Just a Little Bit

On Wednesday I did something I've never done before! I was out for my run and several blocks from home when this Little Bit of a dog came toward me. He let me approach him and pick him up. I checked him for a collar and he had none. I asked people in nearby homes if they knew who he belonged to. They said that they had never seen him before. So, not knowing what else to do with him, I took him home.

Little Bit was absolutely filthy! Not only that but he was covered in fleas. I tried to give him a bath, but his fur was so thick and fluffy that it just started matting up. I ended up pulling out my scissors and dog grooming clippers and taking all that nasty, dirty fur off. He seemed to be relieved to get it off.

After the fur was gone, it was back to the bath. It took several sudsing ups to get him clean. There were fleas seemingly coming from nowhere all over his tiny face. It seemed to take forever to get all of them off.

Now that he was finally clean and more comfortable, I started the process of searching the internet and making phone calls to Animal Services, SPCA, the sherriff's office and, posting to Facebook and Craig's List. We even took a walk to the vet down the street several blocks to ask them to scan him for a microchip. He doesn't have one. I also put "Found Dog" posters up near where I found him and at the vet's office and our local library.

I knew that I didn't want to take him somewhere that he might be euthanized. So I told Animal Services that I prefer to keep him here until his owners can be found or a new family located for him. In the meantime, he is getting lots of love from my kids and me.

Yesterday, Fashionista and I decided to try to get an idea of how old Little Bit is so we tried to get a look at his teeth. There were no teeth! Now we understand why he wouldn't chew the kibble we tried to give him.

I wanted to make sure that Little Bit doesn't become re-infested with fleas or get our house infested, so MyHero and I went to the pet store last night to find flea medicine for him. In chatting with the store employee who was helping us, we realized that he most likely has worms. So she helped us find a dewormer for him. I would love to take him to our vet, but we really can't afford to do that.

I've gotten tons of offers to give him a good home but no owners have come forward. Anyone who takes him in is going to need to be prepared for a walking vet bill! Not only that, but he doesn't have good bladder control and piddles in the floor. My hero is NOT thrilled with the piddling and many might think twice about taking him in knowing these things. I'm praying that he is able to find a loving home soon so that MyHero doesn't insist that I take him to the pound!

Clearing the Shelves

I had the privilege of serving other runners this past weekend at a local Halfathon. Several of our running team were on hand to distribute water to the runners.

I'm on the far left with the red hair.

It was so much fun to encourage these athletes! I did discover that there is a technique to handing water/gatorade to someone who is in motion! Many of the more serious runners did not want to slow their pace to grab the cup, so we had to expect to get splashed a bit by the contents. What a wonderful way to pay-it-forward to the folks who were there to encourage and distribute water in my first two races.

Live here continues to move forward at breakneck pace. Too many times this week I've asked myself, where has the day gone?? I'm simply going to HAVE to train myself to get up earlier. There just aren't enough hours in the day to do all that I need to do, if I sleep till 9 am! Working out and running have been taking up a pretty large chunk of my days. Oh, yeah! And we are still homeschooling too. I'm also working to unload our multiple bookshelves of the books crammed onto them.

My hubby had the brilliant idea of having me purchase a barcode scanner to use to inventory all our books for sale. This will be so much easier than entering information manually into a fill in the blank database. I'm excited about the prospect of bringing in a small amount of extra income while emptying our bookshelves of books that we will no longer use.

Here are the bookshelves which need to be emptied. I also have boxes full of books that will not fit on these shelves. Part of the reason that we are pushing to get this done is because the two main bookshelves shown in the bottom picture are currently in Fashionista's room. There is a possibility of my sister and my aunt coming to visit this summer. We need these shelves out of Fashionista's room so that we can set up an extra bed for them to sleep in.

Son, What Are You Going To Be When You Grow Up??

It's a rainy day out. I worked out and then went for a refreshing run in the rain. Well, the rain was refreshing but NOT the pain in my legs! I powered through the shin splint pain I was having and made it to the end of my run. Yikes! I need to find a way to run without having that much pain!

Now that I'm all cleaned up after the workout and run, I'm relaxing and trying to get a bit of work done. The rain isn't helping me to get motivated to do anything. This is great crochet and audio book weather!  Maybe I'll be able to do some of that later.

