These things happen in threes...

They say bad things always happen in threes. My sister-in-law had to put her 3 year old Aussie to sleep the other day because of a severe case of IBD. It was so bad there was nothing they could find that the pup could eat and keep down. The did everything they could for her, but in the end, the Rainbow Bridge called for her.

Now I find out our good friends' German Shepherd had a case of gastric torsion and had to be rushed into surgery in the middle of the night. Basically, the stomach of certain dogs is free hanging and when it is full, if the dog gets too active, the stomach can rotate, blocking the entrance and exit, causing gas to build up. Luckily, mom was up in the middle of the night feeding the baby and immediately noticed something wrong with the dog. If torsion isn't corrected within a couple hours, it is deadly.

Let's just hope the rule of three doesn't apply here, because I do not need anything happening to my precious pooch or anyone elses!

My crazy bubba Vegas.

Un-burned Bridges

There are some things in my past that I am not too proud of. One of which is how I treated my very first roommate. I was in a crappy situation at home and desperately needed to get out, so I asked this girl to move out with me. We had worked together at a daycare, gone to the same high school and church. She was a ton of fun and I thought it would be great. Plus, there was no way I could move out on my own. I was way too much of a scaredy-cat at 22. I hadn't even gone away to college, so I couldn't imagine being on my own in an apartment, even if it was just 4 streets from my parents house.

Well, we got along great for the first 6 months. Then she started spending more time with her boyfriend, who had moved out of town. When she couldn't spend time with him, she was on the phone with him, and the bill was out of control (mind you, this was prior to the phenom that is cell phones and unlimited minutes and free long distance - we are talking 1994/95!) We started arguing more, and she started staying away more.

Eventually my best friend moved back from college and moved into the apartment since roommate had basically bailed. I had gone ballistic one day trying to find her at a friends house to see when she was going to pay for the phone bill and got a good stern lecture from the mom of that house - telling me to grow up. Me? I didn't think I was in the wrong, it was her!

Years later, reassessing the whole situation, I can't imagine what she must have been going through. Her boyfriend is enlisting in the Army, she is afraid she won't ever see him again. Her roommate's best friend is making the moves on your room and basically plans to kick you out. I hadn't even bothered to tell her that when the lease was up, me and BFF were going to get an apartment together somewhere else. I just assumed she would go with her boyfriend. I was a major bitch...

Hindsight is 20/20. BFF and I don't even talk anymore - she got married and that was the end of our friendship. I have always felt like crap about how things ended with roomie and wanted to make amends. Well, Facebook can be good for some things. She 'friended' me and we chatted - and the first thing I did was tell her how sorry I was for everything, and that I learned over the years who my real friends were, and that I was sorry for treating her the way I did. She was like, "Girl, please!"

Well today, driving over the house to replace some motion lights, I saw her and her husband outside of their house, just 2 blocks from our future home. I stopped and she hopped in my car and we chatted for about 5 minutes. It was so good to see her and I am so glad that people have this amazing gift for forgiveness. It's nice to know that we are going to be neighbors in the near future, and I can work on rebuilding that bridge I once burned to the ground. Time sometimes does heal all wounds!

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The New Baby!

I'm a proud new mamma!

Yesterday we put to rest Bessie. It was bittersweet, as I really hated that bitch for a good part of her existence but really wanted to treat her well the other part because, well, she was paid for and I liked not having a car payment. But she must have sensed my underlying resentment and did what all cars do faced with that situation, she hit me where it hurt - my pocketbook.

Let me tell you, a true test of a marriage is dealing with each other during the purchase of a car. If you can make it through the suckage-of-life that is the games the dealership plays, than you can just about make it through any marital crisis.

So yesterday we spent over 4 hours at the dealership waiting to put Bessie to rest. The question was, what was she worth? Luckily we got for her just about what it would have cost to repair her, so I'm happy. She really was an old cow, down in her years, ready to be put to pasture, as the saying goes...

And after signing our life away, this is what the proud parents drove home in...

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We even had time to drive to the forest and park it along a river just to get a beautiful picture of her! Ha! That's the color, too, Glacier Blue. Basically I have owned blue or silver cars, so why break the pattern now?

Hubby had only one request. He said, please do not name her after a cow.

Now what am I going to do? Any suggestions?

It's a woman's prerogative

I have been fussing for week's trying to figure out what to do with my layout. I want something cute, no I want something fancy, not I want something bigger, no I want something versatile. Heck, I don't even know where to go to get most of these things. So I'm going with the KISS philosophy -

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Next time anyone sees me change my blogger, smack me!

Could my luck be changing?

