Exceedingly Mundane

Well, it was three weeks ago yesterday that we lost my precious dog, Beau. I still miss him terribly. He was so very loved. I talk about him all the time, and I think Tim is tired of it. I have looked on PetFinder and found a dog in a nearby shelter that I want to go see, he reminds me of Beau. But Tim is not ready. He wants to rebuild the fence. He wants to work in the yard. He says a dog will tie us down while we go back and forth to work on my dad’s house, cleaning it out and getting it ready to sell. We can’t go on vacation at the drop of a hat if we have a dog. He has a hundred reasons, but I just want a new dog to fill the humungous hole left in my heart by having my Beau go so fast and so suddenly. Sigh. I know he’s right, but still. I want my Beau back, or I want a new puppy to love.

It was three years ago this morning that I woke up with tinnitus. I hear it now, screeching away. I’m grateful that I hear it, and I hope that I never lose my hearing. I’ve learned to live with it, most of the time. I can now sleep most nights, although there are times when I wake up, hear it, and can’t get back to sleep. I’d like to think that’s part of the whole middle age insomnia thing. I know I’ll have tinnitus as long as I’m on this earth, but I have learned to be ok with that.

It’s been three days since I’ve seen my dad. That’s the longest he’s gone since we moved him up here in mid-February. It’s still been an ongoing thing with him. He can’t seem to catch a break. First was the kidney infection, dehydration that caused his fall. Then after we moved him into the assisted living facility, he was starting to get better, and he got a bad stomach virus. They shut the whole place down for several days until they could get everyone semi-healthy. Then he got an upper respiratory infection. Then, my sister Gail and I took him to the eye doctor for a steroid shot in his eye (an ongoing thing, he’s been seeing a retina specialist for about 18 months). The shot seemed to have gone ok (it’s an implant thing, a one time only thing, thank goodness), but he scratched his eye with the gauze patch they put on. So, a corneal abrasion necessitated 3 more trips back to the doctor to get his eye checked and repatched. He had a patch on his eye for about 5 days and he was so tired of it, and I don’t blame him. Now, the home health nurse says he is probably anemic. We just can’t seem to get him well and feeling better. I’ve stayed away this week, giving him time to feel better and try to get settled in. We think he’s in a great place, they have lots of activities and things for the residents to do, but my dad is not a social person. He has no interest in bingo, or card games, or movies or chapel or devotions, or going on the trips they schedule, or any of the other activities they plan. I keep hoping he will, but so far, he’s just not interested. He is getting therapy about 4 times a week, 2 times OT and 2 times for PT, which should help him. And he does get out of his room some, and go sit in the lobby and people watch, which most of the residents do, LOL!

Easter is this weekend, really early this year. We’ve had cold weather all week, very unusual for us this late in March. 29 at night and 50’s during the day have been awesome. I’ve worn my thick hoodies, snuggled under a big quilt at night, drunk hot tea and coffee and cocoa, trying to milk what last little bit I can out of winter. Spring is coming, and Tim will be gone a lot playing golf. He ordered a new bag and it came in today, so he’s really pumped up to get back to playing. He’s been doing P90X since right before Christmas and he’s doing great. He’s down nearly 25 pounds and looks very slim to me. He still says he has a long way to go, and I keep telling him, if he loses much more, he’ll be thinner than me! LOL! 😀

So much has been going on lately. My dad fell in mid-February, which started a cascading set of events. We went down, took him to the doctor, the ER and then stayed while he was in the hospital overnight. We brought him home with us, and less than a week later, we had moved him into an assisted living facility 10 minutes from our house. That was about 3 1/2 weeks ago.

This past week, I thought things were getting better. I had been telling Beau that soon, things would get back to normal. Soon, we would be able to start back walking, me and Beau. Soon the time would change (it did today), which means that Tim would start back playing golf, so that Beau and I could hang out more while Tim was gone. We go on walks, we go out back and play, he chases squirrels, we read together on the glider, we hang out on the deck and talk, and on and on and on. Beau was my constant companion, and especially all of the times while Tim is gone, he is my best friend, my comfort and my security.

