I'm So Lucky!

I apologize for not posting a blog last night. The reason I didn't write one last night was because I was pretty depressed. Yesterday afternoon when we brought Lucky home I was sad, because I knew that his time left with us was precious and wasn't long. I love Luck-A-Luck so much and so does Tony, Kinky and our dogs. He's family.

Anyone who has ever been graced by the love of a cat knows what I am talking about. Seeing old Lucky so frail and knowing that he was fighting for everyday of his life was hard for me to take even though you would think I would be used to it by now, since we have been rescuing animals for over twelve years. But to tell the truth it is never easy losing a family member—no matter how many times that you've had to say goodbye to one.

Last night, early in the evening as I was reading Susan Wittig Albert's brilliant mystery novel Chile Death Lucky surprised me when he jumped up in my chair and wanted to snuggle with me. When I looked into his beautiful eyes I decided to stay put in the chair and spend time with my dear, old friend instead of writing a blog and I am glad that I did, because I had a long talk with him and told him how much I loved him and that I did not want him to suffer. And I told him not to stick around for me because he thought he needed to. I promised him that I would be okay, but would miss him.

I think Luck understood my words, because he purred softly for hours as he slept in my lap, as I turned the pages of Albert's entertaining "can't put it down" book. She is a great writer too, like Tom D. Wells.

This morning I overslept. When I woke up I realized that T. was already gone to Medina to drink coffee with his friends, and I was happy to find all of our fur family on the bed sleeping soundly and snuggling close to me. Lucky was right next to my head with his back turned next to me—purring away. I didn't want to get up, so I didn't—I just laid there with my best friends, because I love sleeping with my animals and I decided to enjoy it. Thirty minutes later I reluctantly I climbed out of bed.

After putting all of the dogs outside to take care of their personal business obligations, I decided to feed Lucky first. Instead of serving him his usual cat food I decided to make him a special breakfast. With Luck sitting on the drain board watching me as I began preparing his meal, I pulled some "people" frozen cocktail shrimp out of our freezer and that is when I noticed that he looked much better today than yesterday. "I love you so much, Lucky," I said, as I tossed the eight, frozen, already cooked, small shrimp without-tails into Jaws. Then I added a small amount of tap water and flipped the 'on' switch on my mighty Vita-Mix machine. Seconds later I turned Jaws off and scooped out the icy, shredded shrimp into Luck's dish. "Enjoy!" Lucky could not eat it fast enough. That's a good sign!

This morning after breakfast and doing my chores, I walked eight miles with Leslie Sansone and then I did some important arithmetic. After crunching the numbers I am proud to say that I have walked 878 miles with only 947 miles to go! Then I checked the Farmer's Almanac to find that today is the 174th day of the year. I then multiplied that number by 5 miles per day which equals 870 miles. I am finally caught up with my daily mileage and 8 miles ahead of the game! I love it and plan to walk eight miles tomorrow morning.

As I type this Lucky is sleeping on the kitchen table next to my laptop and peacefully purring away, as Paul McCartney is singing "Hey Jude," one of my favorite songs. In my book it doesn't get much better than that if you ask me. I'm counting my blessings—I'm so Lucky.

Y'all have a great evening.

The Bun Warmer!

Yesterday morning I did not go out of town as planned because my back was worse. I must have twisted or done something to it during the night. My lower right arm was still pretty swollen, too so when I came hobbling into the kitchen Tony took one look at me, screamed and ran out of the trailer! Not really. What he actually said was "Nance, you look like crap." Not really again. Basically he told me that he didn't think I should go out of town so I took his advice, cancelled my appointment, took one baby Aspirin and two Aleve and then I made some coffee.

When I was cancelling my appointment, my friend told me that we probably had a spider nest and she suggested that I get some foggers and bomb the trailer. After I hung up the phone I told T. what Sam had told me and that I didn't want to do it, but we had to because I was sick and tired of the spider bites. As he was going out the front door I asked him to please pick up some foggers from the hardware store before coming home and he did just that.

After breakfast with Tone he went outside to work and I went and laid down on the bed because I was really hurting. Thirty minutes later after I had tried counting how many times the ceiling fan made a full circle I remembered that we had some heat wraps for T.'s back so I went and found them.

After reading the directions carefully I pulled the one-size-fits-all, gauze-like cloth belt out of the box and then opened two packages of "heat" and inserted them into the slots on the belt then I tried to put in on. That was fun.

Every time that I tried to attache the end of the belt to the the velcro end it would scrunch up. Two minutes later it was finally secure around my lower back and I was feeling the heat. An hour later my back began feeling better thank goodness. Then I did a really stupid thing at two twenty-five.

"Tony let's go ahead and set off the bug bombs. It says it takes two hours to euthanize the spiders and then we come inside and open up all of the windows and let the trailer air out for thirty minutes. Then we get to come inside close the windows and turn on the central air. Tony wasn't real keen with my idea, but he did it anyway.

After T. turned off the electricity to the trailer which the directions told him to do because our trailer might explode, he set off the foggers and came outside and looked at the thermometer on the porch. "Nance, we're going to burn up inside your cabin. It says the temperature is ninety-six degrees. We should have done this tomorrow morning."

