We were so happy when Sammy recovered from her infection. She was again happy and active. Well, as active as an almost 14 year old Golden Retriever can be. But it didn’t last for long. On Tuesday afternoon, probably around 5 pm, when Sammy came walking into the kitchen after a snooze in the computer room I knew that something was wrong.  Her breathing was louder than normal and within fifteen minutes it became clear she was getting worse.  It was so disheartening that her infection was back only five days after she completed her antibiotic treatment.

Thankfully, our vet was open until 6pm that day, so I called immediately. Dr. Major recommended a different class of antibiotics that were stronger and would kick the infection once and for all.  I was on pins and needles for a good 24 hours because poor Sammy was so uncomfortable. It was clear she had a fever because she wanted to go out every 15-2o minutes just to stand outside in the cold air. Steve slept on the couch in the living room so he could be closer to Sammy just in case she needed to go out and so she didn’t try to climb the stairs to get to our room.

Now that she’s been on her medication for two days, she’s perking up again. I am really hoping this is the end of what ever has been afflicting her.

The kids and I had a lot of fun this past weekend.  Little Man had the day off of school this past Friday because it was records day for the teachers. My friend Michele’s older son, J, also had the day off of school, so she and her two boys came over and spent the day with us. The kids had a great time jumping on the trampoline in the basement and chasing each other around the house. After lunch they frosted and decorated cupcakes. As you can see, J is really enjoying his cupcake creation.

In case you’re wondering, those marks on Little Man’s cheek and chin are the result of a wipe out at Splash Universe, an indoor water park, the weekend before.

Here’s J2 and Little Miss Throwsafit diving into their cupcakes. LMT ate only the frosting and left the base of the cupcake. That’s the best part!

On Sunday my parents came over to watch the US versus Canada Olympic  hockey game and have dinner with us. During one of the breaks in between game periods, my dad and I went outside with Little Man and Little Miss Throwsafit and built a couple of snowmen. Mine is the one on the right.  We used Oreos for the eyes, hotdogs for their noses, and Skittles for their smiles. As you can see, my dad had better luck getting his Skittles to stay put in his snowman’s head. Oh well. Their toothless grins make them that more lovable.

Right after I finished taking pictures, my dad’s snowman fell over, leaving only the base. While mine is a bit smaller from the warmer temperatures and is leaning a bit more to the left, it’s still standing.   I guess my dad’s engineering skills didn’t serve him all that well when it came to designing snowmen. Ha!

On July 4th, Steve and I will be married for 12 years. It’s been a fun and wacky ride all this time but we’ve had one constant through it all, and that is our Golden Retriever, Sammy. Sammy, short for Samantha, was about 16 months old when Steve and I had our first date. The first time we met, she was so excited to meet me that she nearly knocked me down. From that point on, she treated me with same affection that she treated Steve.

This June she will be 14 years old – that’s 82 in human years. She has been sweet, loving, and loyal all this time. Outside of having lost her hearing over the last year or two, she’s been amazingly healthy, having never been sick. Until she started aging, that is.

About this time last year, we noticed that she was experiencing labored breathing.  I took her to the vet where Dr. Hasenbank did an x-ray and a little blood work. Her lungs were clear and  her white blood count was high, which indicated she had an infection. But the doctor noticed that the x-ray showed an unusual shadow at the upper right hand part of her heart. She wasn’t sure what it was. It could have been a mass. It could have been a malformed ventricle. Without further investigation, which required a trip to Michigan State in Lansing (we were up north at the time, about three hours away) and a good chunk of change, we simply wouldn’t know. Since Sammy had always been so healthy and was at that time going on 13 years old, Steve and I decided that investigating it wasn’t necessary. So the doctor put Sammy on antibiotics and she recovered nicely.

Fast forward one year. I woke up Tuesday morning, came down stairs to make coffee, and found Sammy in the computer room. She was having a hard time breathing.  I took her to the vet that morning, and she had a fever of 104.5, which was higher than last year. We did another x-ray and a full blood workup this time. The doctor said her lungs looked really good for a dog her age and her blood chemistry was perfect (yeah, Sammy!). She also noticed the same shadow at her heart that Dr. Hasenbank up north noticed, but it didn’t look any larger than it did last year, thankfully. But, once again, her white blood cell count was high, which confirmed what the fever said: she had an infection. Dr. Major put her back on the same antibiotics Sammy had last year and she is once again recovering nicely.

The problem is we don’t know the source of the infection. Dr. Major said that if she keeps getting these infections and on a more frequent basis, that could be a sign that she has a cancer of some sort. At her age, though, it does not make any sense to do testing to find out. We would much rather keep her happy and comfortable than have her poked with needles and put through all kinds of uncomfortable tests.

Steve and I love Sammy dearly but, sadly, there’s a very good chance that 2010 could be her last year with us.  She is such a wonderful dog and we feel very blessed to have her in our family. We just hope that however long her life is that she remains as healthy and happy as possible.

I was talking to a friend yesterday and I told her that it feels like our seasons have been slowly shifting back one month and no longer match up with the calendar. Winter now seems to be January through early April. Spring is starts to show itself from mid-April through June. Summer doesn’t appear until July and goes until the end of September, and Fall is now October through the end of December.

