It's starting to sink in

Ok, so hubby's been gone 1 week. Now, he's usually gone for 4- 6 weeks at a time anyway for work (as an electrician on the north slope Alaska oil fields) so we really didn't expect things to fully set in for several weeks. But today, for whatever reason, I've suddenly gone really sad. He's far away (ok, not as far as he will be yet, but, the midwest is still pretty far from here, 4 time zones...) and I'm just sad. I miss him.

why, why, why.. oh why....

Ok, so.. Thanksgiving is over and I can sit still and breathe again for a moment... maybe...
For the last several months we've been ramping up and trying to get things ready and all set for my husband's deployment. Part of that included switching my two younger step daughter's winter visitation from the originally scheduled Christmas this year to Thanksgiving. We managed to get that done, and we decided to go ahead and do a mini-Christmas while they were here as well.
This meant that lots of things had to get done in time.. and sadly, every time hubby was home from his job (he works on the north slope oil fields and is generally gone from home for 2-6 weeks at a time with 2 weeks back home inbetween..) the national guard stole him away for training, so it wound up that I had to take care of everything. This not only included getting things ready for the holidays, but since he was never home, it meant that I pretty much had to get all his gear ready for deployment as well. And then I spend most of the month of October out with a really REALLY nasty cold/infection.. so.. I've been looking forward to the the post holiday break... I've now pretty much got nothing to do.. No one will be here for Christmas/New Years except myself and the dogs, so it's going to be pretty low-kwy and laid back...
Don't get me wrong, Thanksgiving was lots of fun. Actually got the meal timed perfectly, lots of great food (though, of course, phone rang just as we were about to sit down, and it was family we couldn't ignore..*sigh* but even so, things went pretty well.) The girls had a great time, oodles of snow to play in, with more falling all weekend.
But Sunday, things started to go downhill. We got up at an hour no one ever wants to see to get the girls to the airport on time for their flight back to their mom's. That trip was nicely uneventful, and we got back home in time to take a bit of a nap before having to get back up to go to church, or at least to sacrament meeting. Hubby had to be on Base that afternoon for a "bag check" which meant we weren't going to be able to stay for the whole meeting. BUt, we didn't even get that. While hubby was in the shower getting ready to go, we got a call from my step son. He informed us that he hadn't been feeling well for a few days and now he thought he should go to the emergency room. So, we had to go help take care of that. He'd skipped coming home with us for Thanksgiving so he could clean and paint the apartment he was moving into on the 1st (landlord said he'd waive the security deposit if they did this..) and turns out he should have worn a ventilation mask. The asthma that hadn't bothered him in years got woken up during the cleaning/paiting, and then, oh yeah, he had pnuemonia. So he was in the hospital for about 8 hours of treatment before they'd let him leave, and they really wanted to keep him over night, but he didn't want to stay...
Then this morning, I took hubby back to base to drop him off. Had to be there at 9 am.. so we get there, he turns in his bags, and they say, "ok, be back at 3" which we hadn't planned on. This was supposed to be a matter of dropping him off and coming back home.. so, plans changed. I certainly liked having the extra hours, but we both agreed it would have been nice to know about this in advance so we could have planned something.
Anyway, so when I get home, much later then planned (we'd left the house at 7:30 am and I got back around 4) discovered that a) the front door is stuck shut. It will not budge for anything. Fortunately I can get in through the garage, but, this is going to be a problem. And b) we left Gir (one of our tiny poms) on the sofa all day. She can actually jump off on her own, but she tends not to, and true to form, she stayed up there all day.. *sigh* needless to say, she ran for the dog door as soon as i got her off.
The front door though, that is really bugging me. I've tried a few things already tonight to try and pry the stupid thing open. None of them worked. Did talk to Hubby a bit while he was waiting for his plane and have a few more things to try, but I think I'm going to wait til tomorrow to try those. But, why???? Why do these things always happen as soon as he leaves?? He's going to be gone an entire year, you think the disasters could wait a few days.. weeks, months even...
Just really, REALLY frustrated right now. I'm supposed to be up at the church here in a few mintues, but I don't think I'm up for it tonight. I think at this point, I'm about up for crawling into bed andmaybe watching tv for a little while til I just completely become numb for a little while.
Hopefully tomorrow (which was supposed to be day 1 of my long de-stressing relaxation weekend before tackling all the post holiday clean-up..) I will be able to fix the stupid door and actually get myself pulled back together.

colds suck

Ok, this is kind of a pointless blog, but I'm tired of being sick. I had thought I was finally getting over this stupid cold and then all of a sudden it decides to come back in for an encore performance.
I hate this. All day and night it's nothing but racking, hacking coughs and head congestion. The congestion, at least is mild and under control. I just want the wretched coughing to go away. How can I get ready for this year's Thanksgiving/Christmas combo when I barely want to drag myself out of bed? *sigh*
Bother...
Anyway, with Tom's up coming deployment, we've got the kids for Thanksgiving this year instead of Christmas, like we normally would have this year. This way they can spend time with their dad before he leaves. This has thrown our original plans for Thanksgiving all awry and we are now combining both holidays. We're thinking of doing Christmas on Thanksgiving morning, and then Thanksgiving in the afternoon. This really won't vary too much from most people's Thanksgivings, except there will be the addition of a Christmas tree and presents...
For us, however, we have usually spent Thanksgiving with a large group of friends. They all get together at our church building, food assignments are broken down so no one is in charge of everything. There are usually games, movies, and some things that I'd best not mention for insurance purposes. It's a big all day shindig. Not at all what I was ever use to. This year, we'll be skipping that, though, and just go back to spending the day together as a family. (Though we might stop by there for a little while so the kids can play and see their friends.)

Meanwhile, if any of my friends ever actually read this (heh) if you want to come to Alaska for Christmas, I'll have plenty of room this year. Just so long as you can put up with the dogs :)

wow.. time flies...

Dang, I didn't realize it had been so long since I was last on here...
life happens I suppose... :)

Let's see, what has happened since I last posted..
well, all of our mice and gerbils have died of old age.. Well, the gerbils had health problems and just died on us.. but the mice all got old and died. Though right at present, I've got a wild mouse we caught about 2 weeks ago in a tank downstairs.. We caught her in a live catch trap and dumped her in an old empty tank until we could release her out in the woods.. cept the silly thing went and gave birth to a litter of, I think, 7 2 days later, so she's been getting a nice cozy little tank to nest in while we wait for the babies to get old enough to release. So they have about another week while I work on building a release box for them that will hold some nesting material and a food stash, since it has already frozen and dumped snow a few times.

Our older pom, Rocky, passed away in April of 07. Right around the time of all the dog food tainting, though not related. His heart meds had slowly been causing problems with his kidneys, and it all just finally got to be too much for him. I got up one morning and he had just colapsed, his back legs wouldn't work anymore, so I got him settled in his basket and brought him water, offered food, etc. But knew the end was near. A few short hours later, he just quietly fell asleep and passed away. He was a very good dog, very loving and well behaved. He is still missed.
That took us down to just 2 dogs, our other pom, Pepe, and the JRT, Willow. Hubby and I discussed it and decided that we'd like to look into getting another pom, and I started looking around at local breeders, expecting to get on a waiting list, but found one who had a lovely little boy we could have right then and there.. and for free! But, he had a few problems.. He was born with several birth defects, but given my history with dogs, it wasn't anything that we couldn't handle. (I've ahd several dogs with assorted medical issues over the years.) So on Memorial day, 2007, we brought home a very active little pup, just 7 months old and named him Gobo. We took him in to get neutered, of course, though it was more a formality as one of his birth defects would make breeding near impossible, but while he was under the knife, the vets tried to make things look a little neater for him as, well, there just is no polite way to say it, his penis was exposed. The skin that would normally cover his eurethra just wasn't there, so there is some exposed membrane that could cause later problems with infection. So they were trying to move some skin over that area to cover some of that up. Unfortunately, it didn't work, and we found out that he had an even weirder case then first thought, as he does not pee from the tip, but from an opening about half way down.. which they'd covered up.. So we had a bad abcess.. and the poor little guy spent most of the summer being restricted to the house and kept away from all the neighbor kids while he healed up... So, needless to say, he has become a serious momma's boy.
Then in December, I got a call from the same breeder. She'd bought a beautiful little female up to add to her breeding stock, but at 2 years old, she barely weighed 3.5 pounds and was just too small to use. So she wanted to know if we knew of anyone looking for a pom as a pet. Couldn't find anyone (which is odd.. when I don't know of any available, everyone's asking me.. but when I do have one available, no one wants em..). So, she came to join our bunch as well. Turned out, the little thing had just terrible teeth. She had a complete second set of cainines, so she had 4 extra teeth in her little mouth, so it hurt for her to try to eat. So, we talked to our vet, pushed a ton of soft food on her to try to get her weight up a smidge, then took her in to have her teeth done. In addition to the 4 extra teeth, she had to have 12 others pulled because they were loose or soft. She's up just over 4 pounds now (which is where she should be, she's just a tiny, delecate little thing, unlike stout, and very much over weight Pepe, or big, surdy Gobo who is twice her size) and just a joy. We named her Gir, and if you are familar with Invader Zim, the name suits her perfectly.

