Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

We Need Your Prayers for My Girl

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wed-scoutie

I don’t mean to interrupt the festivities and I thank you all so much for your wonderful birthday wishes for my dad. Besides the fact that our muffler came loose on the last leg of our trip home, I came in the door, immediately got down on the floor to hug Scout, and noticed some matted blood on her hair below her tail. When I looked more closely, I saw the area around her vulva was inflamed and had been bleeding. We immediately took her to the Vet, and  after examining her they discovered she has a tumor there. Apparently this is common in female dogs, but hers is inflamed and badly infected. So it has to come out and she will have surgery tomorrow.

We had to leave her at the Vet overnight and they will do the surgery, hopefully, in the morning. She has to have blood work and she’s older, so I worry about this. I would worry about any surgery, but she’s 14 ½. She’s been feisty and energetic according to Don and he saw no difference in her normal amount of energy.

May I ask to to pray for her? I am desperately worried and scared and overwhelmed by this. She is a strong girl and she has great stamina, so I’m hoping that will help her through this. It was awfully hard to see her for only a few minutes and then have to leave her at the Vet’s overnight.

Maybe a prayer or two for me and Don, too.

Thank you.

ClaudiaSignature140X93

Happy 90th to my Dad

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dadme

Dad is 90 years old today.

His name is Gordon, by the way. He went off to serve in WWII at the age of 18 and came back home when he was 22. He earned a Purple Heart. He corresponded with a girl from his neighborhood while he was overseas. She was given his name by a neighborhood group that was supporting the soldiers and started writing him letters. A few days after he got home, they met for a soft drink at the neighborhood soda fountain. He told her he was going to marry her and she thought he was awfully cheeky. Six months later, they were married.

They eventually moved to a suburb of Detroit where they raised 4 children. Dad worked for Michigan Bell Telephone Company for 40 years. He loved to go fishing, to take us camping, to spend time at the cottage on a lake that his dad built when dad was a toddler.

He’s a complicated man. He has his demons. But he loves his family with a devotion that is unmatched. He visits my mom, now in a nursing home for over two years, every day. He loves his adorable cats and they love him. He still drives, though he doesn’t drive in bad weather or at night. He still fixes things around the house. (My dad can fix most anything, by the way.) He loves nothing more than to sit in his chair and look out the window at all the birds and waterfowl that hang out near the pond. It gives him peace.

He’s lonely. It’s tough without my mom. He has lots of aches and pains and some days are really tough. But he hangs in there.

My dad is a good guy. He’s incredibly generous and has been there whenever we have needed him, with advice, with acceptance, with money, with a hug. He makes sure to visit other residents of the nursing home that he has met during the past two years. Some of them are all alone, so he stops to talk to them. He is a kind man.

So Happy Birthday Dad! Happy 90th Birthday to you! I’m far away from you physically, but you are in my heart.

Today we celebrate you.

(I’d love it if you left a birthday message for my dad. I thought I would print them out and send them to him. Thanks so much.)

Love,

ClaudiaSignature140X93

 

 

A Cuppa. Or Two. Or Three.

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fristackedcups

Say what?

Remember me saying I was going to go back to Anthropologie on Wednesday? Because it was in a pretty little shopping center where I could do some window shopping?

Ummm….these came home with me.

fricups

I couldn’t help it. They’re so pretty. And big, so they hold a lot of coffee or tea or…hot chocolate!

It all started out with me thinking I should get one more like the two cups I bought the other day. For those of you who didn’t see the post, I’m talking about the one on the right. Anthropologie has carried that design for a long time and there weren’t that many on display and I worried that they might stop carrying them. Can you blame me?

So I walked over to the display and grabbed one more. In aqua. With an aqua handle.

Then I saw more and more beautiful, heavy, wonderful-to-hold cups. I told myself that I would choose one more. Just one.

I went for the one in the middle. With an aqua handle.

But then, right before I was going to head to the checkout, I saw the one on the left. With an aqua handle. And aqua everywhere.

Oh my heavens.

You know the rest.

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Not only are they pretty on the outside, but they’re pretty on the inside. I am in love.

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These are my current favorite things. I now have five of them. I have a plan for displaying them. We’ll see how it works out.

I hardly ever buy anything new or spend money on what I would normally call an indulgence. Our budget is beyond tight. But…I’ve been away from my loved ones for nine weeks. It’s been very hard to be separated from Don and Scout. So you know what? I’m giving myself a little present. I deserve it.

Everyone deserves a treat now and then.

fricupsdiagonal

I think I shall start collecting these. I guess I already have.

Tonight is opening night. Tomorrow, I head home. I wrestled all week long with whether I should go home early or stay for the opening. I really shy away from parties now that I’m older. My partying days are long gone. But, I decided to stay. So today I’m going to start packing up my things, take a little walk, and say goodbye to the ducks (I sat in the sun for an hour or so yesterday and watched them. They were napping. It was wonderful.)

A heads up: tomorrow is my dad’s 90th birthday. I’m going to write a little post about it and if you dear friends could come back tomorrow and leave a birthday message, I will print them out and send them to him. He doesn’t read the blog any more, which makes me sad, but it’s too much for him to remember every day. Anyway, is it a deal? Not today. Tomorrow. (I wasn’t entirely clear about that on the post, so I edited it to include that info. Tomorrow.)

Thanks!

Happy Friday.

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Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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