Decisions! or Spent! or Framed! or Trigger Happy!

This past week I apologize for not blogging. But I do have a good excuse—I was too tired and ran out of time, because let's just say that I was too busy running the rescue ranch, cleaning the trailer and making too many decisions, etc. Seriously, I had so much going on that I escaped the end of each day by relaxing by either doing some writing or reading.

First, I have some great news to tell you and then I will give you a peek into my world as it unfolded last week. My great news is we got a call from Matt, whose family had adopted our sweet Gus from us, on February 18th. Matt's bottom line    "We love Gus and he is working out great..."

Then last week, we ran into Matt, at the River Oaks Shopping Center, after I had mailed some letters and came out of the Post Office Sub-Station. We spent over ten minutes chatting with Matt and hearing about how much his family loves Gus and what a perfect dog he was, etc. So needless to say that made our day more than great for us.

Last week was such a whirlwind for me and the days have become somewhat of a blur for me. Besides returning phone calls, e-mails, sending in reports, making a deposit and mailing out thank you letters, etc. I know that I spent several days mowing down the tall grass and weeds, in our dog pens, that my aching back can prove I did. Even though, because of the recent rain, you would not believe I ever mowed.

I spent almost everyday walking and working out too, with hand-held weights or using a stretchy band, with Leslie Sansone, that my aching muscles can prove I did that. And I know that I drove Tony nearly crazy unloading our food, from our fridge to another refrigerator outside, in the barn and then having to reload it again and again, because I couldn't decide which healthy diet/lifestyle changes we should make.

As you can remember from all of my pictures, several weeks ago, I started our lifestyle change, because of the powerful, FORKS OVER KNiVES magazine, video, etc. and we loved it so much—but I didn't lose enough weight as fast as I wanted to, so I decided that we should try the proven Atkins Diet to quickly knock-off my unwanted pounds. And that was the first time that Tony removed all of the food, in the fridge, because I had bought so much meat, chicken and fish for that diet.

Well, that was a huge mistake for me, because I wasn't happy about mainly eating anything that has or had eyes, because I guess that I have grown soft, in my old age of 65 and from also watching too many depressing, disgusting documentaries about "harvesting" animals.

But when we found out that we could also eat Atkins delicious low carbs snacks and Lisa telling us about the tasty/healthy Kind health bars—we were doomed to fail, because we found ourselves eating too many low carb, peanut butter cups and cranberry almond bars each day, causing us not to lose any weight.

And that is when I got out the big book of juices and quickly decided that we should do juicing instead, so Tony then unloaded all of the meat from the fridge and after going grocery shopping later that day—I filled it back up with fresh fruits, vegetables, etc. and I used up all of the counter space with bags of beautiful, fresh, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, zucchini, apples, oranges, bananas and pears, etc.

And while all of this was going on, inside our two refrigerators, our good friend Jim "The Mineral Man" had told me about this great book that he was enjoying reading and he suggested that I check it out, because he thought that both Kinky and I would enjoy reading it, too.

So I did, even though I was already, in the middle, of reading Carl Hiaasen's fabulous book Strip Tease—I went Online and purchased two paperback copies of Travels With Charley: In Search of America by the great author John Steinbeck. Then I immediately went, over to the Lodge and told Kinky about Jim recommending that we read Travels With Charley: In Search of America and me having already ordered us both a copy. Which delighted him, to say the least.

So basically, every evening last week, I was relaxing by either doing some writing or reading Hiaasen or Steinbeck, if I wasn't over, at Carol's ranch, admiring sweet Rosie, Carol's visiting, guest donkey, while having fun visiting with Carol.

And earlier, when I mentioned about running into Matt, at the shopping center, I also went to the craft store and bought a couple of small picture frames, while Tony was over at, the Wild Birds Unlimited store, buying more high-quality bird seed and visiting with our good friends: Linda & Kevin, Tricia, Marguerite and Jason. 

When we returned home, I framed this little note card, that I had printed, of the painting I had made for my sister Cindy's 70th birthday. But I bought the wrong sized frame for Roscoe's CD, so this week I will need to go back to the craft store to pick out the perfect, inexpensive frame for it.

Today has been great. Early this morning I made fresh fruit smoothies for our breakfast and for lunch I made delicious Bloody Mary juices, without the Mary/merry and the best chicken salad that I've ever made. Using chicken, from the fridge outside, one stalk of celery, one peeled apple, onion, sweet pickle relish, a hard-boiled egg and homemade mayonnaise.

Then I spent most of my day catching up with rescue ranch work and going back and forth to the Lodge, to check on The Friedmans, because Kinky went to visit a friend today and won't be back until late this evening.

To hopefully end tonight's post on a good note, I found this old photo that I had taken, back in April, 2005, when I had purchased a miniature mare that I had named Trigger, Jr. Sadly, I made a wrong decision buying her, because she was always angry and she wasn't very nice to Tony or me, even though I had painted her tiny, adorable barn pretty pink. 

In fact, Trigg, Jr. tried to bite us or kick us with every chance she got, so Tony forbid me to never go back into her little corral. I was heartsick about it, because I had so badly wanted her to love us. So I admit that I made another bad decision even though Tony had warned me against it. 

To try to make her happy I drove Trigger, to Hondo and ended up buying two, very young, adorable, miniature male goats, to befriend her. I named them Romeo and Julio, but Trigger, Jr. instantly hated them, too. 

So much to my dismay I finally gave up and returned little Trigger, Jr. to her original home, outside of Medina. And Romeo and Julio were the only ones thrilled about it. Here's that picture that I took of Tony with Trigger, Jr. the first day they met and I think their body language speaks volumes.

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!