Sleepy Day

Last night when I went to bed, I was feeling the beginnings of a headache. I think it has a lot to do with my vision since some days my right eye bothers me more than other days. I didn't fall asleep until about 11:30 pm. Hiker woke me up a few minutes before 6 am and I did have a headache and felt light headed, kind of like I was “hung over”. Took a motion sickness pill because they usually help me when I have light headedness, and I went back to bed. Hiker woke me up again at 8 am. Still didn't fell that well, but got up and made some breakfast. I thought maybe eating would help my head. It did help a little, but I canceled the plans I had of going over to Sam's Club because I did not trust myself driving. After lunch, I started feeling somewhat better but I felt very tired. Fell asleep a couple of times on the sofa. My cell phone ringing woke me up. It was the Toyota dealer reminding me of my service appointment tomorrow morning at 8 am. Hiker would come up on the sofa with me every now and then and lay down beside me and lick my hand. She and I walked up to the mail box together in the afternoon. It was a beautiful day outside and I was sorry that I didn't feel up to par because it would have been a great afternoon to be outside. I really do think the lightheadedness is caused by the problem with my eye, plus I have not been able to fall asleep before midnight the past few weeks.

Home From The Senior Center

Went to my support group at the senior center today. The overweight woman was there and once again she was showing the world her underwear. She just cannot keep her legs together for some reason. She should wear long pants instead of the baggy dresses she wears, but I'm sure she wears the dresses to be more comfortable because of her weight. At lunch we were all saying how her voice is like fingernails on a chalk board and she is still trying to tell people what they should or should not do and that is a NO NO. Went to Red Robin with the ladies from group and when I got home, Hiker was excited to see me as usual. Got a call from my brother Keith. Good news....he had a doctor's appointment this morning and they said his pneumonia is completely gone. Now he is hoping to plan a visit with me and Hiker soon. I need to call a locksmith tomorrow and see if I can get someone to come and put a new lock on my sliding glass door that goes from the living room out to the patio. I saw a DYI video on YouTube, but I think I'd rather pay someone to fix it because it would probably take me hours to do and they can do it in a few minutes, and they would do it correctly. It was about 85° here today. Actually we are having a pretty comfortable compared to the one we had last year. We've had a few days of over 100° but have mostly been in the high 80s to low 90s.

Took this photo of Hiker last night while we were playing

Nice Day For A Hike

Since Jean is not doing our dog walks this week due to the fact that she is boarding 3 dogs for vacationing friends, my original plan for this morning was to get up around 6:30 to 7:00 am and take Hiker for a hike over in Placerita Canyon. When we woke up at 6 am, it was foggy outside. I didn't really want to hike in the fog so I went back to sleep and didn't get up until 8 am. Made some breakfast and since it was still only about 70° outside, I put Hiker in the car and we drove over to Placerita Canyon. We did a 3.3 mile hike up the Canyon Trail. Was not really hot, but it was humid. It was nice to be out getting some exercise and vitamin D. There were several other hikers out this morning. It always surprises me how many people hike on week days. Some are them are old enough to be retired, but others are not. We got home just in time for me to watch “The Young And The Restless” and Hiker plopped down on the floor and took a nap. It is now almost 3:30 pm here and I still have not turned my A/C on today. That's a good thing!

Stay Inside Sunday

Slept in some again today. That's getting to be a habit. I remember I was dreaming that I had Hiker outside on her lease and somehow she got loose, which would be hard to do. Anyway, she ran off ahead of me and I was yelling at her to come back. I don't know if I yelled her name in my sleep but I suddenly hear her bark and it woke me up. Got dressed and went outside and used my weed whacker on the grass that grows on the slope on the north side of my house. Sometimes I ask the gardener to do it for me, but I didn't get out to ask him yesterday, so I did it myself this morning. Now my arms are tired and sore. After I finished that, took Hiker with me to buy my Lottery tickets then came home and had some pancakes for breakfast. Washed my sheets and towels and vacuumed the carpet. Glad I got it all done in the morning. Put together a meatloaf and put it in my crock pot. This is the first time I've tried one in the crock pot, so I'll see how it turns out. It sure smells good.