"Oh, Tony," I said. "Quit projecting," as we carried our books, laptops and my Bose / iPod into my sweltering writing cabin. The first thing we did was turn on the two window air conditioners and then the two ceiling fans. Then Tony says, "Your indoor thermometer says it's one hundred and two degrees inside here. I knew this was going to happen. I'm already sweating..." Then Feliciano starts singing "Light My Fire" and we both started laughing.

After T. sat down on the couch right in front of the air conditioner he opened up his book and started reading. I went into the other room and carefully sat down in a chair and propped up my boots on the blue ottoman. Even though I wasn't real comfortable because of my back, I picked up my book Drop-Ins and started reading as sweat dripped down my forehead and the ceiling fans up above swirled hot air around the cabin.

Thirty minutes later Tony says, "Nance, are you okay in there? The cabin is finally starting to cool off. It's down to a hundred degrees in here. I am going to get some water. Do you want some?" Even though I was soaking wet I said yes. The minute Tone left the cabin to go get us some water I grabbed a roll of paper towels from my desk drawer and wiped the sweat off of my face. I could not believe how hot I was.

After we gulped down our cold waters we went back to reading. I was near the end of Tom D. Wells incredibly great book Drop-Ins and I couldn't put it down. About every twenty minutes or so Tony would interrupt my reading with a time-left and weather report. "We've got fifty minutes to go and it is now down to ninety-eight degrees, Nance. Did you hear me?" I ignored him and continued to read.

When two hours had finally passed Tony told me that he was going inside the trailer to open up the windows and turn on the air conditioner and then he was going to check on the dogs. I was down to seven pages to go before finishing the book and I couldn't wait to find out what happened with Farrow and Nick and Beulah, the dead body that had dropped-in and the greedy land developer from Kerrville—I mean Happton.

When Tony walked inside the cabin to tell me we could finally return to the trailer I was sweating like a pig and laughing my head off! As we grabbed our laptops, the Bose and our books I said, "Tony, I love this book! I can't wait for you to read it. I swear you're going to love it. Seriously, it was a great read..."

As we walked inside the cool trailer Tony told me that he would read it as soon as he finished reading his book. Then he started laughing and says, "Nancy, why is your butt soaking wet? Did you wet your pants?"

"No, Tony. I didn't wet my pants. Good grief!" After I carefully sat my laptop down on the breakfast bar I reached around and felt my butt and it was wet and really hot and then I started laughing. "That one-size-fits-all heat wrap that I've been wearing today has somehow slipped down to my rear end and it is hotter than the cabin was." While T. laughed I went into the bathroom and removed the unwanted bun-warmer.

This morning Ben showed up early to help Tony with his chores and to mow the tall grass which I haven't been able to mow because of my back problem! After they finished feeding the dogs and picking up dog poop they came inside the trailer for a break and as always we had a fun visit. Then Ben went back to work and Tony and I went to Kerrville to run a few errands.

Our first stop was at Walmart because I needed to replace the Leslie Sansone Walk at Home—"Walk Slim: 4 Fast Miles" because I have literally worn out the old DVD. As I was looking for it I discovered that she has a new one out called "Walk: Weightloss Bootcamp" so I bought both of them and I can't wait to start as soon as my back gets better. And yes, I do have a lot of catching up to do with my walking.

This afternoon a package arrived for us in the mail and we don't know who sent it to us. It was sent from the Yahoo Baking Company in Sherman, Texas and it was a Texas shaped cake called the Yahoo Cake. And it was absolutely delicious! 

The packaging was really cool and there was a cute little pamphlet that explained the Yahoo Legend and it was really fun to read. On the front of the shipping box were these words: "For all the great work y'all do and for showing us such a great time."

Last week Tony and I probably had five or six different sets of visitors out here and we can't wait to find out who sent us the delicious cake. Tomorrow I plan to call the bakery and hopefully they can solve the mystery.

Late this afternoon I went back to bed and laid down to rest my back and I ended up falling to sleep. When I woke up Tony was gone and Ben's truck was too, so I got in Buttermilk and went over to the Lodge. When I walked inside the kitchen Ben burped a funny howdy to me from the living room. "Hi, Sam, Ben and Will," I said as I walked in. Will and Tony were in the middle of a pool game and from where I stood it looked like they had the same amount of balls left on the pool table—even steven. "Hi, Nancy! Tony beat me," Sam Abdnour said with a laugh before he gave me a big bear hug. 

Sam, Ben and I visited with each other and we teased The Medina Bulldog and The Cock as their game neared the end. Final score: The Cock -1, The Medina Bulldog -0. We hung around a little longer then Tony and I came home.

This evening Sam and Will came over for a fun visit and they thought that the mysterious Yahoo Cake was one of the best cakes that they had ever eaten. Sam told me that he loves living in Northern California and that he has to leave tomorrow so he can go visit his parents in Austin before heading back to  California. Tony and I had a blast visiting with him and Will and there was much laughter too. They just left about twenty minutes ago and I am looking forward to seeing them again tomorrow.

