Fuzzy Feet

Before:

After:

Whew! What a job!

Feeling Left Out

The little one wasn't too pleased to be locked in the bedroom while the Direct TV guy roamed the house doing his thing. The looks she can give are hilarious.

Sleepy Face (aka Wrinkle Face)

Every once in a while when I'm lying on the couch watching TV, I'll glance down to the other end and see this looking back at me. It always takes me by surprise but makes me laugh EVERY single time! It's like she's just staring at me and plotting her revenge. In reality, it's her "just woke up" face and she's looking at me to see if I'm going to get up. I call her "wrinkle face" because of the big wrinkle that always shows up down the side of her face. Usually with that...and her realization that I'm not getting off the couch...I just get a huff and snort and she goes back to sleep.

Sorry about the quality of the picture...my cell phone sucks!

Can't Wait To See Her Buddy

She doesn't care where Papa is at. She just wants to show off her eyebrows. Just don't mention singing along with the guitar.

Happy Birthday, Puppy Love!

She's 6 today.

Poor George

George is giving me the thumbs up with his one remaining leg...letting me know he's okay. Or maybe that's his way of flipping me off since his fingers are stuck together. I can't tell. Maybe he's just curious as to what happened to his other leg. He is Curious George, after all.

She's Free!

No more cone! Abby had her stitches removed today, so she's back to normal. I'm actually not following the rules because they told me to leave the cone on until tomorrow morning since them disturbing the area might make her want to lick at it. I was so disappointed. Once we got home I just couldn't stand seeing her like that anymore and had to take it off. I knew I would be here all evening and would be able to watch her. She was so happy. I gave her a good neck & ear scratchin' and then she just rolled around groaning and rubbing her face on the carpet. She has only tried to lick the spot a couple of times once she settled down, and left it alone as soon as I told her no. What a relief...for her and for me!


Now we have to just wait for the hair to grow back!

She's Fine

Just a quick note to let you all know that Miss Conehead is doing fine. She is almost halfway through her sentence in regard to wearing this ridiculous piece of cold, hard plastic. I can't wait until the moment we can take it off. She will be in complete bliss.

We got good news back on the biopsy. The growth was completely benign...nothing to worry about whatsoever. It came back as a fibroma. In other words, just a huge skin tag. I'm so happy!

Can Momma really not see this thing on my head?

I will not be subject to this sort of humiliation.

If You Think She Looked Depressed Before...

You should see her now.


Look at her furrowed brow. The staff at the vet's office get a kick out of her oh-so-serious expressions.

She is not a happy camper wearing this thing, but the vet says as long as she will eat and and do her business while wearing it, she has to wear it until the stitches are removed...12 days from now. I feel so bad for her. My heart breaks every time I look at her. Her eyes are just pleading for me to take it off. She can't go up the stairs or get on the furniture. Her life is completely turned upside down. One thing that remains the same, however, is her appetite. She was asleep earlier and as soon as she heard me open her food container, there she was. She was only allowed 1/2 of her normal serving of food tonight, and she gobbled it right up. She has been drinking her water and she has been outside, so she's doing good. I hid her antibiotic in a smidgen of cherry cheesecake tonight. That made her happy.


WARNING: The picture below is of her stitches, so it's not for the squeamish.



We'll get the results of the biopsy in 5-7 days. She's on pain medication that she gets every 24 hours. Her eyes are still bloodshot from the anesthesia and she's all teary-eyed. Poor baby.

Well, I better get back downstairs. I just wanted to hop on here for a minute and let everyone know she's okay. I'll keep you posted.

Surgery

My baby girl has to have surgery on Wednesday. Abby has a fleshy growth on her leg that the vet is aware of and that we have been watching. At her last appointment, the vet decided to just leave it be if it's not bothering her. Which it wasn't until last night. It has slowly grown over the past year and last night something made her start licking it. It was all irritated this morning, so I got her in right away to have it checked out. The vet wants to remove it. Because of the size and location, they have to put her under to do it. They're going to send it for biopsy just in case, although she said 90-something percent of growths like this in dogs are nothing to worry about. I'm dropping her off at 7:30 on Wednesday and picking her up after work. Like I'll get any work done that day. I'm going to be a basket case. I worry about her getting anesthesia more than I worried about myself. The hardest part for her is not getting to eat after 6:00 Tuesday night. It's going to break my heart to see the look on her face as she's wondering where her breakfast is Wednesday morning. She is on an antibiotic right now, which hasn't been any problem at all. She'll take anything that she thinks is food. Tonight I wrapped it in a tiny bit of BBQ beef and she gobbled it right up without a thought. She's all about the food! She hasn't been trying to lick the area too much tonight either. I told her no a couple of times when she tried, and she has pretty much left it alone ever since.

I have included the picture below to illustrate the area of the growth. You can't see it in this picture because of her hair, but it will give you an idea of where it's at. The growth itself is probably about the size of my fingernail.


Anyway, I'll post an update Wednesday night to let you know how she's doing. Wish her luck!

Wordless Wednesday

Sorry, Charlie. It's not for you.

Waiting for a bite of my cookie...which she is not going to get....

Because it's chocolate.

How dare I make a type of cookie she can't have.

Bah Humbug

I think Abby was getting tired of our Christmas card photo session.

Okay, So I Lied

Remember my Food For Thought post from Sunday where I said the thing I was most grateful for at that moment was that I didn't have strep throat. Well, I take that back. I got a call from the immediate care clinic this evening. The rapid strep test was negative, but the culture that they sent out came back positive. They called in a prescription for an antibiotic right away. I've been at work the last couple of days spreading my germs around. The health department was at the school today to give the employees their flu shots, and I decided to not get mine. I usually do, but I wasn't sure if I should this time with being sick. I read online that it should be okay if you don't have a fever. I'm glad now I decided against it.

