Two Anniversary's, Christmas, and Shopping

On November 6th, 2006 we adopted our boy Lucas. I can't believe it has been 8 years! His poor little face is grey. A constant reminder now that he will not live forever. He's been doing good. He was struggling getting up a couple weeks ago so I asked my vet for Previcox as I heard how it's helped others. Boy I'll tell you, the morning after we gave it to him he was up so fast I couldn't believe it. He also ran half the yard after a UPS truck which I have not seen him do in I don't know how long! I couldn't be happier to see him not in pain as much from arthritis. He's almost like a new dog once again. Every time he takes the right medicine and he perks back up to his old self, I smile, I'm relieved, I wouldn't want anything more (besides making him young again). In the pics, the top one is Gary from the rescue. The bottom one is Rich and Diane who fostered Lucas after his heartworm treatment. They all hold special places in my heart.

On November 10th was my 23rd wedding anniversary. Boy I never thought we'd make it this long. Even though it's for death do you part, you never really think about how long that really is when you're getting married. Marriage isn't easy and blissful all the time. It's a constant work in progress. It's a commitment.  I see some other people, usually older, and they seem like their marriage is perfect and they never have problems. I wish I was more like them, but then my personality would have to change.


Mr. Puglsey has been having some "rear end" issues. He had diarrhea the other week, then about a week ago he kept going in the box to urinate, which usually means UTI. He went to the vet and they couldn't get any urine out of him to check to we brought him home to suck some up. We put him in a room by himself with some special litter that wouldn't soak up the urine so we could get a sample. Needless to say, the next morning when I went into the room he had pooped on the floor and on a chair and also peed on the chair. So said chair went out for garbage pick up.

My hubby was quick enough to slide a microwave lid under Pugsley as he was getting ready to go, and got a sample. Results were UTI and struvite crystals. He's on antibiotics and special food until the end of this week, then he'll have to go on other special food for the rest of his life. I asked why as I've had other cats in the past with UTI and never had to switch their food. She told me his body keeps making whatever it is for these infections. Hopefully he'll have it cleared up in a week with what he's on and get on with our lives in whatever normal way we can. :)


Friday I received my first Christmas card from one of my vendors. The earliest ever.

Yesterday I went down to my parents and me and my mom went out for a day of shopping. I am in desperate need of some shirts, but everything out is winter stuff now. Do they not know where we are? Florida. It doesn't get winter here. I bought a few shirts and one pair of grey pants that I'm wondering if I'll ever wear. There more dress slacks, and I wear jeans every day. I thought one day I might need them. One day if I'm ever lucky enough to get a job that I really like going to. It was a long day. The only time I seen my dad was when we were leaving to go shopping and then when I was leaving to go home. We'll be down on Thanksgiving as we always go there. Hopefully it'll be cooler by then. God I hate living in Florida!

Well I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their Sunday! Until next time.

Cats, Dogs and Halloween

Hope everyone had a great Halloween! I took the day off and spent most of it watching Halloween and other scary movies. Mostly older ones which are great to watch. I did do some of my house chores in between to I didn't have to do too much on the weekend. Hubby was wonderful and brought home a delicious chocolate cake. Worth every one of the 3 pounds I gained!

Lucas went in for a re-check yesterday. We had x-rays done to compare to the last ones. There is definitely improvement with the antibiotics he's on. Our plan is to keep him on them for another 4 weeks then re-check with another set of x-rays. The vet will tell us then if we should still do the BAL test. I'm just so thankful he's acting like himself once again. He is having more problems with his arthritis in his hips so I'm going to call the vet tomorrow and maybe see if we can get him on something a little more stronger than the usually glucosamine/chondroitin tablets. I really wanted to avoid any other medicines but he is really struggling lately. This week will be 8 years since we adopted him. We estimate he is 10 years old. It's so hard to watch them get older.

Yesterday we opened all the windows and sliders as it was the first nice day to do so since the beginning of the year. My two chicken cats didn't even want to go out on the porch at first. Then I couldn't get them back in once they did. They love it out there. The picture is of them check out the "new cat" on the porch. Gomez was so funny. He was stretching his whole body to get a sniff of it, then he realized it was not a real kitty. Silly cats!

Here's one of Gomez and Holly. Gomez was laying on the bed and Holly laid next to him. This lasted a whole 10 seconds. Gomez wasn't trilled with her so close.

Here's Holly sleeping with her new Pug toy.

