Man oh man! Never realized what hard work painting a house could be! I've painted houses before, but I was much younger and I suppose that makes a lot of difference. Along with all my other aches and pains due to going up and down a ladder I'm experiencing some crazy numbness and tingling in my right hand. I did some web-searching and it would seem carpal tunnel syndrome is the culprit. In the last week I've been waking up numerous times with my hand completely asleep, so I twist and turn and try to position myself in such a way to prevent it from reoccurring. Nothing seems to be working. I can't help but feel a twinge of bitterness about getting older - lets just say I am not feeling graceful.

On the other hand, the house is coming along ever so slowly and it is starting to look good. Yesterday I had a couple people stop on the street to tell me how nice the new paint looks as I was painting the porch posts white.

From my vantage point on the small ladder on the front porch I saw the stray tortoiseshell momma cat at the day care down the street with her kittens. Momma is looking pretty hungry these days and her six kittens aren't helping. As she was attempting to lead her entourage across the street a truck hauling down the road hit and killed one of the kittens as I watched. The remaining family has relocated under my back porch, which is yet another bad choice made by the young mother cat. Old Beaux doesn't pay much attention to small critters, but Noodle and Chi are cat killers... Noodle for the most part will mind me when I shout NO! but my trying to stop Chi only seems to fuel her little fierce schnauzer kill mode.

I'm afraid old Beaux is on his final lap of life. He wants to drink water non-stop and then has to pee a river every hour on the hour. This can be a sign of kidney failure or diabetes, as well as Cushing's disease. I love the old dawg, but don't have the patience to happily spend all my time with him letting him in and out of the house all day. I've been trying to limit his water drinking to a normal amount and it has been frustrating because he is pretty determined. Yesterday morning just to see how long he would drink if left unattended, he drank for almost 10 minutes straight... then threw it all up in a sudden blow-out. Oddly enough, it seemed to curb his desire to drink so much the rest of the day.

So this is pretty much my entire update.

On news that is not mine, but I have to share it... both Chelsea and Jamie finished their last semester with flying colors! I am so proud of the two of them. They have worked real hard toward their educational goals. Looks like our family is going to have both a public health/sex-ed genius and a biochemist to boot.

Gordy Jr.'s birthday was this past Thursday. They have been keeping him real busy changing up their work schedules quite a bit trying to work around the heat they are experiencing in the desert right now. He has not had a chance to call us since he went back from the last leave.

Okay, that is EVERY thing I have to tell you about. Off to go do my chores now!