Good Morning ALL! How are you this winter morning? It was snowing outside earlier. So nice to have these warmer temperatures but with them comes moisture, meaning freezing rain or SNOW! Well this has been a trying morning thus far. It took me 40 minutes to get likely about 1/2 of Alvin’s medication into him and the rest landed on the sofa or in his fur. So always cleanup after the medicine. This was the least amount that he has ever taken. What a guy! Not sure what else I can do? Thankfully he does not have much left to take. Hopefully there is enough to at least coat his stomach. I don’t know. He will be eating breakfast in a few minutes which is 30 minutes after he had the medication. I am praying to whomever may listen to please make him well. Between the demands to go into the office and Alvin’s health, I am super frustrated. Not the best way to start the work week. Okay, I have vented time too “let it go.” Best line ever and from an animated movie, no less. I know the words were from the song in the movie “Frozen.”
On this Monday, I am grateful to be working from home. I am grateful that we have good food to eat. I am grateful to be surrounded by supportive family and friends. I am grateful to be employed. I am grateful to be living this life.
Is my life perfect? Well, no. Is it pretty great for the most part, well YES! So I will get over these moments this morning and get on with the day. Alvin needs to have breakfast. I will need to finish this post first. I will work and do the best job that I can. I will be a good human being. The best that I can be in any given moment.
This will be short. We did have a great weekend in between the medication episodes. I wonder what he is doing downstairs as I left him. Just needed to put some space and time between him. Yesterday, my friend Signe came for coffee & visit in the morning. It was nice to see her – feels like a long time.
Take a deep breath and have a great day. That is what I am doing.
Continuing to live this life with kindness, respect, compassion, patience, love, laughter, understanding, gratitude, focus, possibilities and coffee.
Looking forward to the coffee this morning.
Always, Carol & Alvin
P.S. even though we have our moments, I love Alvin with all my heart. Always trying to do the best for him. Just in case you had other thoughts!
Good Morning ALL! How are you this morning? The sky looks so beautiful this morning with all the layers of blues, almost purple, oranges and pinks. Absolutely gorgeous. Great way to start the day with a great sunrise. We had a good sleep, I was up more than Alvin. He definitely is on the mend. His poop is starting to look like poop and there does not appear to be any signs of blood (I was looking in the porch light as it was dark as I held the bag up). This morning I started to wean him off the bland diet by slowly introducting his regular food. It was easy to do, 1/4 cup of rice, chicken, his wet and dry food and then some pumpkin with the Metamucil. I was easily able to get him to take his medicine this morning which was a relief. Nothing like having to keep picking up pieces of a pill and rewrapping in chicken. Perhaps he was playing me! Anyway, things are looking up. I am so relieved. Hopefully by the end of this week we will be back to normal.
Yesterday my daughter stayed until about lunchtime. She helped me with some computer stuff. Still not able to find out why we cannot upload photos to WordPress but we found a work around, oh I know about work rounds. My work is all about that. Why is it with every update or new model that something that was working fine is no longer working? Anyway, that is for another day. Amanda was going to put all my photos on the external hard drive but there is a problem, a specific cord was not included. Of course, the hard drive is new and my old computer is not. She thought it was included but it was not. She has the same hard drive so can bring me one next time she comes over. See what I mean about technology. Let’s keep updating technology so that people have to keep buying all the adapters, cords etc. Makes me want to cry. Nothing is easy and they have us all over a barrel.
I tried once again to add some photos to this post. But no luck. I have company coming for coffee in a few minutes so need to go and put on the coffee. I will figure this out. We thought maybe because I had so many photos in my gallery here but that does not seem to be the issue. ARGH.
On that note, I am going to add some wonderful memories from 2022, my 65th Birthday…….. ah…..
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Have a great day.
Continuing to live this life with kindness, respect, compassion, patience, love, laughter, understanding, gratitude, focus, possibilities and coffee.
Good Morning ALL! How are you this morning? We are okay. Alvin still has diarrhea but it is less and definitely less blood. Sorry for the descriptive language this early in the day. But all in all it seems better than he was on Tuesday. He certainly loves the chicken more than the rice. It has been a bit of a challenge to get his medications into him but so far only missed one pill that ended up too mushy in his rice that he wouldn’t eat. They are intelligent creatures and likely his sense of smell is way better than mine or most humans. Yesterday worked out okay with me working from home. I was able to take him out whenever he needed to go as once he asks, he needs to get outside now.
