Life with Dolly

I'm sitting here watching my cat on the windowseat, curled up in a ball sleeping. Dolly is the oldest pet I have ever had. We had a dog growing up, but he only lived to be 10. Dolly is going to be 12, and she is starting to show her age. She got sick in the summer, and I nursed her back to health. She is still recovering from that, and is still bony. She looks and acts completely fine, and is her ornery self :). We got Dolly as a kitten. My friend Nikki's barn cat had just had kittens, and she wondered if we wanted one. I wasn't really interested, but we wanted to come and see them. I saw Dolly when she was only a few days old, with her eyes still closed. We ended up taking her home when she was 9 weeks old. We named her Dolly because she would let me sit in a rocking chair and hold her like a baby and rock her. She was really healing for me, during a time when I was losing babies. When Evie was born, we started finding out how tolerant Dolly was. Evie would crawl up to her and squeal really loud....then grab her fur or tail with her little fists and pull. Dolly would yowl, but not bite, as we tried to unlock Evie's little fingers from Dolly's fur. When we got SiSi, Dolly glared at me for weeks, like, "How could you!" I'm not sure she still has forgiven me for that :).

This summer we experienced something with Dolly that will forever be in our family storybook. In fact, it is still brought up every week by either Evie or Jeff, in some way. I will say that if any of you have weak stomach's, you may not want to read the rest of this! lol! I still can't talk about it without hysterically laughing because it was so awful. Awhile back, a certain blogger friend told me I should blog about it, so I am. So if you get grossed out to the max, you can blame her...I won't name names (Liliana). lol :). So here goes! I spent 3 weeks living in the town Jeff had been working in. We thought we were moving there, and had moved a whole lot of our stuff there, along with our pets. When we found out that the company was closing soon, we decided Evie and I would move back home while Jeff continued with the job until it ended. We had the car loaded down to the max with all the stuff we were bringing back home. I don't know how we packed as much stuff in that Explorer as we did. It was amazing. We had the dog and 2 cats in the Explorer too. We put Daisy in a pet taxi and Dolly just sat on my lap during the trip. I didn't have a litter box set up in the car for them (no room!), so I tried to made sure I saw if they went before we left. We had traveled with them before and never had any accidents. I figured it was only a 2 hour drive. I mean, what could happen in 2 hours?? We were about 45 minutes from home when Dolly started acting funny. She was all over my lap, meowing and acting weird. I thought maybe she was scared. Why I thought that, I will never know. She has traveled with us countless times, and never been scared! So because she seemed so "scared" I decided to hold her like a baby. Oh yeah, real smart move on my part. Please note the sarcasm there. I look down and I see something on her tail. Then I yell to Jeff, "Oh no Jeff, she is pooping!" I had nowhere to put her because I had stuff between my feet in front of me, and there wasn't a single place open. We had just been to McDonalds, so I grabbed a napkin and tried to stop it. What happened next will forever be etched in my mind. We hear this popping sound, and like a cannon, Dolly shot liquid poo out out all over me, the window, and the door. It was everywhere. I just sat there in utter disbelief and said "Oh my word" about 500 times. Jeff pulled over into somebody's yard (it was out in the country, but on a busy road). He rolled the window down because of the smell, not thinking what would happen to the stuff all over the window! It smeared the poo all the way down the window as it went down. I threw Dolly outside into the yard, where she proceeded to throw up all over the grass. I sat there trying to figure out what in the world I was going to do, and then I started laughing hysterically. I have no idea why, but the whole thing was beyond disgusting, but so funny at the same time! I had no idea how to start with trying to clean things up. We only had some napkins and some hand sanitizer, and a little water. I did the best job I could. Then we had to cram Dolly, who was definitely not smelling like a rose at this point, in the pet taxi with Daisy. We rode with the windows down, and that 45 minutes home was the longest, stinkiest trip I have ever been on! We came into town, and had to wait 10 minutes for a train. I think we burned some nose hairs because of the smell in those 10 minutes. So really, the trip ended up being about an hour. I came home and washed my hands and legs about 50 times, gave the cats a bath, and hosed the car down with disinfectant. It was an experience I will never forget, that is for sure! It is a good thing I have a strong stomach. So are you all totally grossed out now :)?

Happy New Year!

Okay, I'm only 20 days late, but it is still a new year :)! We have been getting lots and lots of snow here, which has been really pretty. I am sitting here right now watching about 10 cardinals in the trees around our bird feeders. With the snow behind them, it sure is pretty.