Well I hope everyone has a great week coming up! Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Pumpkins

Well a little update from my last post...my rant. Thankfully my mom has decided to go up with me to Disney to meet my sister. I cannot tell you how relieved I am. Phew, it was a close call. Thanks mom!

Not too much going on this week. I did get a chance to do early voting (for the lesser evils). Make sure you get out and vote. If you don't, things will never change! I just wish they had new faces instead of the same ones.

Here's Holly sitting like the lady she is.

Yesterday my parents came up by train so I decided to take Lucas with me to wait. He didn't seem to mind the train even with the horn blowing, that is until they were breaking and it was screeching. Then he wanted out of there.

Me and my mom went shopping for a few hours and stopped to get a pumpkin on the way home. I was just going to stop by the grocery store but saw a church that had a ton of them. Of course the ones I wanted were the $40 ones (yes they were expensive) so I ended up getting a $14 one. It's still big. I can't wait to get those pumpkin seeds out and into the oven. YUM!

This week I have a follow up appointment with my primary doctor and Friday I'm taking off to watch scary movies all day. I make Halloween a yearly take off day to do this. It is the best holiday after all.

Well I hope everyone has a great Sunday, and I wish all of you a Happy Halloween!!!

A Rant and a Shower

I try not to rant too much, but I just need to get it off my chest. Let's just say I have a really hard time getting along with my sister as she is so controlling over everything and doesn't care what anyone else has to say or what they want to do. This year is her year that she comes to visit. My sister and my niece have been coming to visit every other year since she's moved away. They stay with my parents (just over an hour away) thankfully. My sister and niece are going up to Disney and Universal Studios as they normally do when they come. My nieces birthday is December 28 and that's what she wants to do. The worst possible time of the year to go. My moms health is not what it used to be and she won't go with them this year so my sister asked me if I'd want to go. Kick me in the ass, but I said sure, why not. This will probably be the last year I see them as next year my niece will be off to college and their lives will change. I figured I could put up with them for 2 days. Well today she calls me to tell me to go online and sign up. So I asked her what is the website I'm going to. She starts off to say I'm just like our mom and don't know how to do anything online. I said give me the f*@#$!g website and I can sign up. She needed me to sign up in order to link me to her account. I asked her if I had to pay today or can I do it next week. She started on me AGAIN, and then told me to just call our mom and get her credit card number because she said she's paying anyway. I told her you're kidding me, she can't afford her doctors, I'm not using her credit card. Unfortunately that's what my mom told her, that she would pay. She is such a self-centered (excuse me) bitch that I am totally regretting saying I'm going already! I was supposed to drive up there the night before but now I plan on just going in the morning so I have to spend one less night with them. I can't take it already. I'm going to have a full head of gray hair and my throat will be unbelievably tight because of me stressing. I wonder if I'll even make it the full two days. I'm going to try my hardest not to think about it until then. Someone please hit me on the head and tell me how stupid I am.

On a better note...weather has been in the mid-80's this week for a change. It was nice to sit in the yard with the kiddos.

Here's Gomez and Pugsley. They love to lap up the shower water after we're done. Hopefully they won't be sucking up any shampoo or soap.

Well I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. It's pretty much over for me. Monday morning will be here before I know it. Have a great week!!

Finally October!

I'd have to say October is absolutely my favorite month, even though I do live in Florida and it's still hot as heck outside. Just the idea of it being Fall, looking at pictures of leaves changing (sure can't get that here), knowing Halloween is just around the corner. I love everything about it.

Here's a quick update on my Lucas. We have him on antibiotics until the end of the month. Then we will take another x-ray and see if there are any changes. If there are not any changes we will then have a BAL test done. Might want to Google that. From my understanding they sedate him, put a tube down his throat and flush a saline solution down. It then brings back samples of hopefully what's going on. It can either show what kind of infection he has, it can show if he has cancer, and it could also come back clear (which would be our luck). His temperature has been in the normal range. I'm taking it twice a day as last weekend I stopped because he was doing fine, but then his temp went back up to 103.5. The doctors believe it might have been from stopping one of the antibiotics 2 days prior. So that is the antibiotic he is back on. He's been fine since he's been back on them...knock on wood over and over.

Here's Lucas and Pugsley hanging out together.

Holly's birthday was on October 1st. She's 4 years old now. I sure miss my little girl. Time goes by way too fast. The pic on the left is the day I brought her home. :)

The other day I went to meet a friend. As I was waiting for her I seen two peacocks. One on top of the truck and one on top of the trailer.

