Well, I've tried twice now to upload pictures to this blog and I get an error message - so this blog may be photoless.
I've still been dealing with some "fallout" of my urinary tract infection and the "other female, icky, blicky" infection from a couple of weeks ago. Let me just say one of the meds I was put on, my doctor told me to be sure to not drink any alcohol with it because it really would make me sick. Not even a glass of wine - which some ladies do each day for medicinal purposes. I said that wouldn't be a problem. I then go to the pharmacist and he tells me to not even use mouth wash or cough syrup because the alcohol in those wash would make me sick! And both said it wouldn't kind of make me sick - I would be really sick mixing any type of alcohol and this medication - and I can't use my mouth rinse for seven days - yes seven days - until after I've been off that medicine. Yowie kazowie.
Yesterday my niece and I were able to take our rescheduled two and a half hour canoe trip down the DSM River - photos can be seen on my Facebook wall :) I laughed because between Chrissy and me we took 67 pictures for a two and a half hour canoe trip down the DES MOINES RIVER and my sis-in-law (her stepmom) maybe took 67 pictures for her week+ riverboat trip in Amsterdam a couple of years ago. It was an awesome morning to be on the water - and we put in at the boat ramp that I see each time I drive to and from church if I take the freeway to East 14th to get to River Woods Elementary (or vice versa). We learned to "read the river" aka meaning watch out for rocks and/or sandbars that we could get hung up on. At least we didn't have to portage the canoe over any of them (meaning get out of the canoe and carry it over our heads to put the canoe back into deeper water on the other side of the sandbar). The only scream was by me when a fish snuck up next to me, on the right side of the canoe. Now remember - Iowa river water is brown and you can't see anything - that's why I no longer swim in it. So one minute nothing was next to the canoe and the next this big fish that totally took me by surprise and I screamed - it's a wonder we didn't tip the canoe over :) We were told that there were a couple of nesting eagles on the section we would travel and we think we saw them flying from a distance.
After the canoe trip I had errands to run which included going to the 411 Safety store on 5th Street in WDM to see what type of childproof doorknob dealies they had to put on the kitchen door. On Thursday I had put good, old aluminum foil on the doorknob thinking that wouldn't feel good to Cruz to bite on and try to open that door - she either has a high tolerance for pain in her mouth or she doesn't care because she was in the downstairs hallway waiting for me when I got home that night. The store did have a different childproof dealie than what I had bought at WalMart so I thought I'd give it a try - more on that later.
My hibiscus have really been blooming like crazy this week. Stick had four blooms at one time and that's never happened before.
Last Sunday I spent a little time in the back yard picking up sticks, filling possible snake holes and watering some of my lawn. Cruz just laid down and enjoyed watching me. The Bark Buster gal came Friday night for our second lesson and she was really pleased to see a change in Cruz personalitywise. I told her that Cruz loves going for walks, tries to play with me when we start our walk, and doesn't seem to care if joggers run by us or people pass us now when we walk - that would not have happened a couple of weeks ago. We have our assignment to now work on "come" and "sit".
Wednesday or Thursday night was a bad night when I got home (I can't remember which night it was now) - everything that could go wrong did. Cruz had gotten herself trapped in the downstairs hallway because the kitchen door had shut behind her - and I have no idea how long she was trapped. Because of that, she pooped on the back stairway - I couldn't blame her. When I got into the kitchen there was dust all over the kitchen and living room floor and I couldn't figure out what that was.....until I saw the bag. The bag that had what was left of Butler's ashes! Cruz must have either wanted to "play" with Butler one more time - or she was letting me know that I was taking too long to do something with all his ashes. So I swept and vacuumed Butler up - putting as much of him into another baggie as I could - taking out some dust bunnies along the way.
Well, I wasn't feeling too good with dealing with my health issues and my stomach not feeling right all week - Cruz had gotten the kitchen door open - and then Butler was scattered all over my floor. When I let Cruz out to go potty in the back yard I popped her on the butt as she passed me - wrong thing to do. I know you need to discipline an animal right when they do something but everything aligned wrong and I'd had it. Immediately after popping Cruz on the butt she turned on me, barking like mad, growling, lunging at me and all the time I'm seeing "fangy teeth" (like wolves do). I was momentarily concerned (not scared but concerned) that she might actually try to bite me. I stood up really tall, walked over to her, stood over her and told her "bahhhhh" and then let her outside. A while later we were able to go for a walk and she was her old, playful self.
This morning I thought I should take her for a walk before church since I knew when I left around 9:00 I wouldn't be back until 3:00 or later. It was a beautiful morning and Cruz was really jumping and bowing the first block wanting to play on our walk. I saw that the vendors were setting up for the Fall Antique Jamboree on 5th Street so thought I'd see how she would do around all those people. I've tried to walk her down to the Valley Junction Farmer's Market on Thursday nights but when we get to the end of the block before the actual market - Cruz is pulling wanting to go the other way. I was able to walk Cruz down by all the vendors setting up their wares while they were talking and making some noise - and I even got to walk up to a couple of items to check out their prices without Cruz really reacting much at all - awesome!
I headed to church to help with the check-in table for our K-5th children's groups - today we started a new format for how all that worked. We are having parents drop off their kids before service instead of dismissing them during our song service. And we are using a different cirriculum that all you need for the whole quarter is "in the box" except for paper and pencils. I wanted to stay with the Waves group today since I'm teaching next Sunday, to see how the format worked and it was a success!
After a good fellowship/membership meeting I headed to actually walk through the Valley Junction Fall Antique Jamboree and got a walking taco for lunch - what weather!!! Then I headed to a friend's for her Partylite party.
I was curious to know if the second childproof doorknob dealie had worked when I got home. I walk through the basement, look through the windows in the door going into the downstairs hallway and no Cruz! Then.....I go around the corner to go up the stairs and see that the kitchen door was open.....
