true stars

Laney and Abby made a debut on the brownie goose website modeling their super cute matching outfits. Check it out! You might need to scroll down the page to the second post. My obsession continues!

http://browniegoose.blogspot.com/

home sweet home

molly is home! she is feeling fine ( i guess...... she is walking around with her tail up and rolling around). dr. talked to molly's doctor and he was an extremely nice man. dr. got to see molly's cyst that was the size of a bebe. she gets her stitches out in 7 days. until then we are relaxing on a pallet in the middle of the den so we don't have to jump on anything. what an eventful couple of days for molly girl. she is so happy to be home and so happy to finally get to sleep. every time she goes to the vet she comes home exhausted. she is such a people person but is never around other animals so going to the vet is a crazy adventure for her. i am guessing she is busy looking around when she is there and not sleeping. if we ever wondered if she is comfortable in our home, we now have verified that she likes it here. she immediately got on our pallet and went to sleep by her mom. we will be cozy here while dr. is at work tonight.

at least we found a great dr. for molly out of this. banfield (in pet smart ) was going to charge us 460 dollars. molly's new friend would have only charged 125 dollars and they clipped her nails for free. i think they may get some brownies tomorrow from molly!

the recovery

the doctor called today and said that molly did great during her surgery (yeah!!!!) he said they found a cyst on or near her kidney where a follicle must have dropped back in during the initial spaying. this cyst was producing the estrogen that was causing her to go into heat every three to four weeks (at least that is what i understood from what he was telling me.... you know i am not the one to rely on to relay medical info...)

we are welcome to pick molly up at 5 tomorrow afternoon. she is recovering from surgery at the hospital tonight and tomorrow ( which i am very thankful for!)

i was so worried about her all day and was glad to have the doctor call me personally and sound like it was no big deal. very relieving for molly's mom. i was worried that after she got re-spayed, we may see a personality change in her which would just be horrible to lose such a personality. hopefully she will gain weight but i found on the internet ( and unfortunately I believe eerything i read on the internet) that " behaviorally speaking, she acts spayed most of the time and no personality change should be noted."

phew! she will still be our good ol' molly girl!

surgery day

well, i am writing this with tears in my eyes. we took molly to the vet today to get her surgery. she has been in heat for two days and they said they would be able to do her surgery today or tomorrow. molly is very difficult to get in a cat carrier. last time it took dr. about an hour and half to get her in the carrier. he emerged with scratches all over his body and a cat that ran away from him for about a week. i was dreading this day for molly, not only because of the massive surgery she is having but also having to traumatize her by trying to put her in the carrier.

i had a brilliant plan to borrow a dog kennel from our awesome next door neighbor. after she finished laughing hysterically, she offered up her travel kennel so that we would not have to squeeze molly into a 5 inch diameter hole. the vet thought it was pretty hysterical too when we showed up with a 5 pound cat in a kennel for a 60 pound dog. molly actually kind of enjoyed it because we sat her in the grass for a while and let her enjoy the smell of fresh air.

we all know that i am terrified of hospital/ doctor offices. unfortunately i feel the same way towards vet officess. dr. lugged the kennel in the office. abut 5 minutes after he went into the office, a man in a hummer drove up. i thought he was going to get a god out but he had a tiny little carrier with his cat. dr. said when the man came into the office, his cat was screaming and molly (in her big mansion dog carrier) was just so quiet sitting there looking at the cat thinking either:

a. that sucks, you're in heat too?

b. look how much bigger my cage is compared to yours!

c. can you please be quiet?

i was very proud of my kitty for not being the most annoying cat in there.

molly will most likely be coming home tomorrow with a enormous incision so she will need tender lovin' care for about a week.

we are looking forward to many nights full of peace and are looking forward to molly gaining a little weight after being fully spayed so we now longer look like we are depriving our kitty of food.

Tomato Bacon Tart

These were the hit of the night at The Weber's Backyard Bash.  You can even make the mix the day before.  My friend Julie brought these to a Wives Alliance appetizer swap.  They are so addictive.

8 strips bacon cooked and crumbled

1 can rotel

1 1/2 cup shredded swiss cheese

1/2 cup mayo ( or a little less)

1/2 onion ( or a little less)

1 T basil

1 can of flaky biscuits ( not the really big biscuits)

Spray a mini muffin pan.  Peel apart biscuits (each biscuit can be made into three or four layers).  Put biscuit layers in mini muffin pan. Mix all other ingredients together.  Fill biscuits layers with mixture.  Now kind of scrunch in the remaining biscuit layers that are peeking over the mixture.  Do not fill up too much or the cheese will over flow.

