Snow Days

   What a great morning! It is Wednesday, my usual day off, but I have a whole bunch of pluses today. My son has the next few days off from school and my husband has decided to stay in bed late today. This is better than a Sunday!

   Last night, Mother Nature dumped a good six inches of heavy, wet snow on us and the only thing we plan to remove is a large area for the three dogs to do their thing. You know, sell hot dogs, square dance, whatever their thing may be.

   The other big plus is that on Amazon.com, I was rewarded with a wonderful review of my short story "Last Bus to Nowhere", Yay!!!!

   Tomorrow, which happens to be the fine holiday of Thanksgiving, we will spend the day with family. This holiday has never been one of my favorites for some reason, which is odd, since I am a huge, I mean, HUGE food person. I love food! Thanksgiving though, I just want squash, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. That stuff I can cook every day of the week.

   To all of you who love and live for tomorrow. I wish you a very Happy, Healthy Thanksgiving Day. Enjoy your families and drive carefully! Have a Happy One!

Dog Day Afternoon

   My son has always wanted his own dog. We have had two dogs for many years now and they love him very much but he wanted a dog that went nuts when he came home and slept in his room. He wanted one that mainly belonged to him.

   So last year, a friend told us that they had gotten a puppy and there was quite possibly one more available. I mentioned to the friends that if the puppy didn't have a home we would take him. The next day, I received a phone call at work from my husband asking if I told them that we wanted a puppy. I said "yes" and then wondered why he was asking. He then informed me that our friends had gone and picked up the puppy and brought him straight to our home. My son was ecstatic and the puppy was immediately named Butch.

   Butch is a cross between a Yellow Labrador and a Beagle. He has the lab length and muscle but has the height (little legs that are duck footed) of a small beagle. This mix gives him the appearance of being kind of like a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

   He is one of the most loving, happy animals I have ever met but has the brain of a sunflower seed.

   I was working on the computer one day and Butch had gotten in to trouble for stealing rawhide bones from the other dogs. He kept trying to take the bones but kept getting into trouble. Finally Butch gave up on the bones and decided to find something that only belonged to him. He found the cone that he wore home from the vets when he was neutered. He walked around the house with it in his mouth for awhile and then disappeared somewhere.

   I got ready to go to work and wanted to take the dogs out before leaving. Out comes Butch, happy as a clam, with the cone on. I laughed so hard and then took the cone off and hid it. Later that day, I received a phone call from my son, asking if Butch was OK? I had no idea what he was talking about but my son explained that when he arrived home from school, Butch was wearing his cone.

   Now, if truth be told, Butch thinks he is a boy. He has no idea that he is a dog! He wants to spend every waking moment doing everything that my son does. Which is great, that is why we got the dog but sometimes it doesn't work out right.

   The other night, my son decided to go into the hot tub. Butch was outside running in the back yard. When he saw Harry in the hot tub he ran over to see him and then jumped into the tub. See, Very Smart!

   He is a good boy (dog) and as I said "the most loving and happy dog, I have ever met."

Have a great Sunday!!

Sims Medieval

  On Sunday, my son and I took all of our old games (DS, Xbox 360, etc) over to Game Stop and traded them in. What a great time we had! We were able to trade in over 60 games and made a small fortune in store credits.
   I made the mistake of buying the game Sims Medieval! Ever since I came home with the game on Sunday, I have put every free minute into getting through the tutorial. You can't turn the tutorial off, you have to play through it. So last night after work and dinner, I made it my quest to finish and actually play the game.
   Problem is, I haven't gotten anything else done. I truly wish I wasn't addicted to games! Will write more later, if I actually stay away from the computer long enough to clean my house. Hope you have a great day!

Water For Elephants

   One of my absolute favorite books of all time is Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen. When I worked at Borders Books as a salesperson, this book was just the best pick for men and women alike. It was so easy to talk about because the story flowed so beautifully and made you feel every emotion deep within your bones.
   It is the story of a young man, who is studying to be a veterinarian during the depression. He has finally made it to the final exam when he is notified that his parents have been tragically killed in a car accident. Being so distraught, the young man, leaves his home town and hops on the first train that comes by.
   The train turns out to be a circus group full of wonderfully colorful people and amazing animals. He joins up with the circus and is asked to be the circus vet. The story is intricately woven delving deep into the hardships of this nomadic band of people.
   One great aspect of this book is how the story is told. It is narrated by the young man and the same man some seventy years later.
   I love this book so much that when the movie was released, I was afraid to go see it thinking that like most movies the director and producers would destroy the book. So this morning, as a treat to myself, I rented Water For Elephants on pay per view and was very surprised to find that they did a good job on it. They stuck to the story except for a few changes here and there and the actors did a fine job portraying the characters.
   I will stick to my opinion though, if you have not read the book or seen the movie yet, PLEASE, read the book first. It truly is a great story.

The Golden Child

  Today is a very special day in my house, it is my son's birthday, and he will be fifteen at 11:17 am. Birthdays are always special occasions but I would like to tell you a little story about this very special young man.

