Staring Down the P.I.

I broke down today and went to the doctor, actually the Health Center at work. I've had a patch of Poison Ivy on my foot since June 19 when I trimmed weeds at mom Mom's house. I'm sure there were actually no Poison Ivy plants where I trimmed, but it seems if I even get in the zip code with the stuff, I am stricken.

And so now begins my treatment with the dreaded Prednisone. The stuff works, but it is a frustrating process. It makes me unable to sleep, have an intense appetite, and a little headachey. It also tastes terrible if you actually let it touch your tongue and it messes with my blood sugar. (Last year I hit a low blood sugar of 78 while on Prednisone. It made me all shakey one day at work, so they tested it and made me drink juice.)

I wish the whole staring down thing actually worked. But I guess rashes are just not intimidated by me.

Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful...Beautiful Doggie

My sweet little Sadie died this past Thursday. She was such a good girl. I've written about Sadie before here, and always meant to do an update, but it never got done. In my writing hiatus, it seems a lot of things didn't get done.

I think that I would call Sadie a miracle dog. My friend described her as a "tough cookie". When she was brought to me as a foster dog, she had some difficulty getting around. I don't know how much time she had spent in the shelter, but she was definitely stiff and didn't seem to have experience with stairs. She had obviously had some sort of leg injury in her past that wasn't properly taken care of. But, she got along with Tiger and it was easy for me to walk both dogs at once, so she fit right into our family.

When I took her for her first check up with my vet, we were talking about what breed she might be. She definitely had some Boxer, but as my vet said, "she doesn't look like the breed standard", so it was determined that she was either some sort of mix, or just a very poorly bred boxer. I guess we'll never know, but it doesn't really matter either. That was part of the magic of Sadie.

Within a couple of months of me officially adopting Sadie into our family, she began her medical battles with Cushing's Disease. That is what I had written about before, and really never wrote Sadie's miraculous follow-up. After some treatment, she ended up with no Cushing's Disease and no Addison's Disease symptoms. Somehow we actually did do the perfect treatment that turned her into a normal dog, with no medication needed for either disease.

Sadie still had some issues. One was a chronic urinary tract infection, which got me out of bed every night around 3:00 a.m. to let her out. But we worked through it.

When I am out with my dog Tiger, everyone always compliments on what a handsome dog he is. And I always got the same response with Cali and Rocky too. "Beautiful dogs" they would say. "Is he a show dog?".

With Sadie, the response was always a little different. She had an under bite, her back end was misshapen, her stubby tail was thick, and she had extra skin on one of her front legs, sort of making it like a wing. But the truth about Sadie is that I really thought she was the most beautiful dog in the entire world. Her big sweet eyes would look up at me with love and thankfulness that she was with our family. She would lay on her rug watching TV with her Flying Nun ears, and there was no dog that could be cuter. And, I think she knew she was beautiful too. I believe that was Sadie's lesson for me (and maybe some other's of you out there too). It really doesn't matter if you meet the breed standard, you are beautiful and deserving of love.

And so, last week Sadie was diagnosed with cancer. The vet guessed that she initially contracted it within the last 3 months, but it had already spread to her liver. At that point, there really isn't a treatment for dogs. The vet said the type of cancer she had was one that was very aggressive. And so, within a week she was beginning to retain fluid in her lungs and was done with her fight.

Tiger has been sad, but we are doing okay. Sadie was a beautiful girl, and she will be missed.

The End of the Chicken

Seems like I have had a lot of thoughts lately about things I could write about here, but....this Chicken has been here. I've got to get rid of the chicken to move on. I'm ready to do that. So, just consider this the next phase of my "Chicken-Free" blog. Keep watching. More posts will come soon, but we just had to get rid of the chicken first.

My First Roasted Chicken

So, I received a fabulous gift for Christmas, some Rachel Ray cookware that is a lovely shade of green. So, I've been cooking up a storm lately. I made the best omelet the other day, a Mexican dip that I took to the Tracey Fiesta on New Year's Day, and now inspired by my friend, I've roasted my first whole chicken. So very simple to do and so cheap. I think this will be enough food for a week or longer.