Warm Saturday

Stayed in bed until 8 am this morning. Had the TV on so I wasn't really sleeping in. The bed just felt so good, I could not make myself get out of it (LOL). After we got up, Hiker and I went for a nice walk. Was in the 90's here again today. We spent most of our day inside the house where it was cool. I did go outside in the late afternoon and cut back a rose bush that was getting unruly. It was hanging out into the street and might snag someone walking by. Made some sun tea. That's one good thing about hot weather.

Relaxing Day

Thunder off in the distance woke me up at 3:30 am. Hiker was barking at it. She barks as long as it is far away but if it gets right over head, she hides. We did our walk with Jean and her dogs this morning. She is boarding a chocolate lab for a week and we took Hiker by Jean's house to meet the dog but Hiker was scared to death of it. The lab was overly friendly and came running at Hiker. Hiker hid behind me and shivered. I want her to get used to being around other dogs but this one was just to “aggressive” for her. After Jean went home, I went over to Sam's Club. It was still very cloudy and I had some big rain drops on my way home. Didn't do much the rest of the afternoon. It was hot and humid outside, so we stayed inside with the A/C.

Felt A Little Ill Today

Don't know what I ate yesterday that gave me a stomach ache last night, but it kept me awake until after midnight. I still didn't feel so great when I got up this morning. Didn't go for a walk because I didn't want to be too far from my toilet (LOL). By lunch time, my stomach didn't feel much better. I did have some lunch, but felt yucky after I ate. Just sat on the sofa all day and watched TV. Even took a short afternoon nap which is very rare for me. Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow.

Pretty Nice Day

Hiker was so funny last night. A fly had gotten into the house and she was chasing it all over the place. She would run from room to room jumping into the air trying to catch it. She'd settle down for a bit and then she'd see the fly again and I hear her galloping through the house once again. She finally cornered it in the bathroom and I was able to kill it with the fly swatter. After that, Hiker pranced around and “smiled” like she knew she had helped hunt it down. Got up around 7 am and went for a walk around our neighborhood. It was beautiful outside at that time of the morning. Came back home and had breakfast and then did a little housework. I needed to wash my Corolla since it sits in the driveway and it had gotten filthy from the last small rain. It was too hot and I was too lazy to do it myself, so after lunch I took Hiker with me down to the drive-thru car wash and got it done. I had taken her there with me before when I had the 4Runner washed and she was fine, but this time, it scared her some. Before they send you through the car wash a guy hand washes it some and then sprays it with a power washer. The power washer spraying the car is what scared her. She was jumping all over the place trying to hide from it. She was OK once we got into the car wash itself. She just sat and watched everything.

I'm Stuffed

Went to my grief support group today at the Senior Center. Had a small crowd as several of our members are on vacation. There was a new woman there that I had never seen before. She was extremely overweight and sat across from me with her legs apart. I have nothing against overweight people because I know how hard it can be to lose weight, but I kept wishing she would sit up because there were a couple of men sitting across from her too, plus I don't think any of us wanted to see her underwear. At least she had some on (LOL). I thought she was very rude. She seemed to think that our session was a “library” as she did nothing but sit there through the entire 2 hours reading a book. Every now and then she would “come to life” and speak in a very overbearing voice, giving people advise on family matters that she knew nothing about. She was telling my friend Jane how to handle her son without knowing the entire story of his problems. After group, a few of us went over to Backwoods Inn for lunch. It was pretty busy today and so it took a long time for the waitress to get to us and take our orders then it took a long time for her to get our checks to us so we could leave. I got home about 45 minutes later than I usually do and Hiker was at the door ready to greet me with kisses. I ate too much so probably won't have dinner tonight.

Normal Monday

Went to bed around 9:30 pm and actually got some sleep last night. I think a lot of the problem is because it's warm at night so I can't stay asleep. I don't run my A/C at night because it clogs my sinuses. I have my fan on and I open my sliding door a little, so that helps some. Got up at 6 am to go for our dog walk with Jean. Had breakfast after she headed home and then I went and did my grocery shopping at Stater Brothers. I knew the nice cool weather yesterday wouldn't last. We had rain last night. Not a lot but enough to make it extremely humid this morning. It was 90% humidity at 7 am when we started our walk. It was getting sunny and hot by 10 am. Had to turn my A/C on. Didn't do much the rest of the day. I'll be glad when summer is over so Hiker and I can get out in the afternoons more.