  It truly begins in the town of Newton, MA where two young girls met and became the best of friends. They did everything together and were never apart. They were eight years old. One, was named, Lisa, who lived in a big house right by Heartbreak Hill (hardest stretch of the Boston Marathon) and the other was my sister Debbie, who lived around the corner. As I said, they never did anything apart.

    Sometimes, because I was a couple a years younger my sister would drag me (literally) with her over to Lisa's home where I met her youngest brother, Robert, her father and her mother. I never did meet the middle brother, Paul, but I had seen pictures of him and would recognize him if I saw him going down the hallway in school.

   As the years, swiftly went by and the girls grew older each began their own separate lives but never lost contact. Lisa had married and had three beautiful babies and Debbie followed her career. One day they cooked up a plan to introduce Debbie's younger sister, me, to Lisa's younger brother, Paul.

   It was probably the greatest idea either ever had, because a year later Paul and I travelled to Aruba on vacation and became engaged. It was a wonderful and exciting trip except for the fact that I felt sick most of the week. Upon arriving home, we quickly found out that my sickness was the fact that I was pregnant.

   The wedding plans were moved up by many months, so that instead of the New Year's Eve wedding we had a huge lovely wedding in the middle of the August heat. It was during all this happy planning that I received a phone call from my Doctor asking me to meet him at the hospital. You see I have a blood problem and have a tendency to get blood clots. I went through two amniocenteses and it was discovered that a blood clot had already formed in the placenta blocking any and/or all nutrients from reaching the baby.

  I was then put on the High Risk pregnancy list and started receiving daily shots of Heparin, which is a blood thinner, hoping to break down the clot. We were told that I would miscarriage very early.

   Paul and I walked down the aisle, had the huge wedding and just prayed every day that the heparin would work. At the end of September, we were once again called into the hospital to meet with the queen of ultra sounds. She took one look at our baby and immediately told us to abort the child then she left the room. At that very moment, the child inside of me kicked. I looked at Paul and said that there was no way we were aborting; the baby just told me he was going to be OK.

  The Doctor said that if we did not abort, our child was going to be either stillborn or born with many, many hardships. They stated that he would be born blind, deaf, mute, degenerative bones, asthmatic, possible heart and brain problems and the list went on. He also told us that if we did proceed with the pregnancy that he would not be able to tend us anymore since this pregnancy was so high risk. I stuck to my ground that my child had just kicked and we were going forward.

   We were sent to the Beth Israel Hospital in Brookline, MA, where we were introduced to a female Doctor, who believed in the baby as much as we did. She arranged for appointments twice weekly and monitored the baby's' every move.

   At 25 weeks, we had an appointment with Dr. Wendy and she told us that she was being urged by her team to deliver this child. She also informed us that the baby at this point was 15 ounces and most likely would not make it. She did not want to deliver this baby yet and decided it was time for me to move into the hospital where I would receive intravenous heparin, twice-daily ultrasounds, and the heart monitoring for the baby. It was also decided that I would receive an experimental steroid shot each week to try to further the growth.

   Everything seemed to work and at 30 weeks, my son was born by C-section weighing 1 pound 7 ounces. He was the first micro preemie to be born healthy in this country and an absolute miracle. He stayed in the hospital for two months until he gained the hefty weight of 3 pounds and then was ready for the trip home.

   Today, on his 15 birthday, I would just like to thank Dr. Wendy for being patient and believing in my child. My son is very healthy, incredibly smart and an amazing person. He truly is a gift and one that we have cherished every day of his life. Happy Birthday to my favorite young man, Love Mom

Rent

   We own the most adorable little home in Vermont that we rent out. We have always had bad luck with the renters in that home but back in February, we had a young woman and her one-year-old move in. Her references checked out beautifully and we thought that finally we had found the right person.

   A few weeks ago, my husband contacted the girl to let her know he didn't receive her rent. She said that she was running a bit behind and would get the money to him by the following week. When that didn't show, he called her again and she stated she was going to move out and would get her stuff out by the following week. That never happened and when my husband drove over to the house, he found the place had been trashed.

   I went with him today with one other person to "clean up." I cannot believe that someone could do what this person did to our little home. When we entered the garage, there were piles and piles of rotten food, dirty diapers, and other horribly smelly things that we couldn't even get into the door.

   Upon entering the Kitchen area, I thought I was going to be sick. The same thing was in store for us. On counters, the refrigerator, the sink (which was toppling over with dirty dishes) and the floors was a disgusting mess. Everything was covered with rotten food and bugs. The smell, I won't even begin to go into the smell.

   Let's just say the whole house was trashed. Floors were ruined, walls also. The bathtub was full of dirty water that she first dumped orange paint into then dirty diapers and then when she had no more room in her kitchen sink continued to put dirty dishes in the tub.

   Did you ever see the movie "Pacific Heights" with Melanie Griffith, Michael Keaton, and Matthew Modine? Well, the movie is kind of, like what I have written about above. I just cannot believe someone would be so disgusting and disrespectful of a piece of property.

Well, I hope everyone has enjoyed his or her day! Have a nice night!