World Series and Black Squirrel

Well Butler seems to be doing better and I finally had the lightbulb moment on how to secure the little rubber mats I have on the floors downstairs to help Butler walk.  I have no idea why I've been hung up on putting the electrical tape, packaging tape and duct tape on the underside of the mats, and Butler would some how trip over an edge or get a mat loose so I duct taped the two edges of the way he travels completely down to the floor on the top side.  Hopefully this will help him.  I am still very well aware that each day I have him is a blessing at his age.

I saw the black squirrel - yes black, not grey, but black squirrel - that lives in a tree in the park scross the street the other day.  I've seen the little guy maybe five times this summer and fall.  I hope to get a picture of him so I can share him with all of you.

I'm not a big baseball fan - I'm sure my folks wondered how that could be since they are huge Cub fans - but it's true.  I finally watched my very first game this baseball season and what game was it?!  The sixth game of the World Series!  The game that the Rangers just could not win and the Cardinals just wouldn't die.  I finally turned it off around 11:15 p.m. not knowing who won until the next morning.  I admit I was for the Rangers because of admiring Nolan Ryan and Mike and I enjoyed watching Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez catch for the Rangers for several seasons a while back (Mike was a catcher).  So of course I had to watch Game 7 and it just wasn't in the cards (no pun intended) for the Rangers this year.  But I did like that Freese guy for St. Louis and was happy to see he was the MVP.

Buying jeans and pants is a dramatic ordeal for me - getting them to fit my waist and the right length - blick.  Someone told me to try the Gap so I went there and about fell over at the prices of the jeans but thought if I find one pair that fits I'll get one pair.  Then I looked at the sizes and figured the first number was the "waist" and the second number was the size.  Now my definition of where my waist is and today's definition of where our waists are - are totally different.  I'm sorry but if the pants/jeans fall at your belly button or below those are hip high - not waist high.  Unfortunately but good for my checkbook - I didn't find a pair of jeans I felt comfortable wearing so the saga finding jeans continues.

During today's NASCAR race we all saw something you don't see very often - a tire coming off a car and rolling down the track after the car comes out of the pits.  I was sooooooooo sorry (read into this NOT sorry) that it happened to Kyle Busch.  I think there's only three more races this season and then I'll go into NASCAR withdrawal until the Daytona 500 next February.

In Like Flint

Once-in-a-while Mike and I would see where one of the Flint movies (60's with James Coburn as a hip spy) would be on tv and we'd talk about watching it so I could experience one of them.  I think we actually watched 5-10 minutes of one before changing the channel.  Well last night Our Man Flint and In Like Flint were on.  I watched maybe the last half hour of the first one and maybe a half our of the next and couldn't handle it any more - I had to change the channel.  The decision was sped along when Flint/James Coburn had a conversation with the dolphin living in his pool - making the most bizarre noises with the most comical facial expressions..............and I realized my mouth was hanging open.

Last week while at the grocery store I thought I'd pick up the free tabs to see what was happening that weekend.  So I got Juice, Datebook and something called 50ish or something like that.  50ish was mostly ads for senior living complexes in the metro and senior health insurance - wow.  I checked out Juice and that was full of happenin' things for the youngin's.  I think the oldest person to have their picture or quote in this tab was in their early 30's - wow.  So on to the good, 'ole standby Datebook for the calendar section.  There were a couple of interesting things going on but I didn't go to them.

This weekend was my annual Girls Weekend with four friends from Central College but I wasn't feeling well so I wasn't able to go - bummer.  We've been doing this for over 20 years - meeting in Waterloo for eating, chatting, shopping, going to a movie, etc.

When I got home Friday Butler had fallen in the kitchen and I don't know how long he had laid there.  I had put his little rubbery "shoes" on his back feet thinking that would help him get across the laminate floor better but I think he got across the floor too well and got himself into trouble - so no more shoes for him.  But he didn't act himself and I was very close to taking him to the vet to put him down - and crying my eyes out the whole time.  Then I decided to wait until Saturday morning to see how he was doing.  My vet and I had talked about knowing when it was time and part of knowing when it was time would be seeing it in Butler's eyes.  I'm such a nerd and got Butler up on the bed to sleep with me.  I of course made sure he was comfortable and figured out how to curl myself up on the bed next to him, holding his paw.  Needless-to-say I didn't get a lot of sleep because of my position.

