Snowed in . . . . . again

Small, wet, snowflakkes have been coming down since early this morning. 

First I made up a basket of belly bands for the male dogs with potty issues.

Then I decided to make up chicken & rice for the dogs so the chicken is now in the crock pot slowly cooking. It will be ready to add rice, carrots, garlic & green beans tomorrow.

Then my sweet tooth kicked in so I made chocolate chip and snicker doodle cookies. 

As long as I was cooking, I decided to make stuffed peppers and freeze them for the weekend. 

 

Since the stuff peppers are for the weekend I think we'll have spaghetti for supper tonight. I browned a little hot Italian sausage, onions, green pepper and mushrooms. . . .

Then I mixed in a can of tomatoe sauce, diced tomatoes w/Jalepeno peppers, paste, spices and let it cook for a few hours. Yum.

So that's what I did with my day, what did you do with yours?

Snow. . . .

I took the dogs outside about an hour ago and snapped a few photos.  Doesn't it look pretty? Do I have to tell you how glad I am that I don't have to go to work in this or drive in it?

This grist mill houses a chipmunk in the summer. It loves to drive the dogs crazy.  Today, the Spoiled Royals get the last laugh. Of course, spring is a mere few months away. . .

I swept the snow off the deck, put the broom away and already it was starting to get covered. Gaylin ran out and started eating snow.  Silly boy.

Snow covered lights. . . .

and chimineas.

Oh yeah, lots of toys were in the yard so I tossed them back on the deck.  My dogs do love toys.

Nicki is the only foster here at the moment.  I'm hoping either our daughter or a friend will adopt her.  Isn't she gorgeous? She is a great dog, and available for adoption through Just A Touch Rescue. I can't imagine why someone dumped her in the country. . . . .

This is just one of a hundred reasons why I so love my husband.  He built this a few months ago.  I'm not sure what I did to deserve him, but I send a prayer of thanks out daily. The older dogs find the ramp so helpful.



30796 - the dog in the back room

I don't usually post the same info on both of my blogs but the story of dog 30796 needs to be told until Ohio legislators "get it." I wrote the blog below on December 22, 2008 for a group I used to work with. Sadly in the 2 years since this was written little had changed for the thousands of dogs who are still suffering in sub-standard kennels in Ohio. 30796, the dog in the story below, could be Mason, Prince, Oscar, Holly, Punkin, Myla or Callie - they all came from sub-standard kennels and anyone of them could be the dog below:


Hello, is anyone there? I thought I heard someone, I guess not. I am so lonely. There are other dogs here but I am in a cage all by myself in a back room in this building. There are no windows so I cannot see very much. I do not know if it is day or night but it is dark and cold. There are cracks in the walls and the snow and wind are blowing. I'm so cold I cannot stop shivering.

I'm hungry and thirsty, it has been a long time since The Man came in here. He put water in my dish but it froze before I could get enough to drink. He threw some hard, dry food in my bowl and his hand hurt me when I went to get a drink of water. I don't like hands - they hurt. After The Man left, I ate some food. It hurt my mouth. I heard someone say that my teeth are abscessed, I'm not sure what that is, but I know when I put something in my mouth it hurts.

Everything hurts me. My eyes are so sore and my hair sticks to the corners when the runny stuff comes out. My ears ache and smelly stuff oozes from them and mats the hair together. It hurts. When I try to move to get comfortable, the hair on my belly and neck and legs is all one big, huge mat and it pulls and hurts really bad. I am so cold and hungry and thirsty and I hurt.

I heard the children talking the other day. They were playing in the snow and talking about something called Christmas. They are very excited about Santa Claus. Apparently, this Santa Claus person checks to see if the children were naughty or nice and then he brings them many presents. They make a wish list and if they were nice, Santa fills it.

Later, I heard The Man and The Woman talking and they said that my puppies all sold at the pet store so Santa would be very good to the children this year. Is that you Santa? Can you hear me? Do you care about dogs? Just in case you do, I'm going to send you my wish list:

I wish for a home, a real one, where I can live inside and have food to eat every day and where there is always fresh water (the kind that is not frozen please.)

I wish for a human with a soft voice and a soft touch to love me. Just me. I wish for them to talk to me softly, to love me gently and to protect me from The Man and The Woman.

I wish for a bath and I wish for my hair to be brushed so that it flows pretty like the dogs in the pictures. I wish to be clean and mat free.

I wish to go to the veterinarian and get my teeth fixed. I wish that my mouth would stop hurting, my eyes would stop seeping, and my ears would no longer cause me pain.

I wish to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer with no fleas or ticks or parasites or heart worms to bother me.

I have a lifetime of love I've been saving to give a human, so yes please, I wish for my very own human. I want to give them nose licks and kisses, I want to protect them from strangers and alert them if a leaf falls in the yard. I want to welcome them when they come home every day. I want to share their life in good times and bad and I want to show them how special they are and make sure they know they are the best person in the whole wide world.

