Category Archives: Family

Family, Holidays

Happy Christmas!

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Merry Christmas from our house to yours

To all my friends and family who are scattered throughout the globe, I wish you all a very Happy Christmas!

The angel on top of the Christmas tree is new this year as is the tree itself. I didn’t buy the treetop ornament because it was an angel so much but because her red “velvet” long coat trimmed in white fur reminded me of the gorgeous clothing the women wore in the movie White Christmas.

Things will get going here in earnest tomorrow. Deliver Christmas gifts to a few folks in the morning, last minute cleaning since I have a dog who sheds enough hair to grow another dog on any given day, so making one last pass with the Hoover is in order. Roast beef, potatoes, carrots, Yorkshire puddings are on the menu for tomorrow night followed by a Yule log and perhaps some pumpkin pie (if I remember to get it out of the freezer in time) with whipped cream.

The father-in-law will be joining us for supper so the two grandsons will get to open their gifts from him while he’s here. Our daughter and her youngest son, her partner and his daughter will be with us, too. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a three-year-old in the house – let alone a three-year-old girl. Sure they come over and visit but not at meal time and this will be the first time she’s been with us at Christmas! Once everyone is gone home, Santa snacks laid out, and the dishwasher running, then it’s time for our Christmas Eve movie – A Christmas Carol. And it has to be the black & white version with Alastair Sim as Scrooge (good thing I have it on DVD).

Christmas morning, the chaos begins. Our daughter and her entourage will be heading over after they’ve done their thing at her place. Her oldest son lives here and at fifteen it’s not quite so frenzied in the morning. I’ve been led to believe that he’s spending the night at her place Christmas Eve, so we’ll have even more downtime in the morning to prepare for the onslaught.

There’s usually an endless pot of coffee going starting sometime between 6:00 and 7:00 (the alarm dog won’t let us sleep past that) so there’s Kahlua and Baileys for it for those who are feeling so inclined. Once the presents are opened, I start our Christmas morning fry-up – bacon, eggs, tattie scones or fried bread, mushrooms, and the piece de resistence – sliced haggis!

About the time I start cooking breakfast/brunch, the champagne comes out along with the orange juice and we have mimosas. Clean-up from this over with, the kids go home for a while, I crash because Ifinally get a chance to sit down and my two Christmas Day movies get played – Holiday Affair with Robert Mitchum and Christmas in Connecticutt with Barbara Stanwyck. Love them both! And again, I have them on DVD so can watch them as and when.

The kids come back later in the afternoon and we have more champagne along with munchies. Sometime during their absence, I’ll get the feast on for our supper. Ham and turkey, sweet potatoes and squash along with potatoes and stuffing are the meal this year for Christmas Day – probably about 6:00 – followed by pumpkin pie with whipped cream or my favourite – plum pudding with caramel sauce.

I think my shopping is done. At least I hope it is. If not, I’ll walk downtown to the supermarket at the far end of our High St and pick it up there and there are plenty of other shops along the way if I need any last minute loot.

Sometime between now and gift delivery tomorrow, I need to make a start at wrapping presents! The bedroom is stacked with them but not a one wrapped. Well, two were and both delivered – one for our gift exchange at work (took place last week) and one for the venue where we hold our local writers’ group meetings.

And that folks is the insanity that is Christmas at The House of King!

Happy Christmas to everyone! And as Tiny Tim says in A Christmas Carol – God bless us, everyone.

 

 

Family

Our Jake is back home…

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Jake, along with his pharmacy, came home from the animal hospital today after spending the night in their ‘deluxe’ accommodations wearing his clear cone and a pretty blue bandana.

Jake - Post Op

The pharmacy consists of steroids, pain killers and antibiotics (all pill form) which they told my husband he took right out of their hands. The medication we got for pain on the weekend can’t be administered because it reacts with the steroids and not in a good way.