I've been thinking about homeschool-friendly colleges for my son. I wish he would decide what he wants to do with his life!! That would greatly simplify things! Since he loves to cook so much I did some research on local cooking schools for teens. They all seem to be way out of our budget. I thought it would be nice for him to get a chance to work with a professional chef in order to decide if he really wants to settle on this profession.

Too bad there isn't a career path for sitting and playing online games all day! He would excel at that! Any one need a Mine Craft player for their business?? No? I thought not! I tell you, homeschooling high school may just be the death of me! Or at least my sanity!

Taking it Easy

This is day two of a migraine. When I feel like this, it seems no matter how hard I try to keep it from happening, school ends up sliding to the back burner. Last time I checked, Fashionista had TONS of math to catch up on. Mom is starting to experience math anxiety! I keep having to remind myself that I will feel better in a day or two and we will get back on track. Educational videos are on the docket for today! At the moment we are watching Animal Planet. As far as I'm concerned this is enough learning for today.

Home Again, Home Again! Jiggity Jig!

We made it home from our vacation visiting Grandma and Grandpa in AR! Whew! It's been a crazy week trying to get back into the swing of things. We will be starting schooling back up on Monday. However one of the things I've realized that I've neglected to add to my kids' assignment list is spelling. Uuugh! I really need to get on that! Not that it will be a difficult task, just one more thing to remember. We use Spelling and Vocabulary City which has wonderful spelling lists by grade. I can just add the appropriate lists to each of my children's assignments. This will round out our homeschool language arts curriculum.

As I promised last post, here are some pics from our trip!

My kids playing in the snow! No that is not an outhouse! It's my parent's well house! LOL

ManBoy found a huge ice sickle hanging from the eaves of my parent's house.

Looking out the back window of my mom and dad's house.

This is a shot from the side porch of mom and dad's house.

Snowed In!

We made it to Arkansas! Had a very nice drive here. The dog traveled much better than I anticipated. As did the kids for the most part.

We had a wonderful Christmas. It turned out to be a white Christmas for us. Started raining late Christmas Eve and continued through Christmas morning. By that afternoon it had turned to snow. Great big flakes of snow! and LOTS of it! In fact, it has been a record snow for this area. My kids are LOVING it! They had never seen snow till now. They are getting their fill of it now. I wanted to post pictures, but the only internet we have access to is moving extremely SLOWLY right now. I guess the pictures will have to wait.

My kids have been spending time playing video games with their cousin and their older cousin's boyfriend. Some of the games they are playing have language that I am not thrilled with. Hoping they will not choose to study vocabulary from those games! If they do they will find themselves in big trouble! We just might have to end up having a homeschool language arts lesson!

Round 'Em Up an Herd 'Em Out!

Tomorrow is the day we leave on our trip! All week has been a mad scramble to get ready! You might be wondering what in the world we needed to do to get ready. Well, for one thing, we live in sunny FL. We are in shorts and tank tops nearly year round and only have like about 2-3 days out of the year when it is actually cold enough to need a jacket. But we are headed to Arkansas where it is going to be cold. Even to those of you who know what cold is! We needed some winter type clothes before we headed up there. To that end, we have been making frequent trips to the thrift store.

Also, we had doctor appointments for kids who have been coughing for way too long. Two out of my three kids are now on antibiotics. There have also been Christmas meals to attend and shopping to get stuff to make the special recipes to bring to those and the time in the kitchen cooking the special recipes.  Not to even mention all the loads of laundry and packing and dropping off critters to be babysat while we are gone. Making special Christmas gifts to bring for family and then wrapping Christmas gifts. Whew! No wonder I'm so tired!

So when you are heading out on a long road trip with three kids and a dog, it's good to have a game plan for the drive. Our game plan is to listen to audiobooks. In particular, "The Lord of The Rings" trilogy. I've been trying to get my family to read these books for years. So this is my chance to finally get them to enjoy them as much as I do! It may or may not increase my kids' reading comprehension, but it will certainly make the drive more enjoyable. My husband says that audiobooks put him to sleep when he is driving, so we will only be able to listen when I am driving. I may have to do most of the driving just so we can listen! LOL I don't plan on there being any roadschooling happening on this trip. Unless it happens accidentally!