Tuesday, he was out back playing, chasing squirrels. Tim was cutting down the last of the tree in the backyard, so he had to go behind the fence for his squirrel obsession. He seemed fine. Wednesday morning, we got up and he seemed really lethargic. He didn’t want to eat or drink and just wanted to rest. He seemed restless, not staying on his bed, but wanting to move some, and he never could seem to find a comfortable place to stay long. He had been sick the previous week, not eating and then throwing up, but he had gotten back to normal, or so we thought. Wednesday, early afternoon, I went to see my dad and do things for him (errands, paperwork, bill paying, visiting, etc). I left late afternoon, telling Dad that I needed to go check on Beau, that he wasn’t feeling great. By the time I got home, I could tell that Beau was not doing well. His eyes looked like he was in pain, and he could barely raise his head. I called for Tim, and we couldn’t get him to get up, he was so weak. We called the vet and ran him over. Tim and some of the vet helpers helped carry him in on his bed. They checked him out, and a few minutes later, they told us after the doctors looked at him and ran some tests, that he was in very bad shape. His belly was full of blood, from either a tumor on his spleen that had ruptured, or his actual spleen had ruptured. They didn’t think he was strong enough to survive surgery, and we made the most difficult decision, to let them end his suffering and go to sleep. We brought him home and buried him out back, where he had been playing less than 24 hours before.

My heart is broken into a million tiny pieces. I miss my baby. We should have had so much more time with my Beau baby. We only had him 6 1/2 years, but we loved him every single second of every single day since we rescued him. I see him, hear him … everywhere. I look for him constantly. I think of him constantly. We went through this when we lost our Sally girl, so I know that I will get better in time. But right now, it’s the toughest part. I miss him so, and just want him back.

My darling Beau, I hope heaven is full of squirrels and lizards and squeaky toys and your favorite treats. I hope you’re happy and at peace. Know that we love you and miss you. Now and always.

Last night after nine o’clock, our doorbell rang and someone started pounding on the door. Ever the chicken, I went to get Tim, who had just got in from the golf course, and was about to jump in the shower. It was our neighbor’s son. He was breathless and blurted out to Tim as soon as he opened the door “We’ve got a snake in our house, can you come help us?”

“INSIDE YOUR HOUSE?” I said. Yes, and he looked slightly terrified. “How did it get inside your house”. We don’t know, he said. Tim left with a hoe and came back a few minutes later. I heard the gate open and Beau barked like the wonderful security system that he is. I assumed Tim was going to dump the snake in the ditch out behind our house, but… NO. When he came inside, I asked if he had killed it. “No, it was a king snake, that’s a good snake so I just moved him out behind our fence” he replied.

UGH.

“How did it get inside their house? And why would it come inside”, I repeatedly asked Tim. “I don’t know, I guess it wanted to lay on the cool floors.” Oh. My. Gosh.

I am going to be SOOO careful about not leaving my doors open. I often go out on the deck to water my herbs and leave the door partially open so Beau can go in and out. Not for a while. Although Tim keeps reminding me, you have Beau, he’s the best security system in the world. No snake would try to come in the house with him inside. Once again, I’m so grateful for my wonderful Beau baby! 🙂

It rained, it was colder, all of which make for a nice weekend for me!

Not a whole lot going on here, but we had a nice weekend (or at least I did, Tim prefers 70 degrees, and hours spent on the golf course). It rained most of the day Saturday, so we stayed in and watched tv, and movies, and I read some. That’s a pretty perfect late winter day for me. Much better than the early spring we were having the last two weeks of February. Warm weather will be here plenty soon, so I don’t prefer to rush it.

Tim worked on our deck last week, and it looks really great. He used a new type cleaner on it, then put protectant on it, so it looks really good. So nice to have a useable space outside.

