Happy New Year

Happy 2007!

Well, let's hope it will be, anyway. Years ago I made a New Year's resolution and I have always kept it. That was, to never again make any New Year's resolutions. Works great.

I do, however, generally "decide" (that's decide, NOT resolve) to try to do better about things with the start of each new year. So, I have decided to do better about blogging. I can't even believe it has been so long since my last post. Lately I haven't even had/taken the time to read my favorite blogs.

So let's catch up, shall we? Should be easy. Lots going on but very little of it exciting. The kid stayed her and had Thanksgiving with us. I took her to visit Phillip the day after Thanksgiving, then hit the outlet mall that Sunday. The rest of December is just a flurry of shopping and a whole lotta stuff going on. Mama had the kid for Christmas this year. Last year we had her, but Mama came down here and stayed with a friend and basically horned in on our Christmas. I let it happen, thinking she might be kind enough to return the favor and share her with us this Christmas. Uh, NOT. Silly me. She was in Oklahoma for 8 days, including over Christmas AND her birthday. So next year when we have her, and Mama tries to horn in again, it's going to be "Oh, I am sorry, we are not available." No further explanation required. She gets her the time she is allowed to have her and no more.

So, Christmas was good, though quiet without the kid. We went over to my aunt's on Christmas Eve. The kid turned 6 on her birthday and came back from Mama's 2 days later, the day before our scheduled birthday party here. Man, the LOOT she got, between both Christmas and her birthday. My current project is finding a place for everything until I can go through her room and determine what we can get rid of - toys too young for her or broken or missing parts etc. - to make room for the new stuff.

I spent my Christmas day worrying about my foster boxer, Carlee. Over the past few weeks she had lost a few pounds. I noticed about 2 weeks ago and attributed it to my recent change of dog food and thought she must not like it. I started mixing canned food in with her dry and she gobbled it all down. Problem solved, I thought, she would start to get her weight back. A couple of days before Christmas she started eating just half of it, and then she started to kind of bloat up, and she wasn't pooping. Long story short, I gave her some canned pumpkin, she started pooping, then went to the vet the day after Christmas. The bloatiness was fluid in her abdomen, and the vet recommended an ultra sound. She had the ultrasound on Friday, the vet determined he needed to do exploratory surgery for what he thought would be a diaphragmatic hernia which he believed he could repair and Carlee would be fine.

Unfortunately when he opened her up, her liver was riddled with cancer. We had decided beforehand that if it turned out to be something the vet could not fix/help, that he would put her down while she was still under the anesthesia. So we lost her. She was the sweetest girl, and we miss her SO much.