Tale of a Shooting Star…

I realized that I’ve been struggling with a slightly elevated level of anxiety the past few days. Phoebe seems like she has managed to pull a muscle in her neck or something; she can’t manage to shake her head fully. And now she’s limping a bit on her bad back leg.

She had a problem with a luxating patella on her left hind leg that was operated on several years ago. They had to separate the ligament from the bone, deepen the groove in which the kneecap is supposed to ride and then reattach the ligament to the bone with metal pins. It was quite a pricey and painful procedure, so when she started limping again the other day, I became quite concerned.

Since then, we’ve been limiting her jumping, carrying her up and down the stairs and generally pampering her royal highness in order to encourage her to rest her leg. She seems to have had some improvement, but I may still take her for a visit to her veterinarian is she hasn’t improved to my liking by the end of the week.

Ahhhh, the plight of our furbabies and the toll it can take on us. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Terry and I spent a lovely afternoon with Cathy, Rob, Joshua and Evie on Sunday. Given the circumstances of Joshua’s adventure with the washing machine drain hose and the resulting aftermath, I think that Cathy was most relieved when I called and said that we were running an hour late. 😉

It took us a little longer to get there than we had anticipated. There were a lot of Amish buggies on the road, but they weren’t causing a traffic problem. In fact, we were fine until we reached Strasburg and caught up with all of the Christmas shopping traffic heading for the outlets in Lancaster. People driving cars are far more dangerous, panicky, dumb animals than people driving horse and buggy combos. Life in this area is definitely not for the impatient. The countryside is beautiful and the Amish deserve our respect just like any other fellow human beings walking this earth, so just relax and enjoy the drive!

Anyway, Cathy’s house has a great layout to it and Rob was quite a good, talkative host when Cathy left for her rehearsal before the concert. The chorale in which she sings is wonderful! They have a great blend of voices and the concert was quite pleasant, helping to bring the Christmas spirit to life. I think we all enjoyed it. Mr. Joshua even favored me by sitting in my lap for a while. He and Evie were quite well behaved throughout and afterwards, as well. The church in which the chorale performed is the same in which they rehearse every week and it truly is in walking distance. Cathy wasn’t kidding – it was about a block or two away from her house!

I got in my “kid fix” when we returned to the house and had both Joshua and Evie climbing all over me. I think Terry had fun playing with Joshua, too. He was Joshua’s protector from my tickle monster persona. 🙂 I love kids and they seem to love me. I’m just glad to be able to hand them back over to their moms and dads afterwards. I like to be the fun aunt figure that gets on the floor and plays with them, but then I don’t have to deal with the discipline or any other hard parts of parenting. I’m awful! 😉

Sorry I don’t have much more to say, but I’m not feeling terribly verbose at the moment (shock! shock! horror!) so I’ll leave it at that.

Happy Thanksgiving, my US friends! I know it’s a day late, but we’re celebrating a day late. I spent 3 hours on my new cell phone Tuesday night catching up with a friend from high school. Anyone who knows me knows that I can’t just sit still, especially when I’m on the phone, so I had my phone propped between my shoulder and my ear the whole time, doing various things like beading a bracelet, sorting beads, etc. So, it should come as no big surprise to find out that I strained a muscle in my neck and triggered a migraine that I had to stay home with on Wednesday. On Thursday, I still wasn’t feeling myself (in fact, my neck is still sore), so we decided to wait until today to make our Thanksgiving dinner.

I woke up a little after 8 AM this morning, which was a real shock, but felt good. I spent the time stitching on Cathy’s round robin and then I made some banana bread. While the bread was cooling, I decided to take advantage of the hot oven and bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies for Terry.

We then ventured out into the traffic this evening to go to Thomasville and order our furniture. The lady was surprised at how calm we were in dealing with such a large sum of money. She said that usually people get a rush of blood to the head and she has to take their hands and reassure them that it is a true investment, as the furniture will last a lifetime. Well, we’ve had over a week to come to grips with the numbers. I was just pleasantly surprised that a change from accent tables to true night stands did not send us over the next 1K marker. We have it all worked out where the money will come from to pay everything off before interest kicks in 12 months from now, so the keeper of the finances (that would be me) is satisfied that all of the ducks are in a row. We’ve been saving up for a while to get this furniture, so it’s not totally out of our reach.

Now I’m just waiting for my stuffing balls to finish cooking and we’ll be ready for our little feast. It’s just the two of us, so I made a small boneless turkey roast for me, Terry made pork tenderloin for him, mashed potatoes with sharp cheddar cheese and I made my mom’s stuffing recipe (yum!). I’m going to take the easy route with the gravy and just pour some from a can instead of using the turkey drippings. I’m feeling lazy. Besides, it’s 8:30 at night and I’m hungry! 😆

This year, I am thankful for my stablizing mental and physical health, my husband and the life we have built and are continuing to build together. It’s a beautiful thing to be able to cook together in our little kitchen. 🙂