The chicken was a farm raised, free range chicken from an Indiana farmer that I got at the Goose. I washed the chicken well and then filled it with peeled orange slices. I put some melted butter, rosemary, thyme, and sage on the top and roasted it for about 3 hours at 350 degrees. And, it was delicious. Very moist.

So, yesterday I had a great chicken dinner, today I made chicken vegetable soup, and sometime this week I'll probably make some chicken and spinach pasta. Or maybe some of this will end up in the freezer for a while, because right now the chicken seems endless.

Finally Finished

Ah....accomplishment! My couch has been in mid-recover for a couple of years now. And finally in the last 2 days it is done. No more botanical print. Tiger still has his blankie in the corner, but there is a green covered cushion for that corner too. It feels good to be done. And now with the sewing machine still out and a little fabric left over, I will attack the seat cushion on the rocking chair and maybe make a few more of the red print pillows. Or maybe re-do the seats of the dining room chairs. With today as my last totally free day of vacation, we'll see what happens.

What happened to Christmas?

Wow...that was a blur. It seems like November 14, the Tracey kick-off to the Christmas season was just yesterday. I can't believe they'll be taking down the lights on Monument Circle in just 9 short days. The lights from Monument Circle are one of the things that I always look forward to at this time of year. I used to hate the darkness of winter; I go to work in the dark and I come home in the dark most of the time. But, my route always takes me past the circle so that I can see the Christmas lights. I've even figured out the exact point when I need to look to the right when I am driving to work through the 65/70 connector through the city. I drive home at street level, so it is much easier to see, but I always look forward to those lights.

This year Trevor and I did our Christmas craft that he gave as gifts to all of his brother's and sister's. We did stepping stones for everyone's gardens, once summer comes. While this was an awkward craft, kind of heavy to be exact, it was one of my favorites to do. While I'm not looking to go on a round 2 of mixing 130 pounds of concrete in my house, I liked that we were able to use bottle caps for the designs, thanks to Goose the Market. Trevor made the designs for each person on his own and painted everything too. I was the concrete mixer and molder. The picture above shows Trevor with a few of the stones that he made.

We actually finished Trevor's craft on December 19 when we wrapped everything and took them to his family Christmas celebration. The good thing for me is that this had inspired me to continue on and make some crafts on my own. I made a couple of gifts this year, which actually haven't gone to their recipients yet, so no pictures yet. And, since I had the sewing machine out, I've been finishing up a craft that has been stuck at it's midpoint indefinitely. I've been sewing all day today, and one more day should do it. And one more trip to a store. More to follow if I do finish this week.

I spent Christmas at my brother Bob's house. It was great to spend Christmas up there. Their house is always so relaxing and the food is fabulous. We had steak for Christmas dinner cooked on the grill. I can't even tell you the last time I had a steak cooked on a grill, but it was probably at Bob's house. Delicious!

It has just all gone so fast. I still have 6 days of vacation, so I'm trying to not think about work at all. It hasn't been difficult.

I hope you all are having a great holiday season.

This Interruption brought to you by Facebook

I said I'd never do it, but I did. I signed up for Facebook. And that, along with a few other things, have prevented me from getting back to this blog. It's not like I ever post anything on Facebook though. Mainly I just lurk out there, reading posts from my friends, and playing games like Farkle and Yacht. And unfortunately, I figured out that I am pretty good at the Facebook poker. (But I'm smart enough to know that if I were actually in a room with someone playing poker, they'd know exactly what was in my hand.).

All my lurking on Facebook though, brought me to the picture that you see above. It is a picture of my Dad that I had never seen before. He is sitting on the back steps of the house he and my Mom built, and I don't mean that they had it built. He built it. They moved there in 1986, and he is sitting where the deck will be, so I would imagine this was taken sometime very close to the Fall of 1986. He looks so happy.

Finding this photo was worth joining Facebook. I am the Lucky Girl.