I earn my keep. You need to earn yours.
It’s funny that even with a worker shortage, I can still find plenty of places willing to say “no” to me.
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Christmas is right around the corner! Make shopping for the men in you life easier by picking up hand knit merino wool sweaters for everyone on your list.
These sweaters and other fine gifts are available from my shop at L Bowman Studios.
Today I got to experience nerve conduction testing. While not as bad as I was expecting, it still wasn’t much fun. Basically they stick needles into your muscles (while insisting that you remain completely relaxed as they do!) then ask you to flex so that they can check how your nerves and muscles are working. Some times they shock you with electricity (probably mostly for amusement). Where they stabbed me in the back, I developed some colorful goose eggs. I take turmeric, which acts as a blood thinner, so I ended up with cotton ball band-aids all over.
The take away? I can add Lou Gehrig’s Disease to my list of things I don’t have.
Another “you” post? This is getting boring.
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Are you heading to a birthday party or shower? Consider using this festive, reusable Zodiac Gift Presentation Bag to present your treasured item! Colorful Zodiac themed bag is made of durable bottom weight cotton and lined with muslin and a stiff interfacing to give it its shape even after being washed. After the gift has been removed, the bag can be reused as a gift bag or repurposed as a tote.
This any many fine items are available from my shop at L Bowman Studios.
Still remembering the fall…
(It was the chocolates.)
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If you have someone in your life who could use a big “Thank You”, consider giving them one of these thoughtful hand-painted hankies. Not only are they reusable and eco-friendly, they are also topical.
Hankies are $8.00+shipping. You can contact me about them here or at my website L Bowman Studios.
Mommy’s on a cleaning binge
It’s quite a sight to see.
I fear that with those other things
She’ll also throw out me!
Every year I tell myself that I am going to do a good job of keeping up with paperwork and putting things away. I vow that I will not hoard useless knickknacks or keep every book I meet. January after January somehow finds me buried in paperwork – downing in sentiment.
Toby hates when I get into these cleaning moods because it means less time playing with him. Today he would much rather me be kicking snow for him to catch than doing boring filing and running the dreaded vacuum. I tell him that he should be happy that there will be more room for us to chase tennis balls if he lets me finish my clean up, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me.
I guess I should just be happy that we’re less likely to be
featured on an episode of Hoarders.
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Come with the boys to a place where there are no nasty vacuums – to The Museum of the Imagination! In Dream Our World Bitey and Toby visit the museum of their dreams and look at artwork from a canine perspective.
Dream Our World is available from Amazon.
(Tomorrow we contact another museum. Wish us luck!)
My last post was about Bitey and Toby’s book finally being assigned a card catalog number. I found out I was mistaken about an hour after I posted, so I hurried to hide the post before I could embarrass myself. Oops, instead I just made the post so that no one could comment on it. If I were my own employee, I would fire myself.
Anyway, please forget any mention of Bitey making it into the library system. He’s not there yet.
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Dream Our World is available from Amazon in case you would like to read it!
Not my photo. Borrowed from public domain stock.
The local newspaper had an article about half a dozen stores closing at the nearby mall. My family went, hoping to catch some going-out-of-business deals only to find that most of the stores were already closed. They said the mall was a sad, empty place and that they did not want to go back.
Supposedly the casino that is negotiating for space in the mall is really happy about what is going on. I am not sure why. When the casino had been first proposed, one goal was to bring traffic into the mall complex in order to keep retail businesses alive. Now that two of the four anchor stores are gone, I can’t imagine that anyone will want to remain paying over-inflated rent there. I expect the few remaining store to close soon, too.
I am glad that last year I tried to stock up on everything I could to last me the rest of my forever. There are some items I simply do not trust to online purchases, and the local teeny-tiny Walmart doesn’t carry.
I am sad to see the days of in-person shopping gone not only for nostalgic purposes but for those who can’t afford phones for online shopping and payment.
My boys aren’t worried, but maybe they should be. What happens when PetSmart is online-only? Where will they go to catch up with friends and meet potential new siblings on Adoption Day?
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Toby visiting the new statue and enjoying the marigolds.
At mass this weekend, the topic of parish closings came up. It seems that with all of the scandal in the Catholic church, attendance is dangerously low (as is financial support), and there is a very real chance that we could lose our church. For some reason I had never considered this as a possibility.
Our church isn’t one of the oldest, but it has been around for 50 years. A lot of work has been done with building maintenance, improvements to the grounds and even adding a statue of the patron saint. Not only is it a big part of the community, but it is where dog people in the area meet to talk and exercise their pups. My boys grew up there and are known by everyone.
Since I have MCS, being in buildings with a lot of people wearing perfume and having cigarette smoke on their clothes is more than I can bear, so I haven’t attended mass in a good while. I still participate in as many other aspects of the community as I can, however.
I didn’t realize until today just how much I would miss it if our church weren’t here. I know a lot of other people are going through the same thing. October is the month when then count attendance in order to determine which churches are closed and which kept open. I am hoping to struggle through as many services as I can to do my part to keep this one open. I hope that most churches are able to weather this storm and continue to provide good things for their communities for years to come.
Good luck with yours!
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Need to distract yourself from being sad over things that are not in your control? Consider reading Poopiter! It is a fun little distraction with plenty of stories about these naughty pups.
I am still so upset that I don’t know how to process the information yet. Real Life Bitey went to the vet today, and they found a spot on his lung. If it weren’t for an occasional cough, I would say he was in great health. He is very active and playful and everything a pup should be.
The vet had to send the X ray out to be read, so it will be several days before there is news about the spot. It could be pneumonia (they gave him antibiotics just in case) or it could be something worse.
If you have a spare prayer for us today, we would really appreciate it.
The Adventures of Bitey Dog 