Saturday morning Butler was doing better - eating all his food and lippity loping a little in the backyard - and of course letting me know that I was making him wait too long to bring him back into the house.  Along with his "Jaws" personality coming out when I gave him the crust from my sandwich or potato chips.  When he is Jaws I have to make sure all my fingers are still attached when he snaps his mouth down on the food I give him.  And I found something he won't eat - carrots.  I had a good heart-to-heart prayer with God about when it was time for Butler to basically die.

Check out this goofball from last week playing with his stuffing-free toy skunk and also rubbing his right ear.  The skunk is up by his face.  Another pic is below.

I didn't run my errands as early Saturday as I had planned so got to the library mid-afternoon and the sun was hitting this bunch of trees just right to make the red and the orange tree pop.  The two pix below don't do the trees justice.  I thought it was an interesting combination of color, one bare tree and the Weeping Willow, along with the green trees.

Dad may not appreciate me mentioning this but I'm going to anyway.  Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers as he meets with a specialist Tuesday to get results from bloodwork and a cat scan he had done last week.  Ten tubes of blood were taken last Tuesday and they will take more blood this Tuesday before he sees the specialist.  I told him on the phone I don't think I could have sat long enough for ten tubes........

Spray Painting and More

I forgot to mention something that happened last Sunday afternoon.  I continually try to find ways to trim my expenses to be a good steward with the income God has given me and one was to really look at the package I have from DishTV.  Some of you may remember the drama of just going from DirecTV to DishTV.  Well I moved down a package to save $10/month.  I did this while watching the NASCAR race on ESPN.  Within less than two minutes after hanging up I was no longer watching the NASCAR race on ESPN because that channel was no longer available - it said on my tv screen.  Wrong-o buck-o ESPN was still available with the package I downgraded to - so back to the phone I went - and after finally getting a human being again I got ESPN and the race back.  It was later during the week I realized the program guide channel was not jiving with the channels I should be receiving.  It went from Channel 111 to like 179.  Any channel I was to get between those two I had to actually press into my remote..........back to the phone I went.  Again it took a few moments to get a human - and unfortunately for this human English was not her first language so it took a few moments for me to understand what I needed to do to my remote to get the guide to reflect all my channels - but mission accomplished.

I'm still dealing with truly being happy.  I can be happy for a short period of time but it's like it doesn't get below surface level.  I received an email for Joel Osteen's new book "Every Day A Friday" and decided to order it and got it late this week.  Joel's thought is how everyone is happy on Friday (TGIF and all that) and how we can (and should) have that feeling every day.

This week I had my handyguy, Jon, do something in the backyard that will make Dad jump up and down with joy.  I had Jon clean out the space behind my fence next to my neighbor's garage who lives to the south.  I had used that area as the dumping ground for large and small branches and Dad finally told me this summer that this area should probably be cleaned out because it would be a really nice place for snakes to live.  Just what I need a "nice place for snakes to live".  I'm trying to get rid of "nice places" like that.  So Jon cleaned it all out (five lawn bags of stuff), put fabric down and then a layer of river rock - check out the picture below.  Oh ya - Jon only found three snakes back there to kill.  His bill mentioned three more in the back yard so I thought he had killed six snakes total but when I talked to him it was only those three which is three too many.  And weeds aren't suppose to (key word "suppose") to grow through lawn fabric but unfortunately they tend to, so I will periodically check this area out to see if I need to spray weed killer in there.

Today I finally got around to spray painting the pale yellow Adirondack chair I bought earlier this year that sits on my enclosed front porch - I wanted it a bright, vibrant yellow to go with the other bright, vibrant colors on the porch.  I learned a very important lesson about spray painting today - don't take the little dealie out of the front of the nozzle that you press down on for the paint to come out of.  When you do that - thinking the little plastic dealie is a stopper that needs to be pulled out - you mess up the sprayer on the can.  I start to press on the nozzle and paint dribbles out, runs all over and makes a huge mess - including some fingers on my right hand.  Lovely.  I do the best I can do and am not happy with the outcome.  I'll return to the chair in a minute.