Sunday, we went to church, then to Fresh Market, then to the movie “The Grace Card.” It could have been a rental, but we like to support faith-based movies that come out, so we went to our theater to see it. It was a good movie, with a good message. Grace is easy for the people you know and love, it’s bestowing grace on the unloveable, the hate-filled, that is so very hard to do. We had also watched “Like Dandelion Dust” on Friday night (Netflix), another faith-based movie based on a Karen Kingsbury book. A really tough movie to watch, but a good topic and it ended well, so that is also a big thing with me, LOL!

The weekend ended on a bad note. Tim was outside hitting balls at dark, Sunday evening. When he and Beau came in, Beau was bleeding. Tim didn’t hear him get in a fight, so he probably got into some briars or something sharp. That dog loves to roam and wander. His ear is cut and it was bleeding profusely. It’s hard to put pressure on a dog’s ear to make it stop bleeding 🙁 It finally slowed up and we put some Vaseline on it. I hope he heals quickly 🙂 I keep finding little droplets of blood everywhere, poor baby. He obviously doesn’t feel good today, he’s been laying around and very subdued. My sweet Beau-baby.

Here’s to a good week ahead – I hope to get a few more things cleaned out around here, I’m hoping to try a new recipe or two (we bought brussel sprouts at Fresh Market, going to try roasting them), and I am looking forward to reading more on my Kindle. 😀 Have a great week, everyone out there in bloggity-ville!

My days are fairly uneventful. I really want to get back into my photography, but can’t seem to bring myself to go out on little jaunts to interesting places to take cool pictures. At least not while it’s in the 93-103 degree range! So, instead, I’ve returned to my favorite photography subject – Beau!

Poor Beau. He doesn’t always like to have his photo taken. Some times he complies, and then other times, as soon as he sees me with that camera in my hand, he stops whatever he’s doing and moves or runs off or something. Just like a kid, I suppose 🙂

I am loving iPhoto, but I couldn’t find a way to make a photo collage. So my buddy Dawn had twittered and maybe blogged about Picasa, so I decided to check it out. I downloaded the Mac version, and after it “acquired” all of the photos on my drive, I was able to make this in about 5 minutes total. I’m pretty happy with it!

A Day in the Life of Beau:

If you’re the only dog in a house where there are no children, no cats and no other pets, it stands to reason that you will be a little spoiled.

If you’re a dog who happens to live in OUR house, you will be very spoiled!

Beau doesn’t think so, but he is. I know he is, because I’m the one who spoils him. 🙂 I particularly love to buy him new beds, new collars and treats (lots of treats!). He is set with toys. He has a toy basket full and he only plays with them sporadically. He has 3 beds and I would have 5 more if I had room for them, LOL!

This winter has been particularly cold, so I thought it was time for Beau to have a newer, bigger, softer, better blanket. I mean, a dog gets cold in a climate controlled house, you know?!

So, here’s Beau with his new blankie:

Sometimes, we wrap him up so tight, you can barely find him in his new blankie:

On chilly days, when Beau wants to go outside and enjoy the sunshine, his mama thinks he gets cold, so she wraps him up (on his glider), in his new blankie:

Do you think Beau is spoiled? Do you think Beau is loved and well-cared for? I think somebody loves Beau the wonder dog 😀

Every week, I empty the kitchen and breakfast room of all the chairs around the table, and sweep and mop the floors really well. Beau, for some unknown reason, loves, loves, loves to lay up under the table when all of the chairs are gone. He actually grumps and growls at me when I start to move them back and he has to move out 🙂 I have never actually seen him do this before, though, and he laid like that for a long time, propped up against the leg of the table. I’m really surprised he did, that table leg is pretty hard and probably not very comfy!

P.S. Tim said this looked like a yin and yang photo of him, with the sun and shadow on his face. I love photos of him like that! Aw heck, who am I kidding, I love all photos of my Beau-Beau 😀

My apologies to all who have already seen and heard about this on Facebook, but this is just too good to not post at my blog too! After all, I always look back here to reminisce and look things up, and just generally remember all the little and big things.

