What We Do For Our Pets

My dog Bugsy has seizures. I've talked about him and them here before. Yesterday it was time to go buy more meds for him from the vet. Two bottles, enough to last less than six months, is almost 150 bucks. Then there is the blood work, the ER trips in the middle of the night if he has a bad one that won't stop with the meds I have here--thankfully those are very few and far between, maybe once a year. In fact, knock on wood, it's been over a year since we had to call the vet out after hours for him. I had to call a couple of weeks ago about two in the morning, but by the time I got her on the phone, the seizure stopped. She talked to me a few minutes, waiting to see if it would start back, but it didn't. I felt awful for waking her, but she was really nice about it. Phone calls are free. Even at two AM. (Smile)

Still... I know even the cost of his meds and yearly tests are a whole lot of money to us and to most people, but hey, what else is plastic for? (Smile)

Hubby went with me to the vet to get Bugsy's meds this time. On the way he mentioned that he had told a friend where we were going and what the meds cost. The friend said he would "take that dog out in the woods and shoot it before he would spend that kind of money on it. That it was just a waste and the animal would be best put out of his misery."

Bugsy isn't in any misery, I can promise you that, as long as he doesn't miss his meds and gets them every day, he only has a seizure once in a while...sometimes none for months, and he is perfectly healthy and happy the rest of the time. Well loved and spoiled. I make sure he's almost never left alone, and if he is I try to make sure it's never for more than an hour at a time, just in case he has a seizure. If he has one, it usually takes a dose of extra meds to bring him out, sometimes a shot, so he has to be watched. If anyone is being inconvenienced, it's me, and I don't really mind.

The only other option is to simply take him to the vet and have him put to sleep. If he was sick and couldn't get better and suffering, I could understand. But I can't look into those lovely brown eyes and tell them to kill him over money. I guess I just don't see why others can't understand that. It's not just hubby's friend, I've had friends, even family, tell me almost the same thing. People say I'm nuts to put out money like that, and to tie myself down for a stray, a mutt. It used to hurt my feelings, but it's got where it makes me angry instead. Maybe I shouldn't feel either. I guess we all say things without thinking sometimes. Maybe if they don't have a pet, they just can't understand? Of course some of these people have pets, so I don't know. Guess I just wanted to vent. (Smile)

Time for Friends

Remember when you were in your teens, even in your early twenties, (if that's now, then this is for later, when you are older) and your friends were such a big part of your life? They were actually in your life, daily. You visited in person, talked on the phone, or later, even shared e-mail messages. Pen pals shared letters, yes paper and pen letters, at least every couple of weeks and sometimes maybe even a phone call.

As the years went by, there were jobs, children, and endless responsibilities that seemed to strangle out a lot of that friend time. If you had time, she didn't, that kind of thing.

Lots of once dear friends slipped through the cracks and faded away. Others hung around but were a mere wisp of smoke compared to what they had been in your life. Those daily communication became every other day, then a couple times a week, then weekly, and then a couple times a month, and before you knew it or how it had happened, sometimes you went a month or two or more without a word, sometimes even much longer.

I had the pleasure of hearing from two of those lost friends this week. One that I used to share e-mails with pretty regularly, and one who was a pen and paper pen pal of mine for years.

The e-mail friend is one of those wisps of smoke. I know she's still there. We share a very rare e-mail message with each other now again when something big or bad happens in our lives. We even exchange Christmas cards, but that's about it. Well, she called me this week and suddenly there she was in my life again, the wisp of smoke blew away and there was flesh and blood, a voice that came through a phone line. There was laughter and memories, some good and some not, but it was comfortable and familiar and felt like it should.

The pen pal friend, she was one of those who slipped through the cracks. I haven't heard from her in years and years. Suddenly a message popped into my in box from her. She had found my website and my contact link. It was so great to hear from her again after so long. She promised to write back and fill me in on all of the changes in her life, and I can't wait to hear them all. I have a few of my own to share. Like I said above, it felt comfortable and familiar to read her words. (I even got a surprise Christmas card from another old pen pal I hadn't heard from in years, so maybe this is the year of friends refinding each other. Smile)

Funny, though friendship transforms are weakens and rebuilds, if it was a real friendship, it never really completely fades away. If you were a real friend, you are still a wisp of smoke in that person's life. So how about reaching out and becoming flesh and blood again? You might not have the time to keep in touch as often as you once did, but you could keep the line of friendship open, and maybe in a lot of years, when you are both old and gray and have plenty of time on your hands, that old friendship will become again what it once was. You'll never know unless you reach out and try.

VOTE for RWC & My Site for Writers

Hi everyone,

Both my site for writers and my on-line group for writers are up in a poll for favorites. If you like either one, please take a moment to pop over and vote for one or both.