Then there are the drops to be put in his ears. That should be fun with him wearing his cone and his right ear flap full of stitches. We’ll find a way. It might require taking the cone off but then when we’re here, he can have it off anyway. It’s beginning to look pretty rough. Have no idea how he did it but he managed to chew it sometime between the time he had his breakfast this morning and when my husband picked him up this afternoon.

Jake surprised them, too, this morning with how clean his ‘deluxe’ accommodation was. It was almost like he’d not been there at all. He would be well and truly shamed if he did his business inside. And when we’re home, we’re his slaves. He can run in and out as he pleases (huge fenced-in back yard) and almost always waits until we’re both busy to scratch at the door.

Glad to have our boy home.

Family

The Post-Op Update

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Compared to Saturday, Jake travelled well in the car this morning. Not much fussing. Pretty much sat looking out the side window or with his head between the front seats looking to see where we were going. Hardly any whining or crying because he was in the car.

I called the animal hospital about 3:00 this afternoon to see how things went (he was scheduled for surgery around 2:00) and he had just gone in but the girl put me on hold and went to get an update for me. Things were going well, he was doing fine and the vet would call me afterwards.

About 3:30, the vet returned my call. The surgery had gone well. He was awake and sitting up but very groggy. Because of the time of day, she preferred to keep him overnight. His ear had a bandage on it and he had a cone on but still the first 24 hours after the surgery to completely drain the hematoma in his ear flap can be quite messy. Yes, the cone will stop a lot but there is still the finer blood spray that would escape. Who wants that mess just before Christmas? Not me. If he came home, he might be a bit too excited and run around, and cause himself undue pain. She also mentioned she didn’t know how he’d adjust to the cone. As long it’s the same one he went in wearing – the one they put on him Saturday – he’d be just fine. He had no difficulties adjusting to it whatsoever.

It seems strange not to hear him scratching at the backdoor to get in or see him lying on his bed but he’ll be home tomorrow night.

I’ll post a post-op photo of Jake tomorrow night but in the meantime, here’s one of him from a happier occasion.

The Halloween Hound

Hope he enjoys his night at “the spa”.

Family

If it’s Monday – it must be surgery

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Today is the day. I go back to work after being on holidays for a week. Jake goes to the vet to have his ear surgery. Poor wee beggar doesn’t understand why he can’t eat this morning. He’s following us around like we’re pork chops. He’s finally settled on his bed again but for how long?

Jake - Pre-op

You can see in this photo how swollen his right ear flap is. When we took him on Saturday, we were told he’d broken the blood vessels in his ear and it was bleeding internally. There are plenty of blood vessels in there so even though they drained it, they weren’t able to get all of it and by yesterday, it was every bit as engorged with blood as it was before we took him and maybe even worse.

I’ll post another picture of him tonight after I get him home. Hopefully, with the exception of some post-op swelling, his right ear will look like his left.

Family, Holidays, Photographs, Videos

T’is the Season…

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I can finally say that I got my Christmas tree up and decorated, although things didn’t go quite as planned. I ended up moving all the furniture out of its’ normal position so I could have the tree out far enough I could walk around it as I decorated. This distressed the dog to no end because his bed wasn’t in its usual location and worse still, it was rolled up! I managed to move a few things around a bit more and spread out his bed onto which he promptly settled on. A couple of bruises later, as a result of bumping into things, I had the lights strung and the angel on the top. Phew.

As the tree took shape, after each string of lights, I paused and took a photo. It was on one of these passes across the room that I rubbed against the dog the wrong way and he let out a huge hound yelp. It didn’t take long to discover the reason for his discomfort. The entire flap of his right ear was engorged… with what, we didn’t know. I called the vet and luckily they had an opening. So we made a flying visit there. The poor beast has had chronic ear problems for as long as I can remember. It was explained to us at the vet’s that he’d broken the blood vessels in his ear shaking his head. But with his history, and the size of it, it was going to require surgery. They were very good with him and drained what they could out of his ear, and sent us home with the same pain medication he’ll be on post-op. So tomorrow, I’ll take my poor wee conehead and drop him at the vet’s on my way to work and then pick him up after.


