Feel Like Complaining

It's been a rough week, not gonna lie. It's the little things about Nellie that I miss the most. I expect to see her lying down outside in one of her favorite spots. I will always look for her as long as we live here. The house is quiet without the jingle of her collar, snoring, and yes even the farting. The way she would nudge my arm from behind my chair when she wanted treats. The little twinkle she would get in her eyes when she was excited about something; usually a walk or dinner. When I would come home with groceries she would meet me and jam her head in the bags to see what I brought her. She learned what "On your marks, get set, go!" meant but she was a cheater and always took off on "get set" and beat me. I am mostly at peace now, but will always regret the vet we used. That is what will eat at me forever. I left a bad review of him on Google, maybe some will bypass him for his euthanasia services. We have kept busy cleaning. I'm working lit...

No more potty training No more digging in the yard No more chewing off bushes No more jumping No more pulling on the leash No more obedience training No more barking at the mailman No more long walks No more puppy sighs No more playing keep-away with toys No more puppy kisses No more traveling companion No more treats No more playing in the snow No more doggy playdates No more lying in your corner of the yard guarding your kingdom No more meeting us at the gate when we come home No more last bites of our dinner No more running in the football field No more compliments on how beautiful you are No more pain meds No more incontinent meds No more joint meds No more cleaning up accidents No more picking you up off the floor No more sleepless nights Pain…...no more, Nellie You’re free ~~~~12-28-16 Nellie had a hard time over Christmas weekend. We were only gone for about 4 hours but she had messed in the house. The next d...

Awhile back Grumpy shared a video he made of his dog Abby. I already had a compilation of scanned photos so I decided to see if I could make one of Nellie. I probably have 100 more of her but then it would be a full length movie. She will be 15 this fall and I thought it would be nice to throw something together for her. She has her own FB page , did you know that? Although she has been a bit lazy lately in her posting. So I present you with Our Sweet Nellie, complete with music.

A week and-a-half before we left on vacation (which we just left for....this morning) I had such a busy week. Other than the shopping, packing, and still working, I had two appointments to attend. One was a Physical Therapy evaluation; I've been having pain and tightness on my right side which is causing weakness in my leg. The therapist said my muscles felt like leather that had gotten wet and then dried. Well I guess that's how I felt too. The very next day was an appointment with a therapist--as in mental health. I dreaded going but knew I had to. I was miserable and didn't have anyplace to put my feelings. The Therapist is very nice, maybe about my age. She said her heart hurt for me as I spilled my guts about how it feels to lose my daughter. Yes, that's how it feels. I said I have no one to talk to as people are either going through their own stuff and don't want to hear me whine, or laugh at me about my silly feelings. So I guess she is my friend for now ...

Several months ago I was watching Dr. Oz and he was talking about the health benefits of drinking Kefir. Kefir is a fermented drink made with kefir 'grains' (a yeast/bacterial fermentation starter) and has its origins in the north Caucasus Mountains around 3,000 BC. If you like plain yogurt, sour cream, or even buttermilk you would like Kefir. If not, it's about as gross as they are. But it's good for you, helping restore your gut back to a healthy condition. I really didn't want it for us though. I was thinking more of our dog Nellie who has suffered from Colitis for several years. I did continuing research and found a great story about a dog that was saved by Kefir for stomach problems worse than Nellie. I bought 6 quarts of the stuff from the store. It's damn expensive, running about 5 bucks a quart. The good thing is that she loves it. She has always liked sour cream so she took to it easily. I pour it in a little bowl twice a day and she even looks for ...

I went to my Moms as usual the other day and she was putting something down the spare bathroom's sink. There was an awful smell in the house (manufactured home) and she thought it was coming from the sink. I traced the smell to a duct in the den, it was so gross. She thought possibly a pipe from the bathroom  had broken under the house so she called her handyman after I left and he came over. He's been around awhile and figured some animal had crawled under the house and died. He said to give it a few days and if it doesn't go away or at least dissipate, to call a plumber. I'm just glad I don't have to sleep there and smell it, especially knowing it might be a dead thing; shudders. Last Thursday I snuck off to Eastern to have lunch with the kid. We've been wanting to do this for awhile and since hubby naps in the afternoon before he goes to work it seemed like the perfect time. We'll both go some Sunday for their brunch, I promise. It was really nice seein...

