Two days in a row!

Wow, two days in a row, can you believe it? I can't! Well, I wasn't really finished yesterday so I had to get in this little bit.



I just had to talk about one of my fury kids (I have 4, 2 dogs, 2 cats). My Chip kitty came home a week ago Sunday with a -broken?- tail. We hadn't seen him since Friday evening and were just starting to worry when he ran in the front door and straight to his food dish. He loves to be outside in the summer and we only see him a couple of times a day to eat. Brian followed him to his food and noticed his tail was missing hair and hung at a funny angle. I guess we'll never know what happened but something had crushed it pretty good. It must have got caught in a door or a cat trap or something. I think he was maybe stuck there for a while because he was so hungry when he got home. Here's a picture of his poor tail!

Well, we took him to the vet Monday morning and he gave us some antibiotics and said we should give it a week or 10 days and see if the tail end dies. He said it probably would but to wait and see. He pinched his tail with forceps on the end and there was no feeling in it so the nerve is obviously severed. He had plenty of feeling above the break though! So we have been waiting and watching and giving him medicine (quite a feat!) all week and the tail is not looking too good. Chip seems to be fine but the tail is definitely going to have to go. It's turning black and getting stiff. The only question that remains is do we take it off at the break or bob it. I personally want to take it off at the break. Every cat needs a tail! I'll have a positive way to identify him forever too! He'll be the one with the half length tail!

Chip has had a hard life. We first saw him as a kitten on the television news one morning. They were doing a piece from a local vets office and someone was holding him in the back ground and they asked about him and said he was available for adoption. He was so cute and I had just lost my Rico kitty that I loved. Bri-guy asked me if he should go get him and I said no, that I wasn't ready yet for a new kitty. Well, he showed up at my work with Chip about two hours later and once I saw and held him it was all over. I was in love. He'd had a tough life for an 8 week old kitten. He'd been attacked by a dog and had a hernia surgery on his tummy-oh, and they had fixed him already. He'd been through a lot but bounced back quick and didn't mind our dogs at all. He's never been a very big cat and he must have a lot of Siamese in him because he's very cross-eyed. He seems to get more that way all the time-he didn't start out that way. Oh well, it makes me like him even more.

It's funny how attached we get to these pets of ours. They bring a lot of joy to our lives without doing hardly anything. I guess it's because they love us unconditionally and are always there and seem to sense our moods and offer comfort in some way. I'm just glad my Chip is going to be okay. He's sure been staying closer to home this week too!

Enough for now, a bit of Billy to wrap up...for Chip...'these are not the best of times but they're the only times we've ever known.'

Junior High (moan...)

Well, it's happened, Sally has grown up and I'm a little sad and scared about it. She had her first day in junior high on Friday. The good news is, she loved it! She was able to get her locker open, she has at least one friend (or someone she knows and doesn't hate at least!) in each of her classes, Austin, her crush from summer band (she says he's cuter than Edward of Twilight fame!) is in 4 of her classes, she made a couple of new friends and she found all her classes! She and her best friend The Wyn spent the entire weekend rehashing it and can hardly wait to go back tomorrow! The bad news is, I fear her joy over school is all about the social and not about the academic. I'm anxious to see how that end of things works out! She's taken on a new attitude since that first day and you better treat her like she's hot stuff or get snubbed! I thought she was a princess before! We'll have to keep that in check I guess or hopefully it will wear off a bit when reality sets in. She indulged me and let me take a couple of pictures.

I think she looks pretty cute and VERY grown up! Straight hair makes all the difference! Yikes!

Word in the hall is that her crush likes her too!

I'm out of time for the day so some Billy to wrap up...."either I'm wrong or I'm perfectly right every time."

Someday this may become a habit...I hope!

I realize that I just barely caught up the whole Christmas thing and now it's August but catching up is just not feasible at this point so I'll start with recent events!

Two and a half weeks ago my dad was having some chest pain that grew steadily worse so they called my sister and her husband and they came over and decided he better go to the hospital-in an ambulance! It was a good thing they did because he suffered a bronchial artery aneurysm that bled into his chest cavity collapsing his right lung. After stabilizing him with 8 units of blood they went in with a camera, found hole in the artery and got it sealed off. Next a thoracic surgeon inserted a chest tube that just allowed the blood to gush out of his chest. It continued to drain over the next 10 days in ICU. He developed some staff pneumonia (MRSA-the drug resistant type) and we all had to wear masks, gloves and gowns to visit him. The amazing part is that after all of this on a 78 year old, already some what physically weak body, they moved him to a rehab center yesterday (just 2 and 1/2 weeks after it happened) with only some oxygen, weakness and a scar from the chest tube to show for it! He has come through ever bit of it better than expected and now just needs to rebuild his strength so he can come home. That first night his blood pressure dropped at least 3 times to 50/30 and we didn't know from one minute to the next if he was even going to live. It has truly been a succession of miracles that brought us to today when he is walking down the hall to the dining room and doing most everything on his own again. We are VERY grateful.

It has all been hard for mom but she has been a ROCK! She has been guided and watched over by Heavenly Father and He has given her strength. My mom is the greatest. I only hope I can support and help parents all their days so that they will have a long and happy life.

In the midst of all this we had a happy family event! My brother's daughter got married in the Sacramento temple, had a reception there and then an open house at my brothers house back in Idaho. Dad was doing well enough that we all felt he would be okay long enough for us to go up, spend the night and then come back the next day. He did fine while we were gone and we all had a great time at the open house. My sister-in-law had covered every detail and the party was great. Another sister-in-law and I worked the refreshment table and had a lot of fun doing that. It was also the first time in a long time that all my siblings were together so we took a few pictures. I'll post a few here. The bride looked gorgeous and it's very obvious that her new husband is completely and totally in love with her! They were so cute. We all wished dad could have been there but other than that, it was a perfect evening. Sally had a great time because her cousin from Washington (her only cousin her age) was there and they had a great time together. My brother has gorgeous old farm house and pond and barn and all the trimmings of a farm. It was a fun an beautiful setting. Enough...here are some pictures.

The bride and groom

The bride, her dad and my mom (her grandma-nice 3 generation shot)

Some of the family enjoying the great foodMore family

Sally and her cousin

The siblings-Idaho man, Me, Desert Queen, BFF Sis and The Pres

The pond, complete with ducks and geese and that's Text Guy and Sally walking on the far side.

These last three are small but they are nice shots my sister took of my brothers house and farm.

Well, a little Billy to end things..."There will be miracles, After the last war is won, Science and poetry rule in the new world to come, Prophets and angels, Gave us the power to see, What an amazing future there will be..." (2000 Years)