The Joy!

Wednesday I spent quite a bit of time with Anneliese and the puppies. It was so much fun to climb into the whelping box and hold the puppies, while I patted Anneliese. She was so cute. I think she is very proud of her litter, and she certainly should be.

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They are happy, healthy, squirming little babies, with fat bellies!

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While holding them, they tried to nurse my hand and they would snuggle against me.

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Hubby came in with me and we took turns taking pictures.

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Just look at this face!

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In just a few more days their little eyes will open. I can hardly wait!

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In other news, I planted my cucumber and squash seeds today, re-potted my tomato, eggplant and brussel sprout plants, and got the green house cleaned up and organized.

Also a little note to my cousin. I love you, sweetie and I’m wishing you all kinds of good luck!

Sleep?

Monday was a nice low key day. I sure needed it. You see since the puppies were born, Anneliese has been getting me up early, or in the night and I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep. This morning was no exception. At 5:15 she woke me up with sweet kisses and snuggles.

Well, I love the girl. She is my baby, but I also need my beauty rest! So today I took the bed out of the puppy room, and replaced it with a recliner. This gives me a place to sit and recline during the day with Anneliese, and then at night I will sleep in my own bed.

We also left the puppies for 1-1/2 hours to go out to eat for Hubby’s birthday. All was fine when we returned, but I still worried the entire time.

Now that we are past Hubby’s birthday, it is back to being on a strict Weight Watchers diet. It’s not that I have gained a lot (some), but I need to get myself back on track.

The rest of the week is easy with only a visit to the fountain of youth for my hair. Aside from that, I am home with all my babies! Just where I want to be!

I’m Banished

The day began as usual on Wednesday. Anneliese woke me early and I slipped into my robe and clogs and jacket, turned on the coffee and went out to walk my pregnant little Miss. I came in, answered some email and then made breakfast for Hubby and me.

I dressed and drove down for my Weight Watchers meeting and then came back home afterward to wait for my friend to arrive to pick up some documents I had for her.

That was the last normal thing that happened.

I sat down in my nice chair with my nice dogs and picked up my nice laptop computer. But something was wrong. Something was very wrong. I tried rebooting the machine, nothing. I rebooted it again. Nada! I tried to get a handle on what was wrong, but inside I knew.

The system files were corrupted and only wiping the hard drive and redoing the system would work.

I called my computer man and arranged to bring it in and have him download my files for me onto a disk, and then wipe the drive and reload the system.

If all goes well, I should be getting my machine back tomorrow.

Meanwhile I am banished to the Office where we have a desktop computer that I am using. It’s a nice enough machine, but I really miss my laptop!

Anneliese is fine. Eating well, and with a temperature of 100.5 (F). So I guess that there will not be any puppies tonight. I’m thinking Friday or Saturday night. (Don’t puppies always come in the middle of the night?)

I took a couple of pictures of Anneliese today. What do you think?

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That’s all for now. Have a great day everyone!!!

Friday’s Happenings

Friday was such an emotional day. Taking Anneliese to the Vet’s and seeing the babies on the x-ray, makes it all so real. In another week they will be here and then the fun begins!

We also went out after lunch to see the movie “Doubt”. It’s with Meryl Streep. I will tell you, it is a very well done movie, and Meryl Streep is totally fabulous in her part as usual! I wasn’t really looking forward to the movie, but in the end, I admit I enjoyed it!

A dear friend of mine passed away this week. It was sudden and unexpected. She was a young woman, pregnant with twins. She was happy and full of life and the promise that the future held for her and her husband. Rest in peace, dear Louise with your little angel babies!

Now the week is over. Next week at this time we will be awaiting the arrival of the puppies. New life. Sweet life.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Okay, So We’re Getting Old!

Hubby asked me to find some papers that he’d left lying around since before my Dad’s funeral. Hubby is like that. He has trouble with paper control and usually he believes that I have thrown away his paper.

And usually he is right.

So, I started to look in all my usual places. Like the trash. Oh, Gag! I do not handle stinky old trash very well, but since I had to find these papers I had to look everywhere!

I searched high, I searched low (can’t get any lower than the garbage!). Nothing. I went through my file box, which you all might recall is very full, all the time, because I hate to file. Nothing!

I went back down to the garage to the old garbage and began to search again. Gag!

Then, a mere 1 hour after I started to search for these important papers, it hit me! I suddenly knew where they were.

I went to the stairs and started up, my knees shaking with excitement and nearly buckling under me. I ran down the hall to the office and pulled open the file drawer and there, filed nicely and neatly in a new folder, just as HUBBY HAD INSTRUCTED ME, were the two documents that he needed.

I can’t totally blame Hubby for this fiasco. After all, I was the one who made out the file and placed the papers in it.

Then I started to laugh. I’ve admitted to a short term memory problem and now Hubby must as well.

I wonder if they have service animals for this. Maybe we could train Arnie. All I would have to do is say, “Arnie, where did Mummy put those papers?” and he would run to the file box and point with his nose!

Oh I am just laughing like crazy!

Happy Easter everyone!

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Frost Bite!

I did something really stupid. Actually two somethings. Ah well, what can I say, I’m getting old.

Yesterday Hubby and I celebrated our anniversary. We went shopping late in the day and I bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate. Oh, how nice, right?

Well I wanted to chill it quickly so I put it in the freezer and before I knew it we were out the door to go to dinner, and I completely forgot the champagne.

Now I should have just left it out for a few hours, but I wanted to pour two glasses, so I carefully opened the bottle and the bottle went off like a rocket. I jammed my index finger into the bottle, as my friend told me once that this would stop any champagne from overflowing.

