Christmas Countdown - 2013

[Christmas-A-Holic]

Hello everyone

How is everybody? I was away a couple weeks, as life was interupting my plans to show up here regularly.

In the last couple weeks my parents had to untertake some serious medical examinations and on top of that we all felt ill. Luckily the results aren't as bad as expected.

My father has sleep apnoe (as we expected since some years, but he refused to check it out) due to the fact that his throat closes up during sleep. Despite the condition he does have enough oxygen. Therfore he needs a vacuum device which should make sure that his throat won't close up. Hopefully this device will help him rest better.

On top of all those examinations we also had to put our tomcat to sleep. He started to eat less and less and became very quiet. On a Wednesday two weeks ago, my father went to the vet (our old vet retired and a vet corporation took over) and they said he had a kidney and a liver tumour. They also told us that he didn't have any pain at that time and gave us some drops which should make him hungry again. We were suppose to give him this drops once a day. But he refused to eat on Thursday and on Friday mornig he breathed very heavily. My father called the vet corporation again and they told him to bring our tomcat over as he now need to be put to sleep. Otherwise he would get a cirrhosisofthe liver, which would be very painful. My father wanted to make an appointment on either friday (the same day) afternoon or saturday afternoon, as due to work those were the only times he could go. The vet corporation told us, that they are only aviable on friday morning and saturday morning (there are tree vets in that corporation!). So that afternoon my father drove to the other vet, who was aviable. After looking at our tomcat she said that he was in real pain and has been for a couple days. My father was shocked. If he knew this on Wednesday he would have put Benji to sleep that day. Never ever would he take him back home again!

Now, we are happy that he is without pain, but we miss him dearly. He was with us for sixteen years and lived a good life. We also decided to change our vet. Not just because the vet corporation wasn't aviable when we needed them but also because they are more expensive than the other vet. They also want everything paid in cash right after the examination. The other vet still offers invoices. Which is much better.

So sorry to hear of your loss. It's very hard to lose a furry family member.

I hope your father improves with his health!

 

[Christmas-A-Holic]

Snowflake! Could you pleeeeeease make a thread showing off your Halloween decorations? :mrgreen: I am catching bits and pieces of them and loving every bit of it. I am sure others would love to see them that don't frequent the Countdown. I want to look at them again but having trouble finding them all. :hair: The Countdown is getting busy.

 

[Christmasstar]

Hello everyone

How is everybody? I was away a couple weeks, as life was interupting my plans to show up here regularly.

In the last couple weeks my parents had to untertake some serious medical examinations and on top of that we all felt ill. Luckily the results aren't as bad as expected.

My father has sleep apnoe (as we expected since some years, but he refused to check it out) due to the fact that his throat closes up during sleep. Despite the condition he does have enough oxygen. Therfore he needs a vacuum device which should make sure that his throat won't close up. Hopefully this device will help him rest better.

On top of all those examinations we also had to put our tomcat to sleep. He started to eat less and less and became very quiet. On a Wednesday two weeks ago, my father went to the vet (our old vet retired and a vet corporation took over) and they said he had a kidney and a liver tumour. They also told us that he didn't have any pain at that time and gave us some drops which should make him hungry again. We were suppose to give him this drops once a day. But he refused to eat on Thursday and on Friday mornig he breathed very heavily. My father called the vet corporation again and they told him to bring our tomcat over as he now need to be put to sleep. Otherwise he would get a cirrhosisofthe liver, which would be very painful. My father wanted to make an appointment on either friday (the same day) afternoon or saturday afternoon, as due to work those were the only times he could go. The vet corporation told us, that they are only aviable on friday morning and saturday morning (there are tree vets in that corporation!). So that afternoon my father drove to the other vet, who was aviable. After looking at our tomcat she said that he was in real pain and has been for a couple days. My father was shocked. If he knew this on Wednesday he would have put Benji to sleep that day. Never ever would he take him back home again!

Now, we are happy that he is without pain, but we miss him dearly. He was with us for sixteen years and lived a good life. We also decided to change our vet. Not just because the vet corporation wasn't aviable when we needed them but also because they are more expensive than the other vet. They also want everything paid in cash right after the examination. The other vet still offers invoices. Which is much better.

it is hard to let our pets go, even when we know it is better for them.

Glad to see you back here and that you are all well. My friend has sleep apnea too and does very well when she actually uses her cpac.

 

[Christmas-A-Holic]

I was so beat yesterday that I fell asleep during the Cowboys game. I am glad to hear they won!!! After that long bike ride Saturday, work and church yesterday I was exhausted by the time I came home. I ALMOST made it to half time before I fell asleep.

I didn't get a chance to catch up on all the post this morning so I hope I didn't miss any big news! I got a lot to do today. I hope you all have a very Merry Day! :yahoo:

 

[Christmasstar]

Merry Monday Morning to you all! How was your weekend? Isn't it crazy how quickly we get through a week? I bet we will be welcoming October very soon!

On Saturday we ended up doing some work around the garden, my eldest had his hair cut, I ran a few errands and later in the evening we cooked a nice meal and watched the second Star Trek movie, we enjoyed it, my eldest loved it.

It was a long day yesterday. I was up early this morning to take my son to school. My toddler keeps waking up at around 3am every night for the past few weeks so needless to say I am not sleeping well at all these nights. I managed to walk to the shops after the school run and I was delighted to see Halloween decorations and candy out! Everywere was busy moving things around, so I bet within the next couple weeks christmas will appear!

I would very much like to veg out on the couch now with a tea and a movie and recover from yesterday but ofcourse no such luck!

Have a wonderful start to the week everybody! Before we knwo it Friday will be here again!

you have been busy! Hope your little ones starts sleeping better.

 

[Christmasstar]

off to work, have a great day everyone!!

 

[Ryan]

Good morning everyone. Well, the Cowboys did it last night! Now if they could do this in a play off game they'd have something. Here's hoping.

Hope you all have a great Monday!


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[Holiday]

Thank you, Holiday!!

Sorry you had a rough day yesterday. Hope today is much better!!

Have a wonderful time at the Reds game!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!

xx


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Thanks for the birthday wishes! We did have a GREAT time at the Reds game. It was HOT!!!! Hope you had a great weekend!

Good morning everyone! I just wanted to get on here and say hey to my Cristmas buddies I have missed work today because I feel horrible and I am layed up on the couch and drifting in and out...Just wanted to wish everyone a good Friday and hope everyone has a great late summer weekend! Just a few more weeks until Fall is here!

Hope you are feeling 100% by now!!!

Good Afternoon ... well our kids started school yesterday. After we got each them on their buses, DH and I went out for breakfest and then to Toys R Us to do some Christmas shopping. Their main gift from us is now done. Still need to get them some clothes from us and work on their Santa gifts. Woke up this morning with the outside temps in the 50s. so between Christmas shopping yesterday and the chilly temps .. I am really feeling the Christmas itch!

Well lunch is almost over. Have a great day everyone!

That sounds like such a fun day! I'm feeling the Christmas itch too!!!

Not sure if everyone knew that Jayish's Father in law passed away yesterday.

Sympathy & prayers going out to Jay & his family!!!


I'm working on getting caught up on the weekends posts.... Good morning everyone!

 

[Holiday]

I have FORTY pages to read to get caught up!!!

 

[Holiday]

When I got to work this morning the Kiplinger Holiday shopping forcast was in my email:

The outlook for 2013 holiday retail sales?
More ho-hum than ho-ho, unfortunately.
So no big boost for the economy from it,
though we still expect fourth-quarter GDP growth
to top a sluggish 1.7% third-quarter rate of gain.
About 3.5% more sales this year than last...
about one percentage point slower growth
than in the 2012 Thanksgiving-to-New-Year’s span.
One reason: A truncated shopping period.
A late Thanksgiving and midweek Christmas Day
this year mean consumers will have a mere 26 days
to load up on gifts, decorations, entertaining, etc.
Last year, they had an exceptionally long 32 days.
Each day can represent about $10 billion in sales.
Plus all the preexisting dampening factors
that have been curbing consumer spending all year:
High unemployment, meager wage and income gains,
anxiety about government fiscal policy decisions,
and increased 2013 payroll and other federal taxes.
Helping to offset those curbs…
Easier credit and a greater willingness
to use plastic. Consumer spending is growing nearly twice as fast as wages are.
Reduced savings, too. From just 1% in 2008, the savings rate rose to nearly 8%
near the recession’s end. Now it’s slipped below 5% and will continue to drift down.
Retailers will try to gin up buying especially early. Some stores,
especially those online, will start promoting holiday deals right after Halloween.
And look for Black Friday sales to pop up days, even weeks, before Thanksgiving.
Among those that will fare the best: Electronics stores, as technology items…
smart TVs and phones, tablets, e-readers and gaming consoles…fly off shelves.
Plus discount retailers and mass merchandisers…Costco, Kmart, Target,
Walmart and the like. All will benefit from consumers’ cautious spending this year.
Online sales will climb 20%, with cyberstores nabbing a 6% market share.
In 2012…5%. Half of all shoppers will buy something online this holiday season.
Expect retailers to fight hard for sales this year, offering plenty of bargains
to entice shoppers into stores and then providing better service to get them spending.
Many will equip aisle-roaming sales staff with tablets or smart phones.
Among their jobs: Show buyers alternatives that aren’t in stock and place orders
for them, with free delivery to home or store. Watch out for showroomers…customers
who look over products in stores, then buy elsewhere for less…and offer to match
or beat prices. And process sales on the spot, letting customers avoid checkout lines.
Look, too, for more innovative e-marketing: Notices of flash sales…discounts
available for 24 hours or less, personalized recommendations (à la Amazon) and more.

 

[Bradmac]

and watched the second Star Trek movie, we enjoyed it, my eldest loved it.

I'm sorry, did you say something else? I couldn't get past this part.

 

[Holiday]

We did enjoy it. We stayed for dinner but did not stay for the meeting since it would probably last for a while and the meeting place is over 70 miles away. We stopped by for a quick trip to Michaels. They had LOTS of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas stuff out, but I had no time to take pictures. I picked up some yarn to begin my reversible afghan, and picked up some more yarn for another one. The second yarn is a milk chocolate brown, a turquoise skein (Aruba Sea), and a variegated yarn that is a combination of dark chocolate brown, the milk chocolate brown and the turquoise (Earth and Sky).

Love that yarn! My Mom made an afghan using that yarn for my niece:

 

[Holiday]

I am caught up on posts through Saturday morning! Geesh... :lol:

Check out our temps this week. High of 94 on Tuesday & a high of SIXTY SIX, low of FORTY TWO on Friday! :cold: Talk about a drastic change in temps!!!

 

[Holiday]

Okay, maybe we were triplets separated at birth! When I am working on scrapbooking it gets messy looking, although there is a method to my madness. When the remodeling is completed, I will have a dedicated area in the garage with LOTS of space so I don't have to clear it away all the time. We have a wood stove out there, and Hubby insulated the heck out of it when he built it. I am so anxious to get my scrapping space and get lots of stuff done.

On another note, Hubby told me I have to figure out which yarn and crocheting stuff I need out for the winter since we will be putting more stuff in the garage soon and won't be able to go digging around once the work starts in earnest on the house. I will do that some time this weekend.

I posted a quote on my Facebook page that is so appropriate and related to our stopping at Michaels on the way to Redding Thursday afternoon: Going shopping with your husband is like going hunting with the game warden! LOL!

OMG! Sooooooo true!!!!!!!! Too funny!!!

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Your house looks BEAUTIFUL!!!! So festive!!! You have a lot of fall decs! Love it!!!!

 

[Bradmac]

Good Monday morning, my Christmas friends!

It was a hot weekend, but we had a good time. Friday night, we went to hear Jacob's guitar teacher, Chris, play in a blues concert. It was a great show! I know I've mentioned it before, but Chris is the younger brother of my old HS friend, Mark, who played in the band with me for years & years. It's funny to see how much Chris looks like Mark, and has the same on-stage mannerisms. Chris' drummer (Matt) is our drummer, too, so it felt like I should have been on stage instead of being in the audience.

Saturday was all about hunting, and Jacob and I had a blast doing that. Sunday was relaxation at mom's...except for having to drag the broken pecan limbs across the orchard to the burn pile.

Tonight I have a city council meeting and Nancy has a church Ladies Circle meeting. Run, run, run!

I hope y'all have a great day! cheesy

 

[Bradmac]

I am caught up on posts through Saturday morning! Geesh... :lol:

Check out our temps this week. High of 94 on Tuesday & a high of SIXTY SIX, low of FORTY TWO on Friday! :cold: Talk about a drastic change in temps!!!
http://s34.photobucket.com/user/bucks_fanatic/media/Temps_zps4d0633d4.jpg.html

Low 40's!?! We won't see that till at least Christmas!

 

[Holiday]

Just popping in for a sec. I have a busy day!

Snow-in-Texas and I went on a 10 mile bike ride yesterday at the lake. That is the longest we have rode since we got the bikes. I wanted to do more but it was getting really hot by 11 am. The high topped out at 100 yesterday. The muscles in my legs were a little tight yesterday so I thought I would wake up sore but I don't feel a thing. We keep saying that we want to go completely around the lake someday and looking it up this morning the trail around it is just 11 miles. Here we were going so many miles out, backtrack then go out again. We were going back and forth until we reached 10 miles when all along we could have gone all the way around it! I thought the trail was MUCH LONGER than that. We were afraid to get too far out and not make it back. I think our next goal is to go around! I can't believe I lived here all my life and didn't know that info.