Ever since I wrote about Nellie and her incident of not being able to use her back legs, she's had more episodes. Most of them were not as bad as the first one, but this one came close. We had just arrived home from church last Sunday and it's not unusual for her not to get up and greet us all the time. She whined so I came over and patted her on the head. An hour or so go by and I could see her scooting around to get from point A to B but she's not getting up. Then I asked her if she was alright (as if she's going to answer me) and her ears lie flat as if she's in trouble. She got up but only moved about 6 feet to the window and then flopped down and her back legs were visibly shaking. Daughter gets her a pain pill which she is not interested in and hubby gets on the floor to work on her spine and she yelps when he lightly touches her and tries her best to get away from him. I told him just to leave her be until she is more receptive. She is clearly uncomfortable...

When you have a child and they are sick or hurt they can convey their pain or at least point to the offending owies. When your pet gets hurt or sick, it begins a guessing game and when you're wrong, it can be a great thing. A few weeks ago when I got home from work my family informed me that our dog Nellie was not doing well. She had only been outside for about 30 minutes and when she came in she could hardly walk. Nellie was now lying in the hall and couldn't even muster a wag for me. We just let her be and thought a little rest would help. She has hip problems and has sometimes gone 'Bambi' on slick surfaces. It causes her to limp for a few days but later that night what I saw was not limping. It was truly frightening. Her hindquarters were hunched and her back feet were walking on tip toes. She could only walk a few feet before collapsing. The next time I saw her get up it was worse. Her back end wobbled and swayed before she went down. I brought her food and wat...

Like much of the U.S. we have been virtually without snow this winter. Sure the ski resorts are hurting, but golf courses are opening. Independent snow plow business are hurting but think how much cities are saving for not having to plow. All this week it's been in the mid 40's with wind and rain. Today we got a break and it felt very springlike. My daughter and I took Nellie for a walk in the park. We like to take her off leash so she can run if she feels inclined. These days it's more like a slow trot. Daughter even took a turn on the swing like she used to when she was younger. We reminisced about how she had to learn how to pump her legs to get higher. Once she got the hang of it, we couldn't get her off of them. As long as it's snowing in the mountains we should be OK this summer. And more than likely we'll get slammed next winter. That's just the nature of Mother Nature; you take what you get. Living in the Pacific Northwest you more than li...

.....Continued I didn't have any more pets until I had graduated and left home. I lived in an apartment and a friend of mine had a new batch of kittens. Well, she didn't have them, her cat did. The mama cat was black and two of the kittens were a Siamese mix. Did you know that black cats were of Siamese descent? I took one and another friend took the other. For a few nights I had both of them, oh what fun! Kittens climbing curtains and running all over the place. I named mine Lucifer and she was as wild as her name. I guess I really didn't like the name after awhile so I changed it to Zig Zag. Partly because she was still wild and crazy and also because that's the brand of papers I used to roll my doobies, ha. Seriously! My Roomie, 1981 Once when she was in her wild stage my parents were in a bad auto accident. My dad was in the hospital and my mom was home with broken ribs. I took the wild one with me back home to stay awhile. That crazy cat was crawling all ov...

Last weekend we took a little trip into the next state to a cute little B&B on a farm. This time of year we always try and take one more weekend trip to tide us over until Spring. And we inlude our dog on these trips. I found this B&B online so made the arrangements for the 22nd which happened to be my husband's birthday. I don't know how he lucks out on having our little trips land on his BD but they always do. He turned 65 this year! Yikes, officially a Senior Citizen . The weather forcast called for rain but there's not much you can do about that, so off we went. It's only about an hour and-a-half drive so it was a pretty quick trip. We wanted to get there early because our daughter checked out a nice camera from school and we wanted to get some pics before everyone else showed up. After we got settled in our room, which was quite nice by the way, we headed outside. A mama cat and a kitten were right outside the door and they don't let cats in the hou...

Yesterday marked the 10 year Anniversary of our dog Nellie making her home with us. When our daughter was five we thought a dog would be a good playmate for her. I personally wanted a smaller dog because I always had cats and loved to sit down and have a small furry body climb up on my lap. We went to a few shelters before ending up at the Humane Society. After awhile the noise is deafening (and depressing) when you walk down the long row of cages where the big dogs are. Our daughter wanted nothing to do with that so we ended up in the puppy/small dog room. I was looking at a few small neurotic yappers and she had her focus on a black dog in a bigger cage. Clearly not a little puppy, they said she was around 4 months old, but we think she was probably closer to 6 months. She had only been there a week brought in from a neighboring community by an older woman who found her digging in garbage to eat. Left to her own devices at such a young age the woman essentially saved her life by br...

