As most of you know, my husband owns and operates his own truck (semi). He took our dog Max (Maximus) with him so I could have Thanksgiving at my sister's house with our family without having to worry about coming home to let the dog out. He called me this morning (about an hour ago now) to tell me he couldn't rouse Max and that he thinks he's dead. So, our puppy of 9 years is with us no more. He was such a good dog and we will miss him dearly.

I love having good neighbors. I mean, is there anything better in all the world than having neighbors who are more than just nodding acquaintances? Yesterday, my neighbor Molina sent over some beef stroganoff (sp?) she made. Today, she sent over pumpkin bread! Sooooo happy and full!

On Wed. morning, I got a call from my mom saying that dad was rushed to the clinic because of chest pains. He couldn't breathe and was in a lot of pain, but that pain was on his right side. They did tests to make sure it wasn't a heart attack and she called back saying it wasn't his heart and that he was doing better and almost back to his ornery old self. THEN, I got another call that they were rushing him to the hospital here - 120 miles away - because something came up on the x-rays in his right lung that they didn't like. He was still in a lot of pain.

So, two hours later my dad was brought to the emergency room at one of the hospitals here in town. They did a catscan and put him on morphine (or kept up his morphine levels since that's what he had in the ambulance as well). A couple hours after that, the doctor came in and said that he had a large blood clot in his right lung. They put him on some blood thinners and my sister, mom and I went to the cafeteria to eat something - my brother stayed with our dad.

While we were there, we figured they would move him to ICU since that's where they said the next stop was for him...so after we ate, we went back to the emergency room to see if he'd been moved yet. He hadn't. A pulminary specialist came in and saw him instead and told us they needed to keep him for 48 hours for observation. Then, we waited another hour or two to get him moved. Finally, a nurse came in and I asked her when they were going to move him to ICU. She said, "Oh, he's going to the general floor and we're going to move him right now." Wow...isn't that wonderful to let the family know what the hell is going on?

Anyway, he stayed on the general floor until Friday evening, when he was released. He came back to my house where we waited for my uncle to pick him up and take him and mom back home. He is still pretty sick due to the meds, but the blood clot seems to have dispersed and so dad's no longer in pain. He just has no appetite and the meds make him tired and a bit nauseous. Hopefully he can get off of them in a couple of months.

This weekend, my brother, sister-in-law and I went down to my parents' house to help get some firewood. On Saturday, my brother and his wife weren't there yet because she had to work until 1:00 in the afternoon, so dad and I went on our own. We did pretty well, had to pull down one tree with a chain because it landed in the above tree when it fell (instead of going downhill as it SHOULD have). It took three tries, but we got it free, cut it up and stacked it.

Then it was this one's turn. This one fell as it should, but at a 30* angle due to a huge branch beneath it that propped it up. Well, you can't cut it that way without risk of serious damage, so we got out the trusty chain again. We got ready, and on the count of three pulled hard. Well, I guess we didn't need as much strength as the previous one did because this one spun around and came flying at us. Dad and I dropped the chain and I was already booking it down the hill while he was telling me to run. The branches scratched his back a bit, but we were able to outrun the tree. It almost had us though, it was a close thing.

The next day, we had reinforcements - my brother and his wife. We found a couple of fallen trees that weren't punky (rotting) and were just starting to cut into them when I got hurt...a tree finally got me. If any of you have ever cut down trees for firewood, especially branchy pine, then you know that in order for the person with the chainsaw to be efficient, you need to clear the branches out of the way as he cuts them off the trunk. So, I was downhill from dad doing my bit and my sister-in-law was uphill doing hers. Dad saw her, but not me and he cut a big branch off the trunk and threw it behind him...HARD. It was a pretty big branch and it caught me in the temple.

Man was I dazed. I spun around, ran a bit to the right and sat down. My brother asked if I was OK and I had to say, "I don't know." He made me move my hand from my temple to look and all I saw was a bit of blood on my fingers, so I thought maybe it was just a scratch. He said, "Oh no, she's bleeding." That's about the time when it started to gush. My dad patched it up, apologizing the whole time. Poor guy really felt bad, but accidents to happen.

After I was patched up, we went on to finish. We got him about two cords of wood and he had another at home...so a couple more and he should be set for winter.

I've got a nice, deep gash in my temple and it is beginning to hurt like heck today. It's nasty-looking and will probably leave a scar. I'm hoping it'll make me look tough, in a sexy way. ;)

I took these pics yesterday. We have a long way to go before our backyard is done! Connor HAD to be in each pic, of course!

I was going through a friend's photos on FB and he had a picture of this:

A Fact Of Life:

After Monday and Tuesday, even the calendar says,
W T F...

Literally! Our high today (they changed the forecast today from yesterday's) was suppsed to be -3*F. Instead it never got above -4*F...so they missed the boat on that one. Supposedly we're supposed to see a high of 12*F for tomorrow. After the mess-ups on The Weather Channel these past two days, I'll believe it when I see it. Still, there is hope!

This is the second year that we've had mid-to-late January temps in the early part of December. Makes one dream of the good old days when the earth was warmer. *sighs*

I'm also wondering if it's currently -6*, then how is it our low is -2*? It really is cooooold here (although the thermometer in my car reads -4*).

Taysat introduced me to deviantart.com It took a while (like most of today) to get the hang of it, but I'm slowly getting my homepage set up. I'm there as Diantha-Livius (cuz I think it's prettier than ApilIshtar Etana LOL). Here's something that I'm working on:

Sem has come up with an idea to make the group cover all of the Regency. I think it's a great idea and have a few books on the period which I can dust off. :D We'll still discuss Austen until our eyes go crossed, but it would be nice to have a more broad topic for the group. So, Regency fans please step forward!