I am grateful that the weather has been mild. Certainly has helped the middle of the night trips outside with the Alvin. I would go no matter what but has helped make it more bearable.
So grateful for all my family and friends who have reached out to check on his status. Thank you.
I am grateful that today is Friday and it is almost the weekend.
I am grateful that Amanda is coming for a sleepover. We are both always over the moon to see her.
I am grateful that I have a job where I can work from home.
Oh, Val, I am wearing my new green sweater this morning. So yesterday the doorbell rings and there, stands this guy with a huge box. As he hands it to me, he says, “it is a heavy one.” I said “thank you” and he was on his way. I quickly put the box down and went back to work. On my break I opened it up to find so many goodies (Christmas box) from our friend Val, who spoils us rotten. There was biscotti (my absolutely favourite), some dill pickle biscuits (had one with supper, so good), apple tarts, chocolate muffins, homemade treats for Alvin and other baking for me. There was also the most perfect GREEN sweater for the Momma, “me.” I am wearing the sweater now and it is the perfect weight and I LOVE the colour. There was also some Epicure items in my gift. Also in the box was my Epicure order and my daughter’s. There was a lot of things in that box. Filled my counter. I let Alvin open his gift but he found it a bit difficult this time around so I lent a helping hand and then he was in ….. I know he wasn’t supposed to have anything but what is on his “bland diet” but he was whining and crying and so excited, that I gave him one treat. I broke it into three pieces and he happily gobbled it down. We are over the moon grateful to have this amazing human in our lives. She treats me and Alvin like “rock stars” no better than that….. we are truly blessed. Thanks Val. We love our treats and I cannot wait to taste some of the baked goods tonight with Amanda.
Well it is almost time to head downstairs and get to work. Get that coffee plugged in.
Have an awesome Friday.
Continuing to live this life with kindness, respect, compassion, patience, love, laughter, understanding, gratitude, focus, possibilities and coffee.
Good Morning ALL! Hello. I am sorry but I haven’t posted for a couple of days due to Mr. Alvin being “sick.” I guess it was just after a few hours after we went to bed on Monday night (to work on Tuesday) when he woke up and needed to go outside and that is where it started. He had to pee, so I let him outside. Most of the time I go outside with him and sometimes I just let him out and watch him from the back door. The next time he went out a few hours later, I went with him and and realized that he had diarrhea which was filled with blood. More blood than poop. I almost started to cry. That is never a good sign for anyone. Last time he had major surgery after I spotted a drop of blood in his pee and that was February of 2021. My heart fell to my knees. We were up and down, (no sleep) and then I sent a text at a reasonable hour to my Manager explaining and advising that I would not be working Tuesday. As soon as the Vet Clinic was open I called to set up an appointment. The irony was that I had an appointment for today, this afternoon to have his nails etc. done (regular). The soonest we could get in was noon which was good as I needed to find a ride to the vet. I was very lucky that one of my friends and nearby neighbours was off yesterday and was very happy to give us a ride. Then the waiting. I think the waiting is the hardest. Every time he went outside there was blood, some 24 hours later there is still blood but it is becoming a bit less. We were picked up just before noon and off we went. I totally forgot to take a mask with me and had to ask for one inside the clinic. The vet requires all humans to wear one while in the exam rooms. I explained everything and showed the photos that I had taken to the Clerk at reception desk before we went in to wait in one of the two exam rooms. Not long later the Vet Assistant came to retrieve Mr. Alvin. Then the waiting. Actually, it was not too long. So long story short as honestly it is a blur. The blood was red and not tarry which is good and there are a long list of reasons why, he was eating and drinking water and no blood in his urine, also good. He had lost a bit of weight which was good as he had put on a couple of pounds. The first thing she said we needed to do was to put him on medications to stop the diarrhea, he would need Probiotics and Fibre (age). I asked about all the blood in his stool and she said that she had seen more. For now, not to worry, we need to get his stool back to normal. He also has to go on a bland diet (chicken & rice) for a few days. So that is that. He does not seem to be in any pain. Although I would say not quite his old self. My friend picked us up after I got the medications, instructions and paid the bill. Then we were off to the grocery store as I needed rice, chicken and Metamucil (fibre). So here we are. I am not working today as I had little or no sleep again last night. I hope that over the next day or so, he is back to normal. If not, there will be more tests. Fingers crossed and saying lots of prayers.