Here's a couple more recent ones of my Hollydoodle. She's sleeping with Lucas' toy, but her toy is more intact than Lucas'. They both still love the toys...thanks Sam!!

Mr. Gomez has finally figured out how to get into the cabinets. He was fascinated with them once he actually paid attention to us opening them and realizing there was space for him in there. Now he goes into one kitchen cabinet all the time and both bathroom cabinets. He also can open the closet doors...brat! He makes a mess of a stack of towels, pushes them all on the floor. Here's Pugsley waiting for Gomez to come out this morning. I opened it so you could see what he does. There used to be more space down there but hubby put the paper plates down there.

Well I hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday! Hope to see some more Fall, pumpkin and Halloween pics out there!

Trying to get back into the swing of things.

I've really been slacking on getting on here the past couple months. I know so much has happened over the past couple weeks and I know I'll forget to post most of it, but here's a little bit of it.

When I had Lucas' cardio workup done a couple months ago I didn't have the ultrasound done right away. Needed to save the money first. I finally had the ultrasound done and got the results back about 2 weeks ago. They suspect occult dilated myopathy. So now Lucas is on Vetmedin and
Benazepril for the rest of his life. I'm worried but glad it was supposedly caught early. Thankfully I have a couple friends, including Lucas' foster mom, who have dealt with this before so if I have questions they can help me. I've actually been, or should I say always been, worried about him lately. He seems quieter and has slowed down over the past couple years. I worry about losing him. I know I could lose him being at the age he is. I try everything in my power to make sure he's okay. Yesterday he didn't eat, this morning he didn't want to go outside. I'm hoping it's just the new medicine talking. It makes me feel sick to see him like this.

I started Lucas' medicine Tuesday night so I could bring him to work with me and watch how he's doing. Well Wednesday morning little Miss Holly decided to bite a bufo toad. We washed out her mouth and she seemed okay but I didn't feel comfortable leaving her at home. So off to work I went with both of them. And Holly was fine after we washed her mouth out. Here's them snoozing at work.

*So as I was typing this this morning, we ended up taking Lucas to the emergency vet. It was almost like he was paralyzed. To make a long story short after being there for 3 hours, he has a 105 temperature and they're not sure what's causing it. They think it might be more along the lines of a tumor or even possibly cancer. They did blood work which came back okay except for being slightly anemic. They also took 3 x-rays. He couldn't initially see any tumors but will have a radiologist read them. He believes the fever might be cause his immobility, at least that's what I'm hoping for anyway. We had to leave him there for an overnight stay so they can treat him and do further tests to hopefully figure out what is wrong with him. Please everyone, keep him in your thoughts and keep all body parts crossed that he will be okay.*

Back to my original post intent...

One of my customers found a kitten so they decided to bring him/her by my office for a visit. His intent was for me to hopefully fall deeply in love and take the kitten. I did fall in love, but didn't take the kitten. He will take care of it until he finds a good home. Here's the little cutie.

Here's my two handsome boys sleeping the other day. When they're awake, Gomez seems to be into everything, including the cabinets now. Hope I don't have to childproof them.

Yesterday I was walking in our yard with my hubby and the dogs. I seen this funky looking lizard and we were trying to figure out what kind it was. Then as I was getting closer to take more pictures, we figured out what it was. It took off like a bat out of hell on 2 legs. A Jesus Lizard. Funniest thing I ever saw. It's almost like watching a cartoon. These lizards have such long tails and back feet.

I'm off now so I can get a little more housework done. Hope everyone has a great Sunday!!

Dogs, Dogs and More Dogs

Been a busy and quick couple of weeks yet again! I hate this getting older stuff because they seem to fly by.

I've had a few visitors the past couple of weekends. Last weekend the rescue guy came over so my hubby could replace his window regulators. He brought with him my Rosie, a foster Maji and a 10 week old puppy named Circle. Two people were coming to look at Circle, which the second one ended up adopting her. I believe she has a wonderful home. I love puppies but certainly have no desire for one right now. Both Holly and Lucas were freaked out by her, I guess because she kept standing up and reaching up to them, which neither enjoyed of course. I have such unsociable kids.

Here's Maji. She's a wonderful girl. She got along with everyone. Played with the puppy. Didn't get annoyed at anything. I sure hope she gets adopted soon.

Here's adorable little circle. She was non-stop for a long time, then conked out pretty fast. Gotta love puppies.

Here's my Rosie girl. Love this girl.

