Merry Christmas

It's Christmas Eve and as usual DH and I cooked our Christmas dinner and then went to the early candlelight service at church.

The cooking of the big meal on Christmas Eve is a tradition that was started many years ago by his Mom (everyone called her Maw) and Dad. All the family gathered at their house for the holiday. The big meal was on Christmas Eve in the late afternoon and then to the candlelight service at church. Then on Christmas day she could sit and be a part of all the gift time without having to stop and go cook. Maw always made plum pudding which was SO much work--all the cutting up of stuff and then the cooking. She also made hard sauce for it and you talk about yummy..... Haven't had it since. She's been gone for 26 years and I still miss her. My parents have been gone almost 7 years. Miss them.

I gave little Zippy a bath this morning for Christmas and he's now all clean, fluffy and smells good.

It rained yet again today! The yard is mushy and we have a lot of standing water. Out in the back it looks like a lake.

A very good quote....

I ran across this quote today. It is excellent.

"Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing."
Camille Pissarro

Dog update

Ellie's back is back to normal :-) and she is doing well.

A's visit was much fun and we did lots of things including geocaching.

We took Sophie yesterday afternoon to have her blood sugar checked. It was in the acceptable range and that's one month down off of the six we have to wait with stable blood sugar before we can take her to a vet regarding cataract surgery. He will check to see if she has any sight behind the cataracts and maybe do surgery on only one eye. Her eyes are still reacting when they shine a light to check, so there is just the smallest, tiny little possibility that something can be done to give her just a little bit of sight. That would be the most wonderful thing and is what I am praying will happen for her. I guess there is nothing to do but give shots, feed her the proper diet and wait.

This morning when I went out with Sophie and Zippy to walk around the yard she apparently smelled a squirrel or something and went blazing out like she could see. First off she fell on the steps and ran into about 5 trees (which is unusual, except she was going so fast) in the first 30 seconds while I was trying to put on my shoes and yelling, stop, wait, careful... Sometimes it makes me look at all three of them like they can't see and I'm wanting to say to Zippy, wait, stop when he comes close to something. Oy!

We bought a new camera over the weekend and I tried it out. I looked at the pics on the tv but haven't downloaded them yet. We tried 2 on the internal memory first and downloaded them straight to my pictures just using the USB cord and not putting crazy software on the computer. Yay!

I pulled up some small bushes and little sweet gum trees with the quad yesterday and hauled that out back. I have a bundle of branches started and I need to tie it up for garbage pick up. I also need to spray the season long (ha!) weedkiller by the stepping stones, etc. It's a beautiful day and the temperature is just perfect for doing things like this. I just have to get up and get going and this isn't getting it done.

Ellie Mae's turn

Just when we think we have Sophie's blood sugar level under control with insulin, and kind of settled down with dog stuff, then yesterday morning Ellie Mae had trouble getting up and walking. We had some pain pills left from the spring when Sophie had a surgery so we gave her one and that seemed to help. Called the vet & got a 3 p.m. appointment and gave her another pill about 45 min. before it was time to load up and go.

We made it there okay and managed to get her out of the van. She stood for a while in the waiting room, laid down and then it was too painful for her to get up. The vet just sedated here right there and they took her on a stretcher for x-rays. The problem is with a couple of vertebra in her back. She got a shot and some pills for a.m. and takes a pain pill at night for a week. They carried her to the van in a stretcher and she was beginning to wake up. We left the doors open and she stayed in the van for an hr. or more after we got home while she was still getting awake. He thought she would be worse today, but actually she seemed better. Tonight though she had trouble getting up and N. had to help her some to stand up.

We had help her multiple times yesterday, sometimes getting a towel under her and both of us lifting her. She weighed 62 lbs. yesterday. I had already been crawling around on the floor cleaning, etc. and then this lifting--ack of my back and my legs!

Our niece, A came today for a week's visit. Tonight we went to an art night and walked around to some of the shops and looked at the art work and there were bands and music. The weather was perfect, around 68 degrees but my legs and back are feeling it from the lifting and walking. Usually the walking doesn't bother me. Tomorrow there is a street fair in a near by town. More walking.

I haven't done anything in my art journal today, but I'm going to try to do something before I go to bed in a little while.

More mowing and art

Today I finished all of the mowing that was possible due to the wet areas outside of the fence. I mowed a hour and 10 min. Took a lunch and computer break and then mowed about another hour. Hopefully with it being cooler and November after all, the grass will stop growing for this year.

I did a little stamping on the double page spread in the altered book that I'm using for the art journal work right now. Last night I gessoed the pages (which are actually multiple pages glued together creating thick pages) and painted them a light tanish color and tonight I did some stamping in the corners. I have a neat looking envelope from hot chocolate and am thinking about having a chocolate theme here but not sure how it will pan out yet.

Tuesday......

Today we took Zippy to PetSmart to be groomed. Elizabeth is so nice and did a great job as usual. While we were waiting we went to Target and looked at portable CD players and cameras. After the last camera that we tried and returned, I just don't know about trying to get a new camera. It was a Sony H-20 and I liked the camera, just didn't like it's software on the computer and how all that worked. So....hmmm
By the time we did that and went to Subway and picked up a sandwich, Elizabeth called that Zippy was done and we went to pick him up.

Later I mowed grass. I mowed for 50 minutes, came in for a break, talked to my cousin who called, and then went back and mowed about another 45 minutes. I have almost all of the fenced part of the yard done. In some places I was really stirring up some dust. I plan to mow over by the garage and the other driveways tomorrow. I also might do some out back if I have time and it isn't too wet. Amazing that I'm making dust up here and there is standing water back there.

Also talked to my neighbor and friend on the phone tonight.

I thought about my journal page work earlier this morning and didn't do any thing then, so I going to go work on a background or something for a start and I don't really have too much of a plan at this time.

Journal page

Well, I have about 15 minutes left in the day to work on my page that I started yesterday. Somehow I totally forgot about it. I've been crocheting tonight. I wonder if I will be able to do even some tiny bit of work each day for a month in an art journal. We'll see I guess.