A Crazy Week And A Trip to Nashville

Happy Tuesday friends. Today was Nashville day when Mark and I go to Vanderbilt Medical Center for his four month check up. This is to keep an eye on his transplanted kidney. Everything was great!!! We made the trip in the usual eight or nine hours. We leave out early in the morning around 5:00 AM and travel approximately four hours to Nashville, see the doctor, get blood work and drive back home. But more on that trip in a minute.

It seems like almost every week I say “wow!!! what a crazy week this has been” well here we go again.

Last Monday night my little mother in law had a heart attack. She pretty much scared the crap out of all of us. When you are 88 years old everything that happens can be a life changing experience. As I have mentioned before my maw in law lives in an assisted living village. A nurse from the village called my husband on his way home from work and said she had had an episode and wasn’t acting like herself. Her vitals were off and they had called an ambulance by the time Mark got there. She spent most of the night in the ER and then was put in a room in ICU. She was very confused. By Thursday she had been moved to a regular room. She is almost 89 years old so surgery was not really an option. The doctors decided to treat her with medication. We were afraid for awhile that she might not be able to go back and live at the Assisted Living Village. The residents there have to be able to do most things for themselves. But after a few days it seems as though minimal damage was caused by the heart attack and on Friday she was moved to a nursing facility where she will have therapy and then hopefully, if all goes well, she will return to the village. She is much more coherent than she was last week and can’t wait to get back to her room at the village. She told me to tell the village to hold her room she is coming back!!!

***We celebrated her 88th birthday in November so she is almost 89 years old.***

When you work in tourism you know that July is just the busiest month of the year. You look forward to the great numbers but also dread the long, never ending days. It is mind numbing. We have been so busy at work and still very short staffed. We are counting the days until fall, or at least the end of July. I usually do something special for our team members during the last week of July. We call it our Goodbye July celebration. We have something special every day during the week. Last year we had pizza day, ice cream sundaes, and lots of other things. I have been so busy with everything else this week and then taking today off to go to Nashville. I have some catching up to do.

The weekend was good and my sister and I met up with some of our cousins from Texas. They were in Tennessee for a memorial for my cousin’s husband. We all went out to eat afterwards along with some of our Tennessee cousins and we had a great time. Later that night we took a friend out to eat for her birthday.

On Sunday Mark and I visited his mom and decided to eat out, which we rarely do anymore, it seems like we get take out and eat it at home but we don’t make it out to eat a lot.

So a good but busy week and weekend.

Even with all the extra weekend eating I am down 20 pounds. WHOOOO HOOOO!!!!! I will have more on that adventure on Thursday’s blog. I am calling it an adventure because I just hate saying journey. It is not a weight loss journey I am going to make it an adventure!!!!

So back to today when we ventured to Nashville for Mark’s appointment. I had to get up at 3:30 AM to get everything going and all the babies fed and taken care of. We left around 5:15 and surprisingly traffic was not bad. I always drive over and Mark drives back. I am listening to an audio book by Jennifer Weiner and it is so good. I listened to it almost all the way over. We stop on the way back and have breakfast. But today we had another little adventure. Have you ever been to a Buc-ee’s? I think they are mostly in the southern states. Buc-ee’s is sort of like a gas station, truck stop, convenience store etc etc on steroids. It is huge!!!! So a Buc-ee’s just opened in Crossville Tennessee which is about halfway to Nashville for us. We decided to stop on the way back and check it out. Just being newly opened it was packed. If you are a traveler and see one of these stores you should definitely check it out it has everything you could want for a stop. There are several different foods to choose from, books, shirts drinks and amazingly clean bathrooms. Also there are probably fifty gas pumps. We had a good time checking it out.

***I had to pass quickly by the fudge counter because I wanted all of it***.

We didn’t buy anything at Buc-ee’s but we did go next door to the Dairy Queen and get our usual chocolate dipped, vanilla ice cream cone because sometimes you just have to splurge.

How are things going in your neck of the woods?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

And Life Goes On

I have to say I am so sick of being in hospitals. I guess I am very fortunate that I have been a visitor and not a patient. I am not going to say much more about that at this point. Maybe more later.

I took a few extra days off from work this past week. Some of it was a little mini vacation. I wanted to be off on Thursday so I could be with my sister in law and nieces while my brother had triple bypass surgery. The surgery was long but it seems like the more people you have with you to talk and laugh it takes your mind off of what is going on and moves things along more quickly. So my sister and I went up on Thursday and and stayed at the hospital most of the day. My brother did great!!!

On Friday I did nothing. I worked on the temperature blanket and started working on a Halloween cross stitch. I read and napped and it was just such a relaxing day.

***This is what my Halloween cross stitch will looked like when it is finished. Hopefully by Halloween. I love this pattern it is so easy to follow.***

***You can see I haven’t gotten very far yet. Cross stitch takes a lot of time***.

On Saturday I decided to go back to the hospital to visit my brother. My sister went with me. He was still in CCU so we could only visit for a few minutes and only one at a time. He was doing great and still is.

My sister had 30% off at Kohl’s so we made a stop there on the way home. The only time we shop at Kohl’s is when we have 30% off. I know a lot of prices are elevated at this time just so they can offer the discount. But just look at this treasure I found. A Sex And The City jigsaw puzzle!!!! The price on it was $7.47 so I calculated 30% off of that would be great!!! But guess what? The puzzle rang up only $2.78 and I got 30% off of that. What????? I can’t wait to put it together.

We stopped at a little Mexican restaurant in Lenoir City and had a late lunch. We have eaten there before and it was great. This time the food was just meh.

