Any pet owner's prayer

A friend of mine at work has a precious little kitten that probably won’t live through the weekend. He was a feral they found outside Keifer’s in downtown Jackson and brought home a few months ago. He’s only about three months old now, and she took him in to the vet yesterday afternoon because he was having trouble breathing. The diagnosis was that he has fluid built up around his lungs, which has caused his lung capacity to deplete to about 10 percent. His heart is now enlarged because of all the effort.

The vet drained the fluid but said there’s not really anything they can do to make the kitten better. They’re just making him more comfortable. Bless his heart. Bless Margaret’s heart. She and her husband never had children, but they have a 12-year-old cat that was just getting used to the idea of having a little buddy to tag along. They thought adding a new pet to the mix would help the eventual transition of losing the older one.

For those of you who are animal lovers out there, please keep Margaret and baby Tux in your prayers. As you can see above, he’s a precious little cross-eyed kitten who was just getting used to life inside a house and away from a dumpster. It’s hard to lose a pet no matter their age. My heart goes out to her. I’m sure this weekend will be a very long one for her.

Dinner with an old friend

Last night I met my friend Meredith for dinner and drinks at Soulshine Pizza. The food and drinks were good, but the company was great! We’ve both had a lot going on the past few months, so it’s been hard to figure out a time to get together for a visit. So when we finally were able to sit and catch up last night, we were so busy chatting that the waitress gave up on us and told us to just let her know when we were ready to order.

The picture above is from her wedding in June 2007. It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year and a half since then! Time is flying … yet one more reason to enjoy the time we have to visit with old friends. Let’s do it again soon, Mere! Love you!

I did my duty

I just got back from voting a little while ago. We actually got an hour of paid leave to go vote today. I guess that’s a benefit of working for the state! Amazingly, I was in and out of there in less than 10 minutes, despite all the horror stories I’ve heard all morning. The only hiccup I had was the little old lady manning the registration table who tried to let me vote as “GRAY, ELLEN A.” Poor lady… she couldn’t hear or spell apparently. Well, lucky for Ms. Ellen A. Gray, I saw her mistake and corrected it before she could do any permanent damage. That’s precisely why you should HAVE to show a photo I.D. before you can vote. I can’t believe you can just tell them your name – or anybody’s name for that matter – and cast your one and only vote.

The picture above is from a co-worker’s precinct in Rankin County at 6:45 this morning. The sad thing is, EVERY election should bring this many people to the polls. In this election, we’ll make history either way, but you shouldn’t just wait for a historic election to vote. It’s a privilege that we should never take for granted. As for the results this time around, I’ve never been one to put a sign in my yard or a bumper sticker on my car. To each their own when it comes to politics and religion… but since this is my blog, I will say I hope we wake up tomorrow with a war veteran and a hockey mom on their way to D.C.

I’m off my soapbox now. My only complaint this election day is that my precinct had apparently run out of the free-Chik-Fil-A-sandwich-for-casting-your-ballot coupons. Oh, well… maybe next time. Happy voting! :)

Halloween and Homecoming

What a busy weekend! Friday we decided at the last minute that we would dress up and go out for Halloween after all. We had planned earlier in the week to just stay home and watch a marathon of Derek's favorite slasher movies, but the weather was so nice we couldn't pass up a night out. And it's not very often that Halloween actually falls on a Friday, so it was a great way to end the work week.

Derek borrowed a few costumes from a co-worker for both of us, but he ended up choosing Popeye, a costume he bought last year but never wore. I was a go-go girl, which came with a long black wig that I had so much fun with! It kind of makes me want to grow my hair long and dye it black. Well, not really, but it was definitely fun for a night. We headed downtown with Ben and Tina for the first annual Blocktober party on Congress Street. It was set up where Jacktoberfest was in front of the capitol and beside the governor's mansion, and it was totally free and BYOB. They had a band and some pretty cute decorations, including orange Christmas lights in the trees and hay bales for everyone to sit on. We saw some pretty funny costumes, including a pregnant cheerleader, Posh and David Beckham (this girl acted just like her, too), the Karate Kid and the Dukes of Hazzard. After we left downtown, we stopped at a friend's house in Fondren for another party and then capped the night off with a visit to Krystal for dinner at midnight. Here's a pic of us with Ben and Tina. He was a hockey player, and she was Hannah Montana.

Yesterday we packed up and went to Hattiesburg for USM's homecoming. My friend Christy set up a tent, and we had a pretty good array of food, including some frosted Jack-o-lantern cookies from Anderson's Bakery in Pascagoula. Yummm... my favorite. We saw a lot of old friends and enjoyed the beautiful weather in our black and gold.

I love going to homecoming, and we had a blast just like I knew we would. I will say the girls in school there now looked more like they were going to tailgate in the Grove in Oxford than the District in Hattiesburg. I have never seen so many stilettos and semi-formals at Southern before. I guess the times they are a changing, that's for sure. Here's a pic of us oldies but goodies. :)

We hit the road about 9 this morning to come home, and I fought the crowds at the grocery store this afternoon. NOT fun, but at least now we actually have some food in this house. I'm getting ready to cook a meatloaf with some cheesy green beans, homemade smashed potatoes and jalapeno cornbread. I think some good home cooking is just what we need to wrap up this wonderful weekend. It's just a shame that Monday's only one good night's sleep away. At least we gained an hour today. I don't think I could have managed losing an hour on a crazy weekend like this. :)

Boo!

We are now officially in the Halloween spirit since we carved our pumpkins last night. I love decorating the house for any kind of holiday, but Derek really is the Halloween king.

He’ll be such a great dad one day. I just picture him showing them how to clean out all the pumpkin guts, (because you know I won’t go near the guts – they gross me out) and then the kids will draw silly designs that Derek will carve out, no matter how non-Jack-o-lanternish they are. Then everyone will get all dressed up in their costumes to go trick-or-treating (including Derek) and I’ll take pictures and drive my little costumed clan from neighborhood to neighborhood. I’m a dork, I know, but it’ll be fun! :)

Last year Katherine (the other biggest Halloween fan I know) was living with us during Halloween while her house was being renovated, and when the two of them finished decorating (I was clearly overruled), our house looked like the Grizwalds’ Halloween Adventure or something. I’m talking about almost any kind of black-lighted, motion-sensitive decoration they sold at Target was inside or outside our house. It was overkill. We were definitely THOSE people last year complete with a big Happy Halloween banner out front. Geez…

This year our decorations are a little less Target and a little more Pier One. Ha! I will say that when the Jack-o-lanterns candles are burning, our front stoop looks quite festive. I would love to trick-or-treat at our house if I was a kid. And we give GOOD candy, too! :)

Happy Time

I usually don’t do these, but since I was tagged twice, I guess I’ll give it a go. Six things that make me happy… but I’m not writing about Derek because I’m saving my sappiness for a different blog one day. I know you’re waiting on pins and needles. Ha!

1. My big family – Growing up my immediate family consisted of me, my parents and my four grandparents. I’m an only child. My mom is an only child. My dad has one brother who is eight years older and lives out-of-state, so I was used to a small family. Well, I married into a HUGE family. Derek has three siblings, and my mother-in-law has four siblings, so my immediate family isn’t so small these days. I know with bigger families sometimes you can’t avoid drama, but there’s also so much love in bigger families, and I wouldn’t trade that for the world. Don’t get me wrong, I love my three first cousins (and I’m not just saying that, Julie!) but I can’t wait to see how many cousins my children end up having around one day! And I doubt their cousins will live in Oklahoma . :)

2. My animals – We have two very loving pets at home that greet us at the door every time we drive up... our 100-pound Golden Retriever, Bentley Warren Grey (that’s his short name) and our fat cat, Izzy Marie Bice-Grey. These kids keep our house crazy with activity, and I love them so incredibly much. They are the best pets anyone could ever have, and we were just lucky enough to be their parents.

3. Christmas Eve at Granny’s – My granny decorates for every holiday, but her Christmas decorations always take me back to when I was a little girl. There’s just a nostalgic feel to it all, and there’s nothing else like it. From the stockings hanging on the old brick mantle to the hundreds of snowmen she’s collected throughout the years, Santa always loved to visit us at Granny’s and he still does. It’s definitely one of my favorite days of the year.

4. My best friends – I love, love, love to visit with my girls from college, especially the older I get. All we do is sit around and reminisce about the same old funny stories and inside jokes every time, but it never gets old. We can usually pick right back up where we left off no matter how long ago it was that we last visited, and there’s something to be said about that. I hope we’re still that way 20 years from now.

5. DVR – I’m copying Julie’s happiness with this one, but DVR has been life-changing, as sad as that sounds. Whether you admit it or not, we all have our shows we like to watch, and with the invention of DVR, we can now watch them when we want to and not when the networks say we have to! LOVE it! Although Comcast Cable is currently changing up their system so it erased all my recorded shows a couple of weeks ago. I was not a happy camper. But now I’ve reset the programming and all is well. Now I’m just waiting for Sunday afternoon to catch up on all my “stories”!

6. Emoticons – If you can’t tell, I love smiley faces in everything I write. It’s just so hard to express yourself in writing sometimes without being taken the wrong way. Some people hate them. I know this is my blog with my own opinions and rambles so I don't have to justify it, but I’m addicted to smiley faces. Deal with it. :)

Now I tag Lauchlin and Olivia, Cortney and Courtney...

Baby, it's cold outside!

Yesterday I called in sick to work and stayed snug in my bed all morning. I was feeling a bit under the weather from my sinuses, but more than anything I think I just needed a few extra hours of rest on a cold Monday morning. But I did take some sinus medicine and amazingly felt much better by the afternoon.

We battened down the hatches last night with a cozy fire and some hot chocolate to keep warm while we watched some shows we had DVR’d over the weekend. Derek’s taking up almost all the space on our DVR with Halloween movies this week, so I figured I better watch what I had recorded before it “accidentally” got erased. :)

Last night we put an extra blanket on the bed to avoid turning on the heater. We had planned to try not to turn the heater on until at least later next month, but that all went out the window this morning when I woke up as frozen as an icicle. Before I even jumped in the HOT shower I hurried to the hallway and cut on the heater just to get the chill out of the air. I’m usually one to just put on a big, oversized sweatshirt, fleece pajama pants and a pair of warm wool socks when it’s chilly, but frigid mornings can be miserable.

Looks like tonight will be just as cold, so I might as well say goodbye to our pretty summer plants and hello to frost on the ground. Brrr….