News From The Kid

He is married now and almost 25.... but we still call him "The Kid". Affectionately, lovingly, and we miss him very much. We are so proud of all he has accomplished - he has his bachelor's from George Washington University and is now doing his second overseas tour. He remembered to call me on my birthday - he is so much better than us with remembering birthdays and special events. He called me back today to give me updates - life is good, temps in the 70's - (it will be 130 by summer). The washing machines were delivered - no more waiting for the cleaners... they can do their own laundry. They have a few stray dogs they have adopted and are taking care of. Things are moving along. He should be promoted to Captain on April 1st. I can't say where he is - but we are grateful for the internet and phone connections that put us in contact with him. His birthday is in late March. Send great birthday thoughts his way!

Snowed In

The snow began yesterday. By 10:30am Richard had borrowed the neighbor's snowblower and was trying to dig us out slowly. Richard and I both have the flu - so it has been a tough week. He is younger then me and in better shape, so off he was sent to do the work. We have great neighbors because as the snow continued, he snowblowed my driveway twice more after Richard left for work.

Q has found the snow too deep for his liking. He is refusing to go down the deck stairs and absolutely making me miserable with him. (I guess the adage "misery loves company" works for dogs too.) I went to take a picture and couldn't resist the squirrels chasing each other on the back fence. What I didn't capture was that the rear squirrel kept slipping. He or she managed to hold on and make it to the end of the fence and up the tree to almost safety.

We're expecting more snow tonight. I really hope it is just flurries. I can't even think about adding more snow to what we have already. I think the goal is to see if the birdbath gets buried this year. Stay warm everyone!

All Things Q

Q went to the vet Saturday morning. He had a split toenail and a "growth" thing growing out the bottom. Alan took him. They ended up having to cut the nail way high up into the foot. The Vet said Q was the oldest mastiff she had seen in awhile. He is just over 8 years old. The Vet said she suspects cancer - but they are not doing a biopsy (why charge us money - he is so old). If the growth comes back then it is probably cancer - they see a lot of toe cancers in old dogs. Alan and I have suspected cancer for awhile in his right leg/shoulder. But he is comfortable - and until that changes we'll keep him comfortable and alive. To be serious I don't think we could put him to sleep unless he was suffering. Just having cancer doesn't mean he is suffering. So, I have the Flu - and every time I fall asleep I have nightmares from the fever. I have had nightmares about Q since last night. It sucks to have an old dog. Alan took his bandage off this morning and he is doing okay - hopefully the nightmares will stay away!

So last month after we moved to the new house, I got a linksys router (it was the only brand available) at Wal-mart. Well our neighborhood is full of linksys routers and on the list there were 2 or 3 named "linksys". I was pretty sure i had picked our router and went about setting the security settings. I asked Alan what he wanted it named and he said name it after the wonder-dog Q. So I did. Well we had issues and then I could not get back into the router. So I reset it to factory settings and there, on the network list in the neighborhood appeared the router with Q's name. Now the guilt set in. New neighbors and I mess up their router - that and I had no way of knowing which neighbor it was. I suspected that since they never renamed it or set security settings, they may be unfamiliar with how to do it. We have an open concept back yard and I can see 5 houses from my living room. So we unplugged everything and sure enough the next morning it was still there. It took about 2 weeks for it to disappear from the neighborhood list. I told Alan not to open the back door and yell for the dog until we get to know our neighbors a little better so we can make the appropriate apologies. We plan to throw a summer barbeque. We renamed our router completely differently. I think I want the new Apple router. I may get one. They are much pricier than the other models, but after the basement is finished, I see many new things on the horizon for us.

Speaking of basement finishing, I am excited about getting the basement done. We will not do the Owens-Corning system. It is a lovely system, easy to install, with a R11 rating. They do the electricity, the drop ceiling and 14 lamps. The price to do 500 square feet left us gasping - $35,900 and that did not include the flooring. So we meet with a builder Wednesday. I think I want radiant heating in the floor. He estimated around $15,000 so we will see after he actually looks at the house. I had sent him pictures so he isn't totally unrealistic. It is amazing at the costs to do walls, ceilings and flooring. Once we commence the project I will post updates and pictures on the blog. We have the movers finally coming 2/23 to move the rest of our stuff to East Troy. Yeah! We'll leave a skeleton house in Illinois until we sell it or rent it. If my friend doesn't post her baby feet picture I may ask her if I can - it is wonderful. Congrats Christy and Nick on your new baby boy - Ben!