I know it is only January, but I have been having fun trying to plan our garden. Last year was such a wild year for our garden. First, we dug up the garden in the spring, when Jeff was still unemployed. Then Jeff got a job 2 hours away from home, and we thought we were moving. We put the house up for sale, and we grass-seeded over the garden. Then Jeff found a job close to home, so we tore up the garden again. We didn't end up actually planting the garden until the end of June! It was amazing how God still blessed us with a good garden, even with us planting so late. This year it is fun to actually be able to plan more what I want. I got my latest heirloom seed catalog, along with some new books about gardening. One is about companion gardening, or what plants work best beside each other. The other is a seed saving book. I would like to be able to learn how to save seeds from my plants, so I don't have to keep buying tons of seeds each year. I also bought a book on herb gardens, but I haven't gotten that one in the mail yet. I really want to have a nice sized herb garden this year. I would love to grow things that I make tea out of, like chamomile. Our yard isn't very huge, so I am going to have to get creative! I would love to plant some fruit trees on our property too. We planted 4 blueberry bushes this past year in the side yard, and I want to get a few more. I can't wait until they start growing big enough to produce berries!!

I'm almost halfway done with homeschooling. We have done about 80 days so far. The breaks we have been taking every 5-6 weeks have been nice. Around Christmas, I started having doubts about the year-round schooling. I was wondering if I would really miss having a full 3 months off in summer instead of 6 weeks. After our 2 week Christmas break, I was shocked at how much Evie forgot. We had to go over a lot of stuff again. So it looks like year-round schooling is the way to go for us. I may take those 6 weeks in summer and spread them out, taking a week break after a week or 2. That way stuff will stay in Evie's memory more.

Evie started back to horseback riding again this week. She is on a much less ornery horse, which she is thrilled about. She is getting so comfortable with riding that they are tying up the lead ropes, and she has been riding without anyone holding the lead ropes. It has been really cool to see her grow so much with horseback riding. It is so refreshing to go to her therapeutic riding center. I love that the people there treat her like a person. They don't treat her like she is strange or different. They don't tell me I am doing a terrible job as a parent, or tell me that I need to control her hyperness by spanking her more (I can't tell you HOW many times I have heard that one--as if spanking magically solves hyperness). At her riding center, they treat Evie like the amazing human being that she is. It is so refreshing to go there, and it lifts me up. I am amazed at the lack of understanding most people have when it comes to sensory processing disorder. How people have treated us has been one of the hardest things for me to deal with as a parent. Anytime a kid is perceived as anything but "normal", it seems like either the parents or the kids get blamed. People say horrible, cruel things about us as parents, and about Evie. I haven't blogged much lately, partially because I have been going through some difficult times with all this. I have been quite outgoing and social for most of life, until recently. I have really started to become introverted and quiet because of the huge lack of understand people have had. Wow...didn't mean to go off on that. I honestly would love to write a blog post on how I am feeling, but it would probably not be the happiest blog post in the world! I am learning that God is the only one who can be trusted completely with things. I know that I can share how I am feeling with Him, and He won't judge me. If I feel all alone, without a friend, I know that He will be my friend. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have Him in my life.

Catching up

Wow, I am such a bad blogger. I have been so busy that I have neglected my blog. We had a really nice Thanksgiving. Of course we ate way too much as usual! The weekend of Thanksgiving, we went and picked out our Christmas tree. It was a beautiful day, and not super cold, which was nice.

Here is our tree! I think it is the best one we have picked in all our years of getting a tree.

Evie helped Jeff drag it to the truck.

Sierra enjoyed the trip too!

Evie got to visit with Santa after we paid for our tree.

Evie turned 9 years old the first week of December. I can't believe she is 9!! For her birthday, she wanted to get her ears pierced. She looks a little freaked in the first picture :). They do both ears at the same time, which is really smart for kids.

She did really well, and looks so pretty :). She is growing up way too fast!

For He Shall Reign Forever and Ever!

This video was so awesome I just couldn't stop crying!

BRRRRRRR

It has been cold here, and I am trying to get my body used to it. I actually love cold weather. I know, I am weird :). I do miss all the fresh produce from the garden. We are eating the last of the tomatoes and peppers that I picked. Almost all the leaves are off the trees now, so winter is getting closer. I can't believe it is November already!

As we get near Thanksgiving (is that even possible that it is almost that time???), I am brainstorming for gluten free/casein (dairy) free/soy free (gfcfsf) ideas. One thing that we eat every year at Thanksgiving that isn't gfcfsf is green bean casserole. I found a recipe online for gluten free condensed cream of chicken soup, and gluten free condensed cream of celery soup. I decided to try it, and modify it a bit to make it gfcfsf. First I tried the cream of chicken. I made it and OH..MY..WORD...the stuff was insanely good. Like, waaaaay better than Campbells condensed stuff. This past week I decided to give the cream of celery a try. It was better than the cream of chicken! Jeff tried it, and was so bummed that we weren't going to be eating it for supper that night (I ended up freezing it)! He said it tasted even better than Panera Bread's cream of broccoli, which was a huge compliment since I adore Panera's cream of broccoli soup. I also found a recipe online for gf french fried onions, so now I can make green bean casserole!

I started making a hair album, with pictures in it of updos that I can browse through. I did it to try and overcome the latest hair rut I was in, where I was wearing my hair the same way every day. I have 3 new favorites. I had them in my other hair book with hand-drawn sketches, but hadn't really tried them. After trying them, I love them! Here are pictures of the three.