Cooler Weather

My plan for this morning was to take Hiker up to Vasquez Rocks for a morning hike and photograph the sun coming up, but when we got up, it was all cloudy outside. I had a restless night again so was having trouble keeping my eyes open at 6 am when Hiker woke me up to let her outside. Decided to go back to bed for a little while. Slept for about 2 more hours. When we got up again, it was still cloudy so I had to make a decision of where we would go for a morning hike. Thought about Towsley Canyon, but then thought if the sun did come out, there is not much shade on that trail so we went over to Whitney Canyon because there is quite a bit of shade there. I was lucky to find a parking place since they lot is usually full on weekends. There was a fallen tree across the trail about a mile up the trail. It was completely blocking the path. I didn't go into the weeds to go around the tree because there could be snakes or ticks in the weeds, so Hiker and I headed back to the car. It was very humid while we were hiking and the deer flies were eating me alive. The sun peeked out for a little while, but stayed mostly cloudy all day. Did a load of laundry and vacuumed the house when we got home. Hiker stretched out and took a nap. In the afternoon, we went out and sat on the patio. It was about 79° and a nice breeze was blowing. It was still very cloudy. We finally came in because the flies were attacking us.

Sofa Saturday

I let Hiker outside a little before 6 am this morning so she could go potty. After she came back in, we went back to bed and I fell asleep and didn't wake up until 8:15 am. We got up and went for a walk. The weather was cloudy this morning and actually looked like it might rain, but then the sun came out and the clouds burned off. I heard that there were some big thunderstorms and downpours in Las Vegas last night. That's where Ben's sister and her family live. When we got back from our walk, I made Hiker a poached egg and I made myself some fried eggs and toast. Looked at the calendar and noticed that today was the day my mom passed away 15 years ago. Where does the time go? The clouds starting coming back a little after 2 pm and the wind started whipping up some. Didn't do much today.

Busy Day

Got up at 6 am to get myself ready to go over to Kaiser for my appointment with my retinal specialist. Jean picked me up at 7:30 am expecting more rush hour traffic, but there was not much traffic at all so we got to Kaiser around 8:10 am. I checked in at 8:30 and they called me in right away. They gave me a quick eye test and checked my eye pressure and then dilated my eyes and took photos of the inside of my eyes. Waited about 10 more minutes before the doctor came in. He said that my right eye (the one with the problem) had improved some but he could still see a little swelling in the eye. He said it had improved about 45% from the last time I was there. He said that it had not gotten any worse and he doesn't think it will. He gave me two choices. The first one was to give me steroid injections in the eye which has the risk of causing cataracts and also the risk of retinal detachment, or....wait another 4 months and see if it improves on its own, which he says is possible. I chose to wait 4 months to which he said that would be his recommendation but he said he had to give me both choices and let me decide. So I'll go see him in 4 months and if there is no improvement, we will start the injections. After my appointment, Jean and I headed back over to Santa Clarita and we did a little shopping. We went to Bed, Bath & Beyond and then Kohl's and then Target. I bought a couple of t-shirts at Target. Also got some dog cookies for Hiker and I bought one of those As-Seen-On-TV Olde Brooklyn LED Lanterns so if the power ever goes out. After shopping we went over to Chili's for lunch. Jean had never ate at Chili's and she really liked it. When I got home, Hiker was so excited to see me. She was jumping all over me and kissing me.

Couch Potato Day

Once again I had to take a sleeping pill to get to sleep last night. I had been sleeping so well for the longest time and just in the past 2 or 3 nights, I have not been able to fall asleep until well into the early morning. Don't have any idea what the problem is. Hiker and I have been out walking in the afternoons. I would think that just that alone would help me to sleep. It sure helps Hiker sleep (LOL). I went back to bed at 6 am after letting Hiker outside. She let me sleep until a little after 8 am. I decided as soon as I woke up that today was going to be a “do nothing” day...that I'd just be a couch potato. I noticed what appeared to be smoke in the air here and found out it is from a fire down near Palm Springs which is about 150 miles away from us. I guess the fire is really big. Went out into the yard and played ball with Hiker for a little while. It was very warm out there, about 98° but we played under the shade of the tree. Tomorrow morning I have to get up early to go to my appointment with my retinal specialist. It is not until 9 am but Jean is picking me up at 7:30 am because the traffic from our homes down to the Kaiser Medical Center is terrible in the morning. It usually takes us at least and hour to get there during “rush hour” and I'm supposed to check in at 8:45 am. I'm guessing Jean and I will go somewhere for a late breakfast or early lunch after my appointment.

