Christy’s Ramblings

Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day! 

Blue Boy is happy as a lark.  As of his vet checkup today he is officially off 24/7 cage rest!  After 6 weeks that has to be a relief to him (and to us).  He’ll still be in the cage when we aren’t home to watch him and probably at night to keep him from jumping on the bed and hurting his back again, but he’s free to roam during the day!  He’s off the prednisone and only on metacam and some other preventative daily meds.  He doesn’t need a recheck for three months, unless other problems come up, so it’s a good day for all!

I’m an avid reader, usually reading 3 to 4 books a month. Sadly, the last several months have been uber busy and I’m only a fourth of the way through “The Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follett that I started in…*gasp*…September! The shame! I finally did pick it back up yesterday while waiting on an appointment and got back into it again. Maybe I’ll finish it before spring! If you’re interested in any other good books, see my book list.

Last weekend one of the kings got broken. Before I glued him back together I wanted to do something with his beheading.  After Jason and I set up about 70 different shots at different angles and setups, this one appealed to me most, though still not exactly what I wanted.  Playing again with my little Vivitar SF-3000 with some gels.

I ended up working from home today.  We only got about a 1/2″ of snow, but the roads were horribly slick this morning.  I actually attempted to get to work, and would have been fine in my truck, but the main road outside of my neighborhood was gridlocked for at least two hours.  I figured I was better off remoting in from home and saving myself a potential wreck and two hours wasted sitting in traffic.  I actually got more than usual done work-wise due to no interruptions.  Too bad they don’t let us do that more often!

When I looked outside and saw this perfectly melted round circle in the middle of the pond I knew exactly what my project photo needed to be!  Most of the snow has melted, but the pond is still pretty solid, though I didn’t dare step onto it just in case.  Jason assisted me and rigged up Monkey’s fishing rod for me.

Blue went in for his recheck today and the vet said she was “cautiously optimistic” that he would not need surgery on his back.  But he’s in for another four weeks of cage rest and then goes for another recheck after that.  He’s also been put on some other maintenance meds to help strengthen his back and hopefully keep this from happening again.  At least he’s already a fairly lazy dog so the cage treatment really doesn’t seem to bother him much.

Big Worm landed himself on our doorstep about 9 years ago. He was skin and bones, full of fleas and, you guessed it, full of worms. He’s all healthy and neutered and stuff now, but rarely allows photos. He’s an outdoor cat and we built him a heated cat box that sits on the front porch. The box is made out of a thick Styrofoam fish cooler with the lid screwed on and a hole cut in the side just big enough for Worm to crawl through. We then cut some laminate floor padding in strips to hang over the door to keep the drafts out, threw in a heated blanket and a fleece cover. He uses it all the time in the winter.

Portia is playing guitar in her music class so she’s learning some of the ropes from Jason.  Now she even has her own guitar!  She seems to be settling in well at her new school, even if she’s only been there 2 days before they had 2 snow days.  Her 17th birthday is Wednesday so she’s home for the weekend to celebrate with us.

There is no change in Blue today.  We’ll be evaluating him again in the morning before calling the vet to give a status update and see what’s next.  Stay tuned…

Poor B. Dog. He messed up his back again and is on vet ordered cage rest for 10 days. He is none too happy about this outcome. But it sure beats the 6 weeks of cage rest he required when he ruptured a disk.  We’re not really sure how he did it, but I believe it came about after a good round of rough housing with Buddy the Giant Dawg.  Then the next morning he jumped off the bed, yelped and started walking funny and all hunched over so it was off to the vet for a diagnosis of a severely pulled muscle.  Poor guy.  All in time for our first snow too.  We’re supposed to be getting 3 - 5″ tonight - so much for Blue’s playtime in the snow.  However tomorrow’s photo may be quite festive and seasonably snowy!

This morning as I was starting my truck to warm it up for my trek into work, the moon peeked out from behind the clouds and illuminated the branches of the neighbors tree in a great silhouette.  It was 13 degrees and a few flurries were falling.  So far it’s been a very cold year, about 20 degrees below Kentucky’s normal average.

I bought this in the Bob Evan’s store section of the restaurant one morning when we dropped in for breakfast.  I thought I’d like it hanging from my truck rear view mirror. Sitting in my truck after lunch today I found my idea for today’s photo.  Besides, it was way too cold to shoot anything outside with dress clothes on!  What hangs from your rear view mirror?