The last few days have been busy. Between dealing with John’s death and preparing for Thanksgiving, I’m ready to curl up and just read a book!
We had a really good dinner. Fourteen of us! Lots of good food, conversation and decent weather. It did snow Thursday night and most of Friday. It made taking Morgan back to Ft. Collins a bit dodgy, but we managed. Lori and family left Saturday. Toni and family left this morning. Stefan is still here, and we are enjoying his company.
Next week will be busy with John’s funeral up at Ft. Logan cemetery, and the big CASB conference in Colorado Springs. After that, we help Beth sort out the house. Maybe by Yule, I can sit down and relax.
Our routine in the morning is one of tea and breakfast. Once Mom and Dan are awake enough, they “go feed the dog.” This is a time to let Mom smoke, feed Brandy and just sort of start the day. Mom and Brandy love one another. Brandy gets spoiled rotten, getting upwards of 5 treats.
This morning, Brandy wasn’t out waiting for breakfast and treats from Grandma. Dan checked on her and found that she had died. She was still warm. No issues, just went to sleep and never woke up. We spent the morning burying her and cleaning up the yard. And crying.
Brandy was part coyote, part German Shepard. Daniel brought her to us in October or December of 2007. I’d had a headache that day and was sleeping when he brought her in and dropped her on the bed. I tried to argue that we didn’t need a dog and that Stefan wouldn’t let us have one at the house. Daniel wouldn’t take no for an answer and called Stefan. Of course he agreed that we should have a dog.
We didn’t know she was a wild mix until we took her to the vet for shots. The vet put “mutt” on her records. She was also an escape artist. if she didn’t go over the fence, she went under it. We put her on a cable to keep her in the yard. Brandy figured out that if she ran in a circle and then straight out, she could torque and snap the cable. We went through a 50, 100 and 150 pound rated cable before we realized that we needed a linked chain. Even then she got away at times.
I also had the dog catcher meet me in Safeway and ask me not to go home alone as there was a coyote running around. He’d tried to shoot it, but missed. I told him that it was probably my dog. He shook his head and said that he knew coyotes, and that this was one. When I finished my shopping, I headed home. There was Brandy on the steps, no collar. When I explained that it was my dog, he shook his head and muttered that he almost shot my dog. From then on, Brandy wore a bright body harness.
She was a beaver dog, chewing up bones in record time. She loved treats from Grandma. Brandy was a bed hog and knew she was people. We were her pack. She was our furbaby. She will be missed.
Brandy. September, 2007 – July, 2015.
A sheep and her dog.Hi!Dan and BrandyBrandy in the snowBrandyBrandy on our bedMorgan, Brandy and DanBrandy and her new house.Brandy kissing DanBrandy
January went fast. Maybe it had to do with the fact that I had almost as many meetings as days. So far, February isn’t looking much better and it is only the first. sigh…
We’ve had a couple of warm days which makes life easier. Tomorrow is Groundhog’s Day, and Imbolc is on Saturday. Six more weeks until Spring! As it is, Colorado is suffering a drought. 17 months of sub-par moisture. We had 5 years of it starting in the late 90’s. I hope that we get a bunch of snow in the next few months. Yeah, I know that isn’t popular, but we need the moisture and snow is one way we keep it around long enought to actually make a difference.
Some things have changed. Brian brought home a puppy last week. Mastiff and retriever mix. Plus, the dog we rescued from 7/11 on New Year’s Day is still with us. We’ve named her Pasha. She is a very sweet dog, and if we can get her to stop chewing the harness, we’ll be able to let her stay outside all day. We still haven’t gotten enough of the fence repaired to have the dogs out unchained. Brandy of course is NOT happy about having to share her people with other dogs. Oh well.
School board life has been… interesting. Yeah, that’s a good word for it. Interesting. It is taking up a bit more of my life than I expected. Granted, the district has some major issues and we need to be a proactive board instead of seven bodies in chairs. I’ve gotten my desk in the office fixed up pretty well too. There is a lot of stuff and now I have two desks to spread it out across.
Hopefully, this weekend we will be able to get some work done on the Wendy House. It has been cold or I’ve been too busy to do anything. My luck, it will snow. 🙂
My January has been busy to say the least. I had 10 school board meetings on everything from TDIP to budget to board meetings in 8 days. Add to that school visits, work and a trip to Denver and I’m ready to call it a day and sleep for a month. No such luck though. I have a meeting this afternoon and another one on Friday. Ah, the life of being school board president.
Then there’s the house. The Wendy House. We have been trying to remove the springs from the garage door without taking our heads off. These are huge springs with tension on them and to be honest we have figured out how not to take them off. sigh… Our plans are to set the door in place for the rest of the winter and then in the springtime install a real wall, door and window. It has been a challenge.
As for the main house, we had some plumbing supplies go missing between Amazon and the vendor. They are still playing a game of ‘they lost it!” and we are minus the supplies.
