Love her or leave her?

Not Amanda - the dog is who I am talking about. Why on earth did I ever pad train my dog? I thought it would be so much simpler to do it this way rather than have to take her out in the weather, or leave her kenneled all day when we are gone, but I am really, really second guessing this decision. Case in point, last night we forgot to lock Daisy up in her bed so when Ben came downstairs this morning he looked around to see if she had got into anything while we slept. He saw nothing immediately. He leaves for work and thinks nothing more of it. Well when I came down an hour later after my shower she has left some really disgusting, questionable remains on her pad. It is obvious that she has eaten a diaper from somewhere- - it is sad that I can tell this just by looking at her little poopies. So I go on my quest through the house to find what I know I will find. Sure enough, upstairs in the kids bathroom is the remnants of a diaper all shredded and eaten on the floor. So I get to clean up this disgusting mess. I then proceed downstairs to clean up her pad and mop the floor where she is. I fold the pad all up and ask William to carry it carefully to the garbage can. As my luck would have it one of the corners slips from his fingers and he spills the contents all over the kitchen floor. My patience is all but gone now. Don't worry, I did not blow up at him - - it was not his fault- - I just counted to ten, finished laying out a new pad, went to the kitchen to clean up yet ANOTHER mess from this lovely dog of ours. What stinks (no pun intended) is that this is a daily occurrence here at my house. Cleaning up her pad that it is. I love our dog. The kids love her. She is fun and energetic and it really is not her fault that she has to defecate and void and we just so happened to train her how to do it on those stupid puppy pads for our convenience. I just don't know what to do to save my sanity.

She is really quite amusing at times. In fact, at this precise moment while I type she is attacking the window with her little paws because there are bees flying around just outside of it and she is desperately trying to get at them. Kind of cute.

Perhaps when we move we will just have to install a doggie door and re-train her on where she needs to do her business and my nerves will then get a break. My kids make enough messes for me to deal with without having to add a dog to the mix.

SNOW!!!

This is unbelievable. I don't think I have ever seen this much snow in Texas! I started heading home from Fort Worth at 12pm today and did not pull into my driveway until 6pm! Crazy! The DOT shut down almost every highway in Wise County it seems.

We could not pull into the driveway for all of the snow that was here. My van is stuck down at the base of the drive for however long it takes for this stuff to melt.

William was so proud of his first snow angel.

Here is the road that goes between Mom and Dad's house and ours. Or better known to the kids as "The road to Terabithia."

This was at 4pm this afternoon. Unbelievable.

Erikah's battle...

I got a call this morning from Susan (my oldest sister). She wanted to let me know that our niece Erikah is back at Dallas Children's Hospital again. She was sent via ambulance last night because she was not breathing and turning an ugly shade of blue. When she got to the ER she had about five doctors surrounding her and working her up. It turns out she has pneumonia in both lungs and the bacteria has spread through her blood stream. Her blood pressure was 60/20 with a heart rate of 185. She has since received a blood transfusion and they are going to sedate her and put her on a ventilator to assist her with her breathing. They have attempted to put a PICC line in, but have had no success due to her severe dehydration. Chalea said they may have to put her under anesthesia to do it. The docs told Chalea that had they not brought her in she likely would not have made it through the night. She is a very sick little baby right now.

What makes this so difficult is that Erikah is a transplant patient. She received a new liver about 5 months ago. She is just over one year old and has had quite a struggle in her short life. She was born with no bile duct in her liver so she was not able to rid the toxins from her body. She was put on the transplant list and was lucky enough to receive one before she got too sick to be able to be considered. Now she will be on suppressants for the rest of her life, thus making it incredibly easy to pick up the simplest of viruses.

I pray for my brother and his wife that the Lord will give them the strength to see them through yet another trial and keep them strong.

And I thought my Monday was a bad one. Count your blessings.