First Thursday in December

I'm title-challenged today. Obviously!

Otter is playing the asthma game. She woke up with a sore throat and has enough asthma symptoms that she stayed home from school. It's my turn to be home with her, Bill will get tomorrow's shift if she's still home. But hopefully she'll be able to go to school. It's been coming on for a few days, and there is still the possibility that it's a side-effect of the Clairitan although I don't think so since it started before she took it. It's also been extremely windy the last few days, which never helps. But we'll still watch her symptoms. She had a cup of hot tea with plenty of honey in it, and she's getting lots of liquids.

I didn't do a Whine Wednesday post yesterday because I'm not in a whining mood. We're too relieved that Frasier is still with us to whine about anything, because we really thought Tuesday that we were going to lose him.

Speaking of BigDog, he's really improving. He's spending a lot of time this morning on his blanket, but he is obviously happier and much perkier than he has been. It's cold and we're home so he's inside, and he seems to be pretty happy. It's still a job to keep him from licking or biting on the sore spot on his foot, the tumor, but we try to redirect him. Usually a belly rub works, and he never complains about that! Of course, that means that Maggie wants attention too, so there are usually two puppy bellies waiting. It's easy to give him the antibiotic pills, I wrap it in a small piece of bread and he's happy. The vet called earlier today, to check on him. They are happy he's doing so well. Now, if I could just keep him from licking the spot! Otter was thinking that I could possibly wrap something around it, but I think he'd just tear it off. The vet did say that sometimes they use the Elizabethan collars on dogs, but Frasier being Frasier (which means very smart), he would find a way around it. He's pretty determined, when he wants to do something he will figure out how.

Since I'm home, I've been doing laundry and what little house work I had. I've run the vacuum everywhere but the living room, I'll get it later on when Otter isn't in there. I've cleaned the stove and done a few misc. things that I wanted to do while I had the time. I also paid a few bills, which never seem to go away no matter how much we want them to! I'm probably going to work on a maroon and white scarf sometime today, in case a certain Froggy is interested. And I might do my weekly dusting. But that will also have to be done when Otter is not in the room.

Otter has a sewing project. For the costume party she went to in November, she was a pirate (obviously!) and we made the pants out of a pajama pattern. We used a soft velour type fabric and they turned out great. She uses them as pj's now. It was a sewing lesson for her. Now she's decided that she's ready to make a pair herself, so we went to the fabric store the other day and bought fleece. It's sky blue, which is my favorite color anyway but it's what she picked out. I washed the fabric yesterday, there was enough blue lint to float a boat with! Sometime in the next couple of days, she'll get started on her sewing. It might be Saturday before she gets to working on it, and I think she'll enjoy it. She's going to make a pj top as well as the bottoms. They will be very warm!

It's very cold today, I went out to get the paper and nearly froze. The birdfeeders were empty, and as cold as it is their probably aren't any bugs out for the birds to eat. So I refilled my feeders. I've gone through close to 25 pounds in the last week or so, and I have another 25 pound bag waiting to be used. Every time I look out, there are billions and billions of birds! The resident cardinal was sitting in the tree earlier when I was refilling the feeders. He was watching me, so I think he was waiting on me to finish so he could get back to eating. I also have some suet feeders, but they are not up yet. I might get them up soon, they seem to attract blue jays and the occasional woodpecker.

It got to the mid-20's last night, it should be even colder tonight. I also brought in more firewood when I went outside to take care of the birdfeeders. We had a nice fire yesterday, and we roasted more marshmallows. Tonight will probably be a repeat.

I finally got all the paperwork from the bank, so I was able to get the car title transferred and I now have a license plate. Which is a very good thing, the car needs to get washed but I didn't want to with the paper temporary license plate. It "only" cost me $550.00 to get it transferred! I was hoping it would be less, but I wasn't surprised. I'm also getting about 22 mpg city driving, so I'm not unhappy at all. :)

OK, I've piddled around on the computer long enough. Time to go get my laundry put up, then I think I'll get that dusting done and probably sweep the kitchen floor. Or maybe not, I am firmly convinced that the dogs wait for me to sweep. Then they run outside and play in the dirt! Maybe I should just go crochet instead?