So Long Stormtrooper

Today was a sad day.

Penny, our beagle, finally died.

  

She was 12 years old near as we can remember.

Mary and I bought her for Mardell for a birthday.

We nicknamed her Stormtrooper because if we didn't close the front door, she could hit the screen door and push it open.  Then she was off and running.  She loved chasing coons and rabbits.  Once she got loose, you could hear her baying for miles.  She would spend the whole day patrolling the countryside if we didn't go retrieve her.  But for all of her adventures, she only met up with a rattler on two or three occasions.  We never had to take her in for stitches because of tears or bites from critters.   Chip, on the other hand, pretty much has a table with his name on it.

  

She has had stomach cancer  for about a year.  That was on top of the congestive heart failure that was diagnosed about five years ago.  She had been failing for the past week and we knew that she wasn't long for this world. 

So long, Stormtrooper.

Day 38


Today was something for the kitchen.
I received a jello mold, a pastry roller and 5 blade cutter .
Now I will be able to cut noodles like crazy.

I believe tommorow's clue is:

Something Tucker will like.
My youngest thinks it has to be underwear then.
We will see.

Day 39

Today's Clue read:

Memories of our child hood and of our summer.

I was at a loss of what it could be. Fire flies was the first thought

that popped into my mind and my oldest daughters. We chased

fire flies at Grandma Martin's house in July. But that should have

been the real tip off for me.

My youngest and I were sitting at the vanity getting ready this morning.

She brought the present to me and opened it up. Inside the tea bag box

was a Mullberry Candle.

Mullberries!

I should have known.

We picked Grandma's mulberry tree clean as far as we could reach this summer.

When we were little and visited our great grandmothers farm, our first stop would be

the mulberry tree. Until our hands and mouths were purple, than we would move onto the raspberry bushes. Us kids were worse than a flock of black birds.

Thanks Trudy. I will think of you and both grandma's every time I light the candle.

Tomorrow's clue: To bring out the Martha or Julia in you.

We have another dog?

I always said we are a one dog house.

We had our beloved golden retriever Duchess for 11 years.

After she passed we had another golden named Max.

About three years into Max's tenure we agreed to let

Ginger a chocolate lab come live with us from a family member

who could no longer have her. She is now about 11 years old.

Max passed away last winter to cancer, even though

he was only five.

In May we adopted Tucker a complete mutt but lovable.

Too bad he wasn't trained better.

This morning I went to let the dogs into the house and

when I opened the door this is what I found:

Charlotte is the pig that was given to the girls after fair this year.

She is supposed to stay in her enclosed pen and house.

She is supposed to eat corn like all pigs do.

But she doesn't. She is constantly out and doesn't like her food.

I haven't discovered what she has been eating yet.

I guess she is confused and thinks of herself as a dog.

After all she wanted to come in with them this morning and

didn't understand when I shut the door on her.

She stayed on the porch and pouted instead.

40 for 40

 A liitle bird told me that Sister Two turns 40 in 40 days.

We knew that Sister Two would rather let the day go by unnoticed and anyone that knows me knows that I just couldn't do that.

So to celebrate this momentous occasion, we have been scouring flea markets, garage sales, clearance tables and other fine shopping arenas for forty "perfect" gifts.  We want Sister Two to enjoy the last of her youth and to celebrate each passing day by opening a gift.  Some of them have clues, some of them don't.  Some of them are funny, some of them are not.  Some of them are useful, and some of them .... well, some of them have no logical use in the world.  Some of them we wondered who in their right mind would have ever bought it in the first place --- so beware because Sister Two will have a white elephant or two to re-gift.  (Not that she would ever do that!)

I have a great photo of the back of my CR-V completely filled with gifts, but alas, without my main computer I cannot access Mardell's camera.  She has a funky sized card for her Olympus.  I have a slot for it on my dead computer, but not anywhere else.

So let's do some guided imagery.

Close your eyes and imagine a black CR-V.

Do you have that image?  Good.  Now imagine a very dirty black CR-V.

Do you have that image?

Good.  Now imagine a black CR-V that is dirtier than anything you've ever seen before.

That's it.  Now picture the entire cargo area filled with brightly wrapped gifts.  Imagine them reaching to the top of the head rests on the back seat.  They are all wrapped in cheery, beautiful paper covered with spring flowers.  Each package is neatly numbered and has a bow.

Now imagine Sister Two's face when she comes out and sees that I was serious.

(I don't get why people don't take me seriously.)

Okay, enough guided imagery.  The day to open the first package has finally arrived ....

let's see what was in store for her.

