Back on the scene...

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday!

We personally have so much to be thankful for and I will share a little more later this week. It is so easy to become frustrated and complain when there are always others that are going through so much more. I always try to keep that in mind when I think about complaining. Things are at a point now where I can blog a little more. We definitely have so much to be thankful for, period.

I will write a more detailed post on where we are with a few things going on with my disappearance from the blog scene. Until then, I will share a little picture of the decorations and preparations for one of my favorite holidays.

My husband actually put tree #1 and #2 up on the weekend before Thanksgiving. Our goal was to have the majority of the decorations up prior to Thanksgiving so that all we had to do was put the finishing touches on the larger items.

The trees still need to have decorations put on them, however, the hardest part is over. The largest one is fluffed, and it is about 12 feet tall and it is very time consuming when putting it up. However, I did not have to do a thing with any decorations this year. My hubby did everything alone and I am so thankful for him.

I arrived home on one Friday and the large tree was up. I returned in after being out on the following day for a few hours and he had the dining room tree up as well as all of the garland on the stairways, wreaths on all of the bedroom doors as well as down stairs wreaths in their locations. We also have a few mini trees in particular rooms for decor as well.

We have not placed the yard decorations out yet, and they will probably not go out until next weekend after the last bit of leaves finish falling in the front yard and we can blow them away again. However, our wreath is up on the front door. I will definitely post a few completed pictures once things are completed real soon.

The picture on top is a sneak peek snap of my dining room buffet and the bottom picture is my wreath on the front door. I love seeing how everyone has different styles with decorating for the holidays. I can hardly wait to see what all of my blogging buddies are putting up.

Happy November...and updates

Well, hello....

We have been busy as bees and I have had a good excuse for not posting.

On the adoption home front. Our home study is almost completed. There was one other study in front of us and ours is being completed this week. We are dealing with the state, so things are not extremely fast, but fast enough for us considering that they have tons of responsibilities. There were little requirements that were added right after we had our last visit as well. Nothing that would slow us up, however, it does take them a while to process everything being that they have several families.

One of the requirements that they added was having a picture of EVERY room in your home, pictures of your first aid kit, picture of your fire extinguisher, smoke detectors and carbon monoxide monitor. The new supervisors required the SW's to have the families to submit these. Taking a picture of all of those items was not an issue for me. I'm actually putting them into a template for her with each room labeled.

Our final home visit with the SW was towards the end of September and it went vey well. During the month of October I helped a foster parent out by going over to her home and seeing how she managed things and it helped take my mind off of my dog that was in the vet hospital. It was one of the foster parents that we connected with at our last class and she invited us over to her home. She is a great resource. We enjoyed spending time in the presence of someone who has been doing this for quite some time and has experienced a lot.

After October came it was like we were living in a whirlwind. My dog became sick the earlier part of October and he was literally in the vet's hospital for about 2 weeks until she referred him to one of the university's teaching vet hospitals not too far away when they were trying to confirm why his calcium levels were so high after several tests.

We found out last week that he has cancer (lymphoma) and has responded well to a the first round of chemo last week which took care of the hypercalcemia issue that he had as a result. We brought him home on Saturday with meds and fluids to help decrease renal failure from the increased calcium levels that he had experienced over the past couple of weeks. He is only 7 years old and treatment was recommended with hopes and prayers that his kidneys will return on their own with their normal functioning. So, we will see what transpires over the next few weeks.

It has been an emotional past three weeks dealing with all of this, however, we are dealing with it the best that we can. For those who have pets understand that they are like a member of your family and it is very difficult to have them sick and or to be given news related to their life span cut short due to an illness.

He is home and doing well and will be having another round of chemo this week. He is eating and really doing well, considering all that he has been through. Now that things are a little back to normal, I will keep my end of the deal that I promised and post a little more often. His illness really took us for a loop. We are just praying that his kidneys return to normal function since they seem to have the cancer under control, however, the renal failure could take his life if it is not returned to normal functioning. He is only fluids and meds to help with that and he seems to be responding to everything well.

So, while we are excited that things are coming to an end with the adoption process, we are also dealing with sick pet that has literally been almost like a child to us in our home and lives for 7 years. The wonderful thing is that our home is already ready for a baby/small child. We are not panicking about anything and are leaving everything in His hands with both situations.

We traveled a little in October as well. I was so busy with my dog's illness that I did not get an opportunity to post any pictures. I will try to post a few up within a week to share for a day or two. I am really gonna do better with posting. It just seems that one thing was happening after the other and blogging was the last thing on my mind to be honest.