I need coffee. On the upside my Ricki’s order arrived yesterday and the 5TB external hard drive for my photos. YAY.
Continuing to live this life with kindness, respect, compassion, patience, love, laughter, understanding, gratitude, focus, possibilities and coffee. I really need coffee this morning – a bit late. With not having to work, I was able, we were able to get a bit of sleep.
Good Morning ALL! What a beautiful clear blue sky (there are a few wispy white clouds but mainly blue). The air was warm when I was out earlier cleaning up after Mr. Alvin’s early packages left in the snow. I am so grateful to have this last day at home with Alvin before back to work tomorrow. I am grateful that I am working from home tomorrow. YAY.
We had a wonderful day yesterday. In the morning my friend Gillian came over and we had a great conversation and visit and coffee. She told me that her in-laws also had a memory/storage problem with photos and so they bought external hard drives (extra memory) and store all of their photos off the computer. When they need to access them – simply plus in the external hard drive. Great idea. I think that Amanda may have mentioned that as well. I love when my friend(s) came come for a visit. YAY, for friends.
I putzed doing a few things before taking Mr. Alvin for a walk not long after Gillian left for home. The air was warm and it was so nice outside. Alvin did not get cold at all.
Did I mention that I managed to figure out how to set up my iTunes on the new computer? I am more tech savvy that I first thought. I texted Amanda and before I knew it she had ordered an external hard drive with 5 terabytes of memory. That should do the trick. No running out of memory in the near future. It will be delivered today (talk about fast) and then I will wait until Amanda can help me as they will need to be formatted or something. I still have to download or upload the WORD package that I purchased when I bought this new computer. This all is happening so fast. YAY.
My coffee has just finished perking so I will see if I can access the photos that I uploaded yesterday. I even went through most of them and deleted a bunch that were poor shots or duplicates. Time to get in the habit of doing that right away.
Well looks like no photos for this post. The computer is putting the photos in some kind of special order or something. This is not going to be a quick thing, I suspect. I hope that you are doing well. I will post the photos from the walk on New Year’s Eve as the sights are absolutely breathtaking. I would love for you to see them.
Time to go and clean Mr. Alvin’s ears and then have some coffee. I will work on the photos after that.
I am grateful for this mild weather and will be even more grateful if I can figure out “photos.” ARGH.
Have a wonderful Monday.
Continuing to live this life in this New Year with kindness, respect, compassion, patience, love, laughter, understanding, gratitude, focus, possibilities and coffee.
Good Morning ALL! Another beautiful day on the way. The sky is partially overcast but I am hoping that it remains dry for the day. I am so grateful to my daughter for spending overnight on Friday with me and Alvin. She stayed until about noon on Saturday. I had a list of things that I required an extra set of hands for so she helped me out. We hauled the dresser in from the garage and it is all set up and most of the drawers are filled already. Moved things about. One of my downstairs plants has a new home atop of the dresser. She helped me trim a bit more fur/hair from Mr. Alvin’s front paws. He was squirmy so we did not get much but a bit and that is great. There was an ear cleaning (he sure sat a lot better for her than for me). We moved the heavier plant pots that had been emptied into the garage along with the base of the umbrella stand that she gave me. Well actually the base is sitting on the upper deck drying out from the last rain. I do not want wet sand sitting in the garage. The big thing was TRIMMING THE TRIM. I was amazed that with girl power how much we were able to do. We even brought out the 5 foot step ladder and got some of the higher branches, not the highest ones but enough that I feel better. We were so proud and even had fun doing it. Amanda likes to trim trees, I found out. We also found out that if we both hold onto the tree trimmer together and one pulls the rope it worked a lot better. The tree trimmer is about 8 or so feet long and has a hard core blade system at the end. It is very heavy for one person. She was amazed that I had done it by myself the past years. Well, I always say “you do what needs to be done, one way or the other.” We tossed the branches over the back gate as I needed to borrow my neighbours shorter handle tree trimmer tool to cut up the branches so that they can be taken by our garage people. So it was a great morning.
