My New Monday Schedule

Today I started my new volunteer job. I am working at the Food Bank. Really big bags of mixed donuts, muffins, and other baked sweets come in and we have to dig out off that sloppy mess, putting 3 items into smaller bags. After that was done, I was given 2 bags of sugar and some 'zip lock' type bags.... put the sugar into a big bucket and then scoop 1 1/2 cups of sugar into each zip lock bag. Next was rice... same bucket, same zip locks, 2 cups of rice into each baggy. Then, a big bucket of peanut butter (not the 'natural' kind I like with just peanuts, this is the more common kind with huge amount of sugar and chemicals to preserve it and to keep the oil from separating out). I scooped this into plastic containers and put lids on. Before I left I washed all coffee/tea cups and all the counters. There were 2 other women working too, though they left earlier than I did, and other were others in other areas. I actually enjoyed doing this, though did most of it standing so my back was killing me. I did grab a chair and sit down later on, but too little too late. I find it hard to work while sitting on a chair, especially at a counter. Anna, the lady in charge, suggested I put the bucket of peanut butter onto another chair beside me so I can reach it better. Good idea... or maybe take a tall stool from here to sit on each time I work there. I am happy to be doing something to help out.

Monday is one of the days I do Aqua Therapy. I am done at the Food Bank at noon and go to the pool at 2, so figured I'd be able to work on my speech for tomorrow night and be on time for therapy. Then I left without my pool bag, so no bathing suit and not towels, shampoo, etc. I drove home to get it and decided to lay down for a bit to rest my sore back.... by the time I work up it was too late to go to therapy. Dang!! Sleep wasn't in my plans. I also didn't work on my speech. I must get to it.

Reba... etc.

Yesterday I was out at Tuggy's working on my trike. I painted the rearend and some other parts, so it's starting to look better. Tuggy has the mufflers on now, so all there is to do to make it ride-able is to get the back brakes working properly. There is some unplanned problem with them, so Tuggy will be pulling them apart in the next couple days to see what the problem is and fix it. The box for the back also needs to be finished, though I can ride around in the yard, learning to ride it, without the box.

While I was out at Tuggy's, I had Reba in the truck and went out to give her the chance to go potty. While I was doing that, and while she was on the tailgate of my truck, up high where I could work properly, I took off the bandage from her surgery. It was not pretty and I felt a bit sick having to look at it. It is wide open! There was a thin strip of stitches with a bit of skin laying loose in the open wound, and the wound was seeping/oozing blood. Thankfully, when I told Tuggy about it, he dug out some bandages that he had there and came to the truck to hold Reba's head for me while I worked and got it wrapped up again. I don't know if I should take her back to the vet or not as I don't think there is anything they can do that I can't. It has to be wrapped up to keep dirt out of the open wound and I feel like I should put some kind of ointment on it but know that I can't be putting the bandaging on and off all the time so will have to be something that only needs to be put on every 3-5 days when I do a bandage change.

Ahhh, sometimes I wish I could just do a "click here" kind of thing to be led to the right answers for the questions I have at any given time. "Want to talk to God? Just click here!" or something like that. I have several questions I could use a good answer to, lots of issues I'd like guidance in solving. Yup, normal life here.

Reba: So Far So Good

Well, Reba is home. When I went to pick her up, they brought her out to me and she seemed happy to come to me, then lay down with my foot as her pillow. She is still very sleepy. She is also very not her usual self. While still in the vet office I was told she'd gotten snarly with them... then when I just petted her head she growled at me. One of the gals there offered to help me lift her into the truck, so I had to coax her all the way to the truck, then we lifted her up onto the tail gate and that is where she decided to lay down and go back to sleep. I was trying to get her to move into the truck far enough for me to close it so I could drive away and I very nearly got my arm ripped off. Wow, this supper lovey dovey dog sure can turn into a snarling, ferocious, dangerous dog when she wants to. I never saw this side of her in all the years I had her until this problem with her foot, now this is the 3rd time. Each time though, I must admit, even though she snapped at me, snarling and growling, if she had really wanted to she could have gotten me and ripped me to shreds... and she didn't. Too close for comfort though, for sure. Finally, she did go into the truck and I was able to close it up.

