The goings on

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm too pooped to blog. But I'm attempting it anyway. I've been wanting to blog since this past weekend, but I've been busy. Okay, Sunday I admit I was lazy. Very lazy. My grandmother gave me Sunday off, and since it's pretty rare for me to get a day off from all three jobs, I did absolutely NOTHING. Well, minus a bit of laundry and some minor cleaning and decorated my Christmas tree. Other than that, I'm not sure you could have paid me to do much else. The minor cleaning and the laundry were only done because my butt went numb from sitting on the couch. And I had nothing to wear.

Anyway, here's what's been goin' on:

On Saturday, I got to job 3 in Town and saw we were booked solid with appointments starting around 9am. I had an hour so I figured I would decorate the office Christmas tree. I had noticed that the weekday girls hadn't had time to decorate it. Since the vet was out on an early ranch call between 8 and 9, I figured that would be my only time to get it done. So, here's my office masterpiece:

 It's kind of a lopsided little tree. And little really is the wrong word to use, as I had to use a chair to put ornaments up top. But it does have character. And I kind of enjoyed decorating it. I've never worked at a job that had a tree to decorate, so this was a first.

During lunch, Mom relayed some not-so-great news. Our old dog, Katie (she's about 17) had to be taken to the vet for some routine blood work to monitor her kidney function because she's on a nice cocktail of drugs. She doesn't like being touched much anymore, so getting her into a vehicle to get to the vet's office is quite the ordeal. During the exam, the vet discovered Katie has a tumor on her spleen. He gave her two or three months left with us, meaning this will be her last Christmas with us.

After work, I raced over to the one store in town that was selling Christmas trees. I had thought of buying my tree when I was in Redding at the first of the month, but I had bundles of the publication in my car, plus my Christmas and regular shopping and I figured my car was full enough. They had like 5 trees left on Saturday evening, and none of them were short. I usually get a little 3 or 4 footer, but I wound up getting a 6 foot tree. Yeah, it's the biggest tree I've ever bought myself. And my decorations are small - both in number and in size!

The tree literally took up my entire car. Like, I had the top of the tree sitting between the front seats. And when I got home, I had to figure out how to get in my house. It wasn't going to fit through the back door. Or the front door. (Obviously I did not think this tree through) I figured the sliding glass door was my best bet, right into my living room. So I hauled that 6 foot tree to the front porch, barely made it up the steps with the tree. And it still took me awhile to get the tree through the sliding glass door. Then I had to figure out my stupid Christmas tree stand. It was rather annoying with all these little screws. And let's face it, trying to get a 6 foot tree straight when you're the only person isn't all that easy. I now know from experience. I also must have eaten several pine needles and the branches tried to be super nice by combing my hair for me. I came out of the tree looking like I had stuck my finger in a light socket and was spitting pine needles for the rest of the night.

As I said earlier, my grandmother was super nice and gave me Sunday off, meaning I didn't have to be up at the butt-crack of dawn to go feed cows in the freezing weather. I slept for 12 blissful hours - waking up at 1oam Sunday morning. I decorated my tree and here's how it turned out:

Yes, those are very tiny ornaments on that tree. I discovered that I'm going to need some bigger ornaments (tasteful) if I'm going to wind up with such trees anymore. There's big hole in the back that has absolutely no ornaments because I ran out! Oh well. It gives it character, right? (please say yes)

On Tuesday I went to Town to the main clinic for the annual "Girls Luncheon". The office manager ordered pizza, and all of us girls bring a gift for a gift exchange. There are nine gals working in for the clinic, and the gal who runs the clinic in Big Valley also came. It was a nice lunch and we all got nice presents. The gift exchange went like this: we all drew numbers, and the person who drew #1 went first to pick a present, the person who drew #2 could either pick a present from the pile or steal the present #1 picked out. And so forth. Only one person stole a present. And never fear, the person who had the present stolen got to pick another present from the pile. Then I had to drive back over the mountain to work at my clinic for the afternoon and start on inventory. UGH.

Today (Wednesday), I had Dr. J talk to Mom about Libby - in the last couple days, she's stopped using her leg they did surgery on to fix her luxating patella on her left leg (floating or moving knee caps). Mom was concerned as Libby wasn't acting quite normal. Since Dr. J will be out of town for the rest of the week to be with his mother during a medical procedure, he wanted Dr. R to take a look at her, since he assisted with the surgery, so he knows the case. Dr. J found out that the pain pill supply has run dry and that's when her attitude changed, so he's thinking that she's playing the wussie card. They have enough of the anti-inflammatory/pain pills til the weekend. Dr. R won't be at the Big Valley Clinic like usual tomorrow, even though I'm trying to get ahold of him to see if he can pop by between cattle work or at least maybe okay a refill of the pain meds through the weekend. Either way, Mom is bringing Libby up on Saturday, but Mom said that Libby is already acting better after taking the anti-inflammatory medication.

Tomorrow (Thursday) I will probably have to work extra hours to finish the inventory at my clinic. I want to have it done so I can put it on the office manager's desk on Saturday. Plus next Monday I'll be going to the main clinic to help them with their portion of inventory so they can hopefully get it done faster.

Somewhere in there I've wrapped presents, have to write stories for the publication, and make sure my house is "Mom-Approved" by Saturday. Along with my normal feeding and work schedule. There are seriously not enough hours in the day. Tonight (Wed.) I was going to do house cleaning stuff, but I'm seriously pooped and I just needed to sit down. And blog.