The kittens are five weeks already!!

It is hard to believe that the kittens are five weeks old. Wasn't it just yesterday that we were watching them being born! Boy does time fly by. Flyers have been made and soon hopefull they will all be going off to new loving homes. Here are some pictures of a few of the kittens. Those that would sit still enough for a picture that is. Not all of them were cooperative, some pictures came out to be a big blur!

They are all so cute it is hard to resist the urge to keep them all but I just keep reciting the mantra: "I do not want SIX more cats."

See what I mean, aren't they just too cute! Everyone cross their fingers that we find them wonderful homes in the next few weeks. If they stay past the "Aw, aren't they cute" phase, it gets really difficult.
Wish us luck.
Vicki

Doggie Play Date

Met up with my friend Lynn and we took the dogs to the beach. They had a ball swimming and running around playing with each other. We own true water loving German Shepherds. The first thing they do as soon as we let them out of the car is run straight into the water. Of course being dogs they love to share the joy with their owners so they run out of the water and get as close to you as they can before they shake the excess water off. Soon we are almost as wet as they are. They also start chase and wrestle games that kick up wet sand all over us. Lynn and I truly get to enjoy the beach experience with our dogs. We had called another friend with a German Shepherd dog about meeting at her house so after the beach we drove over there.

Debbie has a huge fenced back yard and her female German Shepherd Cheyenne is a great hostess when her dog buddies come to play. After greeting everyone at the fence to let them know it is her yard she very graciously lets the boys come in and play.


Hostess Cheyenne

Three males can be a little annoying but Cheyenne takes it all in stride. Soon they are chasing each other around the yard playing catch me if you can.


Hey we are going this way?While the dogs are having fun Debbie, Lynn and I take the time to catch up on anything and everything. It is great to have the time to just sit and relax with good friends, often that is overlooked as our days get busy.

All too soon the dogs were tired and the day was getting late so we reluctantly said our good byes. With promises of doing it again soon Lynn and I climbed into the car with our dogs, waved bye to Cheyenne and Debbie and took our happy, exhausted dogs home.

It was a great day!!

Just blathering

I can't believe that it has been almost a month since I have been here. It does not seem like it has been that long and it is not like I have been that busy. I guess I need to make sure to fit this into my schedule. I am not sure where because I try to make time for everything but some things I do let slide for longer than I would like.
The weather has been hot and humid again. I have had fewer breathing problems until yesterday when the humidity went way up. So I am tucked into the bedroom with the air conditioner. The weather channel is predicting rain tomorrow so I am hoping that I will be able to get around much better in the cooler temperatures that will also bring. I hate it when I can't breathe because of the weather.
I am including a picture from my friend Debbie of my dog Kai with her dog Cheyenne and their other friend Otto. Cheyenne is the beautiful plush coated girl on the right. Otto is on the left and of course my Kai is in the middle. Don't they make a cute Oreo sandwich effect!

Another weekend bites the dust

Here I am at the end of another weekend and I have not been able to do any of the things that I planned to do this summer. I am really depressed and discouraged about that. It is going to be another summer where all I get to do is sit around the house and watch TV and check email. I wanted to go camping, plant a few tomato plants and some flowers, visit a couple of county fairs, go to some dog shows, go to the National Speciality for the White German Shepherd Dog Club International. So far I missed the Erie Kennel Club show, it was last weekend. I am missing the Nationals, they are this weekend. We have no flowers planted and no tomato plants. I probably won't get to go camping because I have no money to buy supplies. I have no money to get batteries for my scooter so I can't go to anywhere that requires a great deal of walking. Basically I am not looking forward to the rest of the summer, quite a bummer since I had such plans when spring rolled around and then I go fired from my job. Now it will be a miracle if we can keep the electric on, pay the rent, the car payment and all the other bills that turn up. I have zero chance of finding another job with my age and my disabilities. It is going to be a cold winter when I end up homeless which I am afraid I just might. Boy am I down today. I think I will stop writing here before I redepress myself anytime I look at this.
Till next time. Vicki

Kittens

Last night about seven pm our highly pregnant cat decided to start and have kittens. The funny part was that she decided to start to have them while sitting on Jim! He didn't find it amusing though.We put her in her little box in the bathroom and she settled right down to business. She needed some assistance from us getting the sacs off and starting to dry the kittens off but once that was taken care of she started taking real good care of them. I took all the kittens out of her way whenever she started having the next one and gave them back to nurse during rest periods. Finally about ten thirty she had six kittens and everyone settled down to take a nap. One kitten is really tiny compared to the other five and the first two born before her are very large little moose. I am worried about the little one because they don't always do well but she latched on to a nipple first and started sucking for all she was worth. Maybe she will be just fine.

picture of Gabby and some of the kittens during a rest break.