Now I am caught up with my news and I am pretty sure I know who sent us that delicious cake and hopefully tomorrow the mystery will be solved. I'll let you know.

Y'all have a great evening!

Visitors In Outer Space!

Today has been so much fun even though this morning wasn't so hot. This morning when I woke up I heard Tony feeding the dogs and Lucky. Remembering that my back was out I carefully jumped out of bed. When I came into the kitchen I thanked Tone for feeding our fur people for me. Then T. grabbed his camera bag telling me that he was going to the Old Timer to drink some coffee with his old friends.

While I was checking my e-mail my right arm started really itching so I pulled up my sleeve and discovered that it was red and swollen twice it's size! I figured it was from a spider bite so I went to the bathroom and patted it down with some white vinegar to help stop the irritating itching.

When Tony got back from the Old Timer I showed him my arm. "A spider got you again, Nance. You had better put some of that miracle healing stuff on it that our friend Terry gave to us." So, I grabbed my aluminum walking pole-cane and hobbled back to the bathroom. After dabbing my red swollen arm with the I wonder if it cures all stuff which mainly consisted of tea tree oil I pulled Hazel out of the closet and let her vacuum up all of the new hair on the floor, because we were going to have company today. Then I lit some Naga Chapa incense and slowly race-walked around the trailer with the help of my trusty walking pole, smudging the trailer for unwanted spiders.

Around ten o'clcok our good friends Garnet and Sandy Sheffield and their precious little dog Chiquita arrived with Garnet's sister Margie who was visiting them from out of town. After hugs and howdies we went into Outer Space for a fun visit while Tony fed the dogs and cleaned their pens.

I had a blast visiting with them even though I talked way too much and laughed so much it made my back ache more. When I told them about my back going out yesterday Margie showed me two exercises to do for my back and it really helped! Then we came inside the trailer for coffee and some Miles of Chocolate After they told me how much they loved the Miles of Chocolate Tone walked inside the trailer to visit.

Somewhere in our conversation I showed them my pink feathered, flashing lights cowboy hat that our friend Eileen Gotke had given to me. After the laughter subsided Garnet put it on her head and then Margie put it on hers. Here are a couple of pictures that I took of them cutting up in front of the camera. The first one is Garnet with Chiquita and the second is Margie.

While Tony and Margie discussed photography Garnet and Sandy told me all about their new travel trailer and then we went outside so Tony and I could give them a Grand Tour. After I showed off the travel trailer we went into my writing cabin and they loved it and the "Von Kinky Family Singers" picture that Dusty Pendleton had painted. 

Then we walked around the rescue ranch as Tony and I introduced them to all of our dogs. When it was time for them to leave Margie told us a her very funny cat story. After we were done laughing I told them about John Kemmerly and Bluefoot Publishing, and suggested that they submit their stories for publication since they are both great writers. Then we bid them farewell even though we didn't want them to leave.

After lunch around one o'clock our friends Bob and Kathi and their daughter Stephanie came out for a visit. Stephanie wanted to walk our dogs so she took off while we went into Outer Space and visited with our friends from North Texas and it was non-stop laughter, too! And when it was time for them to leave Stephanie gave T. and me beautiful friendship bracelets that she had made and we loved them. In fact, mine matched my lavender overalls. Tony and I didn't want them to leave either, but we were glad that they had come out to us, too.

It is nearly seven o'clock and once again I have written this blog standing up because my back is getting better, thank goodness. The swelling in my arm has gone down some which I am happy to report. Tonight I'm looking forward to reading some more of the great book, Drop-Ins because it is so funny and suspenseful at the same time. I highly recommend that you read it because you will love the characters and the plot.

I just got off of the phone with Jon Wolfmueller. He and Sandy wanted to know how my back was doing. After I told him about my back and the spider bite I said, "Jon, I don't understand why this spider likes to bite me and doesn't bite Tony. I guess tonight when I go to bed I am going to wear socks and a sweat suit and spray Off all over me so it will bite Tone." Jon laughed even though I was serious. Before we hung up he asked me to tell all of y'all hello!

As soon as Jon and I hung up the phone the phone rang—it was Kinky. He is back from Los Angeles and is in Austin. We had a fun visit and we caught up with each others news. I told him all about the fun interview I had with Connie Strong and Joni, Mary and Juli and how much Tony and I liked them and he was pleased that we liked them as much as he did. Then I told him about my back going out and the spider bite and he wasn't pleased and he suggested that I go see a doctor, but I told him that there was no need. Then he told me that he was going to do the Kerrville Folk Festival again this weekend and he invited me to join him again. I thanked him for the invite, but told him no because I needed to take a break in my hectic schedule and rest. Before we said goodbye to each other he told me that he will be back at the ranch on Saturday. Yeah!

Tomorrow morning I have to go out of town and I will try to post a blog tomorrow night if I am not too road weary. And don't worry about me getting lost because I will have Garmina telling me every other minute or so where to go.

Y'all have a great evening!