Now Bubba is getting sick.  He’s been sleeping alot the last month or so, but when he was in to see the vet 3 weeks ago, everything looked pretty good other than he had an irregular heart beat.  The last couple weeks, he’s dragging even more and sleeps so much.  He’s also not eating much these days and has lost alot of weight.  So I called the vet today and took him in to see her again to see if she could figure out what has him out of sorts.  She said his heart is just giving out on him.  He’s just about 16 years old now.  It just isn’t fair to think about losing my other snuggly boy when I just lost Jasper.  Makes me cry just thinking about it.  *sigh*  Life is unjust!

Dave and I had bought tickets a couple of months or so ago to go to an Alan Jackson concert up in State College, PA so we packed up and headed up to his sisters on Thursday.  We went for a long weekend to visit with Mar and Tom for awhile in addition to going to the concert with them on Friday.  I think it was a good time actually for us to get out of our house.  It seemed so empty here last week because it just seemed unnatural for Jasper to not be here with us.  Going to a house where we didn’t expect to see him in every room we walked into was probablly a good thing for a few days.

We had a nice visit with his sister and her husband.  It was a pretty lazy trip over all so fairly relaxing.  We got back yesterday afternoon.  Dave is back at work today and I’m trying to get up the energy to do something with my day.  So far I’m being lazy.  I actually feel like going and crawling back under the covers for awhile.

Dave is starting his early schedule at work again next week.  Over the summers, they work longer days 8 out of 10 days and then they get to take every other Friday off.  It’ll be nice to have the long weekends, but we’re not looking forward to getting up earlier and stuff.

I’m disappointed that all of the TV shows are having their finales already.  It seems like they no more than come back on and show a few new episodes and then they show reruns again for awhile, then show a few more new episodes and then it’s time to show their finale.  I think we have down time more than we have real shows anymore.

I know, I haven’t been here in an age huh?  Sorry to any of my visitors that are still bothering to visit.  Sometimes life just gets the better of you and you don’t find time to do the thing that you really want to do.

It was bittersweet for me to look at my last post when I came here a couple of minutes ago to start writing.  In it, I talked about my sweet Jasper and posted pics of him snuggling beside me.  My heart aches as I look at those pics.  Jasper died Sunday night. :(  Any of you that have followed me for any length of time know that Jasper has been having thyroid issues for several years now and took pills each day to help that.  Over the years he lost more and more weight, but he kept hanging in there.  We took him in two weeks ago for a check up with the vet and she was checking him out and discovered a tumor in his stomach.  We basically knew from the downslide of his health the last 3 or 4 years or so that he wouldn’t be with us forever, but we were kind of hoping for several good years yet.  I guess the tumor and/or the thyroid issues just got the best of him.  Sunday morning he was outside on the deck and in the backyard just enjoying himself but by afternoon, he was very sick.  Dave took him to an emergency vet and they gave some meds to try to help, but he just continued to decline after he got back home.  He died later that evening with Dave and I by his side.  Bubba and Missy were there beside him too.  I will miss him forever.  He was just such a sweetheart of a cat and gave us so many years of happiness.  We could not have asked for a better cat.  We have very heavy hearts in my house right now.  It just feels so empty around here.  We have four other cats who we love dearly, but Jasper was just special.  He was the cat that Dave and I first adopted and that sort of “made” our family.  He also was constantly by our sides.  If we were watching TV, he was sitting on our lap or beside us.  If we were in bed, he was at the foot of the bed.  Very loyal.  He was 1 month shy of living to be seventeen years old and he made his 11 year anniversary of living with Dave and I by about a month.

Other than that sadness, things have been pretty good around here since I posted last.  My neice is staying with us for a little while.  It’s a little trying to have a constant houseguest, but it’s only short term.

I’m kind of drawing a blank of what to talk about.  I’m sitting up watching TV until I get so tired that I can’t hold my eyes open and then I will go to bed.  If I go before I reach that point, I will just lay there for hours thinking about Jasper.  I’ll be back soon when I am not as tired and can think more clearly of what to talk about.

