Monday field trip, Tuesday coupons

This week I took a field trip with a couple of ladies I met at church.  They are both in their 70's and were born/raised in the southern Tennessee/north Alabama area.  One of them missed decoration day, which is when churches gather the last week of May and have a church picnic then clean up and re-decorate the cemeteries.  We stopped in Five Points, TN so she could place flowers on family graves.  We visited a little country store she remembered walking to from her grandparents' house when she was young.  There were a group of men sitting outside the front door talking, just like you would see on TV.  Mr. Ezell was working the counter and a little lady insisted we walk across the street to another store.  It had been an old cotton town and the building was part of that heritage.  It was going to be torn down and so she bought it to save it from demise.  It is currently an ongoing garage sale where people bring their stuff in on consignment.  Going to little places like that makes one extremely grateful for their blessings in life.  One of the things I ask God for daily is contentment with what I have, because I know it is more than enough.

I didn't take any pictures in 5 Points.  After that we headed up to Etherige, TN, which has an Amish community.  There are several shops there that sell Amish made furniture and quilts and such.  The workmanship is truly beautiful.  I bought a biscuit cutter made from several different woods, a hand painted bookmark and some almond brittle.  Then Ms. Jean decided I needed to see how these people really live, so she drove us down a little road where there were signs pointing to more goods for sale.  This "store" was on private property and was an unmanned shack in the front yard.  There were wind spirals from wood, baskets, jams, pickled things, etc.  It was on the honor system, just leave money in a box.  It was VERY unsanitary and so I passed on any purchases there.  I had always thought of the Amish as being impeccably clean, but this particular community didn't get the memo apparently.  I think the non-Amish community is capitalizing on them being there though.  We stopped at a country store where they were offering tours of the area by horse and buggy.  The wagon above actually has an advertisement painted on the side.



From there we went to Davy Crockett state park for a picnic lunch.  After lunch we drove through the park and went by the creek where there is a little waterfall.  It was very peaceful.

Davy Crockett State Park

Finished project

Here is a cute little quilt that was made from a kit I picked up at Tuesday Morning. It is about 32 inches square. After piecing and quilting feather designs in each square and binding it I hung it up for this pic and it was not until then I discovered that the row on the left was sewn on backwards. It is supposed to have a zig-zag pattern. At least my puppy does not notice my imperfections. This easy peasy quilt was made for her. I refuse to believe she is a spoiled dog.

And these are pea"mutt"butter cookies I made for her.  My DH really thinks  I need to get a job.  A little too much time on my hands perhaps?  I just like knowing what exactly is in the food we all are consuming.  There are literally 5 ingredients in these.  The recipe is from The Doggy Bone Cookbook by Michele Bledsoe.  I picked it up at Barnes and Noble and it even came with the bone shaped cookie cutter.  Maybe she is just a little spoiled.  But who can blame me after all she has been through in her little life? 

As for occupying my time, yesterday I did a training class to be able to help the Children's Advocacy Center by going into schools and teaching 3rd, 5th, and 7th graders about child abuse awareness.  I will also volunteer at the center.  Next week I am signed up for a First Aid class and CPR.  With the first aid I plan to volunteer at the high school in the first aid room and I will get those continuing education units I am needing to apply for my Alabama nursing license.  With that I might apply to be a substitute school nurse.  

Oh, and here is this week's completed project.  They are 3 zippered pouches that nest inside one another.  I was inspired by my dear friend to quilt the fabric for these a la "Vera Bradley style." It took about twice as long to complete a set of them this way, so will consider this in the future.  They turned out cute though.  I have created an Etsy account but have yet to list anything.  Maybe these are a candidate.

Poor doggy

Poor Izzie came in heat today.  She was long overdue, supposed to happen in June.  So she is wearing a diaper for the next month.  