Hot Afternoon

Since Jean is driving me to my retinal specialist at Kaiser on Friday morning, she wanted to do our dog walk today instead. So we did the walk and then let the dogs have a play date. Jean wanted me to come up to her house and check the volume on her Time Warner box and DVD recorder. She thought she didn't have something hooked up right, so Hiker and I went over to see what the problem was and fixed that for her. I was a little worried about Keith because I usually get either an email or a text from him each morning and I had not heard anything from him by 11 am so I texted him. He texted back that I woke him up with my text. He took some antihistamine early this morning and it “knocked” him out. After lunch, Hiker and I drove up to Vasquez Rocks. As you know I love that area for hiking and taking photos. It was HOT up there today, but it was actually 7° cooler there than it was at my house, which is surprising since “The Rocks” are more out in the desert than where I live. There was a school bus load of Jewish kids there and they were all over the rocks. I know that they were Jewish because they were all dressed in school uniforms and the boys were all wearing yamaka. I kept thinking that none of them were aware of or watching out for rattlesnakes because they were crawling through the bushes and climbing into the small caves, etc. Hiker let me know when she'd had enough of the heat. She started pulling me and heading back towards the car. When we got back to the car, I gave her some water and then she found the spot in the car with the most shade. She stretched out on the hardwood floor by the front door when we got home.

Pretty Good Day

Since I had taken a nap due to my headache yesterday afternoon, I had trouble going to sleep last night. I have never been into afternoon naps, not even when I was a toddler. My mom said she didn't put me down for naps because then I was awake all night and I'm still that way. I went to bed at 11 pm but was still wide awake at 1 am. I finally took a sleeping pill and I turned my TV on to the Music Choice channel and listened to “classic country music” which finally lulled me into sleep. Hiker finally woke me up at 6:30 am to go outside, but I was so drowsy that I went back to bed until 8 am. When we got up, I had some breakfast and then Hiker and I drove over to the Kaiser Pharmacy and picked up my blood pressure medications for the next 3 months. Hiker was so happy that she got to go for a ride in the car. When we got back home, I did a little house work and then went over to KFC and picked up some lunch to bring back home. I decided not to go to my support group today. I wanted to get some stuff done around the house instead, but I will go next Tuesday. After lunch, Hiker kept sitting next to me and barking at me and pawing at me. She does that when she wants me to do something. I decided she wanted to go for a ride or something, so we headed over to Placerita Canyon Nature Center and just walked around a little there. It has shade and dirt so it's not too hot and there is no pavement to burn Hiker's paw pads. That seemed to satisfy her because once we got back home, she stretched out on the entry floor and went to sleep.

Go Away Headache

We had our dog walk/play date with Jean and her dogs this morning. After she went home, had breakfast and then I headed over to Wal-Mart. I woke up with a headache this morning. I seem to be having some problems with my sinuses so I don't know if that is what is causing the headache or if it is because I need new eyeglasses but need to see when my retinal specialist says I can get new glasses. He may want me to wait until he's done with whatever procedures he needs to do. The headache has lasted most of the day even though I took something for it. Because of it, I just stretched out on the sofa all day and fell asleep a couple of times. Hiker was acting strange all day. For some reason she could seem to settle down and relax. She would curl up somewhere and then two minutes later she was up roaming around and then she'd curl up and again and two minutes later she'd be up again. Don't know what that is all about. I'm thinking about not going to my support group tomorrow because since Jean is driving me to Kaiser on Friday for my eye appointment, and I'll have dilated eyes all day, I'm short a day this week from running around doing my errands and any housework. I really enjoy going to lunch after group with the ladies, but I think I mostly go to the sessions now for the social aspect.