Monday morning I took Scruffy into Sweetwater to get a much needed hair cut. The lady, Tiffany, who did his hair was new to us. My sister just loves her. She cuts her babies’ hair and my sister is always happy with the results. She was able to get me in pretty fast. In the summer Scruffy needs a really short cut so his hair doesn’t brush the grass. Being in the grass causes him to have more ticks on him. I have been trimming his hair for awhile but I just can’t get it close enough. It especially makes me nervous cutting around his face. Tiffany did an amazing job and he was only there for a couple of hours. While he was there I went to buy a few groceries and take them to my mother in law in the assisted living village.

Scruffy and I came home and took a nap. Getting a haircut always wears him out. I read a book and it rained all afternoon it was so cozy. The book I am reading this week is by Danielle Steel. It is called High Stakes. It is so good. I love some of Danielle Steel’s books but some of them not so much. This one I am loving. This is another book through the Libby app. I have one waiting it is Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. I don’t know how I have never read this book but I haven’t. I will keep you posted on it.

After the rain we took a long walk.

***Look at the steam coming up after the rain. It has been so hot here every day.***

***Allie cat, AKA mama cat, has some of the funniest expressions on her face.***

***Scruffy loves walking with his little kitty sisters.***

So it was back to work today with a lot of things to catch up on and a lot of things to deal with. That’s just the way it is and life goes on.

How has your week been so far?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!!

Goodbye Molly Rose

Hello friends it’s been a sad week over here. We lost our Molly girl. I mentioned in my last post that she was having some issues and would not eat. I called the vet and she said the tumor on her liver had probably gotten worse. It’s not like she couldn’t eat. She did take a couple of bites of food in a weeks time but she didn’t even act like she wanted food. A bite or two is all she had in almost a week. She would just turn her head like she couldn’t be bothered to eat it.

I named Molly after my grandmother Rose. Molly came to us when she was about two years old. We had her another thirteen years. She lived a good long life but that still doesn’t make letting go any easier.

We tried everything, we cooked food we bought several different kinds of food that we thought she might like. I gave her water with a medicine dropper so that she wouldn’t be too dehydrated.

Nothing worked. Last Tuesday we called the vet to schedule a time to take her in for the inevitable. She had gotten so skinny. She had nothing to work from anyway. The vet said we had done everything we possibly could have. She said Molly was tired and her little body was giving out. She said that not eating was probably her way of trying to tell us she couldn’t go on. We knew we had to make the decision that no pet owner ever wants to have to make. We knew that prolonging it would mean more misery for her. The last night she was alive she seemed to be very restless and maybe in pain. She kept getting up and going from one bed to another. She had a bed in the living room and a bed in the office because she always liked to be near us.

The waiting time was unbearable. I kept thinking ten more hours, nine more hours, two hours until it was time to put her in the car and take her to the vet’s office. It seemed as if the other babies knew what was happening and even they were very somber and quiet.

We drove the short ten minutes to our vet. It was both the shortest and longest ride of my existence. I sat in the back seat with her. Mark carried her in when we got there. They gave her a shot to make her sleepy and and left us with her to say goodbye and love on her, which we did. We hugged and kissed her and told her she was the best girl in the world. They came in and administered the second shot and she passed very peacefully.

A million tears have been shed for our precious Molly. She truly was the best girl in the world. I know I have told you the story about how she came to us. She was brought to us by an Angel dog. You can read the story here. Molly and the Angel dog.

After we went home we told stories about our girl. We laughed and cried. The house is so lonely and quiet. She was the loudest baby of all and the stinkiest. Mark said she was stinky going into a bath and after five minutes out she was as stinky as ever. I still think I hear her walking around and I probably do. She will always be such a huge part of our hearts.

***Happy Girl. She so loved being outside going on the walks with all the babies.***

***This is my sister hand feeding Molly last year when we were on vacation. She did get better and would eat on her own shortly after this*** ***but for a while we had to hand feed her or she wouldn’t ea***t. ***Our Molly has had a lot of problems.***

***She loved all of her fur brothers and sisters and they loved her.***

***She had her tail wrapped up here because she had almost chewed in to two pieces.***

***This was about a week ago. Look at all the white hair.***

***I took this picture a couple of days before Molly passed. I held her and told her that we understood if she was tired and didn’t feel like going on.***

They’re not meant to live as long as we do. My husband says the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. Our sweet babies are definitely a sign of this.

So goodbye Molly Rose you will always live on in our hearts. You touched so many hearts. You were the best girl in the world.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

Hello Monday

Happy Fourth of July!! Happy Birthday America!! Are you celebrating today? I know a lot is going on in our world. Things we don’t understand or agree with but somehow seeing our beautiful American flag makes all seem right with the world. We have come so far and we are a pillar of strength for it.

All has been pretty quiet around here. I feel like I am still getting over Covid. I went back to work at the end of last week but I still don’t feel 100%. I am weak and get tired so quickly. Just picking up groceries and doing a little laundry over the weekend absolutely wiped me out.

Mark has still been Covid free and I am so thankful for that.

Our old girl Molly is not doing well. She refuses to eat and she hasn’t eaten anything substantial in several days. I can tell she is getting weaker. The poor girl has such stomach issues and she has had a lot of of diarrhea. We try to feed her and she just turns her head up and won’t eat. Molly is about fifteen years old and I know her time is limited. She has done this before and always rallies back but I just don’t know if that is going to happen this time. When I left for work this morning I watched her sleeping. She wouldn’t even get up for a last quick bathroom break before I left. All day I kept thinking the worst. When I got home I ran in the door and yelled for her. She looked up like she was saying “what’s all the fuss mom?” She is not suffering and she went on our evening walk with us. All we can do is be here for her and love her as long as we can.

Since I didn’t have a lot going on this week other than some work and hot hot hot temps. I thought I would share some of the books I have read lately. I enjoyed all of them. I really liked Grown Ups and Make Your Bed. I hope you enjoy some or all of them. So here goes: