At the risk of repeating myself...

I LOVE SUMMER.

I got to leave work early yesterday.  Whoo-hoo!  Came home, took a nap (yes, I am lazy like that.).  I also did some laundry, so I suppose I wasn't totally lazy.  I made a scrumptious dinner of baked boneless pork chop, boiled new red potatoes, steamed carrots, and a lovely salad.

**DANG IT!  as I typed the words "a lovely salad" I just remembered that I wanted to get salad dressing at the store today.  I forgot.  Grrrr.**

Instead of ice cream I went to Rita's for dessert.  I love me some Rita's.  I had a mango/pina colada gelati.  It was heavenly.

I went to Safeway because they had some good sales going.  12 packs of soda (Coke and/or Pepsi) buy 2 get 3 free.  They also had cherries on sale.  As fate would have it, Giant had blueberries on sale 4 pints for 5 dollars.  I went to Giant this morning.  And forgot salad dressing.

I slept well last night and was hoping to sleep in a little today.  It was not to be however.  Thanks to my bladder and miss raven I got up even earlier than normal.  I ate breakfast, gave miss raven breakfast, and made cupcakes.  Yep.  Mocha cupcakes with coffee butter cream frosting.  I can't tell you how they were because I haven't eaten one....yet.  I saved a couple and might have one later.  We'll see.  Sadly, I do not have pictures for you.  I know, I know.  I am a bad blogger.  I apologize.

What plans do you have for celebrating our wonderful country's birthday??  I am planning on going into the big city on Sunday to meet up with my aunt and cousin for some 4th of July shenanigans.  Don't worry.  There won't be many shenanigans.  I am too old for shenanigans and there will be way too many people in the big city for shenanigans to take place.  I just kind of like the word shenanigans.

Whatever you do, have FUN!!!  And be safe!  I don't want any of my wonderful readers injured by stray fireworks!!! :)

Spa Day and (maybe) cupcakes...

No, no, no.  The spa day wasn't for me and, truthfully, it wasn't a whole day. 

When I got home from work today I walked over to the management office to given them my check for next month.  I took the girlie with me because she LOVES to go for a walk.  This time was no exception.  Sometimes I think it is difficult to tell who is walking who, though. :)  (oh--and thankfully I remembered to bring an emergency baggie for....well, you know.)

We came back from our little walk and as I was sitting on the couch administering the proper adoration rubbing her tummy, I realized that the little one needed some quality time at the groomers.  Really, I think I should get charged by what they actually have to do to her, not what the whole package offers.  Does she need to be clipped?  No.  Does she need to be brushed out?  No.  She needs a bath, a dry, and a nail clipping.  (She would like me to let you know that a massage would be nice, too.)  I get charged for everything but truly, she is more than worth it.  She smells so good now, too.  Um.  Not that she smelled bad before.  ;)

I have this amazing idea for cupcakes that I have been working on in my mind since my BFF was here in March.  Think chocolate, coffee, and more chocolate.  Sounds good to me.  I'll let you know how they turn out.  I may even take pictures for you.

Speaking of turning out....the vanilla peachberry ice cream is AWESOME.  I think the next ice cream flavor may have peppermint and chocolate in it but I'm not sure yet.

Still no word about the security deposit.  Hmmmm.

miss raven says "goodnight!"

:)

Ten (random) Things Tuesday!

1.  miss raven is doing much better.  see:

yes, she does tend to sleep alot.

2.  new ice cream flavor:  vanilla peachberry.  i'll let you know how it is. ;)

3.  i like this picture.  what about you?

4.  i am having a rather difficult time getting my security deposit back from my former landlord.  any suggestions?

5.  the world cup is almost over.  'bout time.

6.  here is miss raven again, because i know you love her, too.

(the cookie that started all the fuss.)

7.  i also like this picture.  can you tell i have a *ahem* obsession with the beach?

i have discovered the "fix" option in my picture gallery and have had tons of fun playing with it!

8.  i miss my bff.  alot.

9. my vacation starts in three more weeks.  nine more working days.  not that i am counting or anything.

10.  one more picture of my girlie:

awwww.....look at her sweet little paw tucked under her chin. :)

bye! :) 

How is it....

that you can pay for one hundred bazillion channels and not have ANYthing to watch on tv except a baseball game?  And I don't really even like baseball, having been forced to watch it ad nasuem  throughout my childhood.  Sigh.