I'm a big time knock-on-wood type of person, but I think my run of bad luck just might be changing (knock knock knock - now you do it too...) Yesterday I had lunch with a girlfriend who was in desperate need of a shoulder to sob on. Her luck is about as bad as mine. The rental she's living in is infested with mites, and try as she may, the exterminators can't see to do anything about it. They spray, clean vents, etc. etc. and she still ends up with bites when she wakes up in the morning. Yowzer! That's a problem I wouldn't want to swap out with her, but I feel for her because she's at her wits end right now and she thinks not too far into the future she's going to end up in a padded cell.

Ewww... gross here's the photo credit!

Well, while we were leaving the little Mexican restaurant we dined at, I happened to look down and noticed a bill on the ground, bent down and picked it up and, voila! TWENTY BUCKS! Paid for our meal!

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Now this morning, my husband was watching Fox2 news while getting ready for work and he woke me up to say they were having a contest right up my alley - win tickets before you can buy them to So You Think You Can Dance. So I got online and entered, and at exactly 9:25 this morning Jill from Channel 2 called to tell me I had won 2 tickets! Yea me! Now I have to decide which of my two girls that watch the show with me is the other lucky winner with me... maybe I will make them do a dance off to decide a winner :)

SYTYCD photo credit

Now I just need to learn how to post videos from YouTube, so if anyone wants to give me some pointers, I would be most grateful!

A Mother's Love

I'm cleaning out our office today and I came across a piece of paper. Looking at today's date makes the paper even more significant. In exactly one month it will be the two year anniversary of my mother's passing. You see, on the paper was a poem I had found that I had planned to read at her funeral but that I just couldn't do because I was too emotional. Considering how emotional I have been lately, I feel the need to share it now.

A Mother's Love

Helen Steiner Rice

A Mother's love is something

that no one can explain,

It is made of deep devotion

and of sacrifice and pain,

It is endless and unselfish

and enduring come what may

For nothing can destroy it

or take that love away. . .

It is patient and forgiving

when all others are forsaking,

And it never fails or falters

even though the heard is breaking. . .

It believes beyond believing

when the world around condemns,

And it glows with all the beauty

of the rarest, brightest gems. . .

It is far beyond defining,

it defies all explanation,

And it still remains a secret

like the mysteries of creation. . .

A many splendoured miracle

man cannot understand

And another wondrous evidence

of God's tender guiding hand.

A picture of my mom and me (in our previous life.) photo cred

I heart giraffes.

When it rains, it pours...

And it's MONSOON season around here...

Along with my blahs the past two weeks, I have been saying for this entire summer that I want my car (payment free) to last as long as possible. Why? Well, buying and remodeling a home costs money, and a new car and it's payment would be the last thing I would want on my plate at this time. Well, Saturday while sitting in DQ's drive-through, my sweet little Bessie decided to send me a message, "Hey fattie - too much ice-cream lately, I can't take it!" and begins to chug her way out of the lot. So I carefully maneuver her fragile frame to our local shop with fingers and toes crossed that it's just a loose wire or the simple equivalent. An hour later the CarX guy tells me that Bessie is having a mid-life crisis, what with the thought of rolling over to 100,000 miles, and she needs some cosmetic surgery - new plugs, wires, filters, and some flushing should do it, all to the tune of about $700. GULP. OK - whatever it takes to keep my sweet baby running.

Flash forward to Monday morning, me thinking Bessie will be just fine and dandy. Haven't heard anything by noon, starting to panic. Nothing by 1:30, the sweat is beginning to roll. Finally, 3:00 rolls around and the phone rings. Dave from CarX tells me the worst possible news - TWO, count them TWO head gaskets are cracked!!! I have no idea what that means other than the last time that happened to damn Bessie, it cost over a thousand dollars to have her big ass fixed! For the love of all that is good and holy, Dave, how much would this set me back? Well, I faint (good thing I was sitting in bed when he told me) because he believes it could be well over $2,500 to get everything worked out that is wrong with my stupid Bessie.

My Sweet Bessie's photo cred

Whoa is me! The love of my life, my vehicle, my relationship with Pontiac is coming to an end. Not that my relationship hasn't been bittersweet, but there is no way on this earth I am shelling out thousands of dollars to fix a problem on a car that I have already fixed once before. Especially since it boils down to being a manufacturer defect that they don't want to take responsibility for. You see, Bessie's "moisturizer" is called Dexcool (evil evil evil), and it basically corrodes her from the inside out even though it is supposed to keep her cool when the going gets tough. I have had my share of curse words with the big dealership that she comes from. I refuse to ever do business with them again. I tell everyone I meet my whoas and hardships when it comes to their refusal to help me out when my warranty was up by less than one month and they refused to fix what was essentially their problem.

So now I'm here with a broken car, a broken heart, and a broken spirit because I hate car shopping. I have to work a new car into my budget, along with find a way to pay for these astronomical housing repairs. And to top it off, my doctor calls and tells me a test result came back positive so I have to go back in 6 months for a second test! WAH! And these things happen in threes, don't they? So what's going to happen next?

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I think I could puke from the thought of it all!