I was given a bottle of antibiotics to give to her for the next 2 weeks, as well as some anti-inflammatory/pain med stuff, and one of those cones to put over her head if she starts licking at the bandaged foot. I must try to keep it clean and dry for the next 3-5 days, then can take the bandage off. Providing the stitches don't rip out, I have to take her in in about 2 weeks to have them taken out. Apparently, they had a bit of a hard time closing the area after removing the toe. I have to try to keep this hyper active dog calm for the 2 weeks to lessen the chance of the stitches ripping out. Gee, sounds like fun. (ya right).

Will keep you updated on Reba's recovery. We hope she will soon be able to return to her blogging though with a toe missing it may now be more difficult for her to type.... guess I'll have to take dictation. haha.

Reba News

Just wanted to let you know that Reba is in 'the hospital' today having her surgery. The cancerous toe is finally being removed. The vet would have liked to do chest x-rays and blood tests before doing the surgery, to make sure the cancer hadn't spread anywhere and I said no. I just don't have the extra hundreds of dollars to do this. The surgery is costing $3-400 and these tests would cost at least another $200. Just can't do it. So, she gave me a talk that basically was 'don't blame us if your dog dies' kind of thing, and she said Reba has already out lived her life expectancy, any age dog has risk with being put out for surgery... yadda yadda yadda.

I held her while the vet & assistant gave her a shot to make her sleepy, then stayed with her until she was a limp old dishrag. She couldn't even get up to walk into the operating room, so had to be carried. I gave her a kiss on the forehead and told her I'd see her in a while, that I'll be back to pick her up this afternoon. One way or another I will go back and pick her up this afternoon, I just hope and pray she'll be leaving there on her own 4 feet, healthy and happy again though likely sore for a few days while things heal up.

The vet & assistant were really impressed by Reba and how good she was while getting that shot. They said it would hurt some, so I held her head while the vet held her back end and the assistant gave the shot into the muscle. Reba didn't even flinch. The vet said what an unusually good Rottweiler she is.

I'll let you know how she's doing when I know anything.

Awesome Day!

What did I do yesterday?? Did I go to Sunday Service like I usually do?? Nope, didn't go to Sunday Service, though in a way I did do something Spiritual. I went for a ride.

Yesterday was Tuggy's birthday and it was the 51st birthday in a row that he went riding his motorcycle. This year was the first year I went with him on his birthday (I just met him May 31 last year). It was a beautiful, sunny day and absolutely perfect for a Sunday ride on a most beautiful Harley trike. We rode a ways out one side of Okanagan Lake, then back and out the other side as far as the road goes... back in and through town to ride out past Kalamalka Lake and through the Coldstream area. Back into town, and stopped at Canadian Tire where we got a new brake line for my trike and a hot dog (from vendor in front of the store) for my chauffeur. Usually I would have had a hot dog too, but am eating mostly raw foods these days (healthy) so nibbled on some raw nuts & seeds I'd taken along. Next we went to McDonald's as I wanted a nice hot cup of tea. I also bought a chocolate muffin (hey, I said mostly raw, not totally) and took it all outside to join Tuggy. I sang Happy Birthday to him and ripped the muffin in half, giving him half and eating the other half with my tea. We had driven past his daughter's home and talked to his nephew as his daughter wasn't home, then after McD's we drove to his son's where I was introduced to his son, wife and really cute 3 year old (going on 15) daughter. From there he brought me home and stayed to hang out for awhile before going back to his son's for supper.

I was introduced to Tuggy last May because I needed a ride on the Memorial Ride for a friend, Gord. Wendy (Gord's wife) & I both wanted me on the ride, and Tuggy agreed to 'pack' me on his trike. This was far from my first ride on a motorcycle, yet it was the first time I ever rode on a trike (3 wheeled motorcycle). We rode about 250K, stopping at Gord's favorite 'watering holes', taking about 8 hours. It was awesome!! Tuggy took me for a few more rides over the course of the summer and we ended up agreeing that he'd build me a trike of my own. Over the course of the the winter, we have gotten to know each other better and become even better friends. If anyone had told me before that something romantic would happen between Tuggy and me, I would have said "no way"... and yet... well, it is kind of going that way as of the last couple days. (Is there any good way to change men's clothing?? I don't mind jeans & t-shirts, that's cool, but the jeans he wears leave a lot to be desired... hmmm.)

