A break

From work! There's a ton to be said for 'vacation' days. There's tons to do here, and I still have some holiday visiting to do, but I don't have to 'go to work'. I'm breathing a sigh of relief. Now, if I could just get out of the Lancaster trip...

The holidays were, well, odd. The oldest kid stayed in her home - as I would have expected. The other kid came very late on Christmas Eve, along with the boyfriend and the grandpuppy. We sort of hung out in the morning, opened gifts, ate breakfast. From there, well, I napped. And baked a chicken. And watched TV. And missed Dakota. Horribly. I opened up one Christmas box to get the kids stockings, and there on top.... Dakota's. My breath caught, and I grabbed what I needed and shut the box.

But I did pick up Dee Dee Jonrowe's "Iditarod Dreams" today. I'd stopped reading it when Dakota passed, but I spotted it on my bookshelf, and found myself opening it. She's quite the woman - a survivor of much. It's where I thought my life would go, to the North, with my dog, and where I thought I'd finally become the woman I wanted to be.

Now I'm not so sure.

The Milestone

She's gone. It's taken me this long to sit here and let you know. And I am crying, crying like it happened just a heartbeat ago.
On November 16, I looked in her eyes and it was time. Dakota passed quietly to the Rainbow Bridge around 8:15 that evening.
I never thought I'd have the courage to do it, but I laid with her as they gave her the sedative, whispered all the right things in her ear. I read somewhere that hearing is the last sense to go in humans, and I sort of assumed the same for my baby. I stayed and I held her as they injected the drug to stop her heart. I must believe that everything else had shut down, but her heart was still beating for me. As odd as it sounds, I was closer to Dakota than any other living thing on this earth - and I have children and friends and a roommate. Letting her go was the most difficult thing I've ever had to do.
A piece of my heart went to the Bridge that night as well. Healing, well, I guess. Sometime, some day.
For now, I am needed at work. I will continue to bury my hurt there, and hope that when it's time to surface, I'll be able to face a future without my best friend.

Godspeed Dakota. Until we meet again.....

This sucks

About 10 days ago, my Husky fell off the bed. In the middle of the night. And my life has not been right since.
Dakota apparently had a seizure, possibly triggered by the kidney issues or dehydration. From there, bloodwork showed that the levels we'd been monitoring had skyrocketed. I agreed that her best shot was to go on 24 hour IV fluid therapy. She left me Thursday morning, stayed at the vets for the therapy. Then off to the 24 hour emergency vets to be monitored..... until the next morning.... then back to the vets...... then back to the 24 hour place until Monday morning.
It was working. It was stinkin' working. Then last Sunday, it didn't work. When I picked her up Monday morning, she was swollen with fluid.......... the kidneys couldn't handle it.
I elected to let nature take it's course. No more hospitalizations, no needles. She's home. I'm hurting.
It's almost time. She isn't eating, barely drinking, and started to vomit today. This all sucks, because this same dog greeted me at the door when I came home from the grocery store. It's like her mind is there...... but her body isn't.
I wish there was a concrete decision for her future journey. I really do. I know that no matter which one I make, I'll feel guilty and hateful toward myself.
My baby is dying, and I can't do a darn thing about it.
Except cry.

I'm just not a computer geek......

......... but I thought I'd jazz up the blog some. So it was off to thecutestblogontheblock.com, who did NOT have any snowy, wintery backgrounds! Disappointing, very disappointing.
So I picked this one. Hopefully they'll have some soon, since I have no friggin' idea how to do a background.
And yes, I'm bad. Well behaved women rarely make history. You know it! I've gotten a lot farther in this life being me.......... and not one of those well behaved women.

I spent a great deal of time contemplating and researching yesterdays post. Two things.

Thing #1 - no matter how much I don't want to admit it, the answer is exercise. My new best friend, my stationary bike!

Thing #2 - could it be the coffee? I read somewhere - lost the link - that coffee consumption can create sometypeof acid crystals that reside in your joints. OK. So it's no more coffee, and back to tea for me. There was a direct connection between the rise in my consumption of coffee and the pain, so.......... we cut it out to make sure.

Oh. And yeah, the Maple Leafs lost. But it was a good, well fought loss. Here's to hoping for a win tomorrow!!

Another one bites the dust

Yup. Another year older. I turned 48 the other day. Two years 'til the big 5-0.