It’s hard to believe after seeing mountains of snow for weeks now, but I’m actually seeing the grass in some areas!  It’s been getting up in the upper 40’s around here during the day the last few days, plus it rained yesterday, so alot of the snow has melted.  It’s actually good that it’s melting slowly so we don’t have too much flooding, but it’s so tiring to look at.  I mean imagine it, 4 feet of snow, plus the piles you threw up on top of that when you were digging out your sidewalks and driveways, plus the piles the plow trucks pushed into your yard when they plowed the street.  I swear that some of the piles in the front yard were close to 8 feet tall.  Dave even got the final area approaching the hot tub dug out on Sunday, so we actually got to get in for the first time in weeks that night.  It was heavenly!!

Jasper has a cold. :(  He’s just so sad looking.  His little kitty nose is so stuffed up and he just looks at me with his sad brown eyes.  I feel bad for him.  He’s prone to get a cold or an allergy attack here and there, and I guess it was just time for him to get one.  He started sneezing alot and had a watery eye which is always the first sign … then on Friday he came downstairs and I noticed he was breathing weird because his nose was stuffed up.  He’s still sneezing around alot and having the stuffy nose.  I’m making sure he gets lots of snuggles.  Not much more you can do for a cold in a cat I don’t think. *sigh*  Here he is curled up beside me on a towel earlier today napping.  Isn’t he just the sweetest thing?  He will soon be 17 years old.  We adopted him from a rescue place having adoptions at Pet Smart in April of 1999 and he was almost 6 years old when we got him.  Greatest choice of our lives.

Back later to chat more.  Dave is on his way home from work now, so I better get my butt in gear and do something.  I either have to cook or get out the soup or cereal. *grin*

I think I’ve mentioned before that there is a neighborhood cat that comes to visit me alot … I call him George or Georgie.  He’s been wandering around here for probably 8 years or so and evidently belongs to a girl in the neighborhood.  He is just the sweetest cat.  If I’m out front and he sees me, he will come running to see me.  If I’m not outside and he’s making his rounds through the neighborhood, he will climb the fence around our back yard and climb up the side of my deck and just sit and look adorable at my deck door until I realize he’s there and come visit him.  If it’s warm, I will go out and spend time with him on the deck until he decides it’s time to move on to the next house.  If it’s cold, I let him come in the house and have some kitty food.  He’s usually ready to go right back out after he eats a little snack.  Which is good, because my cats don’t like me letting in a “strange” cat.  LOL  You’d think since he has been coming to visit for so many years, that they wouldn’t consider him a stranger anymore, but it doesn’t seem to work that way in their minds.

So anyway, I’m irritated this morning because he is outside!  My deck is still buried from the 4 FEET of snow that we got over the last two weeks, but I heard noises up there while I was watching Good Morning America and drinking coffee.  I went to check, and it was Georgie scratching on the screen door to let me know that he was there.  I don’t even know how he climbed all that snow!  He is just the sweetest thing, but I really wish they hadn’t let him outside to roam yet.  The sidewalks are NOT clean anywhere in the neighborhood.  The plows made the 4 foot pils about 8 feet high when they plowed the streets, so there’s no way anyone is unburying them.  I just worry that people won’t see him when he’s wandering in the streets.  He’s my little buddy and I don’t want him to get hit.  I wish his owners had just kept him in the house for awhile longer.  I realize he’s probably driving them crazy wanting to go out, because Jasper is doing the same thing to me because he wants to go play in the backyard, but safety is more important to me than getting rid of the nuissance of them meowing and fussing at the door.  Know what I mean?  I was very happy to see him, but I was also irritated because it’s not safe. :(  I let him in and he ate and then I brought him downstairs for a little while to pet him, then I let him out the front door where there isn’t as much snow as there was on the deck.  I wish I could have kept him in, but my cats would have been fighting with him.  Stay safe Georgie, I love you!

Isn’t he just the cutest?  He reminds me alot of my Bubba.

**  drumbroll please!  **

SHERRY WESCOTT from If I Could Set My Soul Free

Thanks to everyone that visited my blog and entered my drawing.  It was great to meet you all and I will definately be visiting blogs again now that there isn’t a time constraint and I can make my way around more leisurely to chat.

Sherry, I will e-mail you shortly to get your address for mailing your goodie box.  Congratulations!

