Catching Up

I've been a bit of a bad blogger lately--I've fallen behind in reading all your blogs. I thought tonight I'd tell you a bit about the miscellaneous happenings in my world. This weekend, I plan to catch up on my blog reading.

Speaking of the weekend--Hurray! It's Friday and the weekend's here! I stopped on my way home from work at Trader Joe's to pick up some groceries and I still need to head back out tonight to the "regular" grocery store to pick up what I couldn't get at Trader Joe's. With the diet, I find shopping takes at least twice as long because I need to read all the nutritional info as I go. I'm sure we'll fall into a food routine soon, but in the meantime, it's pretty time consuming.

I don't know if I've mentioned, but we have two large outdoor dogs--mixed breed (Chow/Lab/Mystery Canine), brother and sister, Marley (named for Bob Marley because he has long, curly hair) and Ashley (because my husband liked the name). They're about 12 years old, which is getting up there a bit in age for large dogs. Back 12 years ago, my kids wanted a dog and we were looking for something small/medium sized. One of our senior partners had a dog that had just given birth to a litter, and he swore to me that these dogs wouldn't get too big--maybe knee high. Don't believe attorneys. Ashley and Marley soon grew to weigh 70 pounds each. Recently, they both developed some hip/rear quarter stiffness and weakness, and they went to the vet today. My husband was worried there was something seriously wrong and he'd have to have them put to sleep, but as it turned out, Marley was just fine (or at least showing no symptoms today) and Ashley has some arthritis in her back legs (do dogs have KNEES?). Ashley now has to take some medication, which is alright by her as long as it's wrapped up inside my low fat cheese. Another reason why I need to go grocery shopping. Sheesh!

My work "kids" are coming along just fine so far. I had a project to work on for the "boy" today while he was off meeting with an expert/doctor out of town, and when he returned, he brought me an iced latte from Starbucks. Good kid, huh?! The funny thing is that I really can't figure out how these two know what my drink of choice is. I don't know of anyone at work who really even knows what I drink. How'd they figure it out? Here's a scary thought: Maybe they read my blog?! Nah!

I haven't mentioned my mom for awhile, as if by not mentioning the insanity, it will all go away. Ha! Maybe I'm in denial?! So here's what's been happening. (If you're new to my blog, briefly, my dad passed away in April and my mom, after insisting she wanted to stay put for a year, up and sold her mobile home along with all the contents--without a word ahead of time to me or my brother--and announced she was moving down to Salinas, a town in central California, to live with her best-friend-since-kindergarten, Laverne. Salinas also happens to be the same town where my brother lives. Okay, are you with me on the background here?) Moving day was July 29th. My brother drove his BIG truck up to Oroville on the 28th and loaded everything up; they drove back down to Laverne's house on the 29th.

Turns out Laverne never really invited my mom to live with her. What happened is that my mom sold everything and then called Laverne to let her know she was coming. Apparently some years back, Laverne had said in passing that if my dad went first, my mom could come live with her. You have to be careful what you say to my mom. So this living arrangement lasted about a week before Laverne started looking for an apartment my mom could rent. Here it is, only August 17th, and my mom's move can't come soon enough to suit her or Laverne. AND my mom has no furniture because she sold it all with the mobile home. At least it's my brother's turn now to take care of these problems. They've been out this week looking for a suitable place. The semi-assisted living facility they looked at--the one that will cost $3,400 a month--was just fine as far as my mom was concerned. We figure her money will last about three years, which will give us all time to change our identities and seek asylum in a foreign country.

Finally, I just wanted to say again how much I appreciate your visits and enjoy the comments you leave me. It tickles me to hear from some of you who don't even have blogs, although I wish I could write back to you personally and say thanks! Mostly I write for my own pleasure, but without you reading what I have to say, it sure wouldn't be the same.

Enjoy your weekend, whatever you have planned! I'll be doing some sewing, I'm sure. Gotta relax and rest up while I can, because I'm sure the "kids" will keep me hopping next week.