Days pass and time moves on. Life has a way of flowing through you, whether you take note of its passing or not. We are but insignificant moments in the cosmic BIG.

This week I managed to mostly iron out the insurance details from our chimney fire. What I thought would be a simple inspection and a “chimney sweep,” turned into a full-scale rip-n-replace to the tune of “More Than I Want To Pay Out Of Pocket.”

The inspection showed some pretty major damage inside the chimney. This was undoubtedly complicated by the advanced age and deterioration already present. But, work should start in December and shouldn’t take more than a day or two. They will have to pull off the side of the house to get to the fireplace and replace everything; lock, stock, and barrel.

It’s a major pain, but I will sleep better knowing all of that “fire infrastructure” is new and sound.

Our newest pup, Misty Rose, blew out her ACL (cruciate) and meniscus and had them both corrected a week and a half ago. “Corrected” is code for “spent a lot of money on surgery to fix.”

Since then, it’s been the “Sombrero of Shame” to keep her from yanking out her stitches, which she gets removed this coming Friday (Thank the Lord!). This will make caring for her so much easier since all I’ll have to worry about is just keeping her still rather than keeping her both still AND not eating her leg.

Once her stitches come out, it’ll be 4 more weeks of taking it easy and home-rehab.

But wouldn’t you know it…our other puppers (Shiner) developed a nasty urinary tract infection so now I’ve got two bum dogs to take care of and figure out how to adequately disguise foul-tasting medications.

On a sidenote; I raise all my dogs to stay in our yard (generally) and so I can let them out the door; they’ll go do their business and come back when they are done. That pretty much only works for me. Still though, with a gimpy dog, that means her “poop area” is much smaller than normal and it’s really starting to add up. Looks like I’ll be out with the shovel this weekend cleaning up.

In the meantime, CareerMom is away on business for a couple of days. But, God Bless her; she organized the kids’ lunches and figured out how to get kids to all the places they need to get to after school. I basically just have to “move” the pieces. And her family is great about helping out when we need them to, so it’s all good.

Just another day livin’ the dream!