JULY 2016 RAMBLINGS

I've had crushing news from the vet this month, Tip, my male border collie, has congestive heart failure.  So for now, more meds to try to and make him comfortable, but the prognosis from what I've read is 6 to 18 months. His tolerance has dropped significantly for any type of exercise. It also explains his intolerance for the heat of summer. I'm finding the idea of my pack without Tip in it really hard to imagine. He's been an unbelievably awesome dog. So for the time he has left I'll keep him as comfortable as I can but knowing at some point I will have to make the decision to ensure he doesn't suffer.

About two weeks after the above diagnosis he started having bloody diarrhea so I rushed him to the vet.  Due to his recent diagnosis of congestive heart failure, I had to prepare myself for the possibility that this could be it for him. He's always had bouts of diarrhea after storms or fireworks but it typically cleared up within a couple days.  Apparently the back-to-back severe storms we recently had started a domino effect with the diarrhea.  New diagnosis is stress induced colitis.  Three new medications added to his pharmacy and I have to change to a bland food for him.  I also need to try to keep him from getting stressed out to avoid triggering further bouts.

I've also had to make the decision to change vets.  I like the vet I've been using and she came highly recommended BUT she has no after hours or emergency coverage.  With three geriatric dogs I cannot chance not being able to get vet care if I need it.  There's only one vet clinic in town, Southwood, that has emergency vet service and they no longer take other vet's clients.  After discovering the blood on a Friday afternoon I attempted to contact my vet about 2'ish in the afternoon to be told she'd just left for the weekend.  They suggested I try another vet in town so I called Southwood and thankfully they were able to get me in. I was very happy with the vet, Anna. I took in a stool sample and I know my previous vet would have run tests on the sample before seeing Tip but she held off until she did the exam and determined it wasn't needed.  I appreciated not having to spend more money.  Within  two days of starting the new meds he was acting almost totally normal again without the lethargy he'd been having.  He's honestly acting awesome so I'm really happy.

CRAFTING:

I finally finished the rug I've had in the loom forever.  I'm really happy with it and love the earthy tones. I'm still planning on putting it in the camper as it will go great with my cabin/lodge theme. Now to go through my fabric stash to decide what colors my next rug will be.  

I used some wooden needles I bought from Carrol's Farm Crafts on Etsy to finish up the last row or so.  It made it so much easier to get into the tight spaces between rows.  These are beautiful handcrafted needles too.  They're designed for using to make Amish Toothbrush Rugs but work awesome for twined rugs as well.

CAMPER REMODEL:

The camper tearout is almost complete.  Matt just needs to pull out the electrical. It's been a hard job for him and he's done a great job of it.

Water heater where a bench seat had been that covered it

Kitchen area

lots of water damage / rot

The last picture has the bathroom tearout section with the shower pan still not taken out yet. We've decided not to replace several things:

• the shower - there's just not enough room and I just want a toilet so we'll clean and put that back in along with a small sink.  
• the water heater - to save space plus we'd have had to replace it since it was shot
• the refrigerator - we've decided to replace it with a small electric refrigerator instead of a 2-way or 3-way.  It will save us considerably as we can pick one up cheap (probably about $100)  with back-to-school deals starting compared to over $1200 for a 2-way

THRIFTING:  

I went thrifting and picked up a lot of good books cheap.  I think most of the books were like 50c each.  This is just a couple of the books I picked up.

In addition, I found two mini donut pans for 99c each!  I was so excited to find them as I needed at least one more pan for when I make donuts when the crew is here.  

READING:

Comfort Classics is an excellent cookbook from Weight Watchers.  There are several recipes I want to try out although I'll use full fat options instead of the low-fat ones.
















Dark Witch is the first in Nora Roberts The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy.  I remember buying this on a Kindle special and started the first two chapters and then forgot about it.  I'm glad I have the book format now as this is a keeper.  I just ordered the next book in the series from PaperBackSwap. Unfortunately they don't have the third one so I added it to my wishlist.  I may have to look for a used copy on Amazon.  This series reminds me somewhat of The Three Sisters trilogy and The Donovan Legacy trilogy.