My neighbors to the north got a puppy a couple of weeks ago and today after running errands was the first chance I had to go over and meet Arrow.  Talk about energy!  She is three months old and part lab/part Boston Terrier I think they said.  They tie her out in their backyard different times during the day.  So while I'm dealing with the horrid spray paint I hear something rustling off to my left/north.  I look over and there is Arrow, still hooked to her tie out but she's some how crawled under my fence :)  I walk over to her and debate how I'm going to get her back over the fence when Mom comes out and says, "Arrow where are you?".  I replied, "She's over here".  I unhooked her from the tie out and carried the squiggly little thing back to Mom next door.

I go back to the chair and am not happy with the drops of paint and streaks of paint in places so get an old towel and try to wipe those areas - can I make this any worse?  Luckily I had two cans of bright yellow spray paint and something told me to NOT take the plastic dealie out of the nozzle so when I pressed down on the nozzle, paint came out like it should.  And the second can seemed to cover the areas I wiped with the towel pretty good.  Check out the pictures below.

Lastly when I was walking in to HyVee to buy my groceries today I briefly looked at the pumpkins they had for sale and found THE pumpkin Casey would pick.  I don't think there was any spot on the pumpkin that wasn't lumpy or bumpy and I knew Casey would pick it out of all the pumpkins..........

See how nice the chair looks now that it's bright and vibrant yellow instead of pale yellow :)  It goes so much better with the colors on the porch.  I've got the chair sitting on a cloth to make sure the paint is dry on the legs.

My Week: October 2nd

It seems I only blog on Sundays now and am doing a week in review - so here we go again.

This week I started back with physical therapy for my left shoulder/arm because of carrying Butler downstairs.  I have a different therapist because I'm doing it at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday right after work.  Mike (my therapist) hooked me up to a machine that sent electrical pulses to my shoulder after I had done some stretching exercises and he manipulated my shoulder.  And Thursday night he taped me like Blake (my other therapist) had done one time.  But Mike taped both my shoulders which was interesting.  I was getting ready for the cold stuff that goes on before the first layer of tape when all-of-a-sudden instead of a little cold spray I get both Mike's hands starting at the top of my back and going halfway down.  HEL-LOW that was COLD!

Friday night I was able to get together with two friends from my days in Urbandale - we were suppose to have gotten together last Friday night but my shoulder hurt so bad I had to cancel on them at the last minute.  Luckily this Friday worked for all of us.  My family moved from Urbandale to Pella in '73.  Nancy and I had kept in contact through the years but unfortunately Lisa and I hadn't.  Nancy had shared Mike's CaringBridge website with Lisa and she reconnected with me last year and it's been great staying connected.  Lisa and I decided Friday night that we had seen each other one time since '73.  We closed Panera in Ankeny (at 9:00 p.m.) and then stood outside Panera and continued to talk until 10:15 :)

Yesterday was the Third Annual Fall Fest for Living Waters Fellowship at a family's property close to Avon Lake.  The weather the past two weeks has been BE-U-TI-FUL (yes I left out the "a") and yesterday was awesome.  Festivities started at 2:00 p.m. with fellowship and a hayride which another gal and I took with several of the kids.  Then it was time for mandatory family games - see pix below.  As we moved to the games area we were divided into four teams (Blue, Red, Green or Yellow...or Gold as that team called themselves).  I was a Blue Team member.

This is the Blue Team marked by the blue balloon.  Each team had to determine their team name using their balloon color in the name.  We tossed different ideas out and then decided on the Smurfs.  As our pastor aka Papa Smurf was heading to the officials to give them our name we realized we didn't include the word "blue" so we yelled at him that we were the Blue Smurfs.  Aren't we the original ones :)  That's Papa Smurf standing in the black t-shirt with his back to the camera talking to our team.  Ruth (the gal that rode the hayride with me) and I decided we'd both be Grumpy Smurf.  The Yellow (or Gold) Team is next to us.

The first game needed 12 team members with two adults and two children at each team's table - this is my team.  The other team members had to hand (one-at-a-time) 36 plastic cups to the four at the table who then created a pyramind of cups.  The team with the most cups in their pyramid without it blowing over won.  The Blue Smurfs won and we were on a roll!  We created a wind block with the rest of our team members' bodies.  We were in first place and awarded the Gold mylar balloon to tie to our blue balloons which incidently had a blue smurf as the weight of the gold balloon..............