In the afternoon, I did laundry, some cleaning and later in the afternoon, our friend Pauline stopped by with a plant and some seeds. Sunflower and Brown-Eyed Susan plants. We chatted for a few minutes and then we walked her home where we had a short visit as it was time for her to prepare supper and me to go home and ready mine. I fed Mr. Alvin before she arrived at our house.
So a great day all round. I rewound and watched LIGHTYEAR a few more times and even saw bits that I had missed from Friday night. That was in the afternoon. Just left the movie playing as I did some housework. Last night it was just watching some episodes of YOUNG SHELDON and BIG BANG THEORY. Some I had seen before but I enjoy these two shows so I watched them again.
Our tree is beginning to turn yellow. I noticed there are quite a few trees that are still very green.
The grass is a mix of green and yellow/brown. The north side of the street most of the lawns have gone yellow/brown but on our side, the south side, many remain green.
Well time to go and get dressed for the day. Have some coffee and then go and chop some branches. I have to retrieve the laundry that is drying in the basement and then do a couple of loads of laundry. Have a walk with Mr. Alvin somewhere along the way and then have a quiet one. We might use BOBI the robot vacuum cleaner to clean upstairs. My daughter is lending me BOBI as her floor space is small and she does not use much and my vacuum cleaner, my beautiful ELECTROLUX is not working. I think it is the sensor according to some troubleshooting research that I did on GOOGLE Search. Perhaps at some point I will find someone who can fix it.
Wishing you a great day.
Continuing to live this life with kindness, respect, compassion, patience, love, laughter, understanding, gratitude, focus and possibilities with COFFEE.
Good Morning ALL! What a wonderfully cool Monday morning this is. The sun is starting to rise, the sky is a pale blue as the night leaves for morning with pale orange hue on the horizon away from the sun. Beautiful. The house is cool this morning and I even forgot to open our bedroom window last night. How did that happen? I even got up just before I turned the lights out to turn off the fan which I had briefly turned on at the lowest setting. I have closed the bedroom windows and blinds except for the office one for now. I will close them once I am done writing this post. Monday morning here we come. I am so happy that Mr. Alvin slept until almost 4:30 and then he woke up at 5:57 (still beat the alarm). So we have been up for a few extra minutes. Today is shower so I need a bit more time and we are still walking in the mornings due to the heat at lunch time and after work. Yesterday when we went for a walk in the mid morning, it was so beautiful out that we just kept walking and before I knew it we had walked our whole “old” route. This time it took us 45 minutes. Alvin is slowing down. We used to do it in 25-30 minutes. But I figure 45 minutes of fresh air, sniffing in that beautiful air, checking out the grass, the trees, the flowers and just being together is great. I am happy that he is still able to walk. I am so proud of Mr. Alvin. We bumped into an older gentleman with his dog, a girl, I do not remember her name now but Alvin liked her. She was 9 years old, I think the man said. Anyway, Alvin took a shine to her and she was timid but did not seem to mind the attention. The love fest carried on for a few minutes before we both went on our way. So nice. Whoa, the sun is coming up and reflecting off of the neighbours garage, looking oh so pretty. I am glad that we are up and getting things done.
A good weekend and I am so grateful that the temperatures were less hot. Way less hot. Yesterday I spent some time cleaning out some of the flower pots where most of the flowers had already passed on. I also did some rearranging and cleaning of the garage preparing for putting the patio/deck furniture away. Won’t be for a bit but not too far off, I would think. I have already prepared the front flower bed except to trim back the perennials that remain. There are three of them. I was going to clean the blinds on the main floor and that did not happen. Just putzed. It was a wonderful day.