In august of 2007, I was in a very bad car accident. I had gone to the airport to pick my husband up, and on the way, I stopped for the light, but the very big delevery truck behind me, didn't quite make it. My poor station wagon, which I loved, was completely crushed. The back end just all crumpled right up to just behind the driver's seat. Fortunately, the kids had decided to stay home, so it was just me in the car. I was able to walk away, thankfully, though a good deal of that had to do with the shock. A few hours later, I could barely move. When I saw my x-rays, I was very very thankful. My spine was so shaken and just all over the place, that it was truely a miracle that nothing got pinched or severed. I was in a LOT of pain though, and really couldn't move much. We managed to get the kids back to their mom's for the school year, and bought me a new big car - hubby decided after seeing the car that he wanted lots of space between me and anyone behind me... and got me settled into a routine for trips to the chiropractor before hubby had to leave to go back to work again. The next few months were very interesting. I was in pain almost non stop, couldn't walk, couldn't sit, couldn't stand for more then 5-10 minutes at a time. could barely move my right arm, wasn't supposed to lift anything, etc... but.. no one else home most of the time. But, doc was pleased, said my recovery went better and faster then he expected, and about 10 moths later, I was released from care. I still have occasional pain, limping, and such, my pelvis was twisted very badly as well, and it just won't go back 100%. Mostly I just have to try to loose some weight, which is extra annoying because I had been loosing weight before the accident and doing really well for the first time in years. Of course, after the accident, I coulnd't do anything, so gained everything back, and now it hurts more to do stuff, so it's harder to get myself to do it.. mean mean cycle...

Let's see.. in October last year hubby and I went to Indiana to visit his mom and sisters. I'd only met his mom once before and hadn't met any of his siblings. It was hard on me to make the trip, but it was well worth it, as a month after we got back, his mom passed away.

In November, my oldest step daughter made us Grandparents! Darn her!!! :) I'm much too young to be a grandma.. but then, I'm much too young to have a 21 year old.. :)
The baby is very adorable though. They both came up this last summer and spent a month with us. Bailey and the baby (Gaia) were a joy to have with us, and Gaia was one of the best behaved babies I've ever dealt with. Though their visit really re enforces the need to get a baby or two in this house full time.... *sigh* ... one day.. one day...

Every time we've gotten started on adoption paperwork, something comes up to but a delay in it.. last year, it was my car accident, this year.. well, we found out this past spring that my hubby will be deploying at the end of this year and be gone a year. So, that put another 2 year delay. *sigh*

This year, over all, has been fairly quiet, though extremely busy. and really doesn't look to be slowing down any time soon. Right now, I'm just happy gas has gone back down under $4 a gallon. :)