A couple weeks ago, Tug was talking about moving from where he is living now. He rents a room in someone's home. I said that I want to clean up my home and once it is done I could rent him a room. I said this just as a plan to make some money, thinking a roomer could be a good thing and the we seem to get along well when working on the trike together. Now, if something romantic is going to happen it could really confuse the 'roomer' issue. I've lived totally on my own for 20 years straight, and before that most of my adult life has been living alone. To share my home with another person could be a real challenge for me... and if it is with a boyfriend, even more of a challenge. Am I ready for a committed relationship with one man?? To give up my other boyfriends?? I don't know... I just don't know. We'll have to see how the spring& summer play out I guess.

Wednesday April 13

Wednesday was a great day for me. I went out and spend a good part of the day with Tuggy, 'pulling wrenches' on my trike... or as I sometimes refer to it, 'my broom'. We first had a cup of tea at his place, then decided to go in to town for lunch before getting to work. We shared a hamburger and fries, he had coffee & I had Rooibos tea.... then back to his place and to work.

This is how 'Broom' was looking when I got there. Tuggy had to pull it all apart recently to get the drive shaft hooked up properly, and had to take one of the wheels apart to fix it, replacing the axle seal.

We moved the rear end (from 1974 Datsun B210 car) over and into place, then got it all lined up and bolted the manufactured trike frame to the bike frame... and bolted the drive shaft in place. In this top photo, they are not yet bolted together.

Here they are bolted together and the shocks are in place.

One set of coil shocks, and one set of air shocks.

We pushed 'Broom' outside and cut off excess metal as well as shortened some too-long bolts.

Last fall when we took it too the welder, he removed the pipes. Since then, they were put back in place, sort of, and we had to take them off to sort them out and figure out which one went where as they aren't a 'one pipe fits all' type of thing. We got 3 of them in place in the engine and the other part that I don't know what to call it but it's one piece that all 4 pipes have to fit into... part of the exhaust system. The 4th pipe was giving us a lot of trouble, not wanting to fit right, so we called it a day. Sometimes you just have to say 'enough' and go back to it another day.

When I had hauled Big Red on my flat deck trailer (Big Red story is on Reba's Run: Big Red, Big Red 2, and Big Red's Resurrection), a fuse in my truck burned out. I had this happen before with this trailer, so know it's a wiring problem on the trailer. I remembered it was a 20 amp fuse that Larry had put in at Quality Auto Electric, but didn't know for sure where or how to find the fuses and change them. I took it to Quality on Tuesday and Larry is not back from Arizona yet, and the guy there wouldn't even take 2 minutes to do the job... said 'Bring it back tomorrow.' even though I told him how important it was I have it that evening, and couldn't drive it after dark with no tail lights. Anyway, Tuggy & I changed the fuse, so now I know how to do it if it happens in future. Tuggy will help me find the problem on the trailer and fix that too before we need it.

Yes, Wednesday was a busy day, and a wonderful day. A lot was accomplished on my trike, my truck was fixed, and I so much enjoyed 'pulling wrenches' again after years of not doing so. When I was married I wanted to take a mechanic's course and my husband totally forbid me to do so. It's too bad as I think it would have been a good career for me... and that is another very long story that we'll not go into just now.

After we pushed both trikes back into the shop and closed the door, we said our good-byes and I drove home. Fed Reba, washed up, got changed, then drove in to town where I went to the Army Navy Air Force club with Nancy. I also got a call from Mark, long time friend who lives over in the Kootenays now and is coming over here next Wednesday.