These are so delicious and you can not cook them fast enough to keep your serving platter full.  I make these and snack on them all day. 

party time

The Weber's Backyard Bash was a success last night.  I think we had about 22 people.  The heat index was 102 but the boys braved the heat on the back deck and then the girls joined them once the sun went down.  We had lots of fun with friends.

Me, Luke, Akisha

Luke and Akisha

Hamad and Kristin

Me and Jason

Dr. with his mosquito killer

Dangerous Dr.

Kristin with Luke

Smith with Luke

Nathan ( EM newbie) and wife, Smith

Akisha and Jason ( EM resident a year above Dr.)

My Besties: The EM wives in their sorority pose

Me, Kristin, Akisha, Michelle

Hamad, Kristin, and crazy Dr.

Smith (wife of a newbie) with Adrienne's kids

Me with Kristin, Michelle, and Kelly 

( all wives of residents but Kelly's hubbie is an ortho resident and she is an internal med resident)

Dr. with Jason, also an EM doc in the same year

Nathan (an EM newbie), Luke ( a year ahead of Dr.), David (an ortho newbie), Hamad ( a year ahead of Dr.)

Adrienne (wife of Jason) with her kids

my own personal hell

we had a wonderful weekend in 96 degree weather.  we worked outside all weekend.  we had a humongous stack of bricks that were covered with ivy and making our back flower bed tacky looking. ( it is still tacky looking but now there is not a big hump in the middle).  i overcame my fear of the ivy ( and the snakes that i knew were hiding in there) and removed about 150 bricks, no kidding.  we used some to outline our slow growing veggie garden and stacked the rest in the dog run.  there were tacky railroad ties surrounding our veggie garden that we moved to the tacky compost pile.  ( maybe the heading of this post should have been tacky!).  our tacky dog run has a cement bottom but had about a foot of dirt, worms, vines, etc. on top of it.  so i overcame the fear of the dog run (and the snakes ) and helped dr. remove all the junk. ( well maybe this post should have been titled "overcoming fears"!)  *note:  i never came across one snake.  i just have this horrible fear of them i guess.

so a productive weekend all in preparation for the Weber's Backyard Bash happening this Friday!  we are having everyone over for barbecue and yard games!  so far we have about 20 people coming!  yeah! this brings me to the actual title of this post.  because we are having a party, we are trying to spruce up the yard, hence removing tacky stacks of bricks and fixing tacky dog run.  dr. also informed me i needed to water the front grass due to significant lack of rain here.  well in order to water front lawn, two sprinklers are needed.  we use one regularly in the veggie garden.  i assumed the other one was in the leaves in the front bed next to the hose turner on-er.  anyways, i am in the boxwoods, going through the leaves to find my sprinkler and all of a sudden i am staring at something that is black with a perfect red line down it and perfect white lines next to the red lines.  it all happened in slow motion.  i stared, i thought, the thoughts were processed and the next thing i know, i am screaming running through my front yard and some how end up on the back deck.  dr.  has no idea what is happening because the only sounds that can come out of my mouth at this point were exactly that... sounds.  i was unable to form one single word and could not stop screaming and brushing the snake "air" (i guess) off of me.

so, all weekend, i am looking for snakes and know i will find one and i happen to have a run in when least expected and in a place that i go daily in order to water my flowers.  ugh.  

so that is that beginning of my own personal hell.  

now, this morning, i was putting up lights on our umbrella again in preparation for our Backyard Bash.  i am standing on the patio table, my head and arms all intertwined in the umbrella spokes.  i notice at the top of my umbrella is like dried leaves or something.  right around the top in the inside. so i take my little twist tie and knock the leaves out.  it was quite odd because the leaves were all in one mass.  much to my surprise there were no leaves.  this thing i had just gotten about 6 cm from was a BAT that had decided to sleep in the umbrella.  it at some point had gotten closed in the umbrella and passed away (poor soul, really).  so i am still intwined in the umbrella on top of a table and there is a flattened bat laying on my shoe.  

snakes and bats all in less than 24 hours is way to much for me.  i seriously feel like   

a.  dry heaving

b. screaming at the top of my lungs

c. dancing around and brushing off all the snake and bat air that has probably gotten on me  

d. taking a shower

e. pouring clorox all over my boxwoods in the front and all over the deck in the back

i am FREAKING out. ugh