Lazy Sunday

I felt exhausted this morning when I woke up. Had a very strange dream last night. I remember it had to do with work, but didn't look anything like where I used to work. I remember I saw several people that I recognized. One was my cousin Lynda, two of them were ladies I used to work with, Olivia and Betty. I had not worked with Betty since we were back in Burbank about 20 to 25 years ago. Also Eva Longoria was in the dream which is really strange. We used to have a computer program that had the acronym of “PADAIS”. In the real world, I have not used this computer program in almost 20 years. In my dream I sat down at the computer and remembered exactly how to use this program and I remembered the basic form we used for it and I remembered what to type on every line. I'm thinking the combination of this crazy dream and the fact that yesterday I had a crying spell is what made me feel so exhausted. I know that when I've had crying spells before that they pretty much exhausted me. Grief takes a lot out of you. By the time Hiker and I got out of bed this morning, it was already getting too warm for a walk so we didn't go on one. I loaded my washer up with my sheets and towels and then did a little housework. The rest of the day we just lazed around the house. We will get out some in the morning with Jean and her dogs.

Hot Saturday

Got up around 7:30 am and took Hiker out for a walk. It was a beautiful morning with lots of people out. When we came home, I made us some poached eggs and then did a load of laundry. I made myself cry without meaning to. I was going to transfer some old video I had taken on some of Ben's and my vacations up north and so I was going through them on my laptop. Then I saw Ben and heard his voice. There we were together up in the redwoods of northern California. Me taking the video and him being his usually nutty self. I started sobbing and had to stop watching them. This was the first time I'd looked at any of them since he passed away, and obviously, I'm still not ready to look at all of them. I can look at still photos of him and they make me smile, but seeing him moving and hearing his voice....nope, not there yet. It was too hot to go for a walk after lunch...almost 100°, so I took Hiker for a ride in the car. She seemed pretty satisfied with that.

Up at 6 am this morning. We went for a dog walk with Jean and her dogs and then we stopped by and picked up Patches. She belongs to our neighbor Chris who is also our community manager. The dogs then had a play date in my backyard for awhile before we all went up to Jean's. Both Hiker and Patches were going to get groomed by Jean, or as Chris says, they were going to have their “spa day”. I had Jean shave Hiker again since we will still have a couple more months of hot summer weather. Today was the first day of Hiker's new diet. Jean said she felt sorry for Hiker because she had to go and get her vaccinations yesterday, then she got a bath (which she hates) today, and on top of it all, she has to be on a diet. Hiker can't seem to understand why she is not getting any bites from my plate at lunch and dinner. I just have to keep strong and not give in to that cute face. I found out today that we are going to get a new Sizzler here in the Santa Clarita Valley. I am so glad to hear that because I love Sizzler. We had one here in our valley for years but it closed down about 15 years ago and I really missed it. Glad to know that we will have a new one here this fall. After lunch, I took Hiker over to Central Park and we did a mile and a half walk. It was 90° but didn't feel that hat because the wind was blowing. Not too many people in the park today.

Another Overcast Day

When Hiker and I got up, I thought it was really early in the morning because it was so dark in the house, but then realized it was extremely cloudy outside. SoCal does not usually have a monsoon season, but we sure are having one this year. Got up and had breakfast and then took Hiker to get her vaccinations. She was due for the distemper one and the kennel cough on but I also decided to get the rattlesnake booster since it will be due in 3 weeks anyway. They told me that Hiker is getting too fat again. To look at her, she looks muscular and lean but the vet knows better. He said she is the same size from shoulders to rump and she should be narrow at the hip, so he told me to cut her food down about 50%. I know it's my fault because I just cannot resist that cute little face when I'm eating people food and she is asking for a bite, but I will have to stop giving in to her. I really need to cut down on my food too especially since I'm going to make her eat less. When I adopted her, the shelter told me to give her a cup of food in the morning and a cup in the evening, but the vet said to cut that down to half a cup in the morning and half a cup in the evening. She was such a good girl at the clinic. It was crowded this morning and there were several dogs and cats. The other dogs were getting into little fights and making all kinds of noise. She just sat there on the floor watching all of them. She always makes me so proud when she is out in public because she behaves so well. After we came back home, I took her out for a morning walk. It was so humid out that when we got home, I felt like I just stepped out of a sauna. Hiker went out into the backyard and stretched out on the cool cement of the patio. My eye was really bothering me today. I sure hope when I see my retinal specialist a week from tomorrow he can do something more about it. I need to have my camera that zooms ready to go when I'm sitting on the sofa. I missed taking a photo of a Yellow Hooded Oriole that was on my patio at the hummer feeder this afternoon. I have never seen one before. I went to get my camera and it was still there but then Hiker barked and it flew away. I immediately looked online to see what kind of bird it was. Hopefully it will come back.

