Last Days of Freedom

Only a couple more days and then my summer freedom is over.  I do so like being able to plan out my days during the summer.  But alas, I will go back to my regular routine on friday.  There are good things to say about routine though.  It forces you to be more organized.  You know what to expect each day.  You seem to be able to accomplish more things in a shorter period of time and you become better at prioritizing what really needs to be done.  The down side is that you have less thinking time.  (Something I've always enjoyed doing).  You don't get to choose where you go or what you do each day, you are pretty much required to spend a big chunk of the day doing what is expected of you so that you can pay the bills.  You only have snatches of time to cook meals, clean, do the laundry, take the dog out, exercise, do family history work, and spend time with family and friends.  Oh yes, and then there's the stress.  The ever present stress.  That is the part that I hate the most.  Maybe because I'm so OCD.   I guess that is my own fault, but I am working on it.  Maybe by the time I die I will learn how to chill out.

I have thoroughly enjoyed some of my summer highlights. 

 Like visiting all of our kids and grandkids in the Philadelphia area.  We love them and miss them.

It was hard to get Bill to stay off the phone however.

Playing with Jade.  She's still our shlupper pupper!

Going to Farm Country with the grandkids and having a picnic lunch.

Driving to California with John & Krista, Sarah & Mark to see me dad.  We went to the beach, the San Diego Temple and Knotts Berry Farm.  We made crepes and lasagna for my dad.

Scrapbooking with all the grandkids.  They did such an awesome job on their scrapbooks!

Spending time with my mom...going shopping, visiting the emergency room, going to the doctor, and movies with Sharon & Melony.

Hanging out with the girls.  Some of us got together for a Girls Night Sleepover.  It was fun.

Marie's baby shower.  Good fun, good food, great friends and family, and lots of presents!

And last but not least...spending time with my Billy Bob!

So that about sums it up.  My great summer of fun and freedom is over.  But the memories are wonderful.  And Marie can't help but be impressed that I actually added pictures to this blog all on my own!  See!  You can teach an old dog new tricks!

Summer

So, I know it has been a long time since I have blogged ... even longer than Sarah.  So I thought I better say something before they kick me off blogspot.  Here's the tricky thing...I don't have much to say.  I used to write a lot when I was younger.  I mean really write.  When I lived in Minnesota away from family, I would write long letters about the daily adventures and happenings of my wonderful kids.  Now...well, I'm an empty nester and my kids have their own blogs so I find myself tongue-tied, or finger-tied or whatever you want to call it. 

I could write about how I spend most of my days - at work.  But, oh wait.  I can't talk about all the funny and great things that happen at work because of confidentiality.  So I guess that I can say that I love my students and enjoy teaching them.  I love my coworkers.  They make going to work each day a pleasure.  And I feel that the work I do is meaningful.

Becky would say, "Write about the 2 children you have left, Jade and Midnight."  Well, Jade, our 9 year yellow lab, and Midnight, our 8 year old black cat don't give me much to write about.  We haven't had any skunks fall into our window wells recently, only one racoon has invaded our garage in the last month, and it's too early for the deer to come eat the fruit off of our fruit trees.

I could write about planting my garden or I could write about weeding my garden.  Or maybe I could write about cleaning my house and finishing all the unfinished projects that I am trying to get done this summer.  But who wants to hear about that?  Not me.  So I guess that makes me a boring person.  In fact, you are probably bored out of your mind just reading this and will never visit my blog again, right?

OK.  I just thought of something to write about...our trip to Pennsylvania to visit our kids and grandkids there and our upcoming trip to visit my dad in California.  Now if I could just remember how Marie told me to add pictures....

School Dazed!

I just completed my first two weeks back teaching school. The kids are as cute and adorable as ever and I am back in my typical pattern of feeling stressed as I try to juggle all the work that has to be done at the beginning of the year and keeping my home somewhat in order. Then this happens to be a year when I also got a cold within the first week and a half. For many people that isn't such a big deal, you just tell yourself to stay home and get well. Not so easy at the beginning of a school year when you are trying to get yourself and all your students into a workable routine. Having even one adult gone makes such a big difference. The good news is that I am finally on the mend. (Thank goodness for Alka Seltzer PM! It let me get a good night's sleep for the past 4 nights so that I could get up and go to work).
I am looking forward to our 3 day weekend. I am also looking forward to seeing all my children (at least the ones that live in Utah) come over for a Labor Day BBQ. I love having my children and grandchildren come over and enjoy the closeness of family. I am so proud of all of our kids and what they are accomplishing in their lives, as well as the kind of parents they are as they raise our next generation of grandchildren. What is more important than that...nothing!
So even though I may be a little "school dazed", like a deer in the headlights of your car, I can enjoy the little moments in life when I can connect with those I love.