Our sweet dog Nellie is as good as you can get. She's 10 and is now in the mellow stage of life, rather than her past hellion days. She loves walks and going anywhere in the car with us. She does have a few downfalls though, her Irrational Fears. Mops Vacuum Cleaner Things that Click and Beep Hoses and Sprinklers Fireplaces Vinyl Floors We keep the mop in a closet in the basement. Whenever she hears the door open she starts pacing. Same with the vacuum, which is in another closet. She starts running all over the house trying to get away when that closet is opened for any reason. As far as I know no one in this house has ever tried to clean her with a mop or suck her up. Microwave beeps don't bother her but the smoke alarm beep does. That could have started when I almost burned the house down by not opening the flue while building a fire. But that was a long time ago, honest. When she hears the smoke alarm beep to tell us to change the battery she starts quaking and sti...

A few weeks ago I saw an article in the paper that announced a Tibetan Monk would be doing pet  blessings at a local park today. I've always wanted to do that so my daughter and I put Nellie in the car and headed out. Our city has some nice parks; but we also have some very rustic, hard to find parks. And you can guess where this pet blessing was going to take place. In this particular area there are three parks all bunched up together. We stopped at one and saw a lot of dogs milling around and figured we were in the right place. I even asked a couple of dog owners and they didn't really know where to go either. We walked around for awhile and then decided to drive a bit further. Just about a block away we found a sign to the other park with another sign pointing to the pet blessing area. Onto the dirt road we go, and not just any dirt road, but a dirt road with the biggest ruts I've ever seen. Our van was rocking violently back and forth and poor Nell in the backseat w...

Have you ever noticed that the things that can go wrong and are going to cost you money are in direct relationship with your tax refund? Happens every time. I just did our taxes and we will be getting back a nice refund. We laid out where this money should go. We always put money away for vacation first; because we deserve it. Secondly we are putting some in savings to use for a medical slush fund since we don't have insurance any more. Some more put aside just for fun and the most of it will go toward a bill with the largest interest payment. That sounded all well and good until Nellie's butt swelled up. Things were apparent this morning that she was in distress. We don't really always pay attention to our dogs butt licking but when it gets to be obsessive you kind of have to notice. She was also walking guarded, pacing, and panting. Now, me being the cheap frugal one of the family I thought about waiting until tomorrow morning to get her in to see our vet. But I am a...

Our weather has been warm for the end of summer so we decided to BBQ like we do most weekends. Fired up the grill, put hamburger in the turner and corn on to boil. Our dog Nellie loves when we BBQ. Her nose follows my dh as he brings the meat outside and then as he brings it back in and then back out when we sit out to eat. Before he put the meat on the grill he dropped a little piece in her dish. Then he propped the door open so it would be easier to go in and out with our hands full. While we were eating we noticed that she was not outside waiting for our last bite. She is not a beggar but knows that we always save her one little piece so she waits patiently for it. As we went in after dinner we noticed the raw piece of hamburger on the floor. We tried to give her a bite of hot dog and she started whimpering, pacing and looked absolutely miserable. We thought she had been stung by a bee because the top of her nose was still healing by a bite just two weeks ago. If she is layin...

I turned 50 last week. And what did I receive as a gift? A brand new bottle of high blood pressure medicine. Wasn't that nice? I have always been proud of myself for not having to take medicine other than Advil for daily aches and pains. My new doctor has only seen me a few times but she has commented on my high bp. I would make excuses of why it could be so high, 187/94 didn't seem that bad after all. After this last visit though, the hurried nurse took it and it read a respectable 133/87. I was thrilled and said I bet the doctor would be pleased. After the exam she asked if I was on any medication. I grinned and said "You have threatened, but haven't yet". Then I told her of my 'great' reading but added that the nurse was in a hurry. She, being the good doctor that she is, proceeded to take it again, 157/84. I then had to tell her about my father's heart condition and that he died at 54. CRAP, that clinched it, the prescription was written. My first ...