The only really good thing we’ve had happen is that on New Year’s Eve, Dan rescued two dogs. Puppies actually, from in front of 7/11. We gave the one over to the animal control officer and it was reunited with it’s owner. The other one, a husky mix, now lives with us. No one asked for it. Morgan named her Pasha. She is a sweet girl and so far, very trainable.
Geeze! I keep waiting for life to slow down. Guess that won’t happen any time soon. Last week was busy with cooking more pies than I ever want to do again. At work I did 46 pecan tartlets, 4 pumpkin, 3 coconut cream, two pecan pies and one chocolate cake. Oh, and I helped with about 15 more pumpkin pies.
Plus, I had my baking to do on the day. We had roast pork with green chilies and garlic, stuffing, sweet potatoes with pecan crumble on top, brussles sprouts, green chile relish, and pecan pie for desert. Yum.
We also took care of my parents cat Elway, did two computer jobs -one of which involved a trip to Denver and back in a day- and all the normal everyday stuff.
I thought this week would be quiet. However, for a Monday, it was hell. Woke up sick. It snowed And…. At 6pm, Brandy went charging out the back door to defend Ian and Emma against…. a skunk. She got it full in the face at close range. Awwwwgh!!!! Two hours, hydrogen peroxide, baking soda and VO5 shampoo, lots of water and towels and she smells better. Granted, the house still stinks. Gaaaahhh!!!
Tomorrow I have a school board meeting to cover and then Wednesday thru Saturday we will be gone. What a week.
For lunch and dinner… It has been a really busy week. We did a soft opening on Monday and Tuesday. We are now open for lunch and dinner every day now. Wheeee!!! It has been busy and dead, and no rhyme or reason other than it is the first week. I am exhausted. A good kind of exhausted though.
I am baking breads, desserts and cooking lunch and dinner. Slowly, I will become the lunch chef and baker. The Wilson’s are working hard to run the hotel and the restaurant. So far, so good. I have two chefs working with me, Gordon and Tony. They are fun guys to work with, and we all work well together. Phew!!!
Now we have to get into a routine with scheduling and remembering what we are cooking. No one except Karen are use to the menu. So, life is a bit hectic as we try to remember what we are cooking or how we are plating something.
It has been a bit of a strange week. Nibbler got sick, and I thought we were going to loose him. Figured it was a spider bite. Poor dear. He is better now though.
Here is Dan and Nibbler the first week he was here. 5 weeks old.
Then Nibbler outgrew his puppy bed.
Then Nibbler found a bed that was just right…
Nibbler will be six months old at the end of July. he is going to be a bruiser like his brother Spike.
This week started out a little crazy. All sorts of new projects up and running, including college classes. I switched universities after CTU started driving me nuts. I’m now attending Ashford Online University. Changed my major too. I’m now a Public Administration major. Sort of a mix between political science and business management.
My first class is a psych class, trying to assess the students and their learning styles. Well…. amongst the tests to play with is the Meyers Briggs type and temperament test. Now for whatever reason, I have never taken this test. (please faint over by the couch. the floor is already full). Discovered that I am an INFJ, which is rather rare. Dan who is taking the same class with a different instructor took the test too. He is an INTJ, another rare bird, and oddly enough, we are well suited to each other, LOLOLOL!
At the bottom of one of the links, was an email list. I checked it out and the webpage that goes with it and decided to talk with people like me. The list has been great fun. Yes, it is busy, but I’m enjoying myself. I shared links on the blog here to a few of the pics of the dogs, so I suspect that is why my stats have gone through the roof today. 🙂
Dan and Ian are off to La Veta for a concert. David Enke is doing the sound and the guys are doing the lights. So, I’m all alone except for the dogs for a while. Nice time to turn my music up and disappear for a while. Recharge my batteries and dance around with Nibbler. Tomorrow I have to crack the books for a bit, make banana bread and probably cook dinner.
Warm days, cool nights and lovely breezes. Okay, Winds. Then again, when isn’t it windy in Walsenburg? Oh well. The weather is warmer, I can wear skirts, sandals and light tops again. Wheeee!!! Can you tell I get tired of jeans?
Life has been busy. It was suppose to be a relaxed week. HA! It got really busy really fast. Not only were Dan and Ian trying to fix the Neon and the Nissan, but they had computer work, and then the Lights at the Fox. Oh gods. They wired the theater in 9 hours when it normally would have taken 3 days. They also discovered that there was a piece missing called a terminator. (stop laughing) Without it, nothing would work. Dan and Ian about had a seizure. Checking online and on the phone, and discovered that they cost $300. Or, you could ‘build your own’ for about $5. Guess what we did? Yup! We built it.
The reason it was so necessary to get things running this week was that El Fandango was performing for Cinco De Mayo. One performance on Wednesday, one tonight and another one on Saturday if I remember correctly. Practice went well, so hopefully the shows will as well. Dan was happy the way the new light board worked too.
We let Nibbler play with the big dogs this evening. Daniel was here, so I figured that he and Ian were strong enough to pull the dogs apart if anything went wrong. No problems. Wheee!!!! Now to just rebuild the fence.
Tomorrow I have to buckle down and write an essay for school. Oh, and return about 20 phone calls.