FEELING BLESSED

Two weeks ago I woke up and immediately noticed that my right eye felt weird. It felt different than my left eye and I could see a lot of little "floaties" in my vision. I wondered if it would just correct itself, but it didn't. With my family's history of eye problems, a few days later I decided to mention it to my mom. She said that I should go to her eye doctor and get it checked out. I told her it was probably nothing but she insisted that I should go. My brother, Gordon also encouraged me to go. Not wanting to make a mountain out of a molehill, I asked my mom to call and make an appointment. She was able to get me in yesterday at the same time that she had her appointment.
Well, we went to Dr. Carver. Unfortunately, my mom found out she will probably have to have the same eye surgery that my brother Gordon had last month. The pressure in her eye is not going down. She is feeling discouraged at the continuing progression of her vision loss. I am only now beginning to understand my mom's and brother's frustration with their vision problems.
Then it was my turn to be examined. My vision was good in reading the eye chart (20/20). My eyes were dilated and then the doctor looked inside my eyes. At first he commented on how it was nice to see a healthy eye for a change, then he stopped and said, "Oh. You have a tear in your retina and it has started to detach." "You're kidding." I said in shock. "No, I'm not." he said seriously.
The doctor later said that it was a miracle that I had come in so that they could repair the tear with laser surger in his office. He said that most people don't recognize the symptoms of torn retinas until it is too late and then they have to go through eye surgery and/or suffer from totally detached retinas and permanent vision loss in that eye.
The laser surgery only took about 5 minutes but it felt like an hour. I had to hold my head very still so that he could accurately seal the torn area on my retina with lasers. I didn't have to try to keep my eye open (totally impossible) because the doctor held it open. Because the tear was at the top of the back of my eye, I had to keep looking up during the procedure. The lasering was a serious of very BRIGHT lights going through and into my eye. When it became uncomfortable, he would stop and let my eye rest for about a minute and then continue. There was no sharp pain, but after repeated lasering it felt like my eye was aching. It also gave me a headache for the rest of the night. It took 130 laser shots to seal the tear. Amazing what our medical knowledge and skill can do. Thirty years ago, I probably would have gone blind in that eye.
I am feeling VERY blessed and grateful that I noticed a change in my eye and that my mom and brother insisted that I go get my eye checked out. If I had waited even a week later, I would be having eye surgery instead of going back east to visit family and I could have had some permanent vision loss. Blessings!!!!

FREEDOM

I love our country's birthday. It is a time to get together with family and friends, eat, play games, talk, celebrate and enjoy the bounty of our nation. It is also a time to reflect and be grateful. We have so much. We get to enjoy the fruits of our labor and make choices in so many aspects of our lives. Many people have worked and sacrificed throughout the last 233 years to give us the opportunity to have choices. I am grateful for them. I am also grateful for those who are now serving their country with integrity to help us to maintain the blessings that we have. God bless America.

LIFE STINKS!

