Where has the time gone?

Thirty years ago next week I  went out to lunch with my sister and a friend of ours on a glorious Tuesday afternoon.  I was 9 months pregnant (I felt like I was 11 and a half months pregnant).  The waitress had just put my plate down in front of me.  Mmmmm...clams in a spicy broth. I was starving.  Then it happened.  I knew something was  - different. I excused myself and went to the ladies room where I discovered my water had broke (if you're squeamish, don't worry - that's as bad as it gets).  Not quite sure what to do at this point, I sat in a chair and thought about it. I contemplated the fact that within 24 hours I would now have a baby. And I got scared.  Some ladies came in and they asked when I was due.  "Any minute" I replied.  They thought that was funny.  Little did they know.  After a while my sister came looking for me.  When I told her what happened she took charge.  Helping me up, she said "let's go!"  She tried to tell the waitress quietly that we needed to leave in a hurry, but the waitress took one look at me and decided to share my dilemma with the rest of the diners, to my embarrassment.  At that point I wasn't in labor, but 5 hours later, I was. Six hours after that, I got the first of the two greatest gifts I could ever receive (the second one came along five years later).

So this past weekend we had a "surprise" party for the most wonderful (almost) 30 year old daughter in the world.

We started in the late afternoon.

And partied into the night.  Birthday girl on the left with her lil' sistah.

That cute little cake is just one of the many millions of things I have learned from Pinterest!

The next morning, with her new baby, Oliver (in her lap) and her boyfriend's  lovely dog, Creasy.

Another fabulous weekend. Hope yours was wonderful too.

In memoriam

The bf and I had a pretty tough weekend.  Our beloved Sadie (the white dog shown in the photos to the right), died in her sleep at the age of 16. We, of course, had known for quite some time that we wouldn't have her around much longer, but she defied all odds, I think.  Other than becoming hard of hearing, she was in remarkably good health until this past Saturday morning, when she started having a hard time getting up and down.  She could stand and lay down and didn't seem in pain except for the actual getting up and down. But we noticed she wasn't eating or drinking.  After going all day without drinking we tried to give her water by dropper, but she refused it. We knew then she didn't have long, so we spent every moment of the day with her. Sunday morning we were surprised to see her looking a little more chipper, but it was soon apparent that she now couldn't get up at all, so bf carried her outside to do her business.  But after having nothing the day before she didn't have to. We had another long day of watching over her and by late afternoon she fell into a deep sleep and didn't wake up again.  Monday morning she was gone.  We buried her in the yard she loved and although I didn't have a chance to join in Jane's (smallbutcharming.blogspot.com) "Flowers in the House", these are the flowers I buried with her.

She was a beautiful, wonderful, sweet, gentle, and loving dog who loved her daddy and chasing sticks almost equally, and was really good about tolerating me and Jack.  We miss her. A lot. But I like to think she had a good life with us and that she is at peace and will soon be back to chasing sticks somewhere.