Summer Holidays

I ended the month of June on a sad note. Sneaky, my male ferret, died on the 26th. It was all of a sudden. I had commented on his slight weight loss and chalked it up to the heat. 'Neaky was not chewing up his raisins completely. I opened a new can of raisins and he would eat all of those. So I threw the old can in the trash. Even Milo, Luke's cat, had lost some weight. But Phoebe and our new family member, Buttons, have been gaining weight. I didn't get much sleep that day and should have stayed home, as I came home sick after an hour and a half at work. Sneaky's death really hit me harder than Rascal's death. Rascal was Rebecca's ferret (our first) and was 7 years old when we had to put him to sleep, so we had time to say our goodbyes. But Sneaky just laid down and died before I got home that morning. Stupid me for not taking him to the vet when I noticed the weight loss and then afterwards to see why he died. Now I will never know as I dug a hole as fast as I could with the Big Red Beast as I kept saying, "Oh Sneaky", over and over and over. Today I got his permanent cross made. Christina and I put it on his grave this evening. Sneaky was a ham when it came to posing for the camera. We will sure miss you Sneaky.

The eviction hearing didn't go much better. My brother produced a hand written paper that Dad signed not really knowing what he signed. My brother's wife and friend signed on as witnesses. The judge took this paper and my Power of Attorney letters and stated he needed more time to look into it. I mailed him a letter of the notary in the nursing home that refused to sign my brother's letter. Mom and Dad also send a notarized letter, stating they wanted me to sale their house, to the judge. So I will call him this week if I don't hear from him.

The 4th of July found me doing something I usually don't do. I mingled with about 17,000 other folks at Chevy's Freedom over Texas in Houston.

We went to see (and hear) Sara Evans sing, along with Jo Dee Messina and Maranda Lambert. Now, the older I get, the more I do not like to be around crowds. But a Sara Evans concert for $5 was just too much to pass up. Jo Dee and Maranda just made it better. We even found folding chairs there to buy for only $10 each. I was kicking myself for forgetting my lawn chairs and was thinking we would have to sit on the hot pavement. We left just after Sara finished singing to get back up the hill towards downtown and our vehicle before we stopped to watch the fireworks. It was very hot and the sun shining down on all that pavement in the afternoon. But my Tularosa palm leaf hat's 5 inch brim kept me in the shade. The singing group, The Shirelles sang before the Country Gals and also got to salute the Military.

The lawyer's assistant and I did get Mom and Dad's Medicaid applications finished on the 1st. The lawyer had it signed and emailed to me and faxed to the nursing home and Medicaid the next day. That was a big relief. Now the next hurdle is wait on Medicaid and see if they will pay the $4435 I paid for Mom for June nursing home care. That will be the biggest relief, as I will go under financially if they don't reimburse me. So a lot of the stress is over, but we still have a ways to go.

I had to chain Booger up today as he was in the neighbor's back yard and they were shooting at him. Come to find out they have 3 baby goats over there and they were assuming Booger was coming over to eat them. The fence Booger is going under is just a temp fence and it isn't even on my property line. But my neighbor is hollering for me to fix the fence to keep my dog out!

So come back later to hear the outcome of Booger's wonderings. Check out the new photos I uploaded here. Have a wonderful July and stay cool.

hugs, Brandi