Cloudy/Muggy Day

Slept in about 45 minutes then got up and took Hiker for a morning walk around our community. It was totally cloudy and we even got some big rain drops while we were out, but all that did was make it humid. When we got back home we had some poached eggs for breakfast and then I headed over to Sam's Club. The sun peeked through the clouds around 12:30 but it stayed cooler than the past few days. The sun didn't stay out very long and around 3 pm my power went off, but came right back on within a few seconds. I'm wondering if maybe there was a lightning strike somewhere that cause it. I lost my Internet for awhile too. Today is my brother Keith's 58th birthday.

Interesting Day At Group

I was having the strangest dream last night. I was going somewhere with the ladies from my support group. There were several of us so we were taking more than one vehicle. I usually drive whenever I go with a group but for some reason, I decided to let the others drive this time. It was night time which is strange because I very rarely go out at night. I remember I was ready to go and everyone else was running late and they were just taking their time like we didn't have to be anywhere soon. I decided to ride with Jane and she and I got in her car and headed out. It started to snow. Don't ask me where that came from because we are in SoCal and its summer and in the 100's here. Jane didn't know how to get where we were going and I kept trying to tell her which way to go and she kept doing the opposite of what I told her. The I woke up. It was about 5:30 am so I went back to sleep and didn't wake up until almost 6:30 am. Hiker was sitting on the bed looking at me. I told Jane about this dream before we went into our support group this morning and she just laughed. She thought it was so funny. It was already 70° at that time. Had a lot of people at group today. So full that one guy came in the door saw no seats and turned around and left. We had two more new people today, one woman and one man. They didn't say much. Just said they wanted to just listen, which is fine. After lunch 6 of us plus Gin's caregiver Ann went to lunch at Jimmy Dean's. Always have so much fun when we go out to lunch. All of us say now that we mostly go to group just to go to lunch after. Had an email from Keith when I got home plus he called me to let me know he was doing better. His doctor emailed him that his white blood cell count was getting back to normal which means the antibiotics are working. It was 100° on my patio when I got home.

Played Wii Sports All Afternoon

Got up a little early this morning. Had our normal Monday dog walk/play date with Jean. Another beautiful morning here in Canyon Country. I just wish the weather would stay as cool all day as it is in the morning. Got an email from Keith. He said he is feeling much better today and he has a follow-up visit with his doctor this afternoon. It was another day of not doing much. It was a little over 100° here today so too hot to go walking or hiking. To get some exercise, I once again played some of my Wii Sports games. A little bit of light aerobics is better than no exercise at all. I love playing the Wii Sports Resort Frisbee Golf.

A Take It Easy Day

Didn't do much today. After Hiker and I got out of bed we headed out to get my lottery tickets. Came back and made some pancakes for breakfast then did some laundry and vacuumed. Played out in the yard a little with Hiker and her ball. Got an email from Keith. He said he was feeling a little better but that his fever is still going up and down, but now it stays down around 101° instead of 102.5°. Maybe the antibiotics are finally kicking in. I sure hope so. Got up to around 95° here today. I didn't turn my A/C on until after 2 pm. Been trying to lose it less but I do turn it on when I think it's getting too hot in the house for me and Hiker. INSP TV was having a “Waltons” marathon, so I watched that for awhile and then played some of my Wii Sports games. Need some kind of exercise since we didn't get out for a walk this morning.

