Winter Blahs

I've been laid up for almost two weeks now with the injury to my back.  Today is the first day I haven't taken any meds and it's almost 11:00 a.m.  I'm hoping that was the end of them.  I can feel a bit of tightness in my back, but it's not uncomfortable enough ... right now ... to justify taking pills and suffering the stupid side effects.  We'll see how this goes.

Haven't posted much lately.  Haven't had anything going on for obvious reasons.  It's been a cold winter, and I'm already through almost a ton of pellets, so I'm having more delivered next week.  Mark came over and fixed the exhaust on my pellet stove.  The way it was set up, it was going to eventually burn my house down.  So Mark bought the parts and got it all fixed up the other day. 

You can see by the soot on the house how low the exhaust was previously.  This will be much better.  He also put up a smoke alarm for me.  Every night, I used to think to myself, "I have fire burning in my house and I don't have a smoke alarm.  I have dogs in crates and if something should ever happen, they cannot get out."  That thought haunted me.  Not anymore.  Mark, thank you so much for your help!

There have been a lot of people who have been a tremendous help to me through this back injury.  Jaenne ... she's just awesome, no matter what day of the week.  And my neighbor, Dean.  I don't know what I'd ever do without him.  He's taken such good care of me over these last two weeks, there's no way for me to ever repay him.

And these two have provided the best company in the world, and they keep the bed nice and warm, too.

He's always checking on me.

And once I'm feeling better, I have a huge job ahead of me of cleaning up from the fall mess.

Kahlua will be coming home from Don's house soon.  I've decided to lay low for the winter and let my back heal (we'll see how long this thought lasts).  Bummer for her, but she'll get plenty of work come Spring.

Oh and the best news!  Look what I got in the mail today!!!!!

I won this from the FV blog, and let me tell you, this is a very nice calendar!  The quality of the paper, the photos, everything ... it's one of the nicest calendars I have ever owned!  Thank you, Fern Valley!!!

Jodi