I wish for my own name, I think I would like to be called Angela.

Please Santa; take me away from this cold, dark place. I'm a good lilttle dog and I have so much to give, please help me. I'm so very, very cold.

Thank you for considering my wish list,

30796 - the dog in the back room

There's snow on the ground, maybe an inch, not all that much but it's cold (18 degrees F). One of the best things about being retired is being able to stay home and not have to venture outside unless I want to. I bundled up earlier, took all the dogs out to potty and then came inside, gave everyone a treat, grabbed a cup of coffee, a book and a throw and hopped on the sofa to read. Cuddling on the sofa with a pack of dogs and a good book is a great way to spend a few hours. . . . .

That's Sweetie, one of our Yorkies, on the left and Punkin, one of our Poms on the right.

Then again our 20 year old grand daughter who currently lives with us, bundled up and walked to the library earlier today. I suppose when you are twenty, its not that big a deal but I'm pretty sure you couldn't pay me to walk 2 miles in this weather. (I'm keeping my options open in case someone wants to offer me a million dollars to take the hike. There's a slim possibility I'll say yes.)

This is Tucker the Llhasa Apso mix in the green sweater and the little Yorkie in the blue shirt is Gaylin. The View From the Gazebo is mighty fine when viewed with these guys!

Some of my Favorite Websites

Daily Chuckle Website: http://drawthedog.com/?page_id=2

Okay, I confess, I laugh at funny dog cartoons.  Mostly because the majority of them hit so close to home. Two guys, Jim George (the artist) and Bruce Kasanoff (the guy who does everything else) created this website and it is a daily delight.  You can subscribe to their mail list and have a daily cartoon sent to your email address automatically.  It's totally free and sure to put a smile on your face.

Free Books: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

Download 33,000 books from Project Gutenberg's website. If you live in the USA, the copyrights for all of these books have expired - if you live outside the USA, you'll need to double check. Downloads are in several formats: Kindle, Nook, IPad and several others.  Although the books are free, they do ask for a small donation if you can afford it and it's such a wonderful project that I hope everyone who downloads a book will send in a donation.

Of course, if you own a Kindle, you can get many other books for free at http://www.amazon.com/ website - it's a great way to meet new authors and explore their work.

Fun Window Shopping sites: http://www.collectionsetc.com/

Collections, Etc. has such fun items and all are reasonably priced. My favorite site to look for "stuff" - you know all the things we really don't need but are such fun to window shop?

Yet another confession - I love QVC too: http://www.qvc.com/

Mrs. Prindable's apples are terrific, the "Lunch time specials" are often great buys and overall I find their products and service excellent!

Bloomingtails Dog Boutique: The slickest Dog related website has to be:  http://www.bloomingtailsdogboutique.com/

My dogs have collected a huge wardrobe over the years but I have to admit that the items that came from Bloomingtails are unquestionably the nicest.  I have a hairless Chinese Crested and he is still wearing outfits purchased several years ago.  Love this place!

Pet Treats: http://www.sunshinepettreats.com/

My pack love pup corn by Sunshine Mills - this is the place that makes them. 
Animal Welfare Related Website: http://www.imom.org/

My all time favorite animal welfare website has to be In Memory Of Magic, also known as IMOM.  This website provides financial assistance to qualifying pet owners whose pets need life saving medical assistance immediately. The IRS approved charity has been around since 1998 and has paid in excess of $1,300,000 to veterinarians and pharmacies on behalf of pets in need. This is a tiny, grass roots charity that operates with no paid employees, no physical office, everything is done via the internet. The handful of volunteers are located all over the USA and they are connected to each other via their computers and their telephones.

Other favorite websites:
Youtube.com is one of my all time favorite websites. I can watch a Susan Boyle be discovered, a flash mob do a spectacular dance, a dog roller boarding, kittens being silly or a group of women save a herd of horses. Youtube videos can make me laugh or cry or think. 

Huffingtonpost.com; Womansday.com; Reader's Digest website: rd.com; news.discovery.com ('cause there are such interesting articles on this site); CMT.com for my country music fix and have to check out these websites periodically to see what some of my favorite celebrities are up to:
Ellen DeGeneres: http://ellen.warnerbros.com/ & Rachel Ray: http://www.rachaelray.com/.

And last, but not least, my favorite game on facebook, that I clearly spend too much time playing but enjoy anyway: Bejeweled Blitz: http://apps.facebook.com/bejeweledblitz/?lpt=bookmark&ref=bookmarks&count=0

Feel free to share some of your favorite websites too!

Do you know what it means to be poor?

