This is what we all need. http://www.boredpanda.com/cute-zoo-animal-tweet-off/
I had a cute animal vet visit the other day. Poor Daffodil is losing some of her quills. Or lots of her quills. Hedgehogs do a quilling thing when they are young where they lose and regrow quills, like a baby teeth kind of a scenario. At first I thought maybe we were dealing with that. But then I had to do some research and found out mites were very likely what was going on. Poor baby.
Poor cranky baby. Daffodil is the sharpest and the crankiest of my girls. Of course, if you were losing your quills you'd be cranky, too. However, she's only been losing her quills for a couple of weeks and she's been kinda cranky from day one. Just sayin.
The vet's office told me to allow time in my schedule to let her come slowly out of anesthesia should that be required at the check-up. Because if they roll up into a hissing crank ball there is very little a vet can do to check them out to make sure all is well.
Fortunately, Daffodil did not require anesthesia. She did cooperate. The only unpleasantness was a) the pooped in carry bag which probably happened while she tried to climb out while I drove the 5 miles to the vet. Her bristly little head was peeking out at me. You can be certain I carried her slightly differently on the way home. b)The saddest scenario happened though while I was cuddling her when the vet went to check the skin flakes for mites. She was crawling all over me and I think she caught her toenail on a metal zipper I had on my jacket.
I saw blood on my hand and thought she had stabbed me with a quill. Then I looked down at my shirt, bloody footprints all over it. Sure enough her little paw was bleeding. The vet walks in and recoils. "Augh!!! Did she bite you?!?" He stopped the bleeding and gave me 6 little syringes of topical medicine to get rid of mites. (Three for Daisy because they love to share with their friends.) Her little foot is fine. All is well.
Already it feels like the loss of quills is stopping. Now regrowing them might get dicey. She may stab me on purpose. Fortunately, she only has a strip of bald sparse quillage.
Excuses for why it's Thursday and I am just now blogging for the week.
1) My dogs ate my homework.
That's not true. However, I attempted to blog one evening and ended up having to hold my computer on a Beagle's body while it draped snoozed on my lap. This is not a good blogging position and certainly does not inspire creativity.
2) I was invaded.
Kind of. My house was full of little human beings I love to death who came over to say "Hi!"including a precious little baby who required much eye contact, kissing and snuggling.
3) Brain mush.
This is a condition that happens when a 50+ year-old-woman is immersed in much change. Work = switcharoo from independent to corporate. Meetings. New everything. It's been almost a month. I think I understand my duties regarding the computer system. I am very likely deluding myself.
Can you teach an old dog new tricks? I think this is kind of a philosophical kind of question. Like "if a tree falls in the forest with no one around to hear it does it still make a sound?" Deep caca kind of thoughts, right? Or is an old dog = new tricks more like "what comes first, the chicken or the egg?"
Regardless, my brain hurts. For so many reasons. Right now everything makes noise whether I'm standing near it or not. The entire universe is a whooshing ocean of white noise residing in my brain. And chickens/eggs. I so don't even care.
I like to think I'm computer literate. I'd even go so far as to say computer functional. I blog, there's a certain skill set in that. I text and manage to do many things over my phone. I can operate Netflix and Hulu for my frequent mindless television binges. I can navigate FB including looking at other peoples posts and not getting confused about whether I share something on my page or a friends'. These are all signs of some level of "getting it." Right?
Enter computer program changes at work.
Enter like a stealth missile including the boom that shakes the foundations for miles around.
Our medical records system has changed. Radically. And everything. I MEAN EVERYTHING we now do at work has shifted and turned upside down and inside out. We are now part of a huge machine. From an independent office of 15 people with two/three/five bosses to hundreds of bosses. Seriously. From clicking on a Staples link with pictures and descriptions to order toilet paper to an old school ordering system that has random and obscure clues so when I try to order date stickers for x-ray envelopes I get one choice. One that is 5 times the price and will require a cupboard instead of a file folder. And that's after I jump through 5 hoops to get them added to the system.
My job involves adding information into a system that is accessed by thousands of people. The click this, click this, right click, left click, change the date or else, make sure you cosign required or else for this scenario to the opposite in another window in another scenario. My trainer told me, "You got this" and left. Two days later she was back in my office. Two days after that a second trainer was in my office making me a cheat sheet of my click choices. Two days after that I got an email saying I had not updated a date in one of the three places I was supposed to so I had to cancel it and put in a new whole order with the second date. Oh, and if I save but not sign in another field I'll get put on a list. Yes. I have new lists I can be put on. Isn't the simple one list, the POOP LIST enough? Really people?
We'll see what tomorrow brings.
All this to say why this old dog didn't do any tricks last week but burn neural pathways, deal with quivering chins, and juggling what was with what is. This old dog was dog tired.
I am currently experiencing and ice storm here on the edge of the Might Mo. That would be the Missouri River which is just down the old interstate from me and is very, very cold right now.
All schools are closed. Many other locations are shut down. People are experiencing epic snowday fun inside their homes. I'm cleaning. And getting a few blog posts posted because I'm a slacker and have not done much of either the past few weeks. The doggos are going to get a bath today. The round headed little kid of cuteness is sliding up and down the stairs checking out the Hulu marathon upstairs and the crazy haired grandma downstairs.
Two bloggers featured me last week. Well, not exactly me. My hedgehogs and my blog. But I'll claim it's all about me.
My cute little daughter blogger (who shockingly still likes me after living with me for two months) posted about her love of this here blog. Silly girl who made a beautiful baby. You can read her post here.
And my hedgehogs as writing inspiration is here. As you will see, they are not exactly muses.
Well. I guess 2017 has happened. Weird. How time just keeps ticking.
This is the first year in about 8,-9-10 somewhere in that range, where we either didn't have our friendfamily staying at our place or we were up north visiting them. Our weekend was made up of a lot of "should we do this or that?" and snuggling babies. There was a lot of baby snuggling. I'm thinking baby snuggling might be the best way to bring in the new year. Maybe a grandma came up with the concept of old year = old man, new year = spanking new baby.
No resolutions this year. As much as I like the idea of resolutions I have been there, done that and seen very little overall change. I do better when I thoughtfully just chose to change and go a different direction and reassess my priorities rather than have a magic day when things begin. I read an article I thought was fascinating. Compounding choices like compounding interest i.e.1%. Choose to focus on/tweak something you are seeking 1% more today than yesterday. If the goal is health, then add just a bit more onto an already healthy choice you are making or decrease slightly an unhealthy choice. Spiritual growth or disciplines, add 1% more Bible or prayer, or 1% less selfishness etc. a day. Financial, spend a few pennies less or put a few more pennies in savings.
I like that idea. Incremental tiny choices toward a picture we have of what we'd like our lives to become.
Here is a brilliant C S Lewis quote about choices.
“Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state of the other.”
― C.S. Lewis
We are the sum of our choices. I think no matter what has happened to us, our unique experiences both good and bad we are made up of how we process and handle those experiences. (I don't know about you but I am still processing things that happened in my life decades ago. Reframing, prayerfully forgiving, tiny attitude adjustments to line up more with God's Word.) As we age and change and grow and get wiser then we have more responsibility in making those changes in the way we think and process. And we are hurrying the process along to becoming a heavenly or hellish creature. Kind of brutal this truth.
I had a cute animal vet visit the other day. Poor Daffodil is losing some of her quills. Or lots of her quills. Hedgehogs do a quilling thing when they are young where they lose and regrow quills, like a baby teeth kind of a scenario. At first I thought maybe we were dealing with that. But then I had to do some research and found out mites were very likely what was going on. Poor baby. 