 
 

 

Today was a two-part package.

The small package held the Charming Tails figurine

"A Little Bird Told Me" that is pictured up above.   

Here's what was in the large box:

 

Prune juice and 40 shot glasses!

One for each day until her birthday!

I wonder what tomorrow holds in store for her?

Changes

Life has changed drastically for Sister One and our dear mother.

Mom's live-in caretaker informed her that she was moving out, so new arrangements needed to be made for Mom.  She could still live alone, but she really isn't crazy about the idea.

I wasn't crazy about the idea of trying to manage two households since she is housebound.

I guess I could have given her keys to a car .... since her cataract surgery she can see much better.  But trust me when I say that everyone is much safer with her off the road!

So, instead, we decided to move the 412 boxes of books, papers, magazines, and junk out of our north wing and move in her measly 305 boxes.

Somewhere in this equation, we've ended up with a preponderance of boxes in our kitchen ... and our living room ... and our computer room ... and, well, you get the picture.  The 412 boxes need to have a place to go.  We ordered another dumpster and have filled it twice, but we still have a lot of items for which to find a permanent home.

I've discovered that Mom can't pack anything without giving me the history of every item going into the box.  I had to cross the space-time continuum and hook up with my fifteen year old self so that I could totally tune her out and get all of her (#$&@! crystal packed.  

But, all in all, I would say that we are all coping very well.  Mom has now been with us for two weeks and we haven't gotten on each other's nerves yet!  That has to be a record.

In the meantime my main computer blew the motherboard.  That holds all of my photo editing software and photos ---- hence the lack of photos in this post.  Hopefully I'll get something figured out in the next couple of days because I plan to chronicle the 40 day count down to Sister Two's big 4-0 birthday. 

On Sunday we delivered 40 gifts to her.  She will open one each day until the big day.  My friend Feagler received 40 gifts before her 40th and it was great fun.  We looked forward to hearing what the package of the day was ----- hers were mostly gag gifts.  Sister Two has some gag gifts, but there's some good stuff in there too.  We've been collecting things for the past 3 to 4 years in anticipation of this momentous occasion.  Of course, last week I looked at the blog and saw on the countdown that there were only 47 days until her birthday and about died.  So on Saturday, we made our final selections and then spent many, many hours wrapping the gifts.

I'd forgotten how much I detest wrapping gifts.  If Sister Two ever had any doubt about how much I love her, five hours of wrapping should tell her something!

So watch the site ..... she opens the first one on Wednesday and it's a doozy!

August Rush

Where has August gone? We are on the tail end of summer and I'm not to excited.

With the cooler weather this summer, it hasn't felt like summer at all.

The upside was I never turned the air conditioner on at home at all. Money saved.

The downside is my garden never really took off and produced much other than the ten million zucchini and weeds. If the frost stays away I might actually end up with one tomato out of my garden (I planted 10 plants this spring). We have gotten just a handful of cucumbers, but we have zucchini and weeds.

August started off with the girls getting ready for the county fair.

Both girls took steers for a project

Photo by Alliance Times Herald

Krista is the second girl in.

Photo by Alliance Times Herald

This was Dani's first year of showing livestock for 4-H

Photo by alliance times herald

Dani is on the left.

Junior Champion Showman! Beginner's luck?

Dani also showed two lambs.

Photo by Alliance Times Herald

She just did alright with her lambs, but that was okay.

After all we were just happy the lambs were still with us.

http://trio-of-sisters.blogspot.com/2009/05/litttle-bo-beep.html

Fair was a busy, crazy week and we actually call it vacation.

But thanks to a good friend we borrowed a nice camper and didn't

have to drive the 30 miles back and forth each day.

Next we made a mad trip to Denver for mydoctor's appointment.

The highlight of the day was lunch at Joe's Crab Shack

It was fun and we each ate a big tub of crab meat.They had dun gee crab, snow crab, Alaska crab, sausage, corn, potatoes, shrimp, clams, etc.

It was wonderful!

Now that summer has wound down it's back to school.

Both girls start tomorrow. I'm so not ready for the routines to start again.

Or all the meetings, fundraisers, sporting events, etc. Does that make me a bad parent.

Wish I could turn back time it was June 1st again.

I can't believe all three of us sisters haven't posted for August yet.

I'm sure Sister Three is busy with her little ones.

You have now heard what Sister Two has been doing.

Now Sister One needs to tell her story and it's a good one.

As our beloved mother has moved in to Sister One's home to live.

The only thing that has moved in to our place to live is

Charlotte:

I'm sure there will be stories to come about her or maybe some recipes.