My testimony at church (one of four: Courage, Faith, Hope, Love) went better than expected. While my voice always tends to fail me when I read or speak publicly, I did not do badly. My wife (who will not lie to me even if her life depended on it) said that mine was better than all the others. I am not bragging on that. I practiced and I made sure that the emotion that I was intending to convey was there and I believe that it was. I was told by more than one person that they teared up as I read it.
We got home and it was still raining but I needed to walk little man, so I changed into wet weather gear and headed out. He acted a bit weird the entire walk and did not do his business until right before we went in. We have been watching him lately and my wife and I think he may have had a stroke. He walks leaning to one side, he sits and stares at blank while walls and if we do not pay enough attention to him, he will go off and lick his feet until he develops sores. Because of this behavior, he has to wear an e-collar, but he can still lick his paws if he tries hard enough. It is sad to see him behave this way. He has been my little buddy for a long time. It is going to be a very sad day when it is his time to go.
Little man is 12.5 years old and has been with us most of the time that my wife and I have been married. We did not know much about dogs when we got him and did not train or treat him the correct way, so we think that some of his other behaviors (territorial and fearful aggression mainly) are our fault. We did better with our other dog, the Golden and for that I am thankful.
We watched a bit of TV before heading to bed. I was a lot more tired than I thought. My wife ended up falling asleep on the couch (how, I will never figure out. That that thing is not comfortable at all) and came to bed at midnight or so.
I slept well until my alarm got me up at 5 AM (my normal weekday wake up time). I quickly turned it off and got about 1.5 more hours of sleep before getting up to walk little man in the cold and wet. I got him back and dried him when the Golden decided she wanted to do her thing. I let her out then when she was finished, I dried her off and let her in.
My wife was prepping the turkey for dinner so I fed both dogs and brewed a small pot of coffee to help wake me up. Once all that was taken care of and the dogs received their vitamins and meds, we retired to the living room to open gifts. I let my wif go first and she ended up opening the last gift I bought first. When she saw that it was a crock pot cookbook that was laminated, she was actually very happy and for that, I was happy.
We continued trading gifts until they were all opened. She then told me I did a great job in selecting gifts. I was happy that she was happy, although I would have liked to do more for her. However, she will be looking at a new bed at Ikea after the holiday season is over and that will be about $1000 or so. I have the cash thanks to a bonus at work and although I could have spent some of that on me (I actually did not get myself a gift this year...odd), I will feel better if she can get the bed she wants. The bonuses have been good this year, increasing my gross pay almost 10%. God is GOOD!. Of course I made sure that we tithed that bonus. If God is going to bless us, then we need to be obedient to him and give the 10% he asks for.
After the gifts and light breakfast, I popped in the CD I got her (WOW 2007 Christian hits) and she was very happy. Like most compilations, it has some songs she likes and some she does not, but so far the ration has been 5-1 in favor of the ones she likes.
The turkey is in the oven with Cajun spices and the rest of the longer cooking things are being prepped. I took the time to check e-mail and then decided to update my blog. The Christmas season has been good, God has been good and I am just happy that things are okay. Our soldier son spent his Christmas in Qatar with other troops and he sent some pics of the area. It is hard to be away from him, but I know what he is doing is important.
I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas. I am not going to be PC and wish you and happy $Holiday...I am a Christian and this is Christmas to me. If you are a Christian, then may your family be blessed in the upcoming year as you remember the "reason for the season". Merry Christmas.
Peace in Christ,
El Gee.
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