WRONG!

You see, it froze, and while the champagne was spurting out, my index finger was freezing! Eventually the volcanic champagne bottle stopped exploding and I pulled out my finger only to find it shockingly white and frozen!

I put warm water on the finger and it hurt so much, so I stopped that. I tried cool water and that was better. At least I got some color back into the finger. But now, well, the champagne is frozen and we have it sitting on the shelf…..melting.

Our anniversary was wonderful. We had a great meal, spent some quiet time talking and reminiscing, and now we are sitting watching…..GOLF.

Yeah, it doesn’t get any more romantic than that!

Oh, and while I am thinking of it, I wanted to mention. I felt one of Anneliese’s pups move today! Now that was exciting!

Pancakes, Cats & More

We’ve been working hard to organize and decide what we are cooking for the dinner after the service for my Dad. Yesterday we went out to BJ’s and Stop & Shop and got the things we needed and this morning we will be cooking up a storm.

We did take my Mom out for breakfast yesterday to a place that she and Dad went to whenever they could. Their favorite waitress took care of us and we ordered one of dad’s favorite’s, Strawberry Pancakes! yum!

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I was amazed to discover that I can’t eat the way I once did. I filled up very fast and ended up leaving things on my plate. An unheard of event a few years ago. Mostly I craved coffee, and they make great coffee there!

We came home to Mel’s in time for lunch, and Mel made us roasted asparagus! Oh WOW, that was good! We also had Portuguese Sweet Bread. Also a big YUM!

I then noticed my niece’s cat Annie lounging on the foot stool and took a picture for Gattina and her cat Arthur! Now you can see, Gattina, why I love Arthur so much!

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We also have made a collage of picture to have at the supper after the service, showing Dad thorughout his life. I think it came out well.

Collage

Long Ride

I got down to my sister’s home in fairly good time. I’d actually left later than I usually like to because my windshield cracked and I had to wait for the repairman to come and replace it. He showed up early and by 11:30 I was on my way.

The sky was bright, the sun was warm, and the traffic light as I made my way along the highway. I listened to music most of the time, but as I neared Mel’s home, I shut it off and just listened to the noise of the road, and the thoughts running around in my mind.

I don’t suppose that it is ever easy to bury your father. I found myself thinking of all the times throughout my life when I’d done things with him. School, church, barbecues, clambakes, weddings, and funerals. I just kind of let my mind go and remember, and grieve a little, quietly, calmly.

The next few days I will spend with my Mom and sister as we make the last minute arrangements, and set things up for Sunday’s service.

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For tonight, I plan a good night’s sleep and the comfort of spending this time with my family.

On The Bright Side

Part of the wonder of having lived through a closed head injury is that my short term memory is not always that great.

For instance, I must always have a list when I go shopping because I simply cannot recall anything when I get into a store.

I can remember that I do actually own a back dress, but totally forget that it is size 14 and since being on Weight Watchers, I am now wearing a size 8.

You can watch a movie more than once! Enough said.

And today I did the ultimate short term memory loss test, only this was a good one and we actually learned something.

It was time for us to once again invest in a 3 litre jug of Olive Oil. For a few years I have been buying our store brand because it was a single blend Greek Oil. However, economic times are tough, and I didn’t want to pay $24.00 for 3 litres when I could try a new Italian Olive Oil for $10.99. Ah but the flavor was important. Still….

So we bought the cheaper one and on the way home I said to Hubby, “Listen, I have a little of the Greek Olive Oil, plus another Italian Olive Oil, and now this new one that we are bringing home. Let’s do a taste test!”

“How do we do that?” he asked.

“Well, we’ll take some Italian bread, and pour a little Olive Oil in three separate bowls, dip the bread, taste and decide.”

So, after I got done putting away all the groceries I got some masking tape. I wrote down on each piece of tape the name of the oil, stuck it on the underside of the dish and then poured in the different Olive Oils.

“Okay.” I said to Hubby, “Come on over and check these out.”

The best part here? Once I had set the bowls on the counter and turned to get the bread, I had completely forgotten which oil was in which dish!

So we took a small piece of bread and tasted each oil. After a few moments we both agreed that the far left dish had the best Olive Oil. I had sort of thought that this dish had the expensive oil in it, but when I looked at the underside, I found:

It was the cheap Olive Oil!!!

So how is having had a closed head injury a good thing, you might ask? Well, you can set up and participate in blind tests like this and be surprised every time!

That is definately, the bright side!

As The Weekend Comes To An End

Here it is, Sunday night and I am sitting here thinking about what I accomplished this weekend.

Ah, well not so much. I could have done more, but I guess I was just feeling tired and a little run down.

I did gather the paperwork for our taxes. I did do a couple of loads of laundry, and I did cook some truly great meals.Tonight’s gourmet treat for Hubby was Baked French Onion Soup!

The One About Food

However, I feel guilty because I should have gotten more done and I just didn’t.

Anneliese has suddenly found her appetite again. I guess her little doggy morning sickness is over. Good thing. She needs to eat well and help those babies grow!

The moles are having a blast in my back yard causing the worst looking mud tunnels all over the place. This lasted until the dogs were out more last year, and then the moles seemed to vanish.

The snow is melting, and there is bare ground in more places than there is snow. It’s funny because when I bring out Anneliese she must find a patch of snow to relieve herself on. What will she do when it is all gone?

The week is before me. I need to prepare for my father’s services next weekend. One thing I discovered today was that the dress I’d thought I was going to wear is 2 sizes too big. I somehow thought it was a smaller dress!