Fairy Gardens, Possums, Raccoons, Puppies and More

A lot of things happened this week!

Before I went back to work on Monday, 

I created my Fairy Garden.

I've been collecting things for it for a while.

I got the bird bath with a cracked bowl for $12.00 at the ReStore a while back.

The clay house I found for a couple of dollars at Goodwill.

It's first life was as a tissue holder but now has flowers growing into it.

The clay woman was at Goodwill too

for 88 cents!

I bought the plants at the garden nursery and some of the accessories. 

But some of them were also from Hobby Lobby when they were on sale last year.

I'm happy with how it turned out!

My roses suddenly exploded along the driveway -

Other gardening news...

In regards to my neighbor and how I planned to put up a privacy fence

next to their section of chain link so I could block the view.

They have a disgustingly small enclosed patio area

that's enclosed with chain link panels.

Mud has washed up onto it and wild trees and weeds are growing in there

and that's where their TWO labs get their outside time. 

There nothing to be done about it as they are brought inside at night

and at different times throughout the day. They are chubby so they are fed but

they are always itching and never get out to run...

Grrrr.

I decided to plant climbing plants instead.

Honeysuckle

and Clematis

And I planted a Butterfly Bush.

I also have Catmint growing and plan to add some yellow roses eventually.

Hopefully all that will block out the dog pen

and the non-working hot tub that's been on their driveway for years and years...

OK, so on Monday, I returned to work from my vacation.

I'm training a new girl who seems to be doing great. So that's a positive!

She'll work some nights and weekends.

Some cool things happened.

Not really good things but still kinda cool.

First. One of the girls at work who is a vet tech/receptionist and one of the coolest people I know

and who I plan to blog about at some point is always rescuing someone.

Because of this fact some people brought baby possums to her home that they had found.

She brought them to work and cared for them until the wildlife people could come and pick them up and care for them.

They were so little!

I've had never held one until then.

This girl is also currently caring for a several baby raccoons at her home but she brings them to work so they can get their bottle feedings.

All of us are in love with these little ones!

In her spare time this girl is a horse trainer and she's also a mom to two boys!

Like I said, she's very cool.

Other news,

My sister's puppies are growing. 

There's much debate as to who they will keep. They have both parents and had planned originally to keep a female.

So this is probably the one they are keeping -

There has been whispers that they might keep TWO!

If they do that, that's where the debate starts.

Apparently this guy might be the other one.

He's the biggest and the only one that looks like his dad.

But like I said, there's a debate going on.

I don't want a Husky puppy.

I rescue older little dogs.

Huskies are big and energetic and shed A LOT!

Huskies can easily go over fences and run.

Yep, I definitely don't need a Husky.

Besides my sister would charge me big bucks for one and I don't have big bucks.

So that's good, because I don't need or want one....

I kinda think I will avoid going over to her house for a while though

because it's like an alcoholic going into a bar.

Surrounded by alcohol and being tempted but knowing having a drink would be so wrong for them.

Sigh.

There's this black and white female with sapphire blue eyes... 

I hope she gets a new home ASAP.

STILL NOT FUNNY

Sometimes something happens and while it's definitely not funny at the time, it's kinda funny later.

While I still am not to point of laughing at it, I can say that it did end up giving me some unexpected insight.

source

So here's what happened.

Wednesday I needed to run to the grocery store for a few items.

I thought about which one I'd go to.

I didn't want to drive out to Target and I considered running over to Aldi's but then I remembered that the one not too far from my home had hanging flower baskets on sale.

Like I said, it's not too far and I could buzz up there and back without being gone for very long.

I usually close the windows in the house when I leave but it was a nice day so I decided not to close them.

There's a window in the laundry room/dog room that I ALWAYS close.

One reason being that if the dogs start barking I don't want people walking by to hear them, or the neighbor.

But the main reason is because it's at the back of the house, hidden from view and I worry about someone trying to break in.

Sure, maybe the neighbors would see but I still worry that they might not be looking out their windows at the right moment.