Volunteering

A couple weeks ago, March 28 to be exact, I stepped down from the Board of Trustees at the Okanagan Centre for Positive Living. I also stepped down from the volunteer employment I was doing there. I felt it was time for a change. After 4 years there I felt like I needed to have some distance in order to gain some respect back. I have put in applications for volunteer jobs at the BC SPCA and at the local Food Bank. I have heard nothing back so far and I think it is time to do more follow up on these jobs. I have done some, though I guess not enough. I didn't think it would be hard to get a volunteer job in a city that is crying for volunteers. I find it rather odd, in fact, that they aren't a little more 'johnny on the spot' with following up when people apply to work for them for free. The lady at the SPCA said yes, they have work for me and will be very happy to have me, that she & another lady would figure out where to put me, what would suit me with my back problems. I have never heard back from her, though she has now stepped down from manager of the SPCA. Hmmmm.

There is a Volunteer Bureau here, so I guess I'll go talk to them and see what they have to offer. I want to get my 10 hours in before this month is ended and that is coming up all too soon. My disability pension gives me an extra, much needed, $100 each month that I do volunteer work for a non-profit society, so it is very important that I get too it.

A Great Day!

Some people choose quicktrim, and some of us choose a slower form of weight loss. To each his/her own. I don't know how the quicker kind works, but I do know how TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) works because that is the track I am on.

Today I led my first meeting and attended the Installation Banquet. I joined TOPS Armstrong January 15, 2009 so I did attend the Installation Banquet last year though it didn't really mean a lot to me then. It meant a LOT more to me this year.

I have become the Co-leader of my TOPS group. As well as helping the Leader, this means that if any of the executive members is absent I will step in and do their job until they return, be that the Leader, Secretary, Treasurer, or either of the Weight Recorders. Today our Leader was absent from the meeting, setting up for the banquet, so I ran the meeting. I think it went pretty well.

At the banquet, I was honored as the Division 4 Winner. Each weight group is a Division, so if you weigh 100 - 150 pounds you are in one Division, 150 - 200 is another Division, 200 - 250 another, etc. etc. Division 4 is, at least in our group, the largest Division, it's the 150 - 200. I weighed 16 pounds less at our last meeting of the year than I did at the first meeting I attended in January, the largest 'loss' in our group. The Division 4 Runner Up lost 15 1/4 pounds, so it was close. We each were honored and given a Carnation, a charm for our scarves, and a sash to wear. I will see if I can get a photo from someone who had a camera and show you soon. The winner of Division 3 lost 33 pounds... WOW!!

All of the outgoing executive members were thanked for the work they did over the last year... and the new executive was sworn in. Yup, this included me as the new Co-leader. I made some center pieces for the table which were gifted to the outgoing executive. I took old records (for those of you that are younger, a record is like a really big CD and is made of vinyl) and heated them in the oven so I was able to shape the softened records into bowl-like shapes. Into each of these I put a 4" pot of Pansy plants, each with a different color blooms. We have 6 on the executive this year and I forgot we had an extra weight recorder last year so I only made 6 so I am going to do up one more to give to Debbie. I will take some photos and post them here.

There was a door prize and I was very fortunate in that I won it!! What is it?? A tea cup with a screen strainer inside and a lid. The strainer is almost like a cup that sits inside the Fine Bone China cup. You put loose tea in the strainer and add your hot water, then put on the lid to keep it warm while it steeps, remove the strainer and you have a great cup of tea. I LOVE tea and drink a lot of it. This cup is just too perfect for me, lol. Oh ya, it has dogs on the cup and lid. No, not Rottweilers, Golden Retrievers, but close enough.

This evening Drew phoned from up north to tell me he'd gone to a Toastmasters meeting up there. He was very enthused having had a great evening and wanted to share it with someone he knew would understand and be happy for him. I find it very sad that he doesn't find this with his wife. It was wonderful to hear from him and to tell him about my day with TOPS and finding out Reba will be getting her life-saving surgery.

Yes folks, it has been a very full and extremely wonderful day!!! I hope your day has been a great one too.

