About a Dog...

She-who-must-be-obeyed is sick.

Well, sort of. She has a mass on her back-end (near her pee-er, to be precise). She has had this growth for a while, but late last week (perhaps in response to all that chocolate??) the growth seemed to get larger, and was irritating her to no end. Keith took her to the vet to have it checked out. It is a mast celled tumor, and it must go. These tumors can cause a histamine surge, which can be dangerous. She is on anti-histamines and pepcid for her stomach (apparently histamines can cause ulcers, too) until she has surgery to remove it, which is scheduled for Wednesday.

I am upset, and worried about her. In response to my worry, I am spoiling her rotten, and she is eating it up. We will not know the prognosis until after the surgery, but will let you know when we know.

Christmas in Memphis

My second post in a week - a minor miracle, if I do say so myself!

I just wanted to show everyone our Christmas Tree this year - it is a departure from our normal tree, but we have always talked about getting one like this. I don't know if we will use it every year, but it has been fun this year!

Here are some of my favorite ornaments:

A Carndinal - the Virginia State (Commonwealth) Bird

A lovely little mushroom

These are a variety of other ornaments:

**But my all time favorite ornament, which must be on every tree** is:

The Hedgehog!

For those wondering, She-who-must-be-obeyed is doing fine in spite of her all-chocolate diet Saturday Evening. She was miserable Saturday night (in part because she spent the night in her box, rather than in bed with us), and was a little puney on Sunday, but by Monday, she was back to her old self.

Merry Christmas everyone!

When Good Dogs Go Bad...

We went out this evening to a welcome home party for David. We had a very nice time -- and then, courtesy of She-who-must-be-obeyed, we came home to this:

This was a gift I got at a Christmas Party, which was going to be re-gifted since we are trying not to eat this sort of thing. Believe it or not, she was up on the table when we came home. (Remind you of anything, Kim?)

This is where she knocked several items on the floor, and tore open the shrink-wrapped box of chocolates:

And here is a close up of the deed:

And all of that led to this:

Yep - this "good" girl has gone bad. I have spared you the gross details, but lets just say that the couch and 2 of our 3 living room chairs had to have some deep cleaning done. I think she ate her weight in chocolate (well, not really, but she did eat half the box!)

Well, beyond our excitement for the evening, life is moving along. Things at work have been going well, although I was "flexed" again this week. It was nice to have an extra day off, but I am sure I will be feeling it next week - when paychecks come out. On the upside, it appears that I will be moving to a new job at the hospital. I will give more detail once it is official, which should be sometime this next week.

This week is going to be busy (aren't they all??) We have our Christmas Program on Wednesday evening - which includes getting the church cleaned up, a soup supper and then the program. Much fun will be had by all. Sunday, after an early service, we will be having our Christmas Open House Brunch. After which, we will have a greening of the church service. So, needless to say, it will be a fun time of getting ready for it all.

In response to some of my previous posts, God has answered my (and many others') prayers in wonderful and awesome ways over the last week or so. It has been my privilege to be witness the goodness of God. Praise God from whom ALL blessings flow!

Here we are again...

Here we are again...the end of another week. I have tomorrow off, not because I want it off, but because the company "flexed" the day. Meaning they give me the day off, and in exchange, they don't pay me. Bummer man. Just not a great time of year for this sort of thing.

This has been an interesting week. I can't really share details at this time, but I will someday. We'll see where these various roads take us, yes?

We are going to stay in town for Christmas. I am sorry we will not be able to be home for Christmas, but we should have a nice time here. Can't wait to get the tree up and get the place decorated. That will make the place cozy. I am looking forward to it.

Well, you can see I don't have much to say. I didn't want another week to go by without posting, so here it is...my crazy life - which is not so very crazy after all.

The beginning of Advent

Here it is Sunday evening again, and I can not believe we are at the beginning of another new week. It is also the beginning of Advent. Why does time move so swiftly? I just know that I will turn around and it will be Christmas Day - our third in Memphis. It seems impossible.

In the blur that was this week, I was able to complete the hat for the little one. I just hope I can get it to her before the flowers bloom in Charlottsville :). It's on it's way, J!

Saturday was spent doing a couple of fun things...Keith and I went with a friend to see "Into Great Silence", a documentary about the Carthusian monks in France. It was a very quiet, peaceful, and beautiful, albeit long, film. I recommend it highly, and hope to one day see it again.

After the film, I went to anothers friend's home and proceeded to help her spend mega-bucks getting supplies she needed (and some she just wanted:) ) for scrapbooking and making cards. We had fun shopping for them, and then unwrapping and playing with them when we got back to her house.

Things are going to get hectic and stressful - they always do. Our circumstances sometimes make it easy to become overwhelmed, worry about the future, fret over things we have no control over, and take things out on those we love. During this Advent Season, I hope that all of you can take some time out to reflect on the gift that God sent to us in his Son, Jesus Christ. I hope that you can take time to thank God for all that we have - and so much more than we need. I pray that you all have a blessed Advent!