I would have had her spade last spring but she had all sorts of health problems.  She started having nose bleeds in October.  It was very dramatic as my friend Ona will remember. She was diagnosed with a sinus infection and allergies. Shortly after that we moved from Texas to Alabama. The nose bleeds got worse and worse.  I will not get graphic but I had to lock her in the laundry room and suffice it to say the walls of that room got scrubbed more than twice.  We then spent over $600 sedating and taking xrays of her head to find nothing.  Switched vets.  In November the new one took her blood pressure.  It was 220/120.  (It is supposed to be like a human around 120/80).  So from there they tried to find out why it was so high.  An EKG and chest xray showed a super huge heart.  She went on medicine twice a day for the blood pressure and the nose bleeds stopped. 

We went away for Christmas and boarded her at the vet's office.  When I picked her up she had a huge abscess on her forehead.  It seemed that she got bit, but they don't let the dogs mingle.  It was mysterious.  The vet felt so bad that they didn't even notice the pus-filled lump on her head until I was picking her up that he treated it for no charge.  She seemed to get better. 

Then in April I noticed that her palate on top of her mouth was swollen.  By the time she got into the office for surgery on it it was bulging down below her teeth.  That was April 26.  A very bad day because not only did I take her in, but two close family friends passed away that day.  The next day it got worse.  The tornadoes plowed through this part of the country and devastated the community.  Izzie was at the vets because she had two teeth removed due to the bone in that part of her face being eroded and all sorts of nastiness still draining from the sinus it created.  The entire north Alabama area was without power and so I had no way of being in contact with the vet.  I did go there a couple of days and left a note on the door and they responded in kind.  Because of the storms and power outage it took more than a week for the tests to come back telling what antibiotic would work on the infection. The vet and I actually had a conversation about putting her to sleep because she wasn't getting better. Then the results came back that she had been on the wrong antibiotic.  Once she got on the right one she started to get better.  In all, Izzie was at the vet's for 17 days and I couldn't see her during that time because she might think that she was coming home if I went to visit and that would have been mean.  Dr. Wilson was awesome and only charged me half of the bill and Izzie actually is excited and happy to go to their office, even after being tortured there.  She is such a sweet, crazy dog.  The vet told me that if I had decided to stop treatment that he would have tried to save her anyway and one of them would have taken her.  Thankfully it all turned out okay and we have our family pet still.  Oh, and we still aren't 100 percent sure of what happened.  It seems she may have been bit even before I got her in June, and the abscess would recede every time she went on antibiotics. The infection led to the large heart and high blood pressure and that is what causes the nose bleeds.  Any ways, in short, she will be going back for another surgery in about a month, to be spade. 

I just felt like running

Note to self: when posting from email a picture will go through but not the text. Grrr. The past four posts I had to recreate mostly. I am posting from my phone and I-pad because my iMac crashed and burned. I found out today that they weren't able to rescue any of my stuff. Pictures, music, programs, applications all of it is gone. I just want to cry. I already bought an external hard drive for future backups, but it is a little too late.

On to the above photo. That is the greenway in Huntsville where I like to run. When I lived in Frisco, TX (a suburb north of Dallas) I trained for and ran two marathons. As the training progressed the distances got longer and longer. So instead of running a loop many times in my neighborhood I would weave in and out of adjoining neighborhoods. The most interesting it got was looking at the landscaping jobs. Now there are trees and birds and a creek. I can also go hike in the mountains where there are trails if I want some more challenging terrain. I am pondering the idea of doing another race, just a half this time though. I really need to drop some weight if I want to get a decent time though. Sounds like another goal to work on, because I don't have enough to do, ha ha.

School is in!

We are rejoicing here in Huntsville, AL. Well maybe not WE per se because I don't think the kids are, but I certainly am. Schools started August 8. Early by all standards but they do get a fall break and Thanksgiving and Christmas. So they still only get 180 instructional days.

I have kept myelf busy these past three days. Cleaning, grocery shopping, freezer cooking, baking dog cookies. Yes, I have officially gone over the edge and my dog is spoiled.

His new toy

This is the new to him car we got for dear son. It is as much for my sanity as his pleasure. I might need to get a job just to pay for the increased insurance premiums!

Testing to see if this posts from a text message.