Off the subject, I have had this computer (new) in 2009. It is a 2009 model. So it has served me well. The computer can no longer accept updates so it remains behind. I have an Apple iMac. I have been researching to find out which would be the best one to get and am shocked by the results of my searches. I found that the Shopping Channel had some on sale and you can pay for them by interest free monthly payment which would be ideal for me. Upon some research between myself and my daughter (whom I could not do anything technical without), found that the newer Catalina operating system will not be supported after this year. So I do not know if this means that there would be no more updates. Who wants to buy a computer that is basically obsolete before you even pay for it? The new ones that were made in 2022 are thousands of dollars. I love Apple products but seriously do we need to charge so much. Aren’t the Apple people rich enough. How about making things a bit more affordable. You have the “customer base.” Anyway, I have some serious thinking to do before I spend any money. More research and time. I hope this old gal can work for some more time. She has done pretty darn good. Fingers crossed.
Well time to head back downstairs and go for a walk with the boy. Alvin is resting on his bed in the office here beside me.
I hope that you have an awesome day. Cannot believe that the long weekend in September is only a few days away. September, FALL ……. I love fall.
Continuing to live this life with kindness, respect, compassion, patience, love, laughter, understanding, gratitude, focus, possibilities, coffee and …….
Always, Carol & Alvin
PS: I am so grateful to be working from home ….. I love that we can go for a walk and come home and then I can plug in the coffee pot and then start work. I love that I can drink home brewed coffee all morning long if I chose.
Good Morning ALL! How are you this morning? We are doing great. Alvin is laying in front of the fan in the hallway as I type this post. We were up for the first time this morning at 5:45, that was fantastic. I suppose we should have stayed up as it was close to the time that during the week I need to be up so that we can do everything we need to do before I start work but alas after I fed Mr. Alvin, took him outside, we laid down on the sofa again. Next thing I woke up and it as 8:00 a.m., I quickly ran upstairs and got changed, filled his water bottle, slipped his harness on, grabbed the leash, poop bags, my sunglass clips, my flip flops and the keys and we were on our way. It was so nice outside a bit of coolness filled the air. The sky is slightly overcast as I type these words and there is a bit of a breeze. I think that today the temperature is to be a bit cooler. So grateful for that. We walked to our friend Pauline’s house, looked at the flowers from the public sidewalk as I could see people coming with dogs. Turning around we headed home. Of course, there was a poop stop before carrying on. We were almost to the poop bag station at the entrance to the park when the lady and her pup caught up to us. She called out that they were waiting for us. Her dog was large but seemed so sweet. Mary and PopTart. Those were their names. We chatted from a bit of a distance as Mary said that PopTart was afraid of smaller dogs. Alvin was busy sniffing and not paying too much attention to her although he did look at her from a distance and was wagging his tail. PopTart was so well behaved. I am always amazed at how many new people I meet. Are there that many moving into this area? She was nice and her pup was nice. We also mentioned about walking early in the morning or later in the evening (if not dark, no mosquitoes) if cools down as too hot for the pups during the day.
Just as I was typing this post, I realized that I had a voicemail message and it was from Pauline, she had called after we left the house to see if we wanted to meet and go for a walk. I texted her back and she suggested maybe this evening. I hope that the temperature allows for us to walk.
I would like to bake a banana loaf however it will depend on the temperatures. Have to check the weather station.
My brother and his husband made it safely to Regina last night to our sister’s house. She has air conditioning so they would have had a good sleep last night.
I can smell the freshly brewed coffee so it is time to end this post. Looks like more clouds are rolling in. Perhaps we will get some rain. I watered my flowers last night as they can barely go more than one day without being watered. We are also getting closer to the end of their season. I will need to bring in my geraniums and canna lily in likely a couple of weeks so will need to repot the geraniums. Guess I will need to look at getting some more flower pots and dirt.
I hope that you have an awesome Sunday. I have to bring up the clothes that are drying in the basement. Perhaps this afternoon, I will go through some of my crafting items as I promised them to a person that picked up a item that I was selling. No point in having things laying around the house that you will not use.
Continuing to live this life with kindness, respect, compassion, patience, love, laughter, understanding, gratitude, focus, possibilities and coffee.
