I feel really overwhelmed and sad.

I feel really overwhelmed and sad. I had plans to visit family in Munford today. Everyone is cooking out and it sounds delicious. But, I have a Biology test tomorrow. And Scooter is still hanging in there. I don't want to be away from him, but I'm also having a very hard time thinking about anything but him so studying has not been productive. So I am having a bad day. 🙁

I'm not leaving. Mom is bringing me food and picking up Shadow. I'm going to try my best to study. And Scooter has a doctor appointment tomorrow after my test. I will get him in earlier if he looks worse. The timing of all of this is horrible.

My chest hurts from laughing...

My chest hurts from laughing at my offspring. We're sitting up watching The Office and he's been playing with a balloon. Well, it popped. I looked over at him because I was shocked by the noise. All he could say (in the most monotone voice) is "Wow. I'm sad." 😂😂😂

Me and the kid are in the floor with a shaking, cowering pile of dogs.

Me and the kid are in the floor with a shaking, cowering pile of dogs.  I'm on Facebook, rapidly approving lost and found posts in Happy Tails Lost & Found Pets of Calhoun County.  This is how we spend Fourth of July.

If you have pets and haven't yet secured them and assured their safety - please do it now if they haven't run away in terror.  If you can't find them, post them ASAP.  We have just shy of 5000 members in the local area so maybe your fur-child can be found before it's run over by a car.  Don't mean to be a damper on everyone's party, but seriously - take care of the innocents in your charge - this evening and always.

Thank you.

I feel like I've been posting a lot today.

I feel like I've been posting a lot today.  I should be studying for my Biology test that is on Tuesday, but I don't think I can concentrate right now.  So, I wanted to talk about the internet.  Cable One as a provider, specifically.

So you might remember last summer when my data usage spiked and I eventually got upgraded from the $50 plan to the $80 plan because we exceeded 300 gigs of data 3 times in a row.  Our plan is now 400 gigs a month, and of course we went over THAT the first month that Shadow was out of school for the summer.

After A LOT of troubleshooting I figured out what was causing our overages.  In a word:  YOUTUBE.

We have Netflix and Hulu and Shadow games online, but since cutting off access to YouTube at the router, we've not even come close to our limit for the month.  We have Netflix set on a lower quality setting.  That didn't change much.  I started turning the internet off for 7 hours a night and that also didn't do much.  Even with YouTube set on standard playback it didn't change it enough.

For now I've got YouTube totally blocked.  I think I'll keep it that way until this billing cycle is up.  Then I will probably allow access (via parental controls at the router) to it for maybe 30 minutes a day.  I'll see how that impacts our usage.  For the record I'm not blaming it all on Shadow.  I love nail art videos, though admittedly I have much less time to sit around watching than he does.

Anyway.  I just thought that anyone out there who is having issues with Cable One might be interested to know how we are handling it.  Of course Cable One is no help because they want money so it took us a lot of trial and error to get this figured out.  Since Corporate Greed really chaps my ass I'm sharing with the world.  Feel free to do the same.  Keep in mind that if they upgraded you and you don't want it, after 3 months of not going over your limit you can tell them to bump you back down to the lower-priced service.  They can't keep charging you for something that you aren't using.

Went to Tractor Supply. Picked out a bone for Scooter.

Went to Tractor Supply. Picked out a bone for Scooter. He wasn't interested. He seems to prefer the kind I bought him before this one so I'll grab more of those later. 

I am not SUPER worried that he didn't want that bone. He felt well enough to snatch Booka's Pupperoni. 😂 That made me happy. My good little bad dog. 🙂

I am having feelings today.

I am having feelings today.  I think my old man isn't going to be with me much longer.  🙁

I've been watching Scooter carefully because I am not gonna have him suffering.  Despite the doctor upping his dose of Prednisone his muscles seem to still be deteriorating.  He has a hard time standing up.  He's tripping and stumbling more and he's also unable to hold himself upright on the kitchen floor anymore (no traction).  The other day he was standing in there and just flopped sideways.  Thank goodness he's so short and didn't have too far to fall.

Several times a day he'll just be laying on his side in the floor, barking.  He's always been weird, but he's never done that.

The doctor said that his condition was probably autoimmune so I was hoping for a turnaround.  Last summer was terrible for me and due to my autoimmune arthritis I was barely able to walk without help.  But now I'm ok.  I was really hoping that the same would happen for him, but there is no way to know if it will or not.

He still enjoys chewing bones and he's still eating and using the bathroom.  I've been spoiling him by giving him whatever food he wants.  He loves pound cake so we've been eating a lot of that together.  But I just really feel that our time together is coming to an end.  I am just wondering if I will know when the time is "right."  I have learned from experience that a little too early would be better than a little too late.  I don't want him to feel bad or unhappy.  But I can tell that he feels like crap so maybe it's time now.  Maybe I've already waited too long.  How do I know?

Kicking off vacation in these goofy things!

Kicking off vacation in these goofy things!  I was trying to be less "the same" on every nail.  I think I did a good job.  Well, except that I think my thumb might accidentally resemble a penis.  😕

So, I'd seen this video online that someone came out with stamping plates for stones - basically a template of a design that you arrange your stones into and then you pick them up and apply them with a stamper.  Sure beats putting them on one at a time!  Well, it's cool and all, but it was kind of expensive for what it was.  So, I tried just lining up some stones on top of the design I used to stamp polish on my nail and then picked them up and put them on with my stamper.

It worked pretty well.  They held formation on a sticky stamper head and since I have a clear stamper, placement was extra-easy.  I'd been wanting to try that out and I'll probably do some more of this in the near future.  I'll just need to keep a better eye on what my shapes come out like.  For the record:  On my thumb I was going for a smaller triangle inside a bigger triangle.  I maybe needed a few more stones on there.  LOL