So... I grabbed my phone, my wallet and my keys.

I stop at their garden center and picked out a nice full basket of Calibrachoa.

Then I drove up to the store and went inside. I was kinda in my own little world as I wheeled the cart around and considered what to buy. I always look for what's on sale and consider my purchases. I got to the register and laid my keys, phone and wallet on the little spot next to the credit card thing.

I had worn jeans but this pair didn't have pockets so I had to hang onto my stuff.

So I took everything out to the car and opened the trunk. I had forgotten I had cat litter and a big package of paper towels and a bag of potting soil in there already.

So I set down all my stuff and arranged everything. Then I picked up my phone and wallet and slammed the trunk shut.

Just as it clicked shut, I knew my keys were still in there.
I stood there for a second.
Then I gave the trunk a few tugs. I walked around and tried the car doors.

Yep, it was locked up tight.

I had stuff that could go bad and some other stuff that could melt in there (ice cream) to say nothing of the fact that my house keys were on that key ring too.

I could have called my sister and see if she was available but to be honest,
while I love her with my whole heart, the girl will be late to her own funeral. 

So....

I started walking.

source

I always say that I'm going to start taking daily walks but I never do.

One reason is that I think if a person is going to walk, they need to take their dog.

In my case, I hate to choose, so I don't.

Another reason is, I just get distracted with doing something else.

So there I was, walking.

I walked at a good pace.

source

Time was of the essence.

I vaguely had a plan.

But as I walked I started to notice my neighborhood.

I mean REALLY notice it.

It's a nice neighborhood.

One that I feel totally safe walking in.

I liked looking at the different homes and yards. 

It's an eclectic mix that's not like some neighborhoods with the same styles of homes lined up one after another.

If I wasn't in such a hurry, it would have been enjoyable.

source

Finally I got to my driveway.

Mine isn't like the others which are made of concrete.

Mine is dirt with some gravel and lots of daisies.

I walked around the back, opened the gate and went up to the laundry room window. 

I pushed on the side of the screen and it popped right out!

The little ones were now in a barking frenzy. 

Then with all my might I swing my leg into the opening and pulled my fat butt through the window.
Kinda scary that I was in my house within a minute or two!

I hushed the little ones but I could hear Jimmy having a fit upstairs.

I ran to my handbag and grabbed my spare keys.

I locked the window and left.

I walked back to the store.

Halfway there I wanted to stop

source

but I trudged on.

source

Finally I was in the parking lot.

I opened the trunk and grabbed my keys and then got in the car and drove home.

I threw everything in the fridge and freezer and sat down.

Thank goodness I lived close enough to be able to actually walk.

Thank goodness I left that window open.

Thank goodness it was such nice weather.

Maybe where I live isn't so bad.

source

MOODLING

I'm finishing up my second day of vacation.

But on Sunday afternoon I broke down and went to Urgent Care.

The doctor there said that he didn't think I had shingles.

He thought the pain was too low

And it should be traveling around to my back and since it didn't 

and since I had this for a month, that shingles would have been cleared up in that time.

He asked why I thought it was Shingles and I said that I knew he'd hate this but... I had "Googled" my symptoms.

He asked "and what are the symptoms"

I told him and he said it was nerve pain and that I must have hurt myself.

"Had I done anything that could have hurt myself?" He asked.

I refrained from being a smart-ass.

I wanted to say Yes - Every. Single. Day.

But I didn't.

I just kinda mumbled off a few things

but he REALLY wanted to know why I hadn't gone to my own doctor.

I told him I didn't have one.

So he went into a lecture that I won't repeat here.

Ultimately I ended up leaving with no new 

information about my pain except it's something I'll just have to deal with until it's gone.

No medicine was prescribed so I only left with a lecture about my age and how I needed to have annual check-ups or I could get ill and die.

And then I paid $100. And left.

Jeez.

Monday was a good day.

I was feeling better.

I rearranged furniture and sorted through things in preparation for the big garbage pick-up that I have scheduled for Friday.

I'm getting rid of my big sofa.