So….

Today, it snowed! About 4 or 4 1/2 inches, depending on which area of the yard we measured in! They had been forecasting snow all week, but I was very skeptical. I kept saying, “I’ll believe it when I see it”. They forecast our area to get 1-3″, and I really thought we would just get a dusting of snow, or an inch or less. When I woke up this morning, I was shocked! Happy, but quite surprised 🙂

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Sometimes I love that my puppy dog is so vocal, and sometimes, it drives me nuts! When we rescued Beau, the foster home he was living in told us, “He NEVER barks!”. Well, even though he lived there six months, they were dead wrong. The dog barks all the time. He sings, he cries, he whines, he wails, he howls, he moans in his sleep. I guess all dogs do, to a certain extent. But, we happen to think that Beau is extra vocal and expressive.

This is just a short snippet, but this is very commonplace in our house. Beau thinks it is his job to be on guard duty all day long, so he stands at the back door, looking for predators in the back yard (most notably squirrels, but also lizards, bugs, birds and most any critter that moves). It’s his job to protect us. And apparently to alert us to anything moving outside.

P.S. Donna, you asked for it, so here’s yet another Beau post and video, LOL!

Tim and I said a few days after we brought Beau home from the rescue that we almost wished we had waited to name him. They were calling him “Sonny Boy” at the doggie foster home where he was living, uh, not a name we would ever call him in a million years! I had already picked out Beau (short for Beauregard), but after spending some time with him, we’ve come up with several different names that we could have named him, based on his personality.

One of those is Bob. As in Bob Barker. Because the dog barks. All.The.Time! Beau is a very vocal dog and we have decided that he likes to hear himself speak, bark, howl and sing! I’ve posted a video of him before, singing along to Happy Birthday to you. Here’s a short clip of a normal day at our house.

Tim was trying to warm up some leftovers for lunch, and Beau decided he wanted to play. Or more precisely, to bark:

Couldn’t think of a snazzy title… I tend to use misc, random and odd and things like that a little too much 🙂 “Stuff” will have to do, since it is just a bunch of silly stuff!

* Things are busy here, yet not in some ways. Tim is working most every weekend, in the middle of the night, which really messes up his sleep patterns. He was up all last weekend, and I got up at 4 AM to put a roast in the crockpot. I discovered that a) 4 AM is not a natural time for me to be awake and b) once I’m up, cooking in the kitchen with all the lights on, it is very difficult to fall back asleep!

* I’m so glad football season is back, as well as fantasy football. Once again, I tried to draft my own players and ended up botching up my team. Oh well, at least it’s all for fun. It will NOT be fun around my house this weekend, as Tim and I go up against each other in our fantasy football league this time 🙂 On a happier note, both of our teams are doing well. Our college alma mater (USM) and Tim’s beloved Saints. Oh, the hope for our Saints springs eternal every fall!

* Beau has been very worked up lately. We’ve had a lot of grey days and rain and “looks like rain”, so he has not been outside as much. He has a lot of pent-up energy and some days he is hard to deal with. Of course, I should be a good doggie parent and walk him regularly, but I tend to open the gate and let him run wild in the area behind our house 😀

* I’ve been cooking a lot, and finally trying some new recipes. I have been motivated because we’ve installed a new recipe system on our website (more on that in a future post, I have one brewing in my drafts). Of the new recipes, most have been hits but there’s been a couple of misses. One was last night, I tried a crockpot orange chicken. I should have known better, and I did, but I wanted to try it anyway 😀 Tim doesn’t do citrus in any way, shape or form. I liked it though, so I’m debating on whether to post it on our site.