June Ramblings

The Walton's house from the TV series

Flashback: I loved watching the Waltons on TV growing up and even later.  I loved the large, close knit family.  I LOVED their house. The house would be way too large for us at this point in our lives but it would have been awesome when I had kids at home.

HOME PROJECTS:
June shaped up to be another super busy month for us. Matt and his buddy Nick, along with some muscle help from Jordon, got our new windows put in. It's a good thing because the one set probably wouldn't have survived another summer.  It was so rotted that when they went to pick the window up to place it on the trailer it broke apart. The new windows look great.  Matt worked over the weekend and got the outside finished.  Now he needs to finish off the inside portion.  We now only have one small window left that was original to the house that needs replaced. Thankfully it's in much better shape than these windows were.

window that broke from rot

new windows in

As you can see we don't have steps out this door and haven't since we moved in for the simple reason we can't agree on what we want.  I would like a deck with a ramp for the dogs and to eventually fence this side.  A gazebo style deck where I could sit and relax would be awesome.  We have a small deck on the other side but it's filled with the grill and smoker so there's no room for me and the dogs to just hang.  My garden is on this side of the house towards the back. Matt wants just a basic set of steps. We'll figure it out eventually.

GARDENING:

I finally got to work in the garden and tore out all the dead plants from last year.  We shoveled all the dirt into the wheelbarrow and I put weed blocking fabric on the bottom and then put the soil mixed with compost back in the bed.  I over planted this small bed last year so I was more minimalistic this year in planting it.  I also used the barrel that we had tried to grow tomatoes in for herbs this year. Hopefully the garden will do better.  Unfortunately they're not selling these pre-made beds any more so I'm going to have to order online to be able to expand.

COOKING:

Spicy Hawaiian Pizza

Matt's been doing a lot of cooking with the smoker.  He made some homemade Canadian bacon. Thank you to his brother-in-law Doug for the recipe for that!  It's addictive and will be a frequent item in the smoker from now on I can assure you.  He made me some homemade McMuffins with the Canadian bacon and the taste was unbelievable.  What a difference in the taste.  We also used some for a Spicy Hawaiian Pizza.  He also did bacon wrapped jalapeno poppers that disappeared very quickly.

We forgot to take a picture of these yummy treats until only these two lovely ones were left before I finished them off.

Someone on one of my Facebook groups posted she'd fixed a cup of hibiscus blueberry tea which sounded so good I decided to try making some myself.  I took some blueberries and put into the bottom of my cup and then brewed them with my loose leaf hibiscus before adding honey.  I've made this several times it was so good. I used Mountain Rose Hibiscus High Tea.  Sorry about the poor picture.

READING:

I picked up another Sue Henry mystery, The End of the Road (A Maxie McNabb Mystery).  I was a little concerned by the title but be assured nothing happens to Maxie.  I really like how she brings characters from her other mysteries into different storylines.  I need to order a couple more by this author to read.  I have a friend I plan to loan one of the Maxie McNabb Mystery books to as I think she'd really like the series.

Brocante Home Living Room forum on Facebook read and discussed Slow Love - How I Lost My Job, Put On My Pajamas & Found Happiness. It definitely was not a book I would have chosen on my own.  Her ongoing relationship with a married man just made many of us want to smack her and honestly the stupidity of her trying to keep that relationship going would have probably been enough for me not not have finished the book if it wasn't for it being a discussion assignment.  I just found it really difficult to respect the author through most of the book even though she published multiple magazines nationwide and had written other books but others loved it and thought it was a great book about recovering from a life disaster.  Several of us brought up we had problems having any sympathy for her having to sell her house after she finally mentions that she has another house, her vacation house, she'll be decamping to in Connecticut.

Fiona Ferris continues adding to her series on living French with How to Live Well.  Some good ideas although some can be found on multiple other sites and articles.  It's a short book.  I believe it was $2.99 for the Kindle version so very reasonably priced.