I did have a good day today, though.  I went out with a good friend. (You know, the one who dubbed me the "yarn ho"--oddly enough, she felt the need to tell me about a yarn store that she discovered last night when she went out to eat with a friend of hers.  Isn't that kind of like offering crack to an addict?  Just sayin.) 

Anywho.

So we went to a nice mall in another city.  The one really nice thing about living in the East is that pretty much anywhere you want to go is only a short distance away from where you live.    If I don't like the mall in one city, just drive up the road 45 minutes or so and there is another one, just as nice, or nicer.  We walked around the mall, I got some good deals, and we ate at California Pizza Kitchen.  Yum.  Then we went sort of across the street to the new "Towne Center" to look around.  Can I just say that I think the use of "Towne" is slightly pretentious and only used so that they can charge alot more for the same kind of stuff you can get at Target?  Just sayin.

I came home to a happy miss raven.  Well, at least she seemed happy.  I spent some quality time adoring her and rubbing her tummy all the while hoping that would gaurantee that she would eat ALL her supper.  Alas, it was not to be.  Apparently there was too much rice and not enough chickie.  Well, I had gotten a new can of the nasty dog food imaginable the best stuff ever for the little diva.  I had mixed it with the morericethanchickie to see if she would eat it.  She can't stay on chickie rice forever because it doesn't have enough of the nutrients that she needs.  When I gave her some of just that in a bowl she ate it.  I gave her a little bit more and she ate most of that, too.  That made me feel confident enough to give her the antibiotic (she has to take that with food) and she ate that well, largely in part to the glob of peanut butter surrounding it.  She also noshed on a handful of cheerios before deciding that I wasn't going to spend my evening adoring her so she would huff her way down to the bedroom.

I was a busy baker yesterday.  I made oatmeal/banana/cranberry cookies and banana/coconut/chocolate chip muffins.  Y.U.M.  I also made strawberry ice cream with a fresh strawberry swirl.  Then, I got on the scale this morning.  OMG!  All kidding aside, I MUST lose weight.  I found some of my old "fat" pictures and put one of them on the cabinet with all the temptations and kept one on the coffee table to remind me of how I never want to look again.  I am praying that works.  I had the willpower once, I need to find it again.

I hope you are having a fabulous weekend!

Yes, this is another post about my girl....

So if reading about her is beginning to bore you, please feel free to move on.  You won't hurt my feelings if you leave.  Much.

Just a few updates.  I will even "bullet" them for you so they aren't the marathon paragraphs that I have been writing lately.

The vet called today.  This is what she told me:

• The fecal test came back negative.  Negative is good.  No parasites, no blood.
• The blood work was mostly good.  Her kidney function is good and her blood cell count is good.
• She is slightly concerned about one of her liver levels.  It seems that this particular level is slightly elevated and that could be from two things.  One, her irritated large intestine/colon and two, her plaque-y teeth.  I was again strongly urged to bring her in sometime during the next two weeks to have her teeth cleaned.  If I had the five hundred dollars, I would, dear vet.  I also would if you took payments.  Expecting me to pay it all at once, though, puts a huge roadblock in the way of clean teeth for miss raven.
• She would like me to bring her back in a month to have her blood work redone to check her liver levels again.  Can you say cha-ching?

How is miss raven tonight?

• No accidents when I got home.  YEA!!!!!!!!!  Believe me when I say that I heaped the praise on her about that.
• Very lively when I got home.  Wanted to snuggle and play and kiss me lots.
• Gave me a hour or so of semi-worry because she didn't want to eat her chickie rice right away.  After about an hour though, she came back into the living room and started eating it.  Once she finished she took her (peanut butter) pill and ate some cheerios as after dinner treats.
• Just spent some time outside reminding the rest of the neighborhood that she is, in fact, Queen of the Universe and they are merely her subjects and exist only to do her bidding and give her something to bark about.  You know, kind of like me.
• Fell in love.  What?  Oh, yeah.  All of the sudden she ran around the side of the house.  Of course, I went after her because I don't want her to be where I can't see her.  As I came around the corner, to my utter astonishment, miss raven was at the fence making nice with a rather large shepherd/husky mix.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Not only was she NOT giving him what-for, I swear to you she was making eyes at that dog.  Little hussy!  Move over Buddy, girlie's found a new man!!! ;)
• Is now sleeping at my feet with her head on my foot and her back legs crossed.  Spoiled little thing.

