Christmas

 Here is Christmas morning. That table was to corral Millie. No longer needed, thank goodness.

Ruby has already destroyed the tent part of this big thing!

These are the gifts they "bought" for each other. I let them look up stuff and Maggie found these. She got the pink ones for Ruby and then asked Ruby to pick the black ones for her.

Millie is actually really good. She was not even a little potty trained but she's now accident free for. . . I don't know, a while. She's barking less too. She does love to steal shoes but she doesn't chew them up. I just find them in strange places. 

Christmas Eve. It was strange with so few people. It was still wonderful and delicious. Jill opened her two Christmas Eve presents and they were both clothes and hoo, she was not happy about that. Mark and I laughed until we were in pain. 

Look at this mess!

I got this big cat tree thing for less than $50 on Amazon!

What a beauty!

She is actually asleep in these pictures. She lays on her back in my arms and goes to sleep.

Almost caught up. . . sort of

 This is Millie when the other lady first got her. Man, that's shocking. Poor girl. There are more pictures of her at the bottom where she's plumped up and clean and beautiful.

Probably selfies.

Tummy dance.

Little tummy.

Big tummy.

She also does a kisses dance where she wiggles and blows kisses.

She loves three ponytails for some reason.

These are the letters we got back from the post office.

I woke up one morning and Maggie told me she had made me a surprise. She had made me a scavenger hunt with clues. The final thing was I love Mom. I made her a scavenger hunt afterwards and hid some of their Christmas candy to find at the end. 

Millie is very relaxed.

Still catching up. . .

 Maggie got blue-ish green highlights. It's very cute.

She's so cute.

Kitty!

We had to quarantine the two weeks leading up to Christmas break. There was a positive Covid case in Maggie's class. So we were home for a month. It was a lot.

They are so cuddly.

Stupid evil Annie brought a beautiful cardinal in our house. I saw her with something and followed her out and saw the cardinal. He was still alive and I made Annie go away. He flew away as soon as I opened the garage. Poor bud. 

The girls wrote their Christmas lists to Santa. Maggie decided to put them in the mailbox. I meant to go get them but forgot. Then the following week we got letters back from the USPS. I had no idea. They were forms but personalized. They even said they liked Maggie's pictures.

Catching up in the new year

Ruby likes youtube now so we have no youtube allowed time. I hate it! Why do they love it when we have Disney Plus and HBO and Netflix and Hulu???

My drawer front just broke off. Ugh!

This is Millie. Here's the story. So I was checking Craigslist for bassets because they don't only show up in shelters. A lady had a boy basset that she wanted to rehome for $5. You are supposed to ask for a small amount of money to rehome because that means bad people will usually not get them. 

The lady was in Oklahoma. Unfortunately, because of the holidays and Covid, my rescue group's ability to transport is lacking. But I found someone who could pick the dog up. She got there and the lady wanted $500! I told her no way, we're a rescue. So she said never mind. 

Then the next morning she messaged me that her husband wanted the dog to go to a rescue and we could have him. Oh and also her friend had a girl basset and wanted to get rid of her too. I told her we would take any dogs she had. So I found another lady from another basset rescue who lived in Oklahoma and she went and picked them up.

The dogs were in horrible shape. The girls was bone thin and lactating and they both stunk like hell and were just filthy. She was so concerned with how bad they looked she took them straight to her vet. I contacted the people again to find why the girl was lactating. They said her family went on vacation and when they got back she was pregnant but all four puppies died. When the vet did surgery on her there was still stuff in there (probably contributing to the awful smell) so they cleared all that out and gave her medicine to dry up her milk. It's probably because she's quite young and too young to have been pregnant.

The boy dog was mean which was concerning. But finally after almost two days at the vet, they were able to go to Donna's house. Once she got the boy home (now named Sampson), he became sweet. I'm sure he was just scared. We agreed that I would take the girl and her rescue would keep Sampson. Maggie named her Millie. 

I had to drive up there on Saturday and Laurie came and watched the girls. Apparently, it was a cluster of kids screaming and fighting, Sav barking and stealing food, and just general mayhem. Laurie was done. Ruby told her Dad on Christmas morning, aunt Laurie said I hate that f*cking dog! Ha! 

So now Millie is living with us. I love her. She's a pain because she's a puppy. I doubt she's even a year old. She's gained weight and she loves to play. Sav is sometimes down to play but she lets her know when she's not. 

I don't know what this is. Maggie drew it and took the pictures of it.

Maggie is on the phone (well, not phone, they talk through an app but the idea is the same) as often as I let her with her friend Aliyah. This is Aliyah and her two sisters who I guess she talks to as well.

Happy basset pictures. Not Millie.

 

Ruby

 Ruby brought me a stool I hadn't seen in forever and I asked her where it had been. She said it had been in Maggie's room. Maggie said, no it was her room. I actually said, no, I search her room for contraband all the time. Wow.

I went to turn on the front porch light and noticed a laundry basket there. Sometimes Ruby uses them as boats or part of her forts so I just grabbed it. What I didn't notice was that it was filled with water, which I dumped all over the floor and my feet. 

She screamed and cried for 20 minutes today because she got a pink sucker and she wanted the BLUE ONE!!!

She's started doing a belly dance that makes me laugh every time.

She also enjoys bending over and talking to me from her rear (ala Ace Ventura). 

2020 is the worst!

My anxiety is really bad lately. I've gone on a news break since it's been clear Biden won (thank effing god) but things are truly scary.

Last night the superintendent of Maggie's school sent out an email. It read that hospitals are 86% capacity and ICUs are at 93% capacity. Then, I sh!t you not, the SUPERINTENDENT of her school, begged parents to consider virtual learning if you can. Just typing that out again brings tears to my eyes. This is insane. 

I just keep thinking about how bad things were after Memorial Day and after the fourth of July and what is going to happen after Thanksgiving. 

And I can't keep us home. Unless schools close I have to go and I have to send my kids. 

So, the above, was written Friday night or maybe Saturday morning. Then, last night, I broke my toe. Ugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of the kittens was outside and Ruby and Sav were out there too. And Ruby said Sav was scaring the kitten and she was afraid so I went and got her and Sav was jumping and going crazy. I'm not sure what happened. I just felt pain and looked down and my toe was completely perpendicular to my other toes. I have never seen that on my body. It's very disorienting. I put the toe back and it felt very loose so I used a bandage to attach it to the toe next to it.

I'm going back and forth now because I'm not sure. On the one hand, I cannot imagine my toe pointing that direction and not being broken. But it's not that bad. I can't walk without Ibuprofen but, if I'm not moving it or trying to walk, it doesn't hurt that bad. It's badly bruised and swollen but not awful. I don't know. Fingers crossed it heals quickly because running is my therapy and, if I can't run, I'm going to lose my mind.