Out with the Old, In with the New

I hope you all had a fabulous and healthy New Year celebration. I really didn't. Both Gil and I were sick and though I was on the rebound and finally starting to feel better by New Year's Eve, Gil was getting worse. I was able to rouse him on New Year's Day to get out of the house... my first venture out of the house all week since Sunday! Guess I got a bit tired of being bundled in a blanket on the couch, unable to breath easily, sucking down drugs and water to try and get this awful cold out of my system. Not a way I'd choose to spend a holiday. I missed the only two days I was scheduled to work this week. Gil missed two days, too, but made it on Monday and is trying it out today. Poor guy... I had a hard time seeing him go this morning.

As for a whole new year, I hope it brings you much happiness and health. The older I get, the more I treasure health. And I'm going to try and make mine more of a priority. I'm learning that happiness is more of a CHOICE than a circumstance and my resolution for the year is to CHOOSE to be happy, or at least try to choose!

*** TMI Warning ***

Do not read further if you have a weak system and are easily grossed out!

One thing the New Year has already brought us is Karma's first heat. Gil's had plenty of experience with this but it's a first for me. We were expecting it but realized we needed to take immediate action when she jumped on our laps while watching the ball fall at Tim.es Sq.uare (what a joke that's become!) and blood appeared on the blanket. Poor little thing. So we decided that we needed to trudge out into the world yesterday to get supplies. Actually, we splurged on dinner out after eating chicken noodle soup all week! We also checked out some new books at Bor.ders (not my fave, I prefer B&N) and... surprise! We also went to Ho.me De.pot. Our mission there was to pay off the remaining balance on the cost for our kitchen remodel but I found some clearanced Christmas decorations I couldn't pass up.

Back to the reason for our outing... we had to buy Karma some little girl panties! Oh my goodness. I have never felt such confusion in my life as I did standing there staring at all these little princess infested, pink and purple miniature panties. Tell me, how does one figure out what size to get for a 40-45 lb DOG when the measurements are HUMAN?!! I'm sure not having children for some sort of comparison doesn't help. We decided that going small would be better as there would be no gap and no room to twist so we went with the 4T. I almost got little boy underwear (there were some cute Mada.gascar ones) because all the little girl ones were PINK! Argh! But the Ariel ones (Lit.tle Mer.maid) were mostly green and purple so that's what we went with.

Oh the horror! You should've seen Karma as we tried them on to try and figure out where we needed to cut the hole for her tail. Poor little thing... she was so confused. Once we got the panty liner in and the panties back on her, with her tail sticking through the hole, she tore off 'round the house trying to free herself of whatever it was stuck to her hiney! She only tried twice to bite 'em off but we told her "no" both times and she's been fine since... except for the occasional pathetic looks she send us, like we're the meanest people in the world for subjecting her to this horror. And we probably are the meanest people because we just laughed and laughed (and hacked and coughed in between) at her last night . Of course I had to take pictures. When Karma was finished with trying to get them off herself, she became really clingy and shadowed me something fierce while I was taking the tree and other decorations down and then kept hopping on my lap when I finally sat down to work with Gil. It's kinda hard to work on a laptop while your dog is trying to lay on it, too!

Poor little thing... do you see the distress in those pretty little eyes?

This picture was taken after she calmed down a little bit so she's humoring me by letting me take her picture... but she's not happy about her situation... look at the ear that she's folded back.