Christmas Prep

Christmas prep is well underway. The Saturday after Thanksgiving H got all the outside decorations up. It looks great out there! I will have to get a picture soon. Maybe once I get the candles in the windows.

The inside prep has been a little slower. I did get my kitchen tree up last weekend, all but the popcorn and cranberry garland which is a bit labor intensive so I haven't gotten to that yet.

Last weekend I also started my annual Christmas letter. Squeezing all the news onto a front and back page was a bit challenging but we finally managed to get it all on there. H showed me a couple Word tricks I didn't know about. Yesterday and today I have gotten most of them printed off, Christmas cards addressed and they will go in the mail sometime this week probably.

Also this weekend I managed to get my Snow Baby tree decorated. It had been sitting next to the vase of sunflowers on the sofa table in the foyer for almost two weeks. I don't have all my Snow Babies out yet but I'll work on that this week maybe.

Last Monday morning at 5:45 we got a phone call from Scott. He said he had been sick and throwing up all night and needed to go to the emergency room. I quickly got ready and picked him up but instead of the emergency room we headed to the urgent care. After a quick exam, blood tests and blood sugar, it was determined that he was in DKA (Diabetic Ketone Acidosis)and the Dr. freaked out a little saying Scott had to go by ambulance to the hospital. They were able to put him right in a room at emergency and continue with fluids. That's pretty much all they did all day, fluid bag after fluid bag. The frustrating part was that when his bag was empty I would have to go search someone down and sometimes it would take an hour to get someone to help us. Around 4:00 that afternoon they finally gave him some clear liquids to see if he could keep anything down. He did and then at 5:00 a nurse came in and said the Dr. had decided to keep him overnight. What really ticked me off was that the Dr. never even came in to see him. By 8:30 he was upstairs in a room and H and I were able to go home. The next morning I went to work and Scott was to call me when he was discharged. The Dr. didn't come in until after 11:00!! Scott told them he wanted to check himself out but the nurse told him if he did that then his insurance would cover anything! I picked him up around 12:30 and took him home so he could rest up and be ready for work the next day. him

Friday night was bowling. We are in second place right now. Behind the first place team by 4 points. We took 3 points Friday night and so did they. We all bowled fairly well and could have had 4 if we hadn't lost the second game by just 3 pins! All of us opened in the 10th. Bummer.

I've started something new this past week. After talking to H about sending Charlie to a doggie boot camp, I decided it was ridiculous that I walk every day (nearly) and my dogs have to stay home because they are so wild and ill-mannered. On Thursday, after work, I decided I would give it a try and see how bad things really are. I'm embarrassed to say I haven't walked either dog on a leash, other than 20 steps from the field to the car, in over 2 years. Well, there was that one time a month or so ago I decided I would give it a try. I didn't even get two houses away. They both saw the neighbor's dog and started going crazy, pulling me, barking. I could hardly hold them back. I was out of breath and had to turn around and go back home.

Thursday went a little better. I remembered I had this handy dandy tool called the gentle leader. It's a special head harness that works much like a harness for horses. Supposedly where the head goes the body goes. Plus I decided to just take Charlie by himself. Let's just say the first 1/4 of the walk didn't go that well, for Charlie. He bucked and jumped around like a bucking bronco. Toward the end of that 1/4 his nose was on the pinkish side from scratching at his "gentle leader". He finally gave it up and started walking nicely. Toward the end of the walk he saw another dog, a huge trigger, and while he barked and jumped, I still had him under control and we walked away after a few minutes of acting like a total a$$.

Since Thursday we have had two more walks, yesterday and today. I would like to say they have been better but they were pretty much the same. He is nothing if not hardheaded. It takes him a while to get it. He still thinks he has a chance to be a jerk. I have remained calm and steady, mostly. There was that one time where he was acting like a total a$$, jumping and barking at another dog and started getting under my feet and almost tripped me. He got an extra jerk and a little louder NO for that one. When he heels, he does it really well. When I stop, he automatically sits.

Zoe has only been on one walk. Hers was shorter and pretty good. She doesn't have as many bad habits but then again, we didn't see any other dogs. She doesn't act like she wants to kill them, she just screams and it sounds like she's been hit by a car. We had none of that yesterday, thank goodness. Of course, we didn't see any other dogs either.

That's about all the news for the past 2 weeks. We are counting the days (13) until we get to see our little sweetie! We are all going to have such a nice time celebrating Christmas, baking cookies, sledding (if we ever get some snow) and resting up!

Have a good week!