Thank you for indulging me for the third night in a row.  I will try to find something else to blog about tomorrow.  Maybe I will tell you about the cookies that I am planning to make.  I feel a baking mood coming upon me and need to find someone to give it away to.  I am not lying when I tell you that I CANNOT keep it for myself.  I keep saying this and it keeps being true, but I NEED to lose weight.  I have seriously lost my willpower though and that is frustrating.  I need a goal to work towards.  Any suggestions??

Did you notice that I have a new follower?!?!  Welcome, T!  Nice to have you here!! :)

Have an absolutely wonderfully fantastically awesome Friday!  You deserve it!

Just like a child, only not...

That would be my girlie.  My girlie who cost me almost two hundred bucks today.  Don't get me wrong, she is well worth it.  Here's the scoop:

Since Tuesday she hasn't been feeling well.  Tuesday and today she had accidents in the house which she NEVER does.  I could tell that she was embarrassed and I kept telling her that it was ok, she wasn't in trouble.  She wasn't very interested in her food either, which at first didn't make me too worried because that happens a lot in the summer.  When it gets really hot outside her appetite tends to go down a bit.  She was still drinking normally and, other than the accidents, was going to the bathroom normally, too.  She was having a gurgly tummy day yesterday and that continued until today.

She was due for her regular yearly checkup so I called the vet yesterday and was able to get an appointment for her this afternoon.  She was scared at the doctor, as usual, but fortunately, there wasn't anyone else in the waiting room while we were there.  Phew!  As I have mentioned before, I love miss raven's doctor.  She does such a great job with her and I am so thankful for that.  It doesn't make raven any less scared but it makes me much more comfortable knowing that she will be gentle and kind with her.

They weighed her and I discovered that she has gained a little bit of weight (just like her mommy!) but that isn't a bad thing for her.  She isn't overweight (sigh, like her mommy) and the vet was pleased with that.  Her temperature was also perfect which made me happy because if she had an infection her temp would have been up.  Her coat looked good, her eyes were good, her coat was shiny, her ears were impeccable (she is fastidious about cleaning her ears!), and the vet said she isn't dehydrated which they had been a little concerned about because of the diarrhea.

They drew some blood to do her annual heart worm test and also to do a basic workup of her kidneys, liver, and blood cell count.  They also checked some bottom glands to make sure those weren't infected.  She was a trooper through all of it and I am very proud of her.  After all, she had things shoved up her butt a couple of times and never even flinched.  Just looked at me like I was selling her out.

The only thing that concerned them a little was the sample of her "business" that I brought in this morning.  The vet said that when they did the preliminary look there was a red tinge to it which could suggest blood.  My heart started slamming then because that wouldn't be a good thing.  She didn't seem overly concerned right now, though, because of the normal temperature.  Oh, her heart and lungs also sounded great.

I have medicine to give her.  She gets a protein powder mixed in with her food (boiled chicken and rice for a few days) once a day.  I am supposed to feed her a little chicken rice mix twice a day.  Along with her food she is also supposed to take an antibiotic twice a day and the vet did say I could put a little peanut butter on that (phew!  miss raven LOVES peanut butter so no problem there!)

So all of that cost me almost two hundred dollars.  In addition to that they gave me a "loose" estimate for having her teeth cleaned which they STRONGLY suggested I have done very soon.  Her teeth are horrible but there is some build up on them.  The only problem is that the tooth cleaning procedure is going to cost me close to FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS.  I don't have that.  Not only that, they don't take payments.  They expect the full payment the day it is done.  They told me that, if I have it done within the next couple of weeks, then I don't have to have the blood work redone.  If I wait longer than that I have to pay for the blood work done again.  The way it is looking right now I am going to have to wait and just save up the money to have it done, hopefully by Christmas time.  We'll see.  Right now I am just focusing on getting her better from this little episode.  I'm not as freaked out as I was earlier today especially since she is laying behind me on the back of the couch softly snoring while she sleeps a little.  She is my child...only not and at this point, I will do whatever I can to make sure I have her for a long, long time.

Another (not-so) brief post on friends....

