Bad news, good news part deux

Belle 1992-2011

Since the last post we lost Belle. We've lost Daisy, Bailey and Belle just in the last few months. It's been tough on my mom's heart. Belle was the first dog my mom adopted when she moved to TN. She found Belle at PetSmart. The local humane society was sponsoring her. Belle's foster mom needed to have her moved so my mom paid $30 and took her in. She was part of our family for 16 of her 18 years. I liked her. She was a sweet, shy girl, so gentle. My mom loved her so much she almost waited too long to let her go--she admits it...but Belle told her it was time to go to the Bridge and that she would wait for us.

Last week my mom's job went away, too. Librarians are seen as a luxury and she knew it would happen...but it was 1 1/2 years short of retirement...so close and yet...but she always plans for things. She has a consultant job on the internet that supports us just no benefits for her. Ha, it means she needs to stay healthy until retirement, like lose weight...just sayin', Mom.

Meanwhile, good news I am still here! This is me and Baby in the sun--wow, Baby looks like a little pig there and she doesn't in real life. I know that the future is uncertain so we really enjoy each day together now. They have not cured my bladder infection yet. We're waiting for a week without anti-biotics to get a better culture. Because my mom is not making as much money we cannot do chemo anymore. That stuff is expensive! There are other options--a good diet and prednisone. MCT type cancers are somehow related to overproduction of histamines so benedryl is a large part of the treatment and that's cheap. Lots of dog moms choose this path so it is not better or worse than chemo just different.

Don't worry...working at home lets my mom do her creative stuff which she really enjoys. She has her old book published by Random House up on Amazon as an ebook now. It is selling a little bit (it's for a small readership of historicals called Regencies).



MAID OF HONOR-ebook
Because she is a computer librarian she formats all styles herself and designs covers, plus designs websites (one way she makes money). She plans to have something like 4 more books up for sale before the end of the year. Her plan always was to write when she retired, we're just starting early. The plan is to supplement her retirement with a LOT of money from writing lol. Hey, just wait till she gets her YA paranormals up...and all her books have dogs in them so we serve as characters, too.


More good news--we took in a mama beagle named Rumor. She had her pups in the bottom of our bathroom linen closet. Here is a video of them at about 5 weeks. They made a LOT of noise:

They are all up for adoption. I think two are promised already but 4 are left. They are gorgeous little beagles. I know I probably looked like them when I was little bol.

Look for them on http://www.sosbeagles.org/. My mom often fosters for them. How did she end up not keeping all of them? She doesn't know.

And someone asked about the weim puppies. The mama, Luna, has been adopted. She was a goofy, funny girl. Selena, the girl, has been adopted. Her brother, Simon, had problems from the start--we thought maybe he had 'failure to thrive' but it turned out he had some weird problem with no bacteria in his stomach. He has been moved to another foster mom who has more time and experience to take care of him. He is thriving now and will be adopted out soon. So it ended happily for everyone.

I hope that everyone is enjoying the summer. It's finally gotten a little cooler here and the storms are not so scary. Yes, we had a tornado come by in May. It shredded our woods but did not hurt the house. Left our area without electricity for ages. We learned to live with little battery operated fans. Next year we're getting a generator so we can run a BIG fan. Or maybe we'll all go stay in a hotel with air.

I miss everyone very much but with my mom being home we will be able to keep up better!

River