Finally an end to the heat wave.

Last week the heat wave continued and I went on strike. I did not check email for the entire week, I hibernated in the bedroom which is the only room with A/C. How depressing but I couldn't breathe in the humidity and oppressive heat. Temperatures close to one hundred degrees in early June are just not typical for Northwest Pennsylvania. When that is combined with humidity way above 60% it is just a nightmare. My lungs are just not cooperating in the very cold winter weather and now they are also not doing me much good when the weather is oppressively hot. I was sort of hoping for breathing relief this summer. I would love to get out and about and enjoy the outdoor opportunities that there are available this time of the year.

View of Bicentennial Tower, Dobbins Landing, Erie, PA


I finally beat my laptop into submission and made it recognize the wireless network. It won't retain the setting for some bizzare reason but I now know how to get it to find the network so I can now check email and go online anywhere around the house and outside! I have the ability to check email when confined to the bedroom if the weather turns ugly again.

Today I am having a wonderful day, the temperatures are in the high sixties, almost no humidity. It is wonderful, there is a breeze blowing through the house and I am able to come out to the living room and enjoy my entire house. After all that is why I have a house, I don't want to be confined to one room, if I wanted that I would go to prison. With all the extras that prisoners get maybe that would be a move forward!

Here is a picture of two of the cats. Gabby and Yankee looking out at the world passing them by and wishing they could go out and join in the fun.

Garage Sale

"One mans trash is another mans treasure." Never does that hold more true than in the world of Garage Sales. I have never been a person that often stops at Yard Sales, or Garage Sales or whatever they are called, although a friend tried to get me interested several years ago. And also I usually do not hold garage sales of my own very often because I tend to be a bit of a pack rat and reluctant to part with anything that I own.
So if both these facts are true what am I doing outside in my front yard at six am setting up tables and trying to arrange items in an appealing manor? I am not too sure myself, my mind refuses to wake up fully until the sun has been up for a few more hours at least. Last night I had no plans to start on this misadventure but the signs that had been posted for the last two weeks that there was a neighborhood sale this weekend had Jim all excited and gung ho to make a few extra buck. So the plan was hatched with his brother Randy that we would join in and the late evening was spent gathering items together. Randy is an inveterate junker and flea market or yard sale veteran and has a rented garage space just to hold all his accumulation of "merchandise". While I scoured the house for any items I thought I could bear to part with, Jim and Randy brought repeated carloads of junk (whoops, I mean merchandise) from the garage along with a plethora of card tables to display it all on.
With promises that everyone would be getting up early to get everything ready for the start of the sale at 8 am we retired for the evening. The next morning I am the only one that gets up early and Jim barely takes my stack of stuff out to the yard before he leaves for work with Randy driving him. So here I stand in the early morning sunshine surrounded by boxes and bins of Randy's merchandise and my meager contributions. Having no idea what Randy wants to do with all that stuff I appropriate one of his tables and set my stuff on it. While doing this it occurs to me that the only stuff that is being sold from our house is mine. Where is Jim's contribution to this endeavor? It was his idea, so why am I parting with some of my prize possessions while all his junk remains in the house? I am starting to get just a little hot under the collar, or it could be the fact that already at 7:30 am the temperature is heading rapidly towards ninety. Half an hour till the mountain of stuff of Randy's is to be arranged on the tables, etc and no sign of Randy at all. The early drive by lookie lous are already cruising by. I look around the neighborhood, where are all the other participants in this insanity. I only spot one other family setting up near the curve in the road.
I guess it is going to be a very small neighborhood today! Finally just before eight o'clock two things happen, Randy returns and starts whirling around the front yard, muttering about having to get things ready. Newspaper begins to fly across the yard as he furiously starts to unpack. Also at about the same time the neighbor strolls out of his house and after sitting at his table for a few minutes he is joined by his children and their contributions to the yard sale begins to come out of hiding. So now we are three!!