Comments for my OWOH Drawing closed at midnight ET last night.  I will be getting my hubby off on his business trip this afternoon, then later in the afternoon/evening, I will be doing the drawing for a winner.  Stay tuned to see if you get to receive my box of goodies! :)  Thanks to all that visited and participated.  I have had a blast entering drawings myself and am going to take more time to visit the blogs again now that the big event is over.

Well, the last couple of weeks have been … interesting!  :)  I’ve mentioned before that we generally don’t have too much of a winter her in Maryland right?  Several winters will go by and we will hardly get any snow at all.  Maybe 5 or 6 inches a pop a couple of times or something if even that.  We do have a history of getting a big 1 or 2 footer about every 5 or 10 years though.  Well, this year it decided to give us some excitment.  About a week before Christmas, we had a snowstorm that gave us about 18 inches of snow.  That was big for us.  Then we had several more smaller ones.  One was 4 or 5 inches, another was 8 inches, a couple more were a 2 or 3 inches.  Then we heard we were going to get a big storm the weekend before this past one.  At first they weren’t telling us any accumulationg, then we started hearing the 8 to 12 inch range … then it went up to 10 to 15 … then it was up to 12 to 24 … then it was up to 15 to 30.  By the time the storm got here, it was massive.  We got more than 30 inches of snow here in the town where I live.  Some towns got a foot less and some got a bit more.  Then to top it all off, about 3 or 4 days later, another storm came in and we got another 18 inches.  Yes, within’ a weeks time, we had 4 FEET of snow.  Here are a few pics taken during the 30″ storm … these don’t even show the next foot and a half that we got a few days later.  LOL

A crazy amount of snow, don’tcha think?  They are calling for an inch or two today, but after practically 50″, a couple of inches is going to feel like rain.  LOL

Dave is going on a business trip to Fort Bragg, NC today.  He will be back Wednesday.  The kitties and I will have to entertain ourselves for a couple fo days.  We will miss him!

Hope you all had a great Valentine’s Day yesterday.  We did.  We went to Brunch at a nice restaurant down the street to start the day off and then we went out to dinner in the evening and topped the night off with a nice quiet Starbucks visit to read a little, then coming home to watch Cold Case.  It was a great day.  Quiet and low key.

I’ll be back to talk again soon.  I have to go make sure Dave has everything he needs for his trip, then we are going to go grab some lunch before he has to head to the airport this afternoon.

Wow … we are really getting slammed with snow this year.  In normal years here in Maryland, we don’t get a great amount of snow in the part that I live in.  Sometimes hardly a storm at all and other times a few inches here or there.  Every 5 or 10 years though, we get hit with a 1 to 3 foot snowfall.  This year, we are about to get it a second time!  The week before Christmas, we had close to 2 FEET of snow one Friday/Saturday.  We’ve had a few smaller storms since then.  I think there were a couple of 4 inch ones and then we had an 8 inch one last weekend.  Now tomorrow into Saturday we are supposed to get 1 to 2 FEET again.  This just might be the most snow we have ever gotten around here … at least as far back as I was living here and remember.

The grocery store was super fun today.  *eyeroll*  Do you guys get the “panic” around you when it snows too?  It seems anytime snow is mentioned, even if it’s only flurries or a dusting, EVERYONE has to run to the grocery store.  The bread isle was 50% empty today when I was there … the chip aisle was super hard hit and probably only had about 25% left although there was a guy stocking when I was there.  At least Safeway planned ahead this time and had every register open.  Last time we had the 2 footer, it was not as smooth and you had long waits to check out.

Time for bed.  Just had to come vent about the snow.

go to the grocery store for me? LOL I tell ya, for some reason, I just hate to make that journey anymore. I didn’t used to mind it, but lately it just seems like more and more of a chore. I HAVE to do it today though because we need some things, so I guess I will make my way over after while. I think I’ll procrastinate until late afternoon though.

Is anyone else tired of all the reruns on TV? We had about 4 to 6 weeks of them while all of the holiday shows were on, then finally we got some new shows a couple of weeks ago and ALREADY we are back in reruns? What is up with that??? I’ll be happy when some of the late seasons start … like Survivor which is next month and Army Wives which is in April.

I got a new laptop last week. I’m still trying to get everything set up properly on it. It’s amazing how many little things you don’t think about until you go to use it.

Gotta go have some lunch. Have a great day everyone!