Good Morning ALL! How are you this gorgeous Friday morning? Alvin and I are well. Just finished having a most refreshing shower, Alvin has had his breakfast and gone outside to do his business and I am writing this post before we head outside for our morning walk. I can hear the hum of traffic on the highway which is a short distance away. The sun is starting to shine with all its’ brilliance, there is a breeze (thankfully) and the sky is a smoky blue colour. I am congested so I am not sure if that is smoke blowing in from fires somewhere? Might be. The house was 75 degrees when I looked at the thermostat and then dropped to 74 at that moment when I was standing there. Never had that happen before. I will take 74 but hopefully we can capture the coolness the way that we did yesterday. Will have to close the blinds and windows before we head downstairs.
Cute story but rather frightening too. Last night I was dreaming. The only things that I remember was that some kind of animal with long sharp horns was coming toward me and I was asking for help. Apparently my first attempts were feeble and quite low as nothing happened but then I shouted in a scared voice at the top of my lungs “help me” and it was not a dream as Alvin literally bolted up from his spot where he had been fast asleep. I scared him so badly that he would not settle down for a good 15 minutes. I had the windows open and luckily no one heard me. Perhaps everyone had their fans on, too. Anyway, I think I know where that dream was hatched from “The Big Bang Theory” as the episode that I was watching before bed was when Sheldon and Raj were in the tunnel at the University and Raj was babbling on about something or other when Sheldon noticed some four legged furry creatures standing on a ledge behind Raj’s head. He screamed and ran up the ladder throwing down the hatch leaving Raj all alone with the you know what. I cannot even say the word. Anyway, pretty sure that did it for me.
We are back to normal now. I did a few things this morning as my brother and his partner Todd are coming to visit us. I cannot wait. They should be here about 2:00 pm or so. We have decided to have a cold supper of sorts with buns, egg salad, veggies, pickles and cold cuts etc and with fruit and macaroons for dessert. I am also excited that my daughter Amanda will be joining us and wished that my son-in-law and grandpups could also be here.
Well time to head downstairs and get on our walk. I will be posting my blog later tomorrow after the company heads out but I will be here.
I hope that you have a great Friday. I can feel the fan blowing from the hallway and the breeze coming in through the office window.
Oh, almost forgot that one of my friends and neighbours down the street joined me and Alvin on the front porch during my lunch break yesterday. She also gave me a belated birthday gift which was a lovely book and a card. This birthday just keeps on giving. I so so grateful. Love books and reading them.
Continuing to live this life with kindness, respect, compassion, patience, love, laughter, understanding, gratitude, focus, possibilities and coffee.
Good Morning ALL! How are you this morning? Another overcast cloudy raining morning. Yesterday we had a hair amount of rain. We were able to go for a walk at my lunch break without being rained upon. Of course, we walked to our friend Pauline’s house and admired the garden from the gate. We did not go in as we had stopped to say hello to other neighbours who were out on their porch. Alvin always has to say hello and I follow, apologizing. He leads the way most times. Pauline’s sunflowers are amazing and so many flowers that I do not know their names. Colours of the rainbow. The trees this morning look saturated as they sway in the wind. Cannot even say breeze, it is definitely windy. The sky is actually gray not blue. By noon it is supposed to stop raining and only be cloudy so we should be able to go for a walk. Next week or maybe even this weekend, the temperatures are supposed to take an upward turn. In fact, the day that we are supposed to go and visit the kids for a few days is to be +30 degrees celsius. I am not sure what will happen. Time will tell. I am hopeful that we will be able to go and visit them.
One request that I made of my daughter for my birthday was to have a weiner / marshmallow roast. I am not much for meat and especially not hot dogs however, I have been craving them as of late. So that is my birthday supper request. Simple and easy. I am all about that these days. I have a cake already that my friend Val baked for me in the shape of 6 – 5. I froze the cake so that I could take it with us. I also have a cooler that she gave me for my last birthday, I believe. I am all set.
Well as today is my last day of work, I am going to cut this short. I want to ensure that I am all caught up as I leave for one week plus one day of vacation.
Have a wonderful day. Stay dry and warm. If it is raining where you are!
Continuing to live this life with kindness, respect, compassion, patience, love, laughter, understanding, gratitude, focus, possibilities, coffee and Alvin.
My New Life @ 51 