One Heck of a Week

I can't wait for this week to be over. I can't wait for the holidays to be over with. Usually I love the holiday season, but this year has been rough. Really rough. I'm warning you now, I'm going to vent. And complain. And I'm sorry.

It's been so emotional around here. With our cute neighbor, Frank, dying on Christmas, and now our horse, Scout, who is probably going to die through the night, I'm a wreck right now. I should go to bed, but I need to write. Sometimes that's the only thing I can do to get my feelings out and deal with them. Plus I have to be careful around my kids. Cody is a wreck with Scout dying. He's been crying all day since Jared told him he's dying. He's such an animal lover and Scout was pretty much his horse. He spent a good part of the night outside with Scout, crying and praying for him. Giving him hugs. It's so hard to hear him tell me he was doing this. I cried inside as he told me he was out with Scout when we couldn't find him. He didn't want us to know he was crying. My poor Cody. He's the sweetest kid. And he has the worst luck with animals. He's already lost one horse to colic. Another to Moon Blindness. And now Scout. And he's only 8. Tonight in his prayers, he prayed that Scout would die. Or get better. But if he dies, that our other horses won't have a hard time getting used to Scout not being there. Again, made me cry. Cody said he's going to miss how Scout grinds his teeth. Cody tries to grind his teeth, too, to be like him. I loved how Scout would bite the gate out back. He's completely bent the pipe in half with this addiction. He has a funny personality about him with his teeth.

Jared moved Scout over to his parents tonight so we could put him by himself so the other horses wouldn't bother him. I just got back from going over there to check on him. I went by myself. Made the boys go to bed. Poor Scout is not good at all. He keeps looking back at his stomach, telling me he doesn't feel good. He could barely stand to try and stretch his stomach out, took about 4 steps, then had to lay back down. Jared thought about shooting him, but we can't do that to our boys. Cody would never forgive us for that. It would be so much worse then to just let him die. This colic started hitting him again about 2 days ago. I noticed he was laying down more out in their pen. Then more yesterday. And most of the day today. I knew he'd gotten it again. Dang colic!!!!! Horses are so delicate. It seems once they get this, they never fully recover and they always fight it until it takes them. It's been almost 2 months since he got it the first time real bad. We worked with him so much, had the vet coming out twice a day, and finally got his fever to break. He really started doing better. Was putting weight on. Getting his personality back, and now this. Ugh.

I'm sorry to complain. I know we should count our blessings that we could have this horse as long as we did. Been at least 6 or 7 years. He's the best horse Jared's ever owned. It never fails. The best horses always die early.

And I'm thankful to have known our cute neighbor Frank. I'm really going to miss him. He was a great guy. Always made me smile. And he taught me you don't have to have everything in life to be happy. Just do what you love, be with those you love, and that's enough. I just wish I could have visited him more this last month, with him going downhill, to let him know how much he meant to us. But as luck would have it, having walking pneumonia and then the flu, kept me from doing that. I am thankful I could see him last Friday though. Even for a minute. Just to tell him "Hi".

I'm going to end this depressing post. With it being New Year's Eve tomorrow, I need some sleep. I can't wait for these holidays to be over. For all the parties, and stress, and craziness to be over. At least I got Christmas put away today. That lifted my spirits more.

Cody's Point of View

We bought my nephew Teegan an 8 inch survival knife that includes matches, compass, etc. for Christmas. Your basic survival needs if something were to ever happen. Let's just say when T.J. and Cody saw this, they immediately said they also needed one. Here's my conversation with Cody tonight as he was explaining why he needs one of these knives....

Cody: "I really want a knife like Teegan's for Christmas."
Me: "I can see you cutting your hand off with one of those."
Cody: "It has an 8 inch blade."
Me: "See why I can see you cutting your hand off with it."
Cody: "But I'm going to need it when I get lost in the mountains. It has matches with it, too."
Me: "Um, that better not ever happen."
Cody: "See why I need that knife."

Good point.

(Secretly we are getting T.J. and Cody that knife. I just had to throw him off a bit. Hee... hee!)

Thanks for that laugh Cody. That just made my whole day.

Just spent the night inside my dryer. Yep, you read that right. Stupid black crayon! As if I needed something else to do today. It's apparently not bad enough that Jared now has that horrible flu I had Monday, and had to spend an hour cleaning the bathroom because of it. Aaaahhhh! Sometimes I want to scream. I hate the chain reactions of these kinds of days. Thought it was going to be a good day when I got up this morning. And it was, until about 4:15 p.m.. Then it hit. My jinx... curse.... whatever you want to call it.

So instead of complaining anymore, I'm going to focus on my blessings.

1. I got to hang out with my boys after I got the bathroom all cleaned up. Ran a few errands with them then went to Carl's Jr. (or as Hunter calls it "Carlos Jr.") for dinner.

2. Took Hunter to IFA and got him a new coat. He's never had a new coat before. Always got hand me downs from older brothers. But this was the age for both of them that they had a major growth spurt and needed a bigger size then what Hunt needs. Loved seeing Hunter's face as we picked it out and he realized it was his. He wouldn't take it off to check out. Just threw his arm up to scan it and then ripped off the tag. Priceless.

3. Spent an hour helping boys with homework. Love seeing the progress they make from Jared and I spending time with them on it. So proud of how well they are doing.

4. Love how much my boys helped me tonight with chores. We ran out of hay for the horses, so instead of making Jared come load it, T.J. ran with me to Grandpa Morse's, got up on top of the hay stack in the barn, threw down a couple bales onto the truck, and then helped me feed everything outside. He even threw the hay to the horses further then he ever has. He's sure growing up. And instead of going in to go to bed (because he was SO tired!) he made sure to help me get the garbage's to the road first.

Meanwhile, inside he house, Cody and Hunter emptied the dishwasher for me. I have good boys.

5. Jared's surprisingly feeling a touch better. Still feels horrible. But he's up and walking around, which is more then I can say I did on Monday.

6. Listening to my boys say their prayers before bed. Sometimes you just never know what those cute kids will think of to say. And sometimes it's surprising the faith they have at such a young age.

7. And last but not least, I'm thankful for my dryer. As much of a pain in the butt it was to clean out tonight, I wouldn't trade it in. It helps make life much easier. And now my boys will have clean socks in the morning.

Life is good. Sometimes we need something like this to shake it up a bit. And once it's over, I'm thankful for that little trial in life.

P.S. If this happens again, and it better not, but if it does..... I found that using a bounce sheet and some 409 helps scrub that stuck on crayon off pretty well.

I haven't disappeared entirely... just for a little while. I'm realizing why I started buying material back in April to make all 3 of my boys quilts for Christmas. I just wish I hadn't waited until November to start cutting and sewing it together. One of these days, my procrastination is going to pay off in teaching me a lesson. But for now, I'm off to my sewing machine once again to spend as many hours as I can finishing these quilts so I can see the looks on my boys cute faces on Christmas morning. Happy sewing everyone!

Love a good comic. Couldn't resist sharing these.



Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!