Saturday

Stayed in bed until 8 am. Hiker kept bugging me to get up. We went for a morning walk. It was nice out but already starting to get warm. At least there is some shade along the way where we walk. Got back home and started the laundry and had some breakfast. My brother Keith has not been feeling well so he made an appointment with his doctor yesterday. Keith was having pain in his shoulder and they saw that he had a temperature of 101° so they took some x-rays and ran some lab tests. They contacted him later and told him that he has walking pneumonia. They prescribed antibiotics for him and told him to rest. Being his “big sister” I told him he'd better take care of himself and rest like the doctor said so he can get well. Hiker and I went out in the yard to play with her ball after the gardener finished mowing. Even though the thermometer read 90°, it felt cooler than that under our shade tree in the backyard. I texted Keith to see how he was feeling and he replied “not good”. I told him that if it gets worse for him to have someone get him to urgent care or to an ER.

Semi-Cool Friday

Hiker and I had our Friday dog walk with Jean and her dogs. It was overcast and cool this morning. Jean and I told each other how our dogs reacted to the fireworks last night. Hiker was nervous and would not settle down. She would run from one room to the other trying to “get away” from the noise. I finally took her into my bedroom around 8:45 pm, closed the door, turned on the fans and the TV and got on the bed with her and cuddled her. She finally settled down and went to sleep around midnight. Jean said she found her Charlie and Timmy hiding in the bathtub during all of the fireworks. Her little Sassy was hiding under the sofa. After our play date with the dogs, I went up to Stater Brothers and did my weekly grocery shopping. The sun started peeking out some by that time. It stayed pretty cool compared to what we had been last week.

Happy July 4th

Got up around 7:30 am and went out for a morning walk with Hiker. She and I celebrated her 3rd birthday today. I don't really know what day she was born, but with the estimates of the vets who worked at the shelter I adopted her from, they said she was born in the summer of 2010, so I decided on July 4th as her birthday so everyone could celebrate it with her on the birthday of our country. It was cooler today than it has been. I was able to go without the A/C until around 1:30 pm. I hope the fireworks tonight don't scare her too much. I had a strange dream last night. Ben was in it, and so were his mom and dad. His dad passed about 27 years ago and his mom passed a few years ago. In the dream it seems his mom and dad were having some kind of party or celebration and Ben and I were going to it. I remember seeing Ben's brother Lanny and Lanny's wife Diana in the dream too. Ben's dad died from Parkinson's Disease but in my dream, he was healthy and both of Ben's parents looked young. That's about all I remember about the dream.

The birthday girl

Overcast Day

Hiker and I got up at 7 am this morning and headed out for a walk (just the 2 of us) before it got too hot. It was a little cloudy, so I could feel a little humidity while we were out. We did just under 2 miles. Someone somewhere was shooting off fireworks last night and they were scaring Hiker. I was trying to get her to go outside to potty before she and I went to bed. Hiker got so scared of the noise that she peed on the couch. Good thing I have a leather couch. Makes it easy to clean up. We stayed inside most of the day. Got up into the 90's here today.

A Little Cooler

I was so sleepy when Hiker woke me up at 6 am. I went back to sleep for an hour and was still tired at 7 am. I stayed up last night watching “Under The Dome”. Went to my support group at the Senior Center. One of our ladies now has a “live-in” caregiver who came with her today. The caregiver was really nice and seems to really care about people. We had a new person come to group today. I remembered her from the Caregivers Support Group that I went to when Ben was in the hospital. Her husband had Alzheimer's and passed away a short time ago. Still hot here in SoCal but not as oppressive. It's been in the 90's which is still too hot for me but much better than the 100's. It was a little overcast all day too. The wind kicked up this afternoon making me worry a bit about July 4th coming up with people shooting off fireworks. Everything is so dry here. My older brother called me again this afternoon and while talking to him, Hiker kept losing her deer antler under the sofa and she'd sit there and whine until I got it out. She kept losing it in the exact same place and finally it got so far under that I had to make her wait until I got off the phone to get it. Had to get a stick and my grabber to get it out. Silly dog.

Not As Hot Today

Cooler today due to the fact that we have a totally overcast sky, but that makes it humid and in SoCal, we are NOT used to humidity. We are usually hot and dry. Did our morning dog walk with Jean and her dogs then I went over to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. When I got home, I noticed that my brother Ron had called, so I called him back and we talked for about 30 minutes. It is extremely hot up in northern California where he lives too. Got up to around 93° here today.