My Hair

When I was a kid, I had really thick, curly hair. How thick was it? It was so thick that I kept breaking hair brushes when trying to brush it. My brothers did the same. The handles would just snap right off them. Finally Mom found some 'unbreakable' brushes and even though they were more expensive they were well worth it and saved a lot of money in the long run. Now both brothers have short hair that is somewhat receding, though they're not bald. My sister Marcy and I both have lost a lot of hair and you can see M's scalp and though not quite so much you can see mine too. I sometimes wonder about hair loss treatment. I also wonder if eating a raw diet will help with my hair as it helps cure many other disorders. I would really love to have my naturally curly hair grow in thicker again. I've always been told that my hair is my best feature and I don't want to loose it. I used to dye my hair though I eventually became allergic to the dye so now leave it natural. As my friend Drew says, I have 'just a touch of class' at my temples... as well as some 'silver strands' mixed throughout the rest and no one seems to even notice those 'albino hairs'. I am always told "you don't even have any gray in your hair". Guess you have to look a bit closer.

I am very grateful for my beautiful, natural curly hair.

Hmmmmm.. Just Thinkin'

I am so forgetful it's crazy at times. I have 2 kinds of meds I take as well as vitamins and I keep forgetting to take them which can't be good for me. I am going to try getting off them and see if I do okay. The most important one is for depression and I've downed my dosage somewhat already, even though my Dr. says it's a low dosage of this med already. Either it's working well or I've managed to get back on track by myself. I am a fairly happy person who has her down days though the few times I've felt depression coming on I have been able to snap myself out of it. When I went on these pills, I found that they helped get me out of the 'black' (my whole life was shades of gray and black), but they did not make me feel happy or joyous. I had to find a way to do that for myself. I did that all on my own and now I am a very happy, joy filled woman. I wonder if I can still do this when I am totally off the pills. My Dr. says it's a physical thing, not a mental thing. We'll see. All I know is that it's a good thing I don't have to take acne pills, or the way I keep forgetting to take my pills I'd have a real pizza face, haha.

GREAT NEWS!!!

Blow your horns, beet your drums, blow your whistles, beet your outdoor rugs, and scream 'n shout!!! Yup, it's GREAT NEWS!!!

Today while I was at my TOPS Instillation Banquet, I was interrupted by a phone call that I was very happy to take. Heather, from The Vernon & District Animal Care Society, called about financing Reba's surgery and she said they can do it!! I am sO happy... "stoked" even. They will pay for amputating the toe with the cancer tumor on it. This is no guarantee that Reba will live, but it is a very good chance she will. My friend Wendy knows a guy who had a rottweiler that got cancer on his toe just like Reba's and he died shortly after the surgery. I am very hopeful that this will not happen to my girl and she will still live a few more years after this. She has aged a lot through all of this, but once the pain is gone I think she'll return to her previous bouncy young-for-her-age self.

I called the vet office to book the surgery and it will be Tuesday April 20. This seems like way too long to wait, 12 days, that's nearly 2 weeks!!! And yet it's been over a month, more like over 2 months since she started having the problems so she's nearly at the end of it. I don't know what the recovery time is like after a toe amputation, but I'm sure it will seem a short time in comparison to what we've been through so far.

Celebrate, my friends, celebrate!!

What I'm Up To.

So far this morning I slept in, cuddled with Mewsic (the cat), texted with Wendy, and mostly laid here playing solitaire on my laptop. Not a busy morning. My plans for this afternoon are to go do a dump run for Wendy. She has garbage to go to the dump, I have a truck... that's a match. She'll put gas in my truck which is a good thing as I am nearly on empty. This evening we will go together to the Army Navy Air Force club as we do pretty much each Wednesday evening. It is Meat Draw this evening and though I don't buy tickets for it many of our friends do so it's usually a fun time out.

So now I must go have something to eat, take my multivitamins, and get dressed, then go take a bath tub out of my utility trailer and hook up the trailer to haul the garbage in. Yes, I could haul it in the truck but I'd have to take the hay out as well as Reba's bed, so I figure it's just easier to take the trailer even though it's a challenge as I'm not great at backing that thing up. However, practice does make perfect.

Raised Bed Gardens

For quite some time now, I've wanted to have raised bed gardens. Two years ago, two friends of mine said they would help me build these, so I purchased a bunch of bags of top soil and 2 big bales of Pete moss. These are all still in the plastic they came in, still sitting in my shed. Neither of the two that said they would help actually did.

This year, I came up with a plan. I decided that bath tubs would make good raised bed gardens. I used to have a couple old bath tubs that I had planned to do something with, probably make fish ponds out of them, and gave them away a couple years ago to someone who needed them for horse troughs. Now I wish I had them back.