I loved that sofa.

I even wrote a post about it once.

But the Naugahyde had cracked from Blue walking on it.

Then Jimmy ripped the crack open and finally Hattie started pulling the stuffing out of it.

I tried duct taping it and covering it with a quilt but....

It had to go.

So yesterday I dragged it out the backdoor.

There's an iron railing just outside the door and by pulling it out and balancing it on the rail, I was able to use that to flip it over and have it land on end.

From there I could waddle-walk it over to the fence where it's low and push it over much in the same way as the railing and flip it over into the yard.

I was careful not to "hurt" myself further.

I must say that I think I have finally found the perfect spots for all my furniture.

(I also moved two hutches and a 15 drawer cabinet) 

Yep. I'm done moving stuff - forever.

Tuesday I felt bad again so I decided to "Moodle".

Jean had suggested I do so and I Googled the word and decided to do just that.

moodle Pronunciation: /ˈmuːdl/

To dawdle aimlessly; to idle time away

I did nothing.

Well, OK, I did get on the computer for a while.

I read some blogs.

I changed my header again.

I listened to a few YouTube things on illustrating children's books.

I researched some garden trellises to block out my neighbors window.

I did several loads of laundry.

I went through some old papers and magazines.

I ignored a message from work.

I watched TV and napped through some of it.

I Moodled some more.

I fed the dogs and worked on some photos I had taken a few weeks back.

I don't think I'm cut out for Moodling.

I hope to get more done tomorrow!

A LEARNING EXPERIENCE

Yep, by saying that something is a learning experience it puts a positive spin on it
and I'm all about being positive.
I''m also all about being truthful so
truthfully, this has been a BIG pain in the ass.
LOL!
One of the things that I wrote about in my last post was my troubles with
my photos for Vida, not being in a high enough resolution and
my struggles with trying to find how out how to correct that situation.
Jean did her best in trying to help me.
She even tried contacting Vida to see what she could do since she's a bit of a computer whiz
and has Photoshop and actually enjoys problem solving!
Sharon also offered some great ideas on how to find a way to get the resolutions increased.
I came home Thursday night and was so frustrated by it all.
I truly don't think my mind works like some peoples do.
If you give me a manual with instructions, I'm lost but if you just show me, I usually get it.
Everything I do that's computer related has been learned by trial and error and Google.
I had received my $15.00 Mac compatible keyboard from Amazon and
I hooked it up and spent all of Thursday evening trying to search the Internet to tell me how to increase the photos to a higher resolution.
I'm not even sure what all I did but I did it!

(I saved the link for future reference though because I've already forgotten it!)
So I uploaded the photos again and then on Friday I had a notice on my Vida account that they needed them to be .tif or .tiff instead of .jpg or .jpeg.
I swear I was about to explode.
I Googled some more and found some interesting things.
But couldn't figure out the TIF stuff.

Then today on Saturday I did something I NEVER EVER do.
I was woken up at 5:40 by my dogs who had to potty.
On work days I usually get up at 5, so other days are usually close to that time too.
So I let everyone out and brought them back in AND I went back to BED!!!!
Yep!
I gathered them all and scooped them onto the bed.
Usually some sleep in the laundry room or the spare room and
Nora likes to lay under the bed and Blue likes the upholstered bench that is up against the double windows.
But today we all laid back down for what I guessed would be an hour or so
and woke up FIVE HOURS LATER!

Maybe the sleep refreshed me but I got up and started doing laundry and cleaning house.
I'm still suffering from this shingles thing so I tied up my T-shirt and rubbed shingles cream on my belly and sat down on the computer again and FINALLY figured out this .tif problem.
A learning experience for sure.
And now I'm on Vida, which you can find HERE

OK that's done!
Now I'm on to other things.
Technically my vacation starts on Monday but I don't have to work this weekend so I consider it vacation already.
I must admit that I failed at getting everything GONE so I'll sort through some more things tomorrow but come Monday, it's ALL Art.