Another game paired us with the Red team and the Green team with the Yellow team.  Each team had a table and either all your cups were in the up position or the down position.  Our two teams were in the down position.  Those members playing were to then turn cups, on any table, to the position for their team.  Judi, in the pink in the foreground, protected our table continuing to turn cups in the down position while the rest of our team went to the other tables to turn cups down.  Chaos ensued :)

There was another game where two mothers/children and two fathers/children from each team were paired up.  The parent was blindfolded and had to "race" the length of the playing field, to find their child at the other end, with only being guided by the sound of their child yelling "mom" or "dad".  Parents were grabbing wrong children and one dad turned the wrong way and headed into the corn field next to me - and I missed getting that picture can you believe it?!  :)

We had held the lead during all the games, and were leading by two points when it was time for the final game.  Each team member was given three pieces of paper to crumple into a ball and we had to sit in our team's quadrant on the playing field.  When the officials said "go" we then tossed our "snowball" into another team's quadrant.  As the end of the game, the number of snowballs in each quadrant was counted with the team with the least amount of snowballs getting first and the team with the most getting fourth.  The adults had to stay on their patootey (behind) to play this game while the kids could at least move within our quadrant.  And we could toss snowballs that landed in our quadrant into other quadrants.  Needless-to-say guess which team got ganged up by the other three teams...yep the Blue Smurfs.  Check out our quadrant in the picture below - shouldn't be too hard to figure out which one is ours.  The team that won had like one snowball in it.

Today I woke up with my eyes bugging me and feeling funky so I didn't go to church.  I started feeling somewhat "ok" around noon or at least ok enough to run two errands that I had planned on doing on my way home from church.  There was also a Corvette show in Valley Junction that I wanted to check out.  See the pictures below.  My dream car is a '61 Vette in powder blue with that inland deal in the doors being white - like the LA Law car back when that show was on the air.

Tomorrow if you think about it - say a little prayer for me.  It would have been Mike's 64th birthday and it could be somewhat emotional at times.  I still miss him everyday.

Catching Up 10.2.11

Work was pretty much work this week, but something new was started on Fridays - work is buying our lunch - just because!  Our company president's philosophy is to try to find ways to give more benefits to the employees and this is a new one - awesome.

My shoulder has really been hurting by the end of the work day this week - I don't start physical therapy again until this coming Tuesday and Thursday.  I was taking Advil every four hours and loading up with Extra Strength BenGay in the morning and by the end of the day, if I could cry at work, some days I would have.  I didn't go to my small group Bible Study Wednesday night and missed out getting together with a couple of girlfriends Friday night.  I was really bummed about Friday night because those two girlfriends go back to my days at Olmsted Elementary in Urbandale and I hadn't seen one of them since I moved to Pella in '73.  We've rescheduled for next Friday night.

My mower kidlet continues to be "interesting".  I had to sic his dad on him to get him around to mow since it hadn't been mowed since Tuesday after Labor Day.  I got home from work Wednesday night with his dad promising my lawn would be mowed - nope.  As I walked up the basement stairs I saw the kid's mower in my backyard - just sitting there.  The backyard had been mowed and half of the strip by the side of the house and then something must have happened to the mower.  At least the front lawn (and the rest of the strip) got mowed Thursday night.

Friday my cousin that is 9 days younger than me turned 50.  I texted her before going to work and saw her reply text as I was leaving work - something to the effect that I got to turn 50 before her.  Got?!  She's warped but I love her anyway :)

Yesterday before I ran errands I got the leaves bagged that had accumulated in the driveway - a lawn bag full.  Then I picked up a lot of small to decent-sized sticks that had fallen in the back yard Friday when we had such a windy day.  Yesterday and today are gorgeous fall days and lots of the trees are turning.  There is one tree at the DSM Golf and Country Club by the exit I take for work that is the most vibrant orange and yellow.  I hope everyone is enjoying the weather and colors in Central Iowa.

Below are a couple of pictures of Butler with one of his toys.  The first one Skunk is next to him, the second one Butler is biting Skunk.  I love it when he still plays with his toys like a puppy.  Sometimes when he's standing and shaking Skunk he really gets into it.  There used to be times when the toy he was shaking would come loose and go flying.  When that would happen, Mike and I would warn each other about "Incoming!" and duck  :)