A friend of mine's parents are redoing their bathroom, so I got lucky and was able to get their old bath tub... and toilet & sink. All of these blue bathroom fixtures will hold dirt and plants. They will work well for my needs. I'm thinking strawberries or mint in the toilet tank and bowl, maybe even in the sink. I plan to have the sink sitting on a bucket of water so the water will wick up into the soil and self water as needed. I'll put rocks in the bottom of the tub then compost and soil mixture.

So far I am not sure just what I will plant as there are lots of things I would like. Some thoughts are: cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, spinach, swiss chard. I also want as I mentioned before, strawberries and mint. I want lots and lots of mint, especially chocolate mint. I really enjoy a good cup of chocolate mint tea. Since I am working at eating a large percentage of my diet raw, I want to grow lots of veg and fruit that I can do this with. Maybe some nut trees would be a good thing too. Hmmm.

I think I could use a few more raised beds... a few more old tubs.

There is HOPE

Yesterday I phoned the Animal Care Society. They help low income people when they need to take their pets to a vet and don't have the money to do so. They paid for the vet visit when I had to take my cat Shadow in two years ago. Unfortunately, Shadow passed away, but at least he was made more comfortable during his last hours. When I had to take Reba in a few weeks back, they paid for that visit too. When I phoned yesterday it was to see if they could help me with the cost of putting Reba down. I talked to the very nice man at the other end of the phone line and he wants me to take Reba back to the vet so she, Dr. Bev DcDougal, can have another look at Reba and decide if she needs to be put down or not. Dr. Bev wasn't in yesterday, and being Good Friday, everything was closed today, so she will be phoning me in the morning. I'm not sure, but it really sounds like, if Bev thinks Reba is 'worth saving' and is 'save-able', then they will pay the bill for the surgery. WOW, that would be sOOOO awesome!!

While talking to the man, who's name I don't know, I told him that I am getting together things to donate to their May Garage Sale fund raiser. I also told him that I am looking for a new Volunteer job and would love to give my time to the Animal Care Society. He said this is his wife's area to deal with and she's currently away, though he will pass on the message to her when she returns this weekend.

I didn't tell him, but I need to make a will one of these days. I don't have much in the line of cash though I do own my own home with only a few thousand dollars owing on it. I have no children to leave my estate to, only my animals are my family. I have decided to make the ACS one of my beneficiaries. They are doing good work to help animals to have better lives.

I hope that people will be generous and make donations to the Animal Care Society. They work totally on donations, there is no other funding.

Thank you to all of you that have left Reba & I messages, supporting me/us in this very emotional, difficult time. I totally appreciate this.

Sad News

Yesterday I told you of the Good News... now today I will tell you of the very sad news.

My poor Reba is not getting better. In fact, her foot is more swollen now than it was before and she nearly bit me on Tuesday when I was petting her. I wasn't even near the sore foot and she got very snarly with me. This shows that the pain level has risen again. I have put her back on asprins for the pain and am making arrangements to have her put to sleep. This has to work around Good Friday and Easter Sunday & Monday with the vet offices closed. It also has to work around Dan's schedule as I need his help with the funeral planning. Well, not the planning exactly, but the digging of the large hole in my front yard. I've already done the planning years ago when my cat Smoothedge (3 years, had her since new born) was hit on the highway and I buried her in the front yard. When my wonderful D-O-G (11 1/2 years, had her since 7 weeks old) was hit on the highway she joined Smoothedge. The same thing happened to my 'new' dog Bronx 2 months to the day after D-O-G. Two years ago, Smoothedge's son Shadow joined them when he passed away from kidney failure, just 6 weeks short of his 17th birthday. Cherry Chinchilla & Tomas Budgie Bird also claim a spot in the ever growing Pet Cemetery in my front yard. Now it is Reba's turn.

This may sound like a lot of animals have passed on here... it feels like that to me too. However, this is over a 19 1/2 year period, so is not really all that extreme. Each one takes a piece of me with them when they go. Each one has been dearly loved and has given me a very valuable part of themselves.