Unless I feel the same or worse.
Then maybe I'll call up my old doctor and see if I can get in.
Hopefully I won't have to do that.
In my Googling, I've found that Shingles can be stress-related and since I'm on vacation
hopefully the lack of stress will help.
Well, enough of that boring talk...
Please check out my pain in the ass photos if you feel you have a moment or two.
XOXOXOXO

Finding POSITIVES in the NEGATIVES.

Maybe I was mumbling this week because
The Universe was not getting my messages correctly.
Maybe I lost focus and somehow concentrated on the wrong things but
this week kinda sucked.

There I go again. I just focused on the negative!
I need to shake that off and look at the positives!
I tell ya, this is a real learning process.
I have to keep catching myself and adjusting my attitude.

OK, where should I start?
Here's a positive!
I had received several emails (FOUR) from VIDA about them liking my Art
and asking me to submit some artwork.
I looked over their website and it appeared to very nice high-end clothing
and I REALLY liked how they helped their workers to become literate.
They set the prices and handle all the production and shipping
and then I get 10% of the sells.
You can read about that HERE.

So I made an account with them and submitted some of my photos for silk scarves
and they were "pending" and then they evidently liked them and posted them.
Only problem was, they weren't a high enough resolution.
They asked me to correct that and I just don't think it's possible to get them to the pixels and dpi that they need.
Truthfully, I don't know much about that kind of thing and they suggest Photoshop, which I don't have.
I tried to change them in my "Paint" program but then it wouldn't let me open it up and do any other editing.
So I went to my account and took the images off.
I don't want someone to order one and for it not to be available.
I took some quick photos to show what it DID look like before I took it down-

So the Positive of this Negative is, they liked my work.
To be honest, I'm not that majorly bummed.
I mean I thought it was cool but it wasn't the direction that I dream of going towards.
I have THAT worked out in my head and will share for another day.

Kinda tied to that because it is computer related is the Negative that my older PC is done.
It started out with the cat puking on the keyboard and then another day he jumped on me while I was drinking coffee and it spilled everywhere.
Of course the fact that  he was always walking on it probably didn't help.
Then finally it just came on in the middle of the night and the screen was glowing and making weird sounds.
When it happened I woke up to this eerie light in the hallway and I walked out and down a couple of steps and peered through the banister at the computer screen and I immediately thought of Poltergeist and quickly ran down and shut it off.

My laptop has been on the fritz for a while too.
It was refurbished to begin with and it runs very hot and sometimes just blacks out and shuts down when it's not plugged in.
The Positive! - I can do a lot on my iPhone. It's hard for me to comment on other blogs sometimes but I can do partial posts on it and upload photos and sometimes I can use my work computer on my lunch hour to finish up stuff.
Another Positive is that I think by keeping it plugged and if I get a laptop cooling pad it will solve that problem.
So I'm optimist about that!

OK, here's another Negative -  this Shingles thing I have, maybe.
It's called Zoster vine Herpete and it's basically shingles without the rash.
I have all the symptoms, the burning feeling on the skin
not a deep pain like somethings wrong in my tummy or in my side.
But I got to thinking, maybe it's a pulled muscle.
I did try to move/lift some thing a few weeks ago that weighed A LOT.
(Probably 200 lbs at least)
and I did lift a couple of bigger dogs this week to bathe...

Anyway I'm really done with it.
I want it over and I'm sick of it hurting but
on the POSITIVE, if it's the Shingles thing, it could be the one with the rash and
it could be somewhere visible so I'm lucky it's not that and
if it's a pulled muscle, it will eventually heal
so I need to shut up about it and count my lucky stars.

Then... I hesitate to post this but I share everything here so....
GULP.
I have (had) a HUGE vet bill.
Doc is aware of it but has been tolerant of it because every dog bath I do,
the money goes directly onto my account.
Sadly I only make between $5.00 to $7.50 a bath so realistically I'd probably be dead before it got paid off
(if I just paid it down that way.)
So I've also made monthly payments to it too.
OK, so this is what happened -
#1 Mean Girl jumped my niece about her bill and made a HUGE deal about it at work
and then dragged my name and the amount of my bill into it too and then Doc walked into the room and she started ranting to him about it.
It kinda put him on the spot, as others do not have such a high balance.
In the past I've gotten my bill pretty low but then someone has gotten sick and...