Does it matter? Well, for the first time, I am thinking of myself as 'middle aged'. I know that there's been a big difference in my health over the past year. The arthritis diagnosis was a big blow, and while I'm thankful that all of the other things found came to be absolutely nothing, finding out that you have a good chance of two new shiny hips in your future isn't exactly comforting. I'm sort of attached to the old ones. I guess what got me even more was that I had to realize that as is, some of my dreams aren't going to come true. Right now, there's no way I could stand in a kitchen and cook for a living. For the first time I'm wondering if I am going to be able to stand behind a dog team on a sled. Or stop by that cabin surrounded by snow and beautiful quiet, even if it's just a day or so. I'm even questioning whether or not I could spend time in my car, traveling - running really - even if it's just for the weekend. I always said that if the time came, I'd take the keys from my Mom or my Dad, but let me tell you now, I think my own kids are going to have a hell of a time taking them from me!

So, what to do, what to do? If I had the answer, I'd be screaming it from the rooftop. I suspect that most of the solution is going to be taking better care of myself and trying to undo some of the damage. I don't think it will ever be as good as it was, but I think I have to try.

Fall

For the most part, I like fall. I love fall. It gives you a taste of things to come. Cool, sometimes cold nights, but thoroughly enjoyable days.
Except for the last few days, that is.
At least once each fall, there's a weekend that is RAW. Cold, raining, raw. Cold, OK. I'll even take rain. But together. No. Rain, rain go away.
This is one of those weekends, and I am scaring away the rainy day by lighting the fireplace up and getting the candles out. The first fire of the year is sometimes, not as successful as I'd like. It takes a while to get the fire going, maybe it takes a while to warm the fire box, I don't know. It's going now.
So are the smoke detectors.
Damn.
Next on the list? A warm stew dinner, and an evening hockey game. Yep, just me, the TV and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Sounds romantic, doesn't it?

Fall

It's fall freak out time!
Not that I'm worried about the coming winter, nosiree. Something so horrifying, so breathtaking that I almost dare not mention it here.
Colorfest is in two weeks.
What this means for me is that I get to run around like a cleaning fool, making sure every little corner of my house is spotless...... because Mom is coming. I know, strikes terror in your heart, doesn't it?
What's got me this year is all the 'stuff' I have to shuffle around. When Roomie's dad passed away, she took it as an invitation to just bring piles of crap here. Now, granted, it's her crap, but still, it's my house, and I'm quite frankly tired of 'making room'. I'm not a hoarder, by any stretch of the imagination. I want free space, blank space, white space (see how I snuck that snow reference in?!). I'm tired of pushing something over six inches to make room for a box or a bag or a piece of furniture. How many friggin' beds do we need, and how many more times are we gonna move 'em?
Sigh.
Behind me is an oak table, from Roomie's vacation cottage. There's a smaller one up there now. And a bench that went with said table. An empty - EMPTY - plastic bin. A chair that needs a cushion. A full sized mattress and box spring. Roomie's emergency bag from her car. Towels for the cottage. Ugh. All infringing upon my space.
I hate this.
I hate that I have to freak out, put away, hide and spit shine just so my mother can come and complain about it anyway. The bed is not comfortable, the house smells like cat, how do I stand the dog fur.
I'm telling you, that sled sounds better and better.

Obsession

Earlier this week, I was accused of being obsessed with my dog by Daughter #1. She didn't pussyfoot around, she outright looked at me and said:

"Mom, you are obsessed with your dog."

I don't think I responded to her then, but I can now. I will freely admit that I love my dog. My Siberian Husky is the dog of my life, the canine soul mate that everyone should get to experience at least once. But I'm not obsessed with my dog............ I'm obsessed with the lifestyle that my Siberian represents to me.

I am finding, as I age, that all I really want is to be alone. I want to load up my pared down possessions on a dog sled, and mush off in to the great white beyond. I want to find that cabin, you know, the one in the middle of nowhere, where all you can hear is silence and all you can smell is pine and woodsmoke. I want to spend some time with my mind not crowded by thought and my ears not assaulted by the endless drone of noise. I'd love to wake up each morning and sit on the porch in the glory of a cold, frosty morning, nursing my coffee and enjoying the solitude. Is there anything wrong with laying in bed at night and looking at the stars? Enjoying the company of a dog (or two, forgive me Dakota!) is far more palatable to me than sitting in a bar again because you know who is too lazy to go anywhere else or plopped in front of the tv for yet another episode of 'Wheel of Fortune'.

Alone. Winter. Pine. Siberian. Silence.

My new personal buzz words!