Since we didn’t start getting any snow this winter until mid-January, I have a feeling we will still see snow on the ground and cold temperatures until the end of March and even into early April. Our brains and bodies haven’t adjusted and now that it’s almost March, we instinctively start looking forward to the winter thaw just to find ourselves stricken with a terrible case of cabin fever.

That’s what happened in our house just the other day. Normally, when we get snow, we like to go outside and play, sled, and build snowmen. Unfortunately, we’ve had a lot of head colds around these parts the past few weeks and haven’t had the opportunity to go outside so we’ve been climbing the walls and praying for warm weather. Just the other day my two younger kids dug out the swim goggles and wore them around the house. Just seeing Little Miss Throwsafit and Littlest One wearing them brought images of warm, sunny days, flip flops, and tank tops.

Is it summer, yet?

Gretchen Gotthart Skeldon, a friend from my days at Libbey Inc., died on February 17th after a long battle with breast cancer.  Even though the phrase “one of a kind” can be over used, it really did apply to her. She was kind, beautiful, brilliant, and generous.  She had an unshakable faith in God that lifted the spirit of everyone around her. I loved running into her at work because she always greeted me with a big smile and a kind hello.  No matter how busy she was, she took time out to ask how I was doing.

Back in early 2005, I ran into Gretchen at my obstetrician’s office. I had left Libbey two years earlier when Little Man was born, but she remembered me and gave me her trademark smile and a hug. At that time, I was pregnant with my second baby, Little Miss Throwsafit, and had been coming to my doctor’s office weekly for non-stress tests after LMT exhibited decreased fetal movement. I remember Gretchen’s hair was very short, which made me think that she was battling breast cancer once again. Even though it looked to me that she had been grappling with her own health issues, she took out a few minutes to have a conversation with me about my pregnancy. She was so encouraging that I remember being grateful that I ran into her.  She couldn’t help but have that effect on people because grace and hope emanated from her.

She must have fulfilled whatever it was that God wanted her to accomplish on this earth because He called her home. I know her husband Phil, daughter Lilly, and the rest of her family and many, many friends will miss her terribly as they adjust to going on without her.  Please say a prayer for them.

Gretchen’s obituary was published at the Toledo Blade yesterday. You can read it here.

Update: Chrys Peterson, a news anchor at WTOL in Toledo, was good friends with Gretchen and wrote a post at her blog that really captures Gretchen’s spirit.

Little Man and Little Miss Throwsafit were both home from school for President’s Day. We all celebrated by sleeping in and having a little party:

It was cacophonous but great fun.

One thing I have always hoped for my kids is that they find an activity that they enjoy doing so much that it becomes a passion for them. Since I never really knew how to go about encouraging them to find an activity without overwhelming them, I just left it alone. While I was trying to figure out how to introduce my seven year old son to an interesting activity like maybe martial arts, it seems he found something he loves all by himself: art. In fact, he loves it so much that from the time he gets home from school to the time he goes to bed, he’s drawing, cutting, or pasting something. Unbeknownst to me, I stumbled upon the secret to helping kids find their passion. According to an article in Live Science, the best thing parents can do to help their kids develop a passion for something it to leave them alone:

Parents who want their children to discover a passion for music, sports, or other hobbies should follow a simple plan: Don’t pressure them.

By allowing kids to explore activities on their own, parents not only help children pinpoint the pursuit that fits them best, but they can also prevent young minds from obsessing over an activity, a new study finds.

“Passion comes from a special fit between an activity and a person,” said Geneviève Mageau, a psychology professor at the University of Montreal. “You can’t force that fit; it has to be found.”

The article is based upon a study that found that for a child to really develop a passion for something he must have a sense of autonomy, which means that if a girl decides to take ballet, it’s because she has chosen it for her own reasons and enjoyment, not her parents’s desire to live vicariously through her.

That seems to be what has happened with Little Man. Only one year ago, he wasn’t much interested in drawing, coloring, or painting at all, so I never really pushed it. However, this year, his interest in art has really blossomed. If he still enjoys it my husband and I may enroll him in an art class over the summer, if he’s interested, of course.

We got home earlier this afternoon and had a great time watching the Super Bowl. Yeah Saints!! I’m not a usual New Orleans Saints fan. It’s that I love to see the underdog win.

I enjoyed many of the Super Bowl commercials. Several of them were hilarious, this one in particular

This Snickers ad made me, well, snicker:

As usual, Budweiser had a good ad:

You can see more 2010 Super Bowl ads here.

As you all know by now the eastern part of our country got hammered with snow. Maryland was walloped with 40 inches! Can you imagine waking up one morning and seeing more than three feet of snow on the ground? Well, we’re going to get our own little snow storm of sorts here in southeast Michigan. It’s going to start snowing Monday night and by the time it’s all done Wednesday afternoon we’ll have about eleven inches, at least according to Accuweather. We’ll actually be able to do a little sledding.

Of all the photos I’ve taken of the falls this weekend, this is by far my favorite. I even put  my name on it and turned it into my laptop’s desktop background (click image to enlarge).

I look at it and am amazed that I actually took this picture with my little $149 Fuji FinePix. I uploaded it into Picnik, hit Autofix and it was done.

I went back to the falls today to get some video. I apologize for all the moving of the camera but it was freezing cold and I did my best to keep my little camcorder still. You can hear the wind in the audio.