We lost our sweet black and white cat Mellow this past week. She just disappeared. Which probably means that she got too close to the fields past our backyard lawn and a fox got her. Hey, it could even have been a cougar since they have been spotted in neighborhoods not a mile from our house. Anyway, I miss her. We have had her for 7 years. She was a good sweet fatty cat. Her sister, Midnight, is meloncholy. Now we are down to one cat and one dog. Life on the gully stinks.
It was only 2 weeks ago that we discovered a baby skunk in one of our window wells. Within a couple of days (and with the help of my daughter and son-in-law) I was able to successfully get it out and back to the gully. Whew! I thought my stinky days were over. Was I wrong. Yesterday I followed my normal routine of taking the dog out early in the morning to do her "business," and she kept trying to go under the deck. She finally succeeded in crawling under her deck and started growling. Oh great. That meant there was probably an animal under our deck. I brought her in the house and dismissed it from my mind thinking that the animal would leave on its own.
Later that evening I went downstairs to get something and I heard Jade whining in one of the downstairs bedrooms. My first thought was, "I hope that there's not an animal hiding in my house." Fortunately, there wasn't, but as I looked through the window into the window well I was shocked to see...yup, you guessed it...another baby skunk. This shouldn't be so bad since I now know a way to get them out, however, this skunk decided to fall into a window well under the deck. There's no way I am crawling under the deck to fish out a skunk and then get sprayed! I don't get it. Is our house a skunk magnet or something?
Bill assures me that there are some trap doors in our deck so that we can get under the deck. We are now trying to figure out how or what to put down there so that it can crawl out by itself so we can avoid the odorifious experience that we had last time. Any suggestions? Like I said before...life on the gully stinks!

Living on a Gully!
If you have read Marie's most recent blog then you know about our little stinker. No, I don't mean Jade when she has gas. I mean a real baby skunk which wandered up from the gully with its mother a couple of days ago and managed to fall in one of our window wells. The mother is no where to be seen, but our dog, Jade, managed to find the little critter in our window well on Sunday.
Now our dilema was- how do you get a skunk out of your window well without getting sprayed? I went on the internet to find out about baby skunks. Can they spray too? How old are they before they can spray? How old is this little critter? Is it as stinky as an adult skunk?
What I found out was that baby skunks can share their odor at about 1 month. Most skunks give birth in late spring (May) which would make this baby at least a month old. I also found out that baby's can't shoot their spray 6 to 15 feet like adults, but they usually just "piddle."
I don't like to see animals suffer (even a skunk). From my neighbors' experiences with skunks, I knew that animal control doesn't usually bother with skunks. My neighbors have had to find their own ways of disposing of their skunk invaders. Cat food is one of the biggest attractions for them. So I am very careful to bring in our cats' food each night so that we don't have racoon and skunky visitors at night like we used to. This has helped a lot, but I guess friday or saturday night, we had visitors, hence the baby skunk in the window well.
With all this information, Marie, Anthon and I decided to try to get the poor little thing out of the window well and back out to the gully. Our first attempt was to put a board down into the well so the Little Stinker could crawl out by itself. No go. Poor Little Stinker has been traumatized by the fall and doesn't want to move. Then Anthon has a great idea. Make a skunkie trap out of an old cereal box, attach a string to it, then lure the skunkie into it with cat food. When Little Stinker gets into the box we lift it out by the string and take it back to the gully. Unfortunately, Little Stinker doesn't want to get into the box, and when we try to prod it gently into the box with a hoe, Little Stinker lets us know it is not pleased. The internet was right. Month old skunks can spray or "piddle." We left the box. The offending odor drove us away and permeated our house. Peeeeuw! We gave up after that. It took all night to get rid of the smell by running the fan throughout the house.
Now for the latest update! Little Stinker is back with her gully friends! Monday morning and afternoon I checked the window well. Little Stinker was still huddled in the well away from the box. I had decided that I would probably have to let it die in my window well and hope I could get it out before it bloated and released its stink. This morning (Tuesday) I tried to find time to check on Little Stinker, but couldn't. Finally this afternoon I was reading Marie's blog and it reminded me that I hadn't checked on it. So when Nicole was asleep, I went downstairs to peek through the window...and all I could see was the box. Could Little Stinker have crawled out on the board? Or was it in the box?
I hurried out with the hoe to try to snag the string so I could pull up the box. As I looked into the well...no skunk. Yipee! I snagged the string and pulled up the box. OOOhhh! Little Stinker is in the box looking at me! I'm muttering, "Please don't spray. Please don't spray," as I hold the string and box as far away from me as possible. I hurried across my yard, out through the field to the edge of the gully and lowered the box. I got lucky. Little Stinker decided not to spray even though it was a little bit of a rough ride. Using the hoe, I turned the box over so Little Stinker could easily get out and then I hightailed it back to the house before it decided to leave me with a smelly souvineer of its visit.
So I guess all's well that ends well, as long as its not in my window well.