Ethan’s Journey

The day started out with me not even getting out of bed u til I saw a break on the radar. With 16 paws to wipe, I don’t need body’s to wipe off too. When I saw the break, I hustled the crew out for morning potty. It rained off and on for a bit. My brother arrived. There was a break in the weather so we had a “dog parade” of the 8 dogs in our group.  Side note, Moe has done great. He has been friendly with the other 4 dogs. He has met a few unknown males with no growling. Huge steps for Moe and I am proud of him. We walked the dogs all throughout the campground. We walked in the woods and down to a creek. Jiminy was chilly so I brought his satchel to snuggle up and “Uber” in. He snuggled right in and even fell asleep. Then a more steady rain came and we spent time under the awning. We had snacks, beverages and warm clothes. We talked about how even though it was raining, we had such a wonderful summer weather wise, we can’t be too upset. My brother left and the rain stayed. FINALLY,...

  We are winding down our camping season. We had a campfire this evening with friends. There were many conversations that went sideways in a hilarious way. Jiminy and Moe joined the fire. Penny had tucked herself into bed and Ferguson was contently resting. Jiminy was nestled in his blanket. He was lap surfing eventually making it almost to every person without a dog on their lap. He is good therapy. We had snacks. Tried to remember which year the ice storm of 1991 was in….giggles and sarcasm.  I was impressed that Moe didn’t growl at anyone. He had a couple men he didn’t know approach him. He even made a dog friend. He also peed on someone’s leg. 😬 awkward! Damn it Moe!!!!! We can’t take you anywhere! At work, I got the results of our Enneagram Personality test. We had to take them by Wednesday and the results came out today. It is part of an activity we are doing next week when I am in Alabama for training. An Enneagram test is based on 9 personality types. Each type of per...

 Somehow I found myself enthralled in an article about anti-nausea medications at 6:00 am this morning. What triggered it was an article about “Twilight Sleep” which was an option used for women in the early 1900’s for “painless childbirth”. They would give the women a cocktail of morphine and scopalamine, then give them ear plugs and a cloth for their eyes. The medication causing an amnesia mixed with the stimuli blockers would prevent memories of childbirth from being formed. Women would get the cocktail and then perceive that they wake up to the baby. No memories of pain, or anything else. Scopalamine and morphine were two drugs that pulsed through Ethan’s veins. Scopalamine was an anti-nausea patch Ethan had behind his ear. Hmmm…scopalamine causes an amnesia effect. Interesting. It was used with two other anti-nausea medications for Ethan. Ethan remembers some things but not others. It was an interesting rabbit hole first thing in the morning. It was chilly this morning. It is ...

 I had a call from someone I have not spoken with in quite some time. We chatted for about an hour. It was a pleasant conversation and I laughed out loud multiple times. This person is worthy of their own reality show, which I would watch.  I went on about my day and went to work at the vet hospital this evening. I left my house 2 minutes later than I had wanted (still putting me to arrive with plenty of time). I sat at the stop sign and thinking “Do I want to arrive late or dead?” As I decided to wait for the safest time to pull out into traffic. Who wants to arrive dead? While we worked, episodes of the old school Scooby Doo cartoons were playing. I don’t recall watching them all the way through as an adult. I asked most of my coworkers this evening if they had watched an episode all the way through. No one really had.  I loved this show when I was a kid. I wondered if  I be able to solve the mystery as an adult? I will likely have to devote some time to watch an e...

 I received a letter in the mail from the IRS saying we owed money and needed to get it paid. The letter looked legit but I am quite suspicious. We have our taxes professionally done and it seems a little fishy that we thought everything was paid for and settled and now we owe all these hundreds of dollars. I reached out to our tax guy and asked if it was a scam or legit. If it was legit if he had an idea why we still owed? Turns out it was legit. Phew, we aren’t being scammed. The tax guy explained the reason behind the big bill. We filed an extension under joint married but then filed separately and the IRS doesn’t recognize that t as a legitimate extension. Seems complicated and I am glad people have this as their passion. It certainly is not mine. He will write a letter on our behalf explaining we did everything correctly and that sum of money will disappear. Cool! It is always good to verify scam vs. non-scam. Today was a little rainy. I remember I used to tell the kids that “...

 I love that I am still getting comments about what part of the body is washed first in the shower. Everyone’s answers are so different.  Today’s weather was a gift. The breeze, the smell, the temperature. I sat in my front yard outside today for about an hour. The traffic can get loud when I am on the phone, so I moved to my back porch.  After work I tried to exercise. I guess I did exercise but it was “lazy” (just the way I like it). I put ankle weights on and took the dogs for a walk in the field. I did some of my PT exercises and then kept the ankle weights on for about two hours. That counts right? I was just doing normal Monday night things. Switching laundry, I made a few trips out to the camper. Moe did a little sunbathing this morning. The dogs got plenty of outside time. They spent it by sniffing things, peeing on stuff and enjoying the sunshine. Almost the same way I enjoyed it minus the peeing on stuff part. My allergies seem to be in overdrive. I have been ta...

Paul brought the camper home today. He spent the last weekend with our camp family. It is a bittersweet end to the season. He said it was weird because all the other campers were gone, the boy lifts were in the yard and it was awfully quiet. The heat got to Ethan today. As soon as it got a little bit warm, he became exhausted. He is dreading tomorrow at work. His work doesn’t have air conditioning. The heat from all the machines really elevates the temperature. He has his neck fan ready and will tie his hair back tomorrow. I was able to do more meal prep. I premade sandwiches to freeze. Ethan snacks on them when he gets home from work. I call it “pre-gaming for dinner”. I left to go pick up my groceries and noticed that one store had not even started shopping for them. The scheduled pick up time was 3:00-4:00 and it was 10 minutes to 3. I was dressed sort of poverishly. That is a real word. I had my hair slicked back, and wearing a very “I am working outside” type outfit. I threw on my...

 Ahhhhhhh the beauty of a Saturday! My headache was gone when I woke up thankfully!  Ethan and I had a visit with our neighbors who are moving. Our kids and their kids shared a bus and grew up together. We chatted for about a half hour in their driveway. We will miss them. They have been great neighbors. Ethan worked in the garage for the morning. He became very tired and had to take a break. He had to nap, which is becoming more of a thing for him. Heart and kidneys check out as stable, so this may be something he will need to get used to at 22.  I got up on the ladder and cleaned the outside windows in our kitchen. They needed it. I probably haven’t done them in well over a year. This evening I went to a surprise 50 th birthday party. The birthday girl was one of my first made friends ever, a childhood neighborhood friend. It was nice to see her. She looks amazing for 50.  While I was there, Ethan texted me and asked if I was wearing his glasses (I was not). He had...

 Yay! It’s Friday!  I have been putting off a call to the county department of Social Services to inquire about Medicaid and what the nexts steps will be since Ethan lost his SSI. I have been putting it off for the very reason of the hassle of it all. I called, went through a few prompt menu’s and sat on hold for quite some time. I actually startled because I had forgotten I was on hold and what I was calling about for a split second. The final consensus is that I need to wait for paperwork with next steps. I did some meal prep this evening. These men eat! I then developed a nasty head ache and am going to bed early. Yuck!

 My little grand kitty had his neuter today. Avery dropped him off and our vet friends took great care of him. Avery had to answer the questions and make the decisions. I had her stop by for a visit afterward. She stayed for a bit. The dogs miss her and were stuck to her like glue. Kendall picked Pluto up from the vet and got all the instructions. They are both very caring and loving people and wanted to make sure they did everything correctly for this little guy. Well Pluto discovered that he really enjoys opioids.  Right from the start he gave them a hard time. He was licking his incision right away. Avery drove home and grabbed Jiminy’s lamp shade. By the time she got home, Pluto had stopped licking. Pluto was very vocal and following them around. His pupils were huge.  One of the medications he was given causes that. He was feeling no pain. In fact, he was feeling invincible. A while later, he had jumped on the fish tank and made the cover fall in along with him. Aver...

I love everyone’s comments on what is the first thing you wash in the shower. I did a short shift this evening at the vet hospital and took a poll there. It is quite the conversation starter. I asked one of my vet office friends and her answer was “arms”. She then asked one of the guys “hey, what do you wash first in the shower…..and don’t make it weird.” That made me laugh. I may have to add that in when I ask other people. Luckily….mostly everyone has not made it “weird”….mostly….but not all. Ha! Paul made it home from Michigan. He had to travel there for work. He almost got into a nasty accident right near our house. Someone blew a stop sign and almost T-boned him. He swerved and his car and was just missed. The caveat….this all happened in front of a cop. Paul rolled the window down inches from the cop car to make sure the cop was ok. There was no collision thankfully, but the cop went after the person that blew the stop sign. When I got home from the vet office job, I was a hot co...