My site is listed under the section titled Writers' Resource/Information/News Source. You can get to it here http://www.critters.org/predpoll/writerinfo.shtml
My sites listing is Resources for Romance Writers (Charlotte Dillon's) http://www.charlottedillon.com/WritingRomance.html

My on-line group for romance writers is listed under the section titled Writers' Discussion Forum. You can get to that page here http://www.critters.org/predpoll/writerforum.shtml My group listed is RWC (Romance Writer's Community) http://www.charlottedillon.com/RWC.html

Don't worry about giving your e-mail address to vote. They just do that to make sure that each person only gets one vote per section. They run this poll every year and no one has ever had any trouble with it or them. It's an on the up and up thing. Smile.

Thanks so much for your vote! Or just for popping by if you didn't vote.

2007 Already?

My, but how time does fly. Before we know it, it'll be 2008.

Most of us start the new year of with a list of goals we hope to accomplish or do better at over the next twelve months. Often, those good intentions last about as long as I am tall...and that ain't very long. Smile

So, since we know 2008 will be here in a few breaths, what goals have you set that are really important to you? By important I mean they will improve your happiness and your health. Haven't done 'em yet? Well, go ahead. I'll wait.

Okay, all done? Good.

I bet there are a lot of the same goals on your list from the year before, and you didn't accomplish them or follow through. So, now, what can you do different this year to come out a little better? Maybe knock some of those goals off. Stick with the most important ones. Maybe that's to lose weight, stop smoking, spend more time with your kids, plant butt in chair and actually write every day, ect....

Got just the most important ones left? You sure? Not too many now, and not too big. Then as I was saying... If you need to lose weight, don't set a goal of five pounds a week. And if you have only been writing maybe a couple of hours each weekend, if even that often, don't swear you'll do five pages a day, seven days a week.

Okay, now we have important goals and we have realistic ones.

You're off to a better start already. Let's go slow though. If your goal is to write more, add only a little more writing time each day, or a couple more days each week, then add more when that becomes a habit. The same with losing weight. Start walking thirty minutes at least three times a week, then move up to five times, then maybe up to an hour some of those times. Cut out your bedtime snack, don't get seconds at meal time, put more green beans on your plate and less rice and gravy and then pass on the roll.

Don't set big goals and then go for broke, because you'll probably be what breaks.

Best of luck during 2007 with all of your goals, wishes and dreams!

Sugar, Sugar Every Where! What's a Diabetic to Do!

Well, not just sugar, but anything that turns into sugar after you eat it. You know, bread, potatoes, pasta, ect... This time of year is the worst. I've been trying so hard to make it through Thanksgiving and Christmas and now New Years, and still keep my blood sugar counts under control, but I'm not doing so well. Even though I'm trying to watch what I eat, it seems any simple carbs at all just spikes my blood sugar. This time of year with all the extra good food and sweets around, it's just awful. Now I'm feeling all depressed because everyone else had cornbread with supper and I didn't dare, and they'll be having cake, and my blood sugar is already over 200, so I don't dare.

I've had a weight problem all my life, which means I've had a food problem. Food has been my friend and my comfort. In my family food was what we mourned with, celebrated with, and did everything in between with. Suddenly my friend and comfort, which I still crave badly now since I'm depressed and upset, is my enemy. It's a hard blow, and one I understand in my mind, but it's not helping me accept things or deal with the way I feel right now.

I've had food battles all of my life. I went on my first diet when I was eight. Thanks to the battling, I've managed to keep my weight under two hundred, but I'm still too often about fifty pounds over my idea weight. The food battle has moved to a new level now. If I give in, not only will I fear the scales moving up, but I could actually end up at the ER, or even dead. That's what's moved the battle to the front lines, to this take-no-prisoners point, and me to the point where I want to just wave the white flag and give up already.

If you aren't a diabetic yet, but have a weight problem, please take a stand and start the battle now. You might never have to deal with being a diabetic if you take care of your health now. Believe me, you don't want to be here if you can help it. If you take care of your health, even if you become a diabetic, maybe it'll happen at fifty instead of forty, or maybe even sixty instead of fifty. My father was diagnosed in his early thirties. With my long spells of working out and keeping my weight down closer to normal, I put it off for almost ten years longer than he did. He took two shots a day, and so far I'm only on pills.

Believe me, I know it's no fun to diet, but it's so much easier to do when a bowl of low-cal fruit isn't going to push your blood sugar up, or even a bowl of Special K, or a baked potato. Pick your battles, pick your stand, and fight now, while you can still fight on your own terms instead of on the terms of a deadly disease. I know I wish I had fought harder. If I had only had one of those darn crystal balls. (Consider me your crystal ball.)