctor’s office. Is there now a “New Anatomy” for students to learn?

I went to the Kidney specialist and must say I was quite impressed with him. He knew all about the diseases I have and is rated highly and hard to get in to see. But, when he told me he wanted a brain scan, I sat there puzzled because I could not figure out how the brain had anything to do with the tumor in my kidney. My mind raced around trying to figure this out.

First, I found myself mentally singing the ditty that says “the hip bone’s connected to the….”

Dry Bones

Written By: Unknown, Copyright Unknown

Ezekiel cried, “Dem dry bones!”
Ezekiel cried, “Dem dry bones!”
Ezekiel cried, “Dem dry bones!”
“Oh, hear the word of the Lord.”

The toe bone connected to the heel bone,
The heel bone connected to the foot bone,
The foot bone connected to the leg bone,
The leg bone connected to the knee bone,
The knee bone connected to the thigh bone,
The thigh bone connected to the back bone,
The back bone connected to the neck bone,
The neck bone connected to the head bone,
Oh, hear the word of the Lord!

Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk aroun’
Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk aroun’
Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk aroun’
Oh, hear the word of the Lord.

The head bone connected to the neck bone,
The neck bone connected to the back bone,
The back bone connected to the thigh bone,
The thigh bone connected to the knee bone,
The knee bone connected to the leg bone,
The leg bone connected to the foot bone,
The foot bone connected to the heel bone,
The heel bone connected to the toe bone,
Oh, hear the word of the Lord!

And I could not find one place that said the head bone’s connected to the kidney bone.  Ok, so why a brain scan?  Maybe there is a “NEW ANATOMY”  course and the kidney has moved or maybe I failed anatomy back in college or maybe they just passed me to get rid of me. Or was the Doctor telling me I got my hiney on my shoulders? I really was not sure. But when I ask him, after the stunned feeling went away, he said the scan was to make sure tumors had not gone to brain. That I can live with.

And so I had my scans and I am laying here in bed in high pain flat on my back…or is that now my shoulder?  ….and typing on my tummy…which could be my elbow. I am not sure with all this “new anatomy”.  LOL

UPDATE:  Just got a call and the doctor’s office told me they want a detailed scan of my lung now too. I wanted to say “uhhhh is that my old lung or one in a new place???”   LOL

And moving on to other things. Just had to share with you a picture of Jack on his scooby doo pillow. what a hoot he is. He also has a scooby doo blanket and a scooby doo stuffed animal to match.  It was so funny the other nite. He ate  and then came in and got me up. It was about ten at nite. I thought he wanted to go potty. He led me to his bed in the living room and picked up his blanket and wanted me to cover him. Now, I am here to tell you…this is one rotten dog. But we love him. He makes me laugh. He guards me when I am hurting like now and he is too smart for his own good. And he has two special beds. One in the living room by son’s chair and his hut here in my bedroom. He too has tumors. Amazing isn’t it.

And now, I may not know anatomy, but I do know mountains. On our way back from the doctor, I took these pictures. You can see the snow on the mountain tops and the leaves are changing. Here we get more golden yellow colors and not the bright reds and oranges like back east. I love it.

This picture shows you there is absolutely no breeze going on. You never see this in the summers so that tells me this must be steam coming out.  Don’t forget to click on the pictures to enlarge them and if you want them even bigger, click control and the plus sign.

I love these mountains. Their beauty, their starkness and the strength and courage it took our ancestors to go over them.

And this last one is called the Bosom of Mother Earth and means I am close to home.