Sunday, July 8, 2012

Happy Birthday, Madison

Today is my beautiful granddaughter Madison's 13th birthday. I wasn't invited to share in this very special celebration. In fact, I have no idea if she even got the card and gift we sent, and will never know. I miss her terribly, along with her sister and brother and my other daughter's children. I hope she's had a very special birthday.

I slept late again today. Ken woke me up at 10 because Luci had an appointment with the groomer at noon. Showered, dressed, headed for the shop. Ken and I get extremely anxious when we have to take one of the fur children to the vet or groomer...we don't like leaving them at all. Sure enough Luci was scared, and it was hard to leave her. She was supposed to be ready no later than 4 p.m.

After dropping Luci off we had lunch at Panera Bread -- I had wonderful salad with strawberries, chicken, blueberries, mandarin oranges, pecans, etc., and a cup of broccoli cheese soup. Ken had some kind of Italian sandwich. That place is just SO good.

After lunch we headed north to the total opposite side of town from where we live - about 25 minutes away. We are wanting to move away from the area where we live - it has become the ghetto. Shortly after I built this house 11 years ago, the City of Fort Worth decided to tear down the projects downtown and move all those people to our part of town. In the span of a very few months our area went to seed, stores closed, the area became dangerous, gunshots are fired everywhere, the "tied pair of tennis shoes" are thrown over the electrical lines to indicate drug houses and territories, graffiti is everywhere, our neighbor was followed and bullets fired at him, with casings all over our yard, street and driveway, we are subjected to the cars with the loud "boom, boom, boom, base speakers," constantly, parties with all the ghetto music occur all the time all night, with no respect for neighbors, my husband has been approached in our driveway at night by someone he didn't know, and hubby has also caught someone in our back yard trying to break into the barn. It's time to go.

We didn't find anything today - where we went to look is just as inconvenient as where we live now, and if we are going to move, there are a few objectives. One, get out of this ghetto; two, downsize and move into an apartment or condo that has amenities such as a pool, exercise room, club house; three, into a place that is conveniently located close to stores and malls; and four, has easy access to freeways/highways. Where we live now is a "bedroom" community; it takes us longer to get OUT of our area than it does to get somewhere after we finally reach a major highway.

We headed back to the shop thinking Luci would be ready. We got there about 3:30 - they said she would be ready about 4. We were able to sit on a bench in the store outside the grooming department so we could see what was going on. They didn't start on her until 4. We did get to see that she was very good during the ordeal, however. She eventually got tired. Finally about 4:30 or so they indicated she was ready. She was so ready to see Daddy and Mommie, and we to see her. We had run into some neighbors and their children outside the grooming shop so we let the children see Luci, then we headed out. We didn't get far from the place before I had Ken turn around to go back because they didn't get Luci cut quite right. I figured I didn't want to live with it and had paid to have her groomed, so they needed to fix it. She wasn't too happy about it, but we took her back. It took them about 15 minutes to finish the job correctly, but she looks a lot better. Yea! She's just a bit tired after her ordeal. In this picture she's in Daddy's office where she spends a lot of her time, and has a couple of her favorite things - Daddy's University of Texas croc, and Mommie's old navy blue house boot. I'll put a t-shirt on her before bedtime so she won't get cold...she doesn't like to be covered with a blanket.

So, it's been a depressing Sunday missing granddaughter Madison's birthday, but we did the right thing by getting out of the house so I was out in the sunshine instead of in this house. There were some bad moments when I cried, but it would have been worse if I had stayed home. And, we figured out we don't want to move to the area where we looked today.

BUT, we learned a few things today! Apartment living now days - in a decent place at least - is EXPENSIVE!! Man, for a 1100 sf apartment with garage, the rent is at least $1500 per month and that does not include all the miscellaneous fees, deposits, and added per month costs. We are going to be MUCH better off to find a condo to buy than to rent an apartment. So, guess we'll just keep on looking.

Tonight for supper we had McDonald's of all things. We talked about cooking and neither one of us were up to it. So as much as we and everybody else dislikes Mickey D's, that's what we had. Daddy splurged and got the dogs a burger, too (one to share). No, they're no spoiled!!

That's about it for today. Time to start shutting down for the day and getting ready for Monday. I have dental appointment tomorrow - have to explain WHY I did not get the implant replacement for my front left tooth. I went for the appointment with the specialist, but there was no way I could afford to pay $3300 for an implant! Still haven't made it to Mexico, but it is still on the list. Guess when things get bad enough we'll make the trip.

So long, hope everyone had a wonderful Sunday. Love to my granddaughter - I miss you very much.