The first one is from a lady on the Long Hair Loom named Harpgal. It is a super easy braided updo, and stays put all day! I really like how it looks too. Dressy, but easy.

This one is called "The Masara", and is from a girl from Youtube named Torrin Paige. She has some wonderful updo videos on Youtube. This one is a bit crooked :(. Oh well.

This last one was from the movie "Ever After" with Drew Barrymore. I found the instructions online somewhere, but never could figure out how to do it. I finally worked on it and figured it out, and loved how it looked!

Vacation

This week I took a much needed vacation from just about everything. Evie has had way too much going on, to the point where she was wired and overstimulated. We both needed a break, so I took the week off from homeschooling. I am very seriously considering year round homeschooling. I looked at this one woman's schedule online, and she takes a 2 week break after every 8 weeks of homeschooling, and then she takes 2 weeks off for Christmas and 1 week off for spring break. She takes a month off in the summer. I modified the schedule, just playing around to see what I could come up with. I have gotten burned out easily with homeschooling because of the sensory issues Evie has. I came up with a schedule where I took a week break after every 4 weeks of homeschooling (instead of the 2 weeks after 8 weeks that the woman that I read about did). To me, 1 week is a good vacation! Besides the week off after every 4 weeks of homeschooling, I figured in 2 weeks off for Christmas, and a month off in summer. It worked out to be 180 homeschool days, which is what is required. This way I am not constantly looking forward to summer. I get a nice break in summer, but not so much that I lose motivation. We are going to try it and see how it works. I really like the flexibility of homeschooling.

I am finding that I need to do more to meet Evie's sensory needs. Evie was diagnosed as what is called a "sensory seeker". She craves sensory input, and her sensory nervous system is basically screaming at her all day long for more input. It has been a really challenging past few weeks for us. Some ways to help with the sensory issues is to let her squeeze special squeezy balls, hit punching bags, swing in special swings, play tug of war, and do therapeutic horseback riding. I am thinking I need to invest in an indoor swing, and a punching bags. The squeezy balls are a challenge. She usually pops them really quick. We bought one once at a store, and she popped it in line after we paid for it! I took a picture of Evie at her therapeutic riding class a few weeks ago. I wish my camera took better pictures in the arena, but the lighting there is really crazy. She really enjoys horseback riding, and it is really calming for her.














Last weekend we got to meet our new addition to our family. We got to meet our new baby cousin, who was adopted from China. She is about 10 months old, and is soooo precious!




















Evie got to hold her, and she just relaxed in Evie's arms. It was so sweet. She is blowing bubbles in this picture :). I got to hold her twice, even though there were about 50 people there. I wish I could have held her even longer! She is such a precious baby girl!

Getting into the groove of things

I have been neglecting my blog. I have been really busy since school started. So much going on! I started homeschooling after Labor Day, and it has gone pretty well so far. There is so much more involved with 3rd grade compared to K-2nd. It takes us 3-4 hours to get everything done. Evie is learning Spanish this year, and was doing great until I hooked up the headphones to the computer. Now she has to speak it, and if she doesn't get it just right, the computer will give her this beep sound. Then she will get frustrated and groan into the mic, and it will beep again :). Lol. She got pretty fed up with it today. It is really picky about the pronunciation, which is hard for a 8 year old. Besides homeschooling, Evie is in gymnastics and horseback riding, so we have been busy running from place to place.

Jeff and I started having a date night every Friday night, and that has been fun! We have a babysitter come for about 3 hours, and we go out to eat. Lately we have been hanging out together at coffee houses. It has been fun being able to reconnect with each other after being apart for all those months.

Bow season started a few weeks ago, but it has been so hot that the deer haven't been moving much. Jeff did get a deer about a week and a half ago. He got it right before he left for a business trip, so he wasn't able to help butcher the deer. I decided I wanted to try making venison broth, so I asked his dad to save me some bones with meat on it. He gave me a bag full after we got done butchering, and I was too tired to notice it much. I just stuck it in the fridge when I got home. I got up the next morning to cook it up, and when I opened the bag, I found that he had given me whole legs....not cut up! So I had these 3 foot long deer legs that I am supposed to try and fit in a stock pot. He must have thought I had a HUGE stock pot! I shoved them in the pot, and was hysterically laughing because these deer legs were sticking out of the pot. I told Jeff later that I felt like I was cooking up body parts, and he said, "Well, you were!" I finally took the legs out of the pot and tried to cut them up. After much work, I finally managed to get them in the pot without sticking out. I cooked up 20 quarts of broth. I used my pressure canner, and all but 1 jar sealed. I used the broth to make gravy over the weekend, and it made the most wonderful gravy!

I had a wicked computer virus, and Jeff had to completely wipe my computer. I had to hand write down websites I wanted to keep and my favorites list. The virus was so bad that we didn't want to risk reinfecting the computer by copying anything onto a disc. It seems to be working so much better now.

Well, this isn't the most exciting post ever. Sorry if I bored you all :).