When we got done with the 10 miles we cleaned up and headed back out running around for a few hours. By the time we got home we were wiped out and was asleep a little after 8 pm.

While we were out running around we saw lots of Fall and Christmas goodies! Exciting times! :yahoo:

You all have a blessed day!

Great job on the 10 mile bike ride!!! Yep, next time you go all the way around!!! :grin: We haven't rode around our lake yet this year. Normally we try to do it at least once. It is 27 miles around. Wew! Need a nap after that one!!!

I'm caught up to Sunday morning....

 

[snowflake22]

Thanks, Snowflake. He used to have season tickets, but that was BC (before Cherylle).

Haha!! That's cute!


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[snowflake22]

Hello everyone

How is everybody? I was away a couple weeks, as life was interupting my plans to show up here regularly.

In the last couple weeks my parents had to untertake some serious medical examinations and on top of that we all felt ill. Luckily the results aren't as bad as expected.

My father has sleep apnoe (as we expected since some years, but he refused to check it out) due to the fact that his throat closes up during sleep. Despite the condition he does have enough oxygen. Therfore he needs a vacuum device which should make sure that his throat won't close up. Hopefully this device will help him rest better.

On top of all those examinations we also had to put our tomcat to sleep. He started to eat less and less and became very quiet. On a Wednesday two weeks ago, my father went to the vet (our old vet retired and a vet corporation took over) and they said he had a kidney and a liver tumour. They also told us that he didn't have any pain at that time and gave us some drops which should make him hungry again. We were suppose to give him this drops once a day. But he refused to eat on Thursday and on Friday mornig he breathed very heavily. My father called the vet corporation again and they told him to bring our tomcat over as he now need to be put to sleep. Otherwise he would get a cirrhosis of the liver, which would be very painful. My father wanted to make an appointment on either friday (the same day) afternoon or saturday afternoon, as due to work those were the only times he could go. The vet corporation told us, that they are only aviable on friday morning and saturday morning (there are tree vets in that corporation!). So that afternoon my father drove to the other vet, who was aviable. After looking at our tomcat she said that he was in real pain and has been for a couple days. My father was shocked. If he knew this on Wednesday he would have put Benji to sleep that day. Never ever would he take him back home again!

Now, we are happy that he is without pain, but we miss him dearly. He was with us for sixteen years and lived a good life. We also decided to change our vet. Not just because the vet corporation wasn't aviable when we needed them but also because they are more expensive than the other vet. They also want everything paid in cash right after the examination. The other vet still offers invoices. Which is much better.

So sorry for your loss, Cetacea. Thinking of you & sending our love.
((Hugs))


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[sugar142286]

Hello everyone

How is everybody? I was away a couple weeks, as life was interupting my plans to show up here regularly.

In the last couple weeks my parents had to untertake some serious medical examinations and on top of that we all felt ill. Luckily the results aren't as bad as expected.

My father has sleep apnoe (as we expected since some years, but he refused to check it out) due to the fact that his throat closes up during sleep. Despite the condition he does have enough oxygen. Therfore he needs a vacuum device which should make sure that his throat won't close up. Hopefully this device will help him rest better.

On top of all those examinations we also had to put our tomcat to sleep. He started to eat less and less and became very quiet. On a Wednesday two weeks ago, my father went to the vet (our old vet retired and a vet corporation took over) and they said he had a kidney and a liver tumour. They also told us that he didn't have any pain at that time and gave us some drops which should make him hungry again. We were suppose to give him this drops once a day. But he refused to eat on Thursday and on Friday mornig he breathed very heavily. My father called the vet corporation again and they told him to bring our tomcat over as he now need to be put to sleep. Otherwise he would get a cirrhosisofthe liver, which would be very painful. My father wanted to make an appointment on either friday (the same day) afternoon or saturday afternoon, as due to work those were the only times he could go. The vet corporation told us, that they are only aviable on friday morning and saturday morning (there are tree vets in that corporation!). So that afternoon my father drove to the other vet, who was aviable. After looking at our tomcat she said that he was in real pain and has been for a couple days. My father was shocked. If he knew this on Wednesday he would have put Benji to sleep that day. Never ever would he take him back home again!

Now, we are happy that he is without pain, but we miss him dearly. He was with us for sixteen years and lived a good life. We also decided to change our vet. Not just because the vet corporation wasn't aviable when we needed them but also because they are more expensive than the other vet. They also want everything paid in cash right after the examination. The other vet still offers invoices. Which is much better.

My experience from patients using CPAP machine's, it always helps them breathe better. Your dad should do well with it. Hope he is starting to feel better.

So sorry to hear about your tomcat. Your family in is in my thoughts and prayers.