Doggy Drama

Back in January I introduced you to our new puppy Phoebe.

I also admitted that I'm really not a dog person, but I wanted the boys to have a pet so we brought home a cute little puppy for them. Since then Phoebe has been a great pup for the boys. Other than chewing up a few things here and there and barking at the wind at 10 o'clock at night, she really has been the perfect little puppy.
But since yesterday, Phoebe the puppy has been stressing me out! Something happened to her Sunday afternoon. We still aren't quite sure what. Possibly she got hit by a car, or maybe she got kicked by our neighbors' horse, or maybe a bigger dog attacked her. We're not sure how, but Phoebe got hurt and not just a little hurt apparently.
Jason took her to the vet in our little community first thing Monday morning. They did an exam and an x-ray of her back legs, which seemed to be the major problem. They didn't find anything serious and said that maybe she has sprained something. They let Jason bring her home with instructions to keep her in the house and confined for about two weeks to give her sprain a chance to heal. So after paying $300 in fees, he brought her home, gave her some food and water, and put her in her little doggy cage.
When I got home from school with the boys, I noticed that she seemed worse than she had that morning. I think Jason thought she was just tried or hurting, but I knew something wasn't right. She ate a little bit, went out to do her business, and then laid down. I brought her back in so I didn't have to worry about her running around and hurting herself more, but after a while I noticed she wasn't breathing right. We let her out thinking maybe some of the medicines had given her an upset stomach. She walked around for a while, and looked like maybe she was trying to vomit. Then she laid down in the edge of the flower bed and didn't really move...she was just really laboring to breath.
So at 7:45 last night Jason took her over to an emergency clinic about 20 minutes away. They examined her ans said she was obviously in pain and that she was really dehydrated. They ended up putting in an iv and then keeping her to run a bunch of tests. Jason was told they would call back within the hour with the results and let us know what they found.
We stayed up for a while waiting on a call back, and when we hadn't heard anything around 10:00 we called over to check on her. The doctor called us back about 30 minutes later and said that from the x-ray they did it looked like she had probably been hit by a car. Her diaphragm had a tear in it and it looked like she was bleeding internally. The tear and the bleeding was making it hard for her to breath which is why she was in so much pain. The doctor said they really needed to go ahead and do surgery to repair the tear right then, because she was just getting worse and worse.
Without know just how much doggy surgery was going to cost, we told her to go ahead with it. As much as I'm not a dog person, I really couldn't bare the thought of her hurting like that, and I knew the boys would be so heartbroken if she didn't come home. They did the surgery, and called about a little while later to say that things had gone pretty well. We went to bed last night hoping and praying that she would be fine through the night.
We are up and going this morning. The boys have asked where Phoebe is and all I've told them is that she is at the doctor still. I don't want to tell them about all the details until we get an update on her. I'm hoping that we get a call with an update soon this morning. I've never been through this kind of thing with a dog, and I'm really not sure what to expect over the next few weeks. How does a dog recover from surgery? Especially an outside dog that is used to running around wild!
Anyway, for now I am stressed and we are waiting.
Hopefully, we'll have good new soon. In the meantime, I'm wondering just how much emergency surgery on a dog costs!

Project Airstream Update: A Video

We have been working hard on Project Airstream....and it's been a while since I've shared about our progress. So this time instead of just posting a couple of not so great picture {It is really hard to take good shots in such a small space!}, I thought I would share a little video tour. I have to tell you that I went WAY out of my comfort zone to film and share this video. I hate the way my voice sounds on recordings...and I almost thought about doing a silent video tour. But I decided you really needed a little narration to know what you were looking at, and then I just couldn't stop talking! This video is a little longer than I was planning...apparently I got more comfortable talking and filming as time went by. And hopefully my shaky filming doesn't make you too queasy! Enjoy the video:)
Here's a few quick pictures just in case you don't have time to watch the video right now:

We've come a long way from the 1977 {retro & not in a good way} Airstream that we brought home last June {click HERE to see pictures of what we started with}, but we still have a lot to do to get ready for our big trip at the end of May! I would love to know what you think about our progress so far! Linking up here..

Tatertots and Jello

Serenity Now

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Earth Day Waffles

Earth Day is this Sunday, and I thought it would be fun to whip up some waffles to celebrate. I have to admit though that other than the fact that these waffles look {a little bit} like the earth, there isn't anything really "earthy" about them. As I was mixing in the food coloring to make the blue and green batter, I realized that it would have been much more "earthy" for me to use fruits and veggies to dye the batter. So if you really want to celebrate Earth Day the right way with these waffles break out the blueberries and spinach...or you can be like me and just add in a little dye and enjoy the pretty colors:)

 I started by mixing up some store bought waffle mix according to the package directions. Again if you want to be extra "earthy" make your own homemade waffle mix...and I guess you could even grind your own flour too if you REALLY want to be "earthy"!

 Divide the batter into two bowls pretty evenly...even though there is way more water than land on our planet it is a lot easier just to put equal amounts of both colors onto the waffle iron:) Then add a little bit of green {either food coloring or pureed spinach} to one bowl and a little bit of blue {either food coloring or pureed blueberries} to the other bowl. Let your little assistant give each bowl a good stir with a whisk until you get the color that you want.

Spray your preheated waffle iron with non-stick spray and add the batter onto the waffle iron. You can just pour it on and spread it around or you can really try to make it look like a view of the Earth. I tried to make mine look like the Earth...can you see North & South American on the left, a little bit of Europe on the top right, and Australia on the bottom right?!? After you've added your batter cook your waffles on a pretty low setting to prevent it from browning too much. 

Our waffles ended up getting a little more brown than I wanted, but I just called it dirt and took a few pictures to share with you:) They tasted the same even if we had to pretend that the brown parts were dirt!

I think these is going to be my boys' after school snack today and then maybe we will work on a recycling project to really get us in the Earth Day mood!

Do you do anything to celebrate Earth Day?

Linking up here..

Tatertots and Jello

Serenity Now

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