Yesterday I went down to my parents. On the way home I was asked to pick up a Doberman at a boarding facility and bring him back to my house so the rescue guy could pick him up. His name is Toby. He was adopted previously through another rescue then given up because they bit their 8 yr old son. The son got in between Toby and their other dog fighting. Toby got the boot. Then when I picked him up from the boarding facility they told me to be careful because he bites. I asked what happened. Actually what happened was the worker went into his cage and he snapped at him, didn't actually bite him. So it's probably just him being all freaked out right now (which I could understand) or it was him being cornered and reacting. I was nervous about him at first. He was great in the car. Pretty much slept the whole way home. When I got back to the house we had both ours inside and let Toby check everything out. After about 15 minutes he totally relaxed. He turned into a different dog. I felt much better about him. He wasn't like a normal velcroy Doberman. He eventually came up to us and wanted us to pet him. He really is a good boy. When the rescue guy got here he brought one of his dogs and they just took off running around the yard having fun. It was great to see. I know he'll be okay. Of course I was sad for him because he was being turned in. It's always hard for me to pick up these dogs because I start to think about what they're going through then cry. My hubby always reminds me that the rescue guy will take care of them.
Here's Toby. Handsome, solid fellow. Here he is sleeping on the way home.

 He enjoyed hunting lizards in the yard very much.

And to end this post is the love of my life...well one of them. My Lucas.

Hope everyone gets to enjoy and long weekend! Stay safe on the roads!

Two Weeks in One Post

These weeks just seem to be flying by. I think the rest of the year is going to be like that.

Found a pigeon at my work the other week with an injured foot so I found a friend who took it in to care for it until it gets better to be released back out. Turns out he had more than an injured foot, he also had some kind of hole in his chest. She said he's on the mend. I don't know if it's a male but my husband named him Pete.

Last Saturday was a trip to the junkyard to find a gas tank for my car. The dealer wanted $900. Junkyard wanted $25. Wasn't too hard to choose. It was a hot one. What we didn't know, and it wasn't noted on their website, is that they punch holes in all the tanks to get the gas out. Unfortunately you can't repair a plastic one (which we needed). Fortunately when we went to say something about it to an employee, they just got in the same year vehicle and offered to take it off before they punched a hole in it. This place went above and beyond.

Had a visit from my Rosie girl and a new girl Kayla that was just turned in to rescue. It was great to see Rosie and she gave me loads of kisses which I never had like that before. Kayla was a real good girl too and gives small kisses. Rosie on the left, Kayla on the right.

I have a Facebook friend who does a personalized sculpture of your pet. Here's my two. These are ornaments but will be sitting on my shelf year-round. They're so cute.

Here's some of the kitties.

Pugsley lays on his daddy every night.

(see poor Holly sulking in the background)

Yes, I am changing their food over to 

a weight management as Pugsley has gained a few.

Gomez sitting with mommy on the computer.

Pugsley trying to wake up daddy while he's sleeping.

Gomez wants to know what's so interesting.

Holly and Lucas this morning. It's a scorcher out there!

I also finally had my post put in for my dental implant on Thursday.  They only thing I'm happy about is that it means it'll be closer to not having to go back to this dentist who irritates me so much. I know I still have many months left, but it's closer!

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Surprises for the Kids

The past week has been wonderful for my furry kids. They have received two different surprise gifts from two different special people. I am still in awe that they have thought of them in a special way.

The first surprise was from a friend that I have made on Facebook this year not too long ago. She's a fellow adopter from the same rescue where I adopted my two from and come to find out she only lives like 5 minutes from me. She gave Lucas and Holly their own collar and leash, along with poop bags. She also had tags made for the collars with our phone numbers. They are absolutely adorable and I'm quite partial to Holly's collar. Reminds me of Pretty in Pink.

The second surprise was from a dear friend and fellow blogger The Quilting Doberman
and her fur-babies. I don't cry when I receive gifts, but I did when I opened this up. It really touched my heart. Thank you again, Sam, Nim, Leela, Emile and Pascal!

Gomez yelling at me to hurry up and open it up!

Gomez taking his new mouse.

 Pugsley lovin' his new fish.

 Holly lovin' her new personalize squeaker toy.

 Lucas gently taking his beautiful toy.

Now I have to admit, I almost didn't give Lucas and Holly their toys. They're so beautiful with their names stitched in them that I didn't want them to ruin them. But I gave in. Lucas was the first to put holes in his, and I find it hard to believe but Holly's is still intact. If you'd like to order one of these fantastic, beautiful toys (and which the bones can be personalized), check out the store on Etsy, Cindy's Thread Craft.