I thought I knew what it meant to be "poor" but I found out recently that I didn't have a clue. My understanding of the every day of "poor" isn't/wasn't close to the reality. My oldest daughter has been unemployed for more than 2 years and ran out of unemployment compensation a few months ago. She is currently living in a horrible apartment in a bad part of town with her 6 year old son and her unemployed, 21 year old daughter (who also has a 10 month old baby.) The 4 of them are living in the one bedroom apartment and our other grandaughter is here temporarily.

I knew about poor housing and ugly yards. I didn't know landlords in Ohio are permitted to rent homes or apartments with wall cracks so large that plants grow inside the house from the outside. I didn't know they are permitted to rent places where the mold grows on the walls, where the furnace doesn't work and where the appliances that are included in the price of the rent don't work. I didn't know it is permissible to rent places that have holes in the walls, crumbling steps, rotten porches, exposed outlets. I didn't know security deposits are never returned to the poor because they have no way to force a wealthy landlord to do so. To complain is to be removed from the apartment - the poor have learned if they speak up they will lose whatever shelter they have. It may be mean and ugly but it's a roof over their heads.

I never understood the spirit crushing agony of being poor. I had no idea of the roadblocks and hurdles the poor are subjected to daily. They are charged fees that reduce their already meager funds because they are powerless. They are forced to wait in lines for hours for services whether it is to apply for foodstamps or see a doctor. Scheduled appointments mean nothing to the professionals who are paid to help the poor. The poor are forced to wait and wait for everything. To be poor is to have their phone calls put on hold for endless waits (I timed several "holds" for my one grandaughter - 35 minutes was average.) They are expected to politely and graciously deal with rude and unkind comments made by those who are paid to help them. To snap back is to be sent to the end of the line. To demand respect is to be forced to jump through through endless hoops as punishment by those who can abuse them. To be poor is to be shamed and humiliated on a daily basis.

When my daughter was receiving unemployment, she made too much money to receive medical assistance via Medicaid. She injured her knee and with no medical insurance could not get it diagnosed or treated. She can barely walk. She lives a few miles from Job & Family Services, the agency that helped her with a temporary cash allowance of $355 a month after her unemployment ran out. Walking there is impossible for her. A bus pass is a luxury she can not afford. After paying $350 for rent, she had $5 for utilities, bus passes, items such as toilet paper or cleaning products that can not be purchased with food stamps. She moves often as she rarely can afford the rent for more than a few months. Each move results in lost boxes. She can't locate her birth certificate which is needed to apply for additional aid. The department of Vital Statistics, another state agency, is just down the road a few miles and could provide a copy of her birth certificate but it will cost her $21.50 and she doesn't have the funds. Talk about a catch 22. Wouldn't you think one state agency could simply call another and receive confirmation? She thinks that may be why her case was closed but doesn't know because she can't get her caseworker on the phone, she can't afford to stay on hold for 35-40 minutes and she can't get a call back.

I love my daughter but I know that her decisions and her actions have brought her to where she is in life. I know that she and our grand daughters have had resources available to them to help them live a better life. This isn't really a diatribe on their behalf, rather a realization that we, as a society, are often unkind to the poorest amoung us. Stores charge them a fee to use their cash cards simply because the poor have no leverage and can not fight a $1 or $2 charge. We charge them $1.50 and up to purchase a money order and as much as 5%-7% to cash a check. They are charged relatively high rent for really horrid apartments. Society devalues them and their time by making them wait hours even with a scheduled appointment and withholds something as simple as kindness. Being poor often means being undervalued and unseen. How sad is that?

Rambling thoughts . . .

A mish mosh of thoughts and comments . . . .

Several months ago my hubby decided to redo the wood floor in the bedroom which meant we had to empty the room. He decided to also do the closet and install new closet doors. Then his aneurysm needed taken care of so the work on the bedroom stopped. Of coursse then spring and summer came along and energies were directed to outside work. Inside, things have been in disarray for months. A week or so ago, he stripped, stained and sealed the wood floor, got the new closet doors fitted and now he's working on the trim. We are slowly putting things back together and I hope in another week or two and we should be done. Hooray!

I was reminded this week why Nora Roberts is one of my favorite authors. (She also writes the "In Death" series under the name J.D. Robb and every 3 or 4 years I go back and read the entire series from the beginning to the most current book.) This past week I reread her "Circle Trilogy" from 2006 and once again found myself enchanted. As I closed the final book in the trilogy, I thought to myself, damn! she is a mighty fine story teller!

From books to TV - The View is back live today (reruns have been running for a month or so) and I was sad to learn Whoopi Goldberg lost her Mother on 8/29. Whoopi's eloquent statement that "no one will ever love me like that again" was a beautiful and quiet tribute to her Mom. Even though I know she will never see this, I extend my condolences.

What? What's that? I hear a book, a dozen dogs, & the gazebo calling. . . . . . . . see ya later