Anyway, that's my big news for today. I guess I'll change what I'm grateful for is that I did decide to go to the doctor and am now on antibiotics.

I have one more thing for you today. Here is a picture of Abby posing in her new Christmas collar that mom made her. It's hard to get a good angle where her long hair doesn't cover it up.


She's so silly. I was on my way upstairs this past weekend when I told her to come upstairs when she gets a chance to try on her new collar. A few minutes later, here she comes and sits down in front of me. I take her old collar off and put her new one on and then she sat patiently while I adjusted the settings on my camera. She posed for some pictures and then I changed the collars back, saving this one for closer to Christmas, and she promptly sauntered off to go about her business. She's such a good girl.

Just What We Needed

They're creepy and they're kooky...

Mysterious and spooky...
They're altogether ookey...
They're Cookies By Design.

Look what Paul won in the United Way raffle at work. Of course, the diabetic man wins the cookies. I knew he would win it as soon as he told me it was one of the prizes. He sent me a picture message at work showing me his prize. I answered it and told him not to open it because I wanted to take a picture to post. I never heard back from him about it. I figured that's because it was too late. As it turns out, he opened it to share with some of the guys at work, so that's fine. He brought home what was left so I could get a picture. Cute, huh? They do a really nice job.

Abby's very interested in the art of cookie photography.


As a matter of fact, it's her dream job.


If you have any cookies you want photographed, she'll gladly send you back the pictures. There's no guarantee on the cookies. Send at your own risk.

Good Golly, Miss Molly!

Abby had another visitor on Friday evening. Sheila and Dave came for dinner and brought Molly with to play with Abby. She's really grown the last time I saw her! She and Abby had fun chasing each other around the yard. Abby just loves to run and play with puppies or little dogs. Miss Molly sure has a lot of energy...completely wore Abby out. She had to keep stopping and lying down to catch her breath. She just loves to run around and play with little dogs.

I'm Beginning To Think It's Fake

A few months ago mom bought three orchids. She kept one for herself, gave one to Jackie, and gave the other to me. As mom gave it to me, Paul walked over, gently stroked the stalk of the orchid, and apologized to it for having to come home with me, as it would most likely suffer the same fate as many other houseplants that I have tried to grow over the years. I have a very bad habit of forgetting to water my indoor plants. Well...just so you know...mom's blooms fell off her orchid months ago, and mine still looks exactly the same as it did the day I brought it home...which leads me to believe that my orchid is fake. Mom, did you give me the fake orchid? The only thing that makes me think otherwise is that I think the leaves have grown larger.



Here's Abby looking not so interested in the fact that I'm taking pictures of the flowers rather than cooking dinner.

Weekend Catch-Up

Appetizer
When you drink soda/pop/coke, do you prefer to drink it from the bottle, a can, or after pouring it into a cup?

After pouring it into a cup. I try to get as much of the fizz out of it as possible. Drinking it out of a can is the worst, and I prefer to let it sit for a little bit before I drink it. When drinking it out of a bottle, I tend to shake it up a little (then open it s-l-o-w-l-y). By the way, I call it "pop." Paul calls it "soda."

Soup
What television show are you willing to stay up late to watch?

We tend to stay up later to watch most shows these days because we tape most of them on the DVR and watch when we can...or after the show is over so we can fast-forward the commercials.

Salad
Name one person, place, or thing you think of as brilliant.

God's Paintbrush

Main Course
Would you be willing to work 4 10-hour days instead of 5 8-hour days in order to save gas?

Sure...but only if the fifth day was a Friday or a Monday so I could have a three-day weekend.

Dessert
If you were a superhero, what would you call yourself?

Mighty Monica...Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and eat chocolate cake and Cheetoes without gaining a single pound. By day she's a mild mannered dog groomer, by night she avenges animal cruelty with the help of her sidekick Super Abby!

SIMPLE SATURDAY

Layout from Clean & Simple Stamping

SCRAPPIN' SUNDAY

Quick Page by Bubbles Babbles.

Playing Catch-Up

I'm still working a lot of overtime hours at work. The extra money has been great, so I'm not going to complain too much. Sorry it's been about a week since I posted. Since most of the shows that we watch have had their season finales, I'll hopefully have a little more time to blog...and do stuff to blog about! I thought I would start by catching up on some of my regular weekend posts.

Friday's Feast - There hasn't been one for the past couple of weeks because the chef is on vacation. They'll be back on June 6th with some new questions.

Simple Saturday - After I left work Saturday afternoon, we went to Algonquin with Jerry, Krista, and Jesse. Krista had never been to an Archiver's so us girls went shopping while the guys sat outside and talked. It was a beautiful day. Then we grabbed lunch at Cheeseburgers In Paradise. I bought this set by Hero Arts. The sentiment is a rub-on.

Scrappin' Sunday - I know...I strayed from this for a few weeks, but I really want to get back into it. This week's page uses a quick page from Designs By Lorie. The journaling reads, "Abby loves to sit out in the front yard while I'm tending to the flowers. She'll sit there forever just watching what's going on in the neighborhood."

She Really Needed It!

Since I didn't work any overtime today (by choice), Abby and I had some time to spend together, and I was able to give her her much, much, much needed haircut. I think she's pretty happy with it. It's a good thing she has curly hair and you can't really see what a chop job it is! You would NOT believe the pile of hair I cut off of her. I swear it was enough to make a whole other dog! Crazy huge pile! I'm sure she feels so much cooler. Poor thing has been walking around here panting up a storm. This weekend she gets a bath (shhhhh, don't tell her).

Here she's just irritated that I keep interrupting her bunny sniffing to take pictures.

A yellow lab just moved in next door, so she has a new fence-running buddy.

She just can't find that bunny!