Great Googly Moogly!

First things first: I must apologize....it's been ONE MONTH to the day since my last post. THAT is unacceptable! I have a ton of excuses lined up...among them poor me, busy me, work this, blah blah blah...but quite honestly there's not even ONE good reason.

TEN DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS! Can you believe it? I'm floored by the thought. Astounded. Where oh where did the year go?

OK..enough of the small talk. PG is doing great. As good as we could have possibly hoped for. We have her out of the soft cast and she's wearing a plastic 'brace' that is made for just this sort of thing. It's Velcro-strapped to her leg, and I add 2 strips of the stretchy-clingy bandage wrap stuff to help hold it. The length is just right, but she has tiny thin bird-like legs and it's fallen off twice until I started adding additional wrapping inside and out.
 

 Here she is waiting for dinner. She puts weight on the foot whenever standing, 

but still holds it up to walk about.

She has a sore or two inside there and I hit them with Neosporin every morning when I put the brace on, and she licks it to death every evening at bed time when I take the brace off. Without the brace she continually puts the foot down toes-first and they bend under and she will stand on them...not sure how far down the feeling has come but it's not there yet. We have an appt w/ the surgeon on New Years Eve day, and I'll find out then and have a good idea how far it's moved in the last month, thus how many months to go roughly. In the meantime, she's loving life. She eats fresh chicken and veggies morning and night, and LOVES LOVES LOVES her new food. As long as the cancer remains in-check, she will be living the dream!

Being as it's been an entire MONTH (ie: since BEFORE Thanksgiving) that I last posted, I need to catch up. The farm. We had a great time at my bro-in-law's farm in Virginia over Thanksgiving as usual. The weather wasn't too bad either...a bit chilly the first day but probably in the 60's most of the days after that. Still quite chilly at night, but the good ol' cast-iron wood stove works it's magic, and he can pretty much heat the entire house with that alone. Here's some VA pics:

We flew into Richmond and drove over to Williamsburg that evening to our hotel. The next morning we met Jeannie's good friend Barbara, who drove over from Norfolk (they were college buddies). Barb so very thoughtfully brought ME a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts! MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

 Here's Barb and Jeannie

 This was our Thanksgiving turkey. I had to help John (my bro-in-law) "prepare" the bird...ie: we had to catch it, de-head and bleed it, pluck it, and finally John did the 'cleaning', until you see the big-ol' tom looking pretty much like a grocery store bird. I think it weighed out around 23lbs. (did you know the Tom turkeys have big spikes on their legs like roosters? I didn't! Thankfully John tackled the bird and I helped get him 'in the bag', and neither one of us got spurred).

 Here's me and my 'bro' John (he's wearing MY coat btw)

Here I am doing my best farmer imitation. I'm driving a hay-bail out to the cows (wearing the obligatory NRA hat). Most of the people out here are either hunters or Amish...certainly the area is a bastion for the right to own guns and would be pretty tough to disarm. I'd think an invading army would have a rather tough time taking the US...we have a LOT of hunters. I heard something about the hunters in the four states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio and one other state in that area would constitute one of the largest 'armies' in the world. And that's just four states!

Here I'm taking care of the goats and dogs (the dogs are Great Pyrenees, 2 of them...NOTHING will mess with these goats I can tell you!) Goats are kind of like big dogs...they LOVE attention and are quite gentle and loving. That's Neo in the background (the dog)...he's a big chicken, but his sister Gabby in the front would lead the way if anything 'protection' wise needed to be done.

That about wraps up the farm stuff...it was a nice stay and was over all too soon. We flew home on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, getting home around midnight. Then on Sunday around 11am I flew out (for work) to Colorado Springs. No rest for the weary I tell you! That trip was a success and over in a blink, flying home that Friday. Since then it seems there just hasn't been time for anything...somehow the days are zooming by and I feel like I'm running behind schedule constantly. I did FINALLY finish my 2012 Christmas cards and letter....the first few are in the mail, and my GOAL for this weekend among other things is to get them ALL in the mail by Monday. Oh, and I finally got the Christmas lights up last weekend also!

Here's the house...pretty much the same as last year except I've added the big 'tree' in the front yard. I designed it to go on the roof, but it's been raining a lot and our cement tile roof is like greased lightening unless it's TOTALLY dry....and Jeannie likes it in the yard, so that's ok by me. I have some changes in mind for next year, just need to get a few new light sets. This year the neighbors on both sides are lit up also...our three houses in a row look just grand! It would really be something if more neighbors would take the hint...our entire little street could be the one people drive to see (and space station astronauts take pictures of from orbit!)

Tonight (Saturday) we are heading to a Holiday party...hosted annually by one of Jeannie's co-workers. It's always a great time and this years theme is 'tropical'. Sadly, I couldn't find my box of 'jams' (Hawaiian shorts and stuff) from LONG ago in a prior lifetime...I'd have been a sight to cause sore-eyes for sure! Alas, I'll have to look respectable darn it. I know that box is up in the attic somewhere! 

Anyway, again I apologize for the lack of effort on my part here at the Asylum...hopefully things are going swimmingly for you out there in the real winter...and your Christmas shopping is all done and you are sitting by the fireplace sipping spiked egg-nog watching Christmas specials and listening to Christmas music. We have our holiday decorations up inside and out, and I'm really getting into the mood. Until the next time, stay warm and think good thoughts!

Cheers!