Another First ~ Birthday ~ And Of Course....Cruz

 

Here's Miss Innocent......check out the bright, green basket in the upper left corner of the pic - that's where I put her upstairs toys.

 



 

This week I decided to take some pix of where I find Cruz' toys when I get home from being away.  All her downstairs toys start with her in her crate when I leave.....  The first pic is of Foxy (a stuffingless toy) waiting to greet me in my kitchen on the floor.

 

 

This is her Kong bone that I fill with peanut butter - laying by my front door.

 

Squirrel, another stuffingless toy, is the grey "road kill" in the foreground on the left.  The blue thing on the right side of my living room floor is a Wubba toy (a Kong ball wrapped with super, duper material).  Wubba has really made the rounds.

Because this is Wubba on my window sill in the living room next to Cruz' crate - you can see through the window onto my enclosed front porch.  And I've found Wubba on top of Cruz' crate.

This picture is from this morning in my bedroom.  Cruz has NEVER reacted to a tennis ball when I toss it toward her in the back yard.  Guess when the lights go out - she's decided it's ok to play with her tennis ball (yellow ball on the left side of the picture).  And the pink/blue striped ball is another tennis ball tied to a piece of material to be a pull toy.  This is where I found them this morning when I woke up.  They were both in Cruz' green basket when it was lights out last night.

And to use a "Mad About You" phrase to what I came home to after church - "this is new".  Wubba was in my kitchen sink.  No idea if Cruz just tossed Wubba in the air and this is where it landed or if she actually got on her back legs and put Wubba in the sink...for a bath???

 

The candle below is from the PartyLite party I went to a couple of Sundays ago.  You can put both votive candles and tea light candles in the holder behind the dog's head.

Cruz - where do I begin......

• We had a break through moment Thursday morning.  Normally when we are upstairs she lays on the floor on the other side of my bed where I can't see her unless I'm sitting on the bed.  Thursday she came over and laid on the floor a couple of feet from the bathroom to watch me get ready.
• Thursday we walked down to Valley Junction's Farmer's Market and she let me take her all the way to the end of 5th Street again.  There were more people at the market than last week so I think this was a positive thing.
• We are working on the command "sit" in the backyard and also during walks.  In the backyard whenever I stop walking to either work on "sit" or "come" - she lays down on the ground and will NOT move.  So I've mainly worked on "sit" during our walks.  When we started to learn "sit" she would not let me move her head slightly back and up to force her to sit on her back legs - she is so stubborn.  Toward the end of the week she would "sit" fairly ok - but not on command - only if I moved her head back and up.
• The cyst on her back leg is getting better I guess - at least it's not getting any worse and she still lets me put ointment on it twice a day.
• She also gloms down the piece of cheese she is given twice a day with a Benedryl hidden inside to help with her allergies/stratching.
• I filed her first medical claim this week for our vet visit last Saturday and the medication - I'll see a percentage of the exam reimbursed in a few weeks.
• The ultimate was yesterday when I walked in to Menards with my kitchen baseboard in hand asking if they had something to match I could buy to replace what was in my hand - because my dog had ripped the baseboard off.  Everyone that tried to help me made sure I realized I had a very determined dog - really - I hadn't noticed......
• I also bought some grey two-part stuff that I broke off a piece, rubbed it in my hand to activate it and put on her crate in the two places where she broke the joints on the front - I think it might actually hold.  It's supposed to plug leaks on pipe and be fairly indestructible.

I had a very nice surprise in the mail earlier this week - a card letting me know that my cousin and her family (husband and four-legged kids) had made a donation in Butler's name to the Humane Society of the USA.  I thought that was so sweet and an awesome way to honor Butler.

Friday was my birthday and now I can say "I'm in my 50's"...................  While there were a few bittersweet moments during the day - I had a very good birthday.  Bittersweet because it was my third one without Mike, my second without Mom and Milly and my first without Butler.  And Butler was my buddy that saw me through so many things in the past two and a half years - and now he was gone.  I got a call from the guard's desk at work that I had something to pick up and the picture below shows some flowers I was given by some great friends from church - and their two little ones.  Victoria drew a picture of me blowing out my candles on a cake with "51" drawn on the cake and Noah had made "his mark" on the card too (he's not two yet).  This was only the second time I'd had flowers given to me since Mike died - and Mike was so good to get me flowers.  So when I saw the flowers at the guard's desk I did get teary-eyed.

The day was good though - I lost count of the birthday wishes on my Facebook wall, I got a few emails, some cards, a text or two and a phone call.  And a friend at work bought me some M&M cookies from the cafeteria.  I had found a group that was meeting that night for Jive dancing so thought I'd go.  This was HUGE for me - and it didn't start until 8:00 pm.  Usually I plan on going to something but then talk myself out of it.  While it was weird dancing with men that weren't Mike - I did get into the swing of things (no pun intended) after a dance or two.  I danced with the guy that was a pretty good jive dancer - I danced with the guy that had NO rhythm what-so-ever and it was a challenge to keep HIM on the beat - and I danced with the instructor.  Then I sat for a few songs.  The one young guy that didn't ask me to dance - when he went over and asked the female of a couple to dance (her husband was in the restroom), that didn't set too well with me.  He knew I had been dancing, he knew I was by myself (like three other ladies) and he knew I had been sitting a while - but he picked the lady that had come with her husband.  Okey doke.  I was not going to ask the guy with no rhythm to dance again (yes I asked him to dance after we had done a couple of dances earlier).  But when the instructor asked the older lady to dance that had been dancing more than me - and I was sitting right next to her - I thought to myself, "hmmmm...this is my birthday.  I came to dance, I danced and some were pretty fun, but I'm tired of sitting - so....I'm outta here" and I got up and walked out.

Yesterday was another "first" - time to renew my driver's license.  Mike and I used to renew our licenses together one of the weekends between our birthdays.  So I got to the DOT building in Ankeny at 8:05 and didn't even get inside - the line was that long - and it was chilly out.  I walked out at 9:10 with my temporary, paper license - what is up with that?  Everyone got a temporary, paper license and our official, plastic license will be mailed to us within a month.  At least this time my hair isn't either really short or really long - and then in real life my hair would be the opposite of my picture the last few years my license was valid.  I'd get tired of hearing either something about my hair being so short in my picture when I had long hair or vice versa whenever my I.D. was asked for.  My hair is an inbetween length this time :)  I knew going in that I wouldn't be able to smile for my picture due to facial recognition software not being able to recognize terrorists if they smiled - so I dreaded what I'd look like.  Then I heard the lady taking the photos tell someone they could smile - but don't show any teeth - okey doke I liked that.  But when I got my lightly printed, temporary paper license I couldn't tell what my smile (without teeth showing) looked like.  Guess I'll have to wait for my "real" plastic license....

This morning I took Cruz for a walk really early and she was squirrely - running, jumping, leaping, bowing all over the place while we walked.  So I gave up trying to keep her next to me and ran, jumped, leaped and bowed along with her.  While that was fun at the time - I'm not sure if that was the right thing to do.

After church I decided since it was so nice out it would be a good day to take Cruz to "daddy's" bench at Raccoon River Park.  She hears me talk about daddy all the time but she doesn't know who daddy is - which makes me sad.  And I took some of Butler along with me that I sprinkled on the ground around Mike's bench - so I have both my boys with me there.  I sat and talked to Mike for a while telling him about Cruz and then that I'd had another birthday without him - and I started to cry a little.  But I got myself under control and told him that while I've had some rough spots - they aren't as rough as they had been and they are getting further between.  Then I got up to take Cruz for a little walk around the park and she was a squirrel pulling on the leash continually.  I hope this isn't a new habit with her....................

Tomorrow night - Dancing With The Stars starts a new season.  That means Makx is back!