I was the biggest nerd in school.  No, seriously, I was.  In sixth grade I had the "Annie" perm, big clod-hopper shoes, the geeky Tupperware lunch box, and all the very uncool school supplies.  I was the goody two shoes.  Please don't think it was because I wanted to be good.  I was good because I was afraid of my parents. A good, healthy, respectful fear.  I knew that if I got in trouble at school I got it twice as bad at home (May I go on a wee bit of a rant here and say that, if more parents thought that way today I might not have to deal with all the foolishness that I deal with on a day to day basis.  Rant over.)

Anyway, because I was good and very geeky/homely looking, I was a nerd.  Big time.

It didn't get better when I went to college.  No, dear reader, it got worse.  Because not only did all of the above apply, but in college I got fat.  Not just kind of fat but super-duper fat.  I was minus the perm (phew!) and minus the cold-hopper shoes, the Tupperware lunchbox, and the uncool school supplies, but I was a fatty.  And my clothes, most of them, were obviously homemade.  Can you say social outcast?

Extremely important disclaimer:  Please, please, please do not think that I am blaming my parents for any of this.  I had two of the most loving, caring, supportive parents out there.  I honestly with all my heart believe that my parents always did what they thought was best when it came to raising both my brother and I.  I know that this is true because both my brother and I have turned out to be well adjusted, productive citizens.  My parents always did the best they could with what they had and often sacrificed tremendously so that my brother and I could have the things we need and sometimes the things we wanted.

You may be wondering why I am saying all of this.  I am about to tell you.

When I first came up here to the school that I am at (sixteen years ago) I was painfully shy.  A shy, fat, self-conscious, scared teacher.  To my great astonishment the very first person who was genuinely nice to me wasn't my roommate at the time or any of her friends.  No, the first person who was really nice to me, who invited me to do things with her, who included me in things was the coolest person at the school.  The person that everyone wanted to be around.  I couldn't believe it.  I thought it was a mistake.  I really did.  Then I thought maybe she was just being nice.  You know, kind of felt sorry for me.  The more I got to know her, though, the more I realized that she really did like me.  Even with all my above mentioned "faults". 

I never, in a million year, ever dreamed I would be friends with the "popular kid" so to speak.  Real friends.  Not the pity type of friendship.  That year was really nice.  I was still fat, still painfully shy, still self-conscious, but she liked me.  She even asked me to be in her wedding.  Excuse me.  Her WHAT?

I was devastated when I found out she was moving.  I just find a good friend and now she is LEAVING?!?!  You know what I learned about true friendships, though?  It doesn't matter WHERE you are geographically.  What matters is that you are always there for the other person no matter what.

I was cleaning out files last week and came across some letters that I got the first year she was married and lived in Tennessee.  I took the time to read over them because it was too funny not too.  In addition to those letters, I found other ones.  Some had pictures, like the one I got right after I became an "auntie."  Or the ones with pictures of us "hiding" Easter eggs in the freaking cold!  Cards that she made me or sent me when I was down or just because.  Cards that she sent me right after my mom died.  She is the one person outside of my family that I know without a shadow of a doubt I can call at anytime of any day and she will always take time for me.  No matter what.

She is to blame for me coffee addiction as much as I think I am to blame for her yarn addiction.  I'm not the only "yarn ho", Freddie. ;)

Her family treats me as one of their own (well, most of them anyway. ;) ) and I feel that I have helped raise her daughter (even though she didn't like me when she was a baby.  lol!)  I am always welcome at her house, even with my diva girlie.

So I am sure by now you can see why she is my best friend and why, if she was the only friend I had left, I would be more blessed than just about anyone.

Love you bunches, L, and will always, always, always be there for you, no matter what. ;)


On a completed unrelated note.  miss raven is not feeling well today.  I came home this afternoon and there was a mess in the living room.  She NEVER does that.  NEVER.  I had to cajole her into eating her supper tonight.  She ate a little and did eat her cookie so that was good.  She has been outside several times and all times she barked like a little fiend.  She is happy because I FINALLY got the jungle mowed for her so the weeds aren't whipping her in the face.  I feel a little silly asking this, but....please pray that when I take her to the doctor tomorrow, they will find nothing wrong with her.  I am praying that it is just something simple.  Maybe like the heat that we have been going through the last few days.  She has had tummy issues for the last few years but the vet never seemed to think it was anything serious.  I am just hoping and praying that they are still right about that.  I can't bear to think of losing this sweet little face:

She is too precious to me.  I promise to let you know what the doctor says.