Funny Video!

Check out this music video about a kitten! He looks just like Joey and it's hysterical. I hope you enjoy it.

Thanksgiving

Denis and I went to the house of a family from our church on Thursday. They annually invite several people and this is the first time that Denis and I have both been able to attend. It was really fun - visiting with folks that we knew and some that we had just met, eating wonderful food very little of which I had to prepare.

I have so many blessings to be thankful for this year. I'm so thankful for my husband, he is a faithful, kind and gentle man and I'm honored that he's in love with me. I'm thankful for my health and the well-being of all our extended family. I'm so thankful for this job that I really enjoy. We also have a new praise - Denis has accepted an on call position in the occupational health department of our health care system. We hope that will turn into a part time position that will be less stressful for him than the ER where he works now. I'm thankful that we have a strong church body that we belong to and have some good friends in.

All of these blessings come from the hand of the great God of the universe. He has blessed me with these insignificant material things in addition to the greatest gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. I'm so thankful that I can trust in His loving care for me.

I have been feeling pretty down since Phoebe got sick. This is really good for me to "count my blessings". Phoebe's hanging in there, not really getting worse or better. I made an appointment for Tuesday to have her bloodwork repeated. We will have a difficult decision to make based on the results.

Today I made a turkey for the first time all on my own. My mom is in Ohio visiting my brother. Since we went to someone else's Thanksgiving, I missed having left-over turkey, stuffing and gravy. So I bought a turkey on Friday. I'm not good a price comparison, so I hope that I got a good price... It came out really good. I'm pretty proud of myself... :o)

Worried

Here is what has been occupying my thoughts and time lately. My precious kitty Phoebe is sick. We noticed about 3 weeks ago that she was getting pretty thin and at her annual physical one week ago today that was confirmed. She had lost 6 lbs in the last year and was 1 lb underweight. Lab tests and an ultrasound showed some low grade liver failure possibly caused by a gallbladder infection and anemia. We started a two week course of antibiotics which is almost halfway through now, as well as vitamins and a gallbladder medicine.

The trouble is that there is no noticeable improvement in Phoebe after a week of treatment. She still is eating very little and is not her usual self at all. As you may remember, Phoebe has always been the very social cat, generally following me around all day to be in the same room and watch what I'm doing. In the last week, she has been withdrawing, hiding much of the day. The more I try to get her to eat, the more she pulls away. It's been very sad. I have to force those vitamins down her twice a day and I give her one pill in the AM and the other in the PM. I've been trying to consolidate the bad stuff and not bug her too much the rest of the time so that she won't withdraw even more.

On the positive side, she does still want to cuddle with me at times, particularly at night. She still grooms herself from time to time and she's still interested in going outside. As long as there is hope that she will improve with this, than I'm willing to continue, but i don't want to distress her if it's not going to make her better. We'll know more next week when we repeat the blood work. We made an appt. to take her in today and see if another boost with subcuatneous fluids might help.

New Haircut

My hair was getting pretty long and it was frazzled at the ends, so I decided it was time for a big change. I went darker with the color and got it cut much shorter. Here it is still styled by my hair stylist. I really like how nice and smoothly straight she gets it. Fortunately, Denis actually prefers it the way I do it, which is without much effort put in! It took me several attempts at self-portraiture to get one I was satisfied with.

Recent pics

Well, I'm going to try to make these worth the wait... Here are some scenic and family pictures from the past couple of weeks. We had my brother Jim visit for a week and took him up to Crater Lake. I hadn't been there in a few years. It was a beautiful day, so the lake was reflecting the blue sky. The Mt. Hood pictures are from a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy!