Friday, December 31, 2010

Ring out the old, ring in the new

Another year has come and (almost) gone. It has been a hard year, hopefully the next will be better.

I didn't blog too often this past year. Just never seemed to have (find) the time. Maybe next year will be better or maybe it will be worse for my blog. Only time will tell.

The pet bakery took up a lot of my time this year. Business seems to be picking up a bit as we go along. This weekend I am going to work on getting a new website up and running for us.

D's business struggled this year. With the economy down there just was not a lot of work. We made it through and things seem to be picking up for it also.

My kids were all here for Christmas. That was nice. I guess I am very fortunate. My kids are 28 and 33 and I have never had a Christmas morning without them. They have their home Christmas on Christmas Eve and then come up here Christmas morning to open gifts. We then go to my darling MIL's for Christmas breakfast then back up here for lunch. I am blessed.

All the Christmas decorations are down and put away. I leave my candles in the window until sometime in January. I love the look of them shining after dark when I come home. It seems so welcoming. I sometimes think I should leave them out all year, but that takes away from the specialness of them.

Hoping everyone has a wonderful and safe New Year. Where ever your party takes you, be safe.

Until next year.

Judy

Saturday, December 11, 2010

The ramp....continued

D got the ramp extension all finished and in place. Now I have to be very careful when I go out into the garage as the extension is permanently attached to the step just out of the door. I know I am going to fall off of it sooner or later. I told D that I need to make a signe and tape it to the window of the door (just at my eye level) to remind me to be careful of the step.
Kate is doing fine for an 11 1/2 year old St Bernard. We need to get her up into the main part of the house so we can have our annual Christmas picture taken. Maybe this weekend we can do that.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Sliding....

My Katie and I had a thrill last Saturday.
It has been snowing all day long and we had about 2.5 inches, which is really a lot for us this early in the season.
I had been gone off and on most of the day so when I finally came home for good for the night around 10 pm I let Katie out to pottie, went into the kitchen to put my purse and knitting down and told D that I was going out to make sure Katie had no slid over the hill. Our back yard has no yard now due to the pool, the hot tub and my deck but it does have a rather large hill. I was just a tad late going out to check on her.
She had evidently squatted to do her business and had slid about 1/3 of the way down the hill. I still had on my dress shoes which are rather slick on the bottom so when I tried to carefully get down the hill to Kate I slipped and fell and slid to her. She seemed to be ok, was not struggling, just laying there waiting for Mom to come rescue her as I have done countless times in the past. I got myself up on my feet and went around to the rear of her and tried to get her up. I kept slipping so I could not get her up. Finally I just v'ed my feet around her hiny and began to yell for D. Every once in a while Katie would help me yell by going "Woof". Every time she would woof we would slide about an inch down the hill. I kept telling her to be quiet and not bark that Daddy would be there to get us soon.
Our house is rather well insulated. If you pull up in the drive and blow the horn we cannot hear it in the family room. I knew there was no way Dale would hear me but I yelled and screamed anyway. I figured that my MIL or my daughter would probably hear me and call to find out what was wrong. They didn't.
Dale had gone on upstairs to change his clothes. The dressing room is in the front of the house, naturally. When he finished changing and came back into the bedroom he noticed his dog sitting up on our bed looking out the window. She never does that so he went over to see what she was looking at and saw me standing part way down the hill.
When he came out he was in Christmas shorts, a sleeveless tee and his house slippers. He asked what I needed. I told him to get some shoes on that were not slick so we could get Kate back up the hill. He asked what I needed to get her up and I told him to bring her harness. (She has a car seat harness that we use when she goes in the van, and I thought that would be the best thing to use.) He went in and got it and changed and came out to help me.
I somehow managed to get her harness under her and before I could actually fasten it D took hold of her and she got up. With me pushing from behind and him gently tugging we got her back up the hill to the patio and she walked on in to the house on her own.
I was really worried that she might have hurt herself since she is old now (11 1/2 years old, which is very old for a Saint Bernard) and is having some mobility issues. She has hip displasia.
I gave her an extra pain pill before bed and the next morning she seemed to be just fine.
Monday she went for her weekly laser treatment on her hips and knees and there does not seem to be any damage done.
We decided that we needed to make her a ramp so that she could go out in the front yard from now on. So Monday evening Dale was working on a ramp extension from my embroidery shop door out into the garage. I have a ramp I use to get her in and out of my van and I suggested that he just build a sort of cheater ramp that we could attach the car ramp to and make it dual purpose. He had just about finished it. He was out in the woodshop hand sawing something on it when the saw jumped and cut his knuckle. He came to the house and asked for some steri strips to fix it up.
When he showed me the cut I told him that it was going to have to have stitches. This was about 8:10 in the evening and the urgent care at our clinic closes at 8, bummer. We called our son to drive us to Chillicothe to the emergency room there (I don't like to drive after dark out of my comfort zone). On the way there we decided to try the other urgent care clinic in town first. We got there at 8:45 and they didn't close until 9 so we got lucky. They stitched him up (4 stitches) wrapped it up and sent us on home.
I think that this is the end of the Saturday night saga but then he hasn't finished the ramp thingy yet.
I take Kate out to pottie and don't let her get near the edge of the little bit of level we have out back.