HoundBlog

Good morning all. It’s Tuesday and I’m not working from home today. I had a meeting scheduled at 9 with the guy who’s writing a web interface for the company, but now he’s put it off until 1:30, so I’m stuck here. Ken’s taking a half day from work to take Skinny Marie back to the vets — this time to say a final good bye. She is just too weak to stand and I came home last night to her lying on the floor in a puddle of poo with her poor heart just about beating out of her chest. She was so exhausted from trying to get out of the mess. I could only get her to eat a tiny bit of egg and she usually has a really healthy appetite.

It’s very sad around our house right now.

Well, I have to stay busy or I’ll be crying all day, so will say …

Love to all,

Margaret

Good morning! Don’t know about your weather, but ours is positively balmy! It’s a shame I had to come to work this morning!

There’s nothing of note on the agenda today. I’ll probably devote some time to reading The Book — I’m up to 150 pages, so really need to get cracking and am getting close to the point where I believe the book will get interesting and very relevant to my job.

I spent some time this weekend revising the website and rewriting a few pages. I have a lot more that needs to be done along with some projects regarding the site that I would like to get in place, too. Meanwhile, I have this and one other blog to keep writing in. There’s a third blog that I was posting PSP tutorials to, and due to a serious lack of interest in PSP on my part lately, I’ve let that lapse for now. I’m hoping my interest will reignite before too long.

It seems that Clarify is down, so I need to get on that. I don’t think it’s our side, but rather theirs as I’m getting email from the outside.

Love to all,

Margaret

Good morning! We are being treated to a glorious sunrise this morning and temperatures that are actually bearable 🙂

Yesterday was a sucky day for me. I had to take Bridget to the vet’s and have her put to sleep — she just couldn’t get up any more and was going on herself and not a happy girl any more. I also had to take Skinny Marie as she has been falling a lot lately and for awhile I was afraid I would lose them both. As it was, losing Digit was bad enough. Ken was working, so I had to go by myself. It was a hard drive home and more than once I had to pull over to let the tears clear from my eyes.

She’s in the doggy graveyard with her mother, father and the two puppies she lost. We’ll mark her grave as we have all the others with white stone and some kind of marker — probably a bunny since that’s what Mom and Dad have.

Ken’s home today and I suppose we’ll be going out for breakfast here in a bit. I need to go to the grocery store to pick up a few items. I should have gone yesterday, but well, just couldn’t seem to get gone.

Have a great day!

Love to all,
Margaret

TGIF everyone! I’m glad to see Friday roll around again. I’m so sleepy!

Last night was a rough night for me. Bridget kept fussing from about 12:30 am until about 1:20 am and I was up and down with her. I tried everything I could think of to satisfy her from taking her out (multiple times) to offering water to offering food. The final trick was to reposition her on her bed. Evidently she can only lay on the one side for so long before it hurts too much and she needs to be on the other side where she can apprently lay pretty much indefinitely. So now I know to try 4 things to make her comfortable and happy. Maybe I’ll get some sleep tonight!

I was horrified when I arrived home last night. When I pulled into the driveway, I could hear the most pitiful cries coming from the backyard. Evidently Skinny Marie had gone outside to either use the bathroom or sun herself and either got knocked down by one of the other dogs or just fell (her balance is not very good these days). At any rate, it was pretty obvious that she had struggled for some time trying to right herself. She had literally dug a hole scrabbling with her feet trying to get purchase to get back up on her feet. She was filthy dirty and freezing cold (it was 31° when I got home!). I took her inside and got her settled in her bed with a blanket over her. She refused water, so I started taking all the other dogs outside as they had been crated all day. Once I got them all settled, I made their dinner and by then she was warm and ready to eat. She ate two big bowls full of food and finally drank a bit of water.

Today I’ve left her in an x-pen with a comfy bed, bucket of water and newspaper to potty on. She’s not too sure of this arrangement, but at least she’s safe from a repeat of yesterday — it was 17­° this morning and I don’t think she could survive being out in that cold for too long!  She’ll be going to the vets tomorrow to have her issues checked out.

In all the hubbub of this morning, though, I realize that I’ve forgotten to give them their meds. Argh! Always something!

Well, I guess I should actually do some work today — see if I can do something productive.

Love to all,

Margaret

Hello! Today is another brrrrrrr cold day! Our low is supposed to be 17 with a high in the low 30’s, so all the pups get to stay in today. It’s just TOO cold for them to be outside! I got up early to take them all out to do the “necessary business” while I filled water buckets up and changed out soiled bedding. Then everyone happily came back in. I’ll have to repeat all that when I get home tonight — lots of extra work for me, but at least I’m not looking at months of it; just a few days worth.

Got the SC D of R forms for income tax filing in the mail yesterday. I won’t get W2’s for a few weeks yet, so it’s too early to be thinking about income tax filing just yet. It will become one of those necessary evils soon enough. Ma is so lucky to not have to file any more! I really wish the government would do away with income tax and go to some kind of Federal Sales tax. It seems like that would not only be fairer, but less onerous to manage. Of course it would put all those IRS workers out of jobs. Ditto for State IT.

Well, it’s time to go crank the car up so that it’s warm for my drive to work this morning. MAYBE I won’t forget my lunch today — I forgot it yesterday and Ken was so sweet to have made it for me, too!

Love to all,

Margaret

Good morning! Back to work for me and a new look for the blog. There’s a new look coming for the website as well as soon as I work out a couple of issues I’m having. I’m finally getting around to adding the cresteds to the website. And I’m going to try to unify the look and streamline some pages. The website is a labyrinth of pages and I only realized just how many when I tried to make up a site map for it!

I’ve only read about 30 more pages in my book. I should have taken it home over the long weekend, and realized that fact on Saturday, but since I didn’t, now I have to put my nose to the book and get some reading done. It’s only a 1200 page book – should be a piece of cake, right?? Kind of like the puzzles Ma got for Christmas – seems an impossible task when you’re only 77 pages into it, but taking it one page at a time will get me through it.

Weather is supposed to be really cold at night for the next few nights. I am not looking forward to teens for lows, that’s for sure! I hate putting the dogs out in the wee hours of the morning when it’s gotten that cold, but I can’t leave them crated all day, either and there’s no happy compromise.  We put cedar shavings in all the dog houses (and every dog has a house). At least it’s supposed to be sunny.

Well, I guess I should actually get to work as that’s what I’m getting paid for.

Love to all,

Margaret

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you didn’t party too hard last night and are reading this with a clear head and eyes today (I won’t even say this morning as I hope you all slept in). Ken’s still sleeping after indulging in college bowl games last night. I’m sure he’ll continue on today since there are more scheduled on t.v. I watched enough of the Florida State/Kentucky game to get depressed. I know they fought hard and did very well considering so many top players had removed themselves from playing by virtue of the poor choice they made to cheat on that test, but I still had hopes. Oh well, someone had to go away disappointed.

Ken wants to go to the local diner for lunch today rather than making me cook a New Year’s dinner. That’s fine with me — anything that gets me out of the kitchen 😆

Tomorrow it will be back to work as usual with a long dry spell until the next holiday. I’m sure I’ll have plenty to fill my hours.

Well, I think it’s time for me to go back to bed.

Love to all,

Margaret