Anyway. I didn't want Captain Mean Girl to make it into something REALLY BIG
and gossip to everyone about it so I went and took all my emergency money that I had (per advice of Tammy and Sharon) and
applied it all to my bill and put the rest on a super low interest deal that my credit card company was offering.
BUT the positive is THAT bill is gone and next time when they ask me to bathe a huge rowdy out of control dog who's sure to throw my back out or pull a muscle, I can politely decline.
In the past I felt obligated to do it because of my bill.
Another Positive is the fact that I have GOOD friends who had told me to accumulate a emergency fund and therefore I had it to use!
Another Positive is that I'm not worried about it.
I will make more Art and more cash will come my way and my bills will disappear!

Finally, my last Negative is... I realized this week that my Blue isn't young.
I mean, I knew that but this week it hit me hard and I'll tell you what happened to make me realize it but first I will share how the same thing happened to me with my Dad.
My Dad always looked MUCH younger than his actual age but we all do age.
It just happens, but sometimes it does it so slow and that it creeps up and you don't realize it.
Yep, that and a big heaping lump of denial stirred into all.
Anyway I had gone into a restaurant to pick up an order many years ago and a man walked in who I thought at first glance was my Dad.
Just as I was about to call out to him, I realized it wasn't him at all.
It was just an elderly man that looked like him.
I was depressed for days.

So...with Blue.
He hates nail trims.
He curls his lip and runs and hides under the kitchen table (or tries to but he's too big to get all the way under there) but he hides when he sees the nail clippers.
So I've always just taken him to work and they have him step on a "bale" that Doc uses for "big" chiropractic patients. (Huge dogs and horses).
When he was young it took a vet tech on each side of him and one behind him and me scratching his forehead and keeping him focused on me while a 5th person cut his nails.
Over the years, the number of people it takes to do the job keeps going down.
Now it's only two people.
So when I took him in this week to have them trim them, I took photos of him.
Later at home I looked at the photos and it hit me,
My Blue is an old man.

Then the night before last, he wouldn't eat his food.
If someone asked me about their own dog skipping a meal, I would say not to worry.
I'd say - Give it 24 hours and see if he just had an upset tummy, To let it settle.
Not to worry as long as his belly wasn't hard.
A hard belly can mean bloat and in that case you must rush your dog to the emergency vet immediately.
Anyway.
I felt his belly, it wasn't hard.
Then I called my sister and told her he wouldn't eat and then I burst out crying.
Finally she calmed me down and asked me what was wrong and I told her that Blue was old.
God, I'm tearing up writing that!
Jeez.
The Positive - The other morning I gave him special canned food and he ate it.
and last night he ate his regular food like no one's business.
The Positive - Blue is fine.

Yep, It's been quite a week.
I've struggled, I'll be honest.
I've gotten upset over the fact that I've only made a small dent in my clutter
and my vacation isn't very far away and I was feeling myself slipping.
I would forget to put it out to The Universe and to believe it.

But Hey! It will all work out because I'm focused again
and I'm SCREAMING it out to The Universe.
Things might take a while to come around but come around it will!

and then I read Tammy's latest post, about all those people losing everything in those horrible fires in Canada.

Whoa. What a reality check.
I'm so fortunate!
and I could hear my Dad's voice in my head.
His words he would always say to me when I would start to complain about anything.
Yep, I can hear my Dad telling me to "Quit your belly-aching!"

So I'm quitting my belly-aching.
I'm putting it out to The Universe.
I know everything will be fine and turn out as I dream.
But I just wanted to share all my Negatives
in case someone else is having a week that sucks.
There are Positives.
We just have to remember to look for them
and to THINK Positive
and count our BLESSINGS!
XOXOXOXOXO