* I haven’t been reading as much as normal. I haven’t been watching many movies. It’s hard to pin down just what I have been spending my time doing, LOL! But we are picking back up all of our fall tv shows. So far, we’re back into Heroes, NCIS, the new NCIS: Los Angeles, Survivor, Bones, Fringe, and Mentalist. I think we have a few more to go. I wanted to try Flash Forward, but we already have two shows recording in that time slot, hehehe!

* I had a bunch of credit built up at Amazon, including some gift cards I have won at Swagbucks (check it out, and use me as a referral if you’re interested!). I ordered a bunch of books and I’m eagerly awaiting their arrival. Of course, I just went to the library, so I have a stack of books to read, but still. I love to get a box full of books on my doorstep in that brown Amazon box! I’ll post a picture when they get here (I always use free shipping, so it takes a lot longer!)

Ok, I’m sure there’s more… I have an update to my recycling post that I made a couple of weeks ago. And then there’s the wildly interesting post I have in my drafts folder about cleaning out and reorganizing my pantry, riveting stuff, I tell ya! Anyway, I’m still trying to blog, but I think a lot of people have given up blogging, as well as reading blogs. I still do Facebook and Twitter though, so maybe that is where I’m spending most of my time!

Have a wonderful, blessed day!

Even though I took a long hiatus from blogging over the summer, that does NOT mean that I have not been taking photos of Beau! Tim is always picking at me, saying, gee, don’t you have enough photos of that dog already? But, you know, I can never have enough pictures of my Beau Baby! 🙂

Beau, being a cool dog:

Beau, being a sad dog:

P.S. It goes without saying that the less time I spent blogging, meant the more time I had to spend with Beau! Beau and I play together a lot, and we hunt squirrels and lizards constantly! We’re both looking forward to fall and cooler weather (well, lately, it’s cooler, but there’s soooo many mosquitoes, so really we’re looking for fewer mosquitoes to bite us!), so that we can hang outside together in the afternoons and evenings 🙂 Beau is a wonderful companion, you know!

For years, Tim and I have called family members on their birthday, and we sing a birthday song to them. Believe me, it’s not great, but it’s just something fun that we do. Most of the time, it’s the traditional “Happy Birthday to you” version, but every once in a while, we get a crazy hair and sing the Beatles’ version of “They Say It’s Your Birthday” (or whatever it’s called!).

This past weekend, we called our sister-in-law Amanda on the phone and *tried* to sing to her (sorry, Amanda, hope you had a great birthday!). We finally gave up, because Beau immediately started singing along! It cracks us up and we have a hard time finishing, because we are laughing so hard! He’s been doing this for about a year now. We like to think that he just likes to sing along with us. Family members and friends like to tell us that he’s howling because we sound so horribly awfully bad!

We had to stage this one, but I got out the camcorder and we proceeded to sing the beginning of the Happy Birthday song 3 times. All 3 times, Beau sang along (as he was standing at the back door, looking for squirrels, which is his normal daytime job!).

Here’s proof, finally!

More photos of Beau, being, well… Beau!

We keep an old bath towel by the back door, so we can wipe Beau’s feet off. Lately, it’s been fairly dry, but sometimes in the morning, there is a lot of dew on the grass and he comes back to the door with wet feet. And of course, when it rains, he is messy. Beau is a mud puppy – he loves the rain and mud! He likes to go out and play in it and comes back looking like he went to the spa and had a mud bath 😀

Anyway, every once in a while, he likes to play with his towel. Hence, my towel boy!

From earlier in the summer, when I was on my blogging hiatus:

Beau was napping, and actually being a very good boy. The blanket and his bed are the dividing line for where he is supposed to be. He’s not supposed to come on the carpet side, into the den (but he cheats all the time and comes a body length over!). He seems to prefer the carpet and rug though, to the hard tile floor of the kitchen 🙂

I caught Beau napping and was able to sneak and run go get my camera and take a couple of shots. Caught napping:

And after he heard the shutter click of the camera:

You can’t sneak anything by MY watch dog!

P.S. I love when he uses his bed for a big pillow! I think it’s just so cute 🙂