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What a nice Independence Day so far! My husband and I and our two middle boys went to our local parade. We live in a very small town and the parade is made up mostly of the fire department, Boy Scouts, kids who've painted their horses, the church and some tractors. My mother stayed home with our toddler. She's not two yet, and chasing her out of the street and keeping her from collecting cigarette butts from the side of the road for an hour and a half seemed like more than I was up for. Our oldest boy (my stepson) was with his mom for the holiday, but we saw him go past in a float, which gave him an excuse to pelt us with candy. (Wow! Every teens dream, right? He can throw stuff at his stepmom and not get in trouble.) This year I had so much more fun than last year! Last year we didn't bring folding chairs, and the parade started late, so we had to find a spot to sit in the weeds along the side of the road. It was mercilessly hot. I got home badly sunburned and cranky, just to have to pick burrs out of my underwear. So I really wasn't looking forward to it this year, but we had an entirely different experience this time. We brought lawn chairs and a cooler, and sat in the shade with a breeze. The parade started right on time, and the two middle boys waved their little flags like crazy and had a marvelous time. It was nice to forget our $$ problems for a few days. We usually have just enough to get by, but our dog has had some medical problems. It seems like he ALWAYS has something wrong, and he has cost us more in vet bills than I could have ever imagined. My husband refuses to try to find him a new home because he's too attached to him. (Who wants to adopt a sick dog anyway?) He's young, and since the problems are due to foxtails (those kinds of barbed stickers that can go in but can't be backed out) it seems kind of extreme to put him to sleep. The problem is, he is so much more susceptible to those nasty things than any dog I've ever heard of! Our other dogs, and our friend's dogs-- who were this dog's parents-- don't have this issue. Now the poor dog is living his life on a tiny, short chain (which is illegal in this state, by the way, but there doesn't seem to be any other answer). Two weeks ago he had a $350 surgery to rid him of the foxtails, but he got them again somehow, is infected again, and needs a second $350 procedure. That's $700 this month! The worst part is, there doesn't seem to be any way to keep him from being reinfested, so he just may need another $350 procedure again, two weeks from now! Okay, not a very interesting subject for blogging, but at least I got it off my chest... That's about all that's going on here. I'm waiting for all my fall curriculum to arrive. I ordered my once yearly big box from Rainbow Resource last week (before we knew the dog needed treatment.) I feel like a kid at Christmas...
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