You can really see in the bottom photo how swollen his ear flap is and they’d drained it. Basically, it will continue to swell until they can get in there and repair the damage. Poor boy. The cone they put on him yesterday is clear and he hasn’t tried to pull it off – not once, unlike the opaque one he had after a previous ear surgery.

Thankfully, the pain medication is keeping him comfortable. We gave it to him yesterday afternoon at 5:00 and he won’t get any more until the same time today.

His biggest problem right now is he can’t drink out of his dish with the water bottle. He tried yesterday and knocked the bottle off and we had water all over the place! All is not lost, we keep the bottle filled and on the counter so we just have to make sure his dish has water in it.

What is going to bother him the most is not being allowed to eat in the morning. Nothing after 8:00 tonight. He’s not going to be best pleased so say the least.

After our flying visit to the vet’s, I finally was able to finish decorating the tree. You can view the video I created here.

Family, Travel, Vacations

Wish I Was Here…

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Near Kennethmont, Aberdeenshire

This is the area of Scotland where my father was born and lived until he and four of his nine siblings were admitted to The Orphan Homes of Scotland. I’ve visited here many times and have made some very good friends in the area. Wish I was there now.

You don’t suppose that’s where Finn McDuff disappears to, do you? To find out where his self imposed exile is, you can purchase the book from amazon.co.ukfor £0.95 or from amazon.com for $1.30.

Articles, Family, Stories, Workshops, Writing

The Day After the Brian Henry Workshop

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On Saturday, November 19th, my husband and I both Brian Henry’s inspirational and motivational writing workshop “Writing your life & other true stories” in Kingston.

I always learn something at Brian’s workshops, and yesterday was no exception. My husband and I share an interest in genealogy and we thought that being able to tell the story in an interesting way would be far better appreciated by the family whose stories we’d be writing.
The genealogy software we use does create “book” format but it contains just raw genealogical data and while that’s good, there’s no personal reflections, memories, observations in it. Mind you, if you’re writing about someone/something from the 1800s or earlier, you’re not going to have much to go on other than a general social history of the time (since you weren’t alive then) and assume that your ancestors were in the same predicament as everyone else. If you’re lucky, you had an ancestor who could read and write and kept journals.
Whether either one of us tackles a segment in time of one of our ancestor’s lives and writes about it remains to be seen, although I have written articles on Home Children, including one on my father. Still not quite the same as a novel-length memoir.
Now that I have the knowledge of how to write it and the tricks of using novel writing techniques to get it “on paper”, I’ll be much better equipped for when the times comes.
I’m looking forward to my next workshop with Brian.
Family, Photographs, Stories, Workshops, Writing

Another Brian Henry Workshop coming up

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On Saturday, November 19th, I’ll be attending another of Brian Henry’s inspirational and motivational writing workshops in Kingston.

“Writing your life & other true stories” workshop, Sat, Nov 19, in Kingston

  
Writing your life & other true stories
Saturday, November 19, 2011
1:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Lions Club, 935 Sydenham Road, Kingston. (Map here.)

Have you ever considered writing your memoirs or family history? This workshop will introduce you to the tricks and conventions of telling true stories and will show you how to use the techniques of the novel to recount actual events. Whether you want to write for your family or for a wider public, don’t miss this workshop.

Workshop leader Brian Henry has been a book editor and creative writing instructor for more than 25 years. He teaches at Ryerson University and has led workshops everywhere from Boston to Buffalo and from Sarnia to Moncton. But his proudest boast is that he has helped many of his students get published.

Fee: $32.74 + 13% hst = $37 paid in advance
or $35.40 + 13% hst = $40 if you wait to pay at the door.

To reserve your spot, email brianhenry@sympatico.ca