I started this post in the middle of the night, once again unable to sleep and once again having to get up at 0-dark-thirty. I have a lot of things running through my head and they all seem to ram around when I am trying to go to sleep. We still have no offers (or even lookers for that matter) on our house. We have considered the possibility of a house swap for one on the mountain, but I am very fond of this house and I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling about the one up there. We have also looked at an A-frame that is for rent - with the possibility of renting out our house instead of selling. But there again - no renter on the horizon - and what if the renters destroy our home. If we rent it out, it would be with the intent of coming back to it when I no longer work. I am really beginning to think that my son and I should just bite the bullet and drive back and forth and pray to the snow gods to be gentle with us this winter.

On a brighter note - one of the firemen that I work with designed some business cards for me and managed to combine both my knitting business and the schipperke rescue. I think that the cards are rather clever and definitely - the name fits! Just ask anyone that has worked with me or that has known me for any length of time.


The sweater jacket was knitted for friend that I worked with for a short time at the police department. I did a similar one and donated it to my veterinarian buddy for a silent auction being held to help raise funds for holistic students. Most of the ones I knit are not quite so radical in color. After 35+ years of knitting, I am working on my first pair of socks. First one turned out well and even fits! Lets hope that the second one slightly resembles the first. I did read somewhere that with hand knit socks - no two are exactly the same. Something to fall back on anyway.


The afghan is crocheted, as any of you that do needle work can tell, and was done for one of my officers. He has been after me to do another one with camouflage yarn. All projects come with complimentary schipperke fur on them. Most have been tested for sleeping comfort. And all seem to have passed the test..........

Foolishness of my ways

So here I sit at 3:15 AM having just come off a 3-11 shift and having to work a 7-3 shift which requires me to get up in another two hours................Wondering to myself about the error of my ways in my youth. Possibly I should have been a little more frugal with my money, not run those charge cards sky high, not purchased a different vehicle every year and definitely not spent all of my retirement money from the PD in Florida on the move to New Mexico........I could be drawing my social security now and working part time for a little additional income and to cover the cost of private insurance for a couple of years until I qualify for Medicare.......But instead I am working a turn around shift at the end of a six day run and listening to all the BS that gets dished out in a small department. I have a supervisor who is really a nice person, but having been with the department for 25 years, is set in her ways and refuses to work any weekends. She also doesn't cover when someone is out sick or on vacation. This necessitates the changing of our work schedule practically on a weekly basis. I worked the same shift with the same days off for 8 years before moving and could plan appointments weeks in advance. And, no, this isn't sour grapes....just my middle of the night shoulda/coulda/woulda ! I am sure when today is over and I have my two days off things will look brighter........

One of my best friends (who also happens to be my holistic veterinarian from Florida) is coming to visit this month. I am really looking forward to this. She is looking for property out here and is checking out the Santa Fe/Taos area on this trip. We are meeting her in Santa Fe and bringing her back to our area for a six day visit. We haven't really planned any side trips for this visit so it should be interesting. She is in Lexington KY over the Labor Day weekend for a dog show that she attends each year. She is the show vet on call. She had a practice in Paris KY before moving to Florida. Great person and super doctor.....

No news on the move to the mountain. No one has looked at our house in a couple of weeks and we are striking out finding an affordable place on the mountain. My husband looked at 4 places while I was working yesterday and didn't even bother getting out of the car at 3 of them. One was so overgrown that he couldn't get to it and another would have required a person to have mountain goat blood to get up the driveway. Maybe I'll just buy a lottery ticket this week!!

I don't know how many of you have seen programs on TV about the alien space ship that supposedly crashed near Roswell, NM but it is a pretty big deal out here. This is the 60th anniversary of the crash and Roswell is playing it up. I had Sunday off, which rarely happens, so Bob and I decided to go for a ride and headed to Roswell. And of course if you don't have a plan, you end up at the UFO Museum. It was an inexpensive trip through the museum and the newspaper clippings were very interesting. There is a display with the alien depicting the examination that was done on the body. There are also many paintings showing the solar system and alien landings.

Most of the paintings are rather dark. I forgot the camera and ended up taking pictures with my cellphone, so the clarity isn't great. And of course, I came home with the obligatory T-Shirt and other trashy souvenirs. It's really a pretty ride as it takes you through the Mescalero Apache Reservation, Lincoln National Forest, Hondo valley and high desert.

I had an email yesterday from the woman that was my supervisor when I still worked in Florida. She and I were not the best of friends then as she had a habit of stabbing people in the back. Times have changed, she has been on the receiving end and now is enjoying not being in charge. And we have become friends. For the second year in a row she and another dispatcher from Sarasota are going to Europe for a month. The other woman's mother lives in Germany so they have room and board there. They are going to Russia, Italy and France. I hope she has a great time. She had it pretty tough when she was younger and deserves some good times now.

Things are pretty dull where I work now. Nothing exciting like this happens on the mountain.........................

Well, I am back to try again, this time maybe with pictures if all turns out well. Things have been very busy at the police department, even though we are small. Yesterday was like "full moon" weekend with a constant barrage of stupid phone calls, walk ins and unfortunately, break ins. Vandalism seems to rise dramatically when the kids are out of school, at least in our little town. We have a great park right across the highway from our PD and we have an outside camera so that we can monitor it even at night. There is a skate park within the park and the kids use it constantly. It is not fenced or monitored as was the one where I worked in Florida. That one was a pain in the butt thanks to the city mayor. This one is wide open for the kids to enjoy and in the 16 months that I have worked there, I have not had to call for an ambulance or send the police over. However, even though the skate boarding part of the park is lit by street lamps when the rest of the park goes dark, our city manager in his infinite wisdom, doesn't want the kids there after 9:00 PM. (And yes, I know, why aren't these kids at home and why aren't the parents supervising! ) So what do they do - they break into empty houses and cause damage. Yesterdays toll was $30 K on a $250 K house vacant and for sale. And they just gave this man a $10K raise just for changing his job title. He is interviewing in another part of the state and we have hopes he will be hired. We also have an 82 year old mayor who surprisingly does find his way home from his office. He only has one more year left in his term. Maybe things will get better........or not !!

Okay, my first picture here is Murphy, our 14 year old male. I bought him from someone that worked in the police department in Florida. He was 6 months old when we got him and had not been treated well. Caged all the time. He also came from a pet store. This was before I learned about pet stores/puppy mills and became a rescuer. Murphy had allergy problems all his life until we moved to NM. It was like someone hit a light switch. No itching, no sores. The most beautiful coat of fur ever. Too bad we didn't move sooner. All those years on and off Prednisone have taken a toll on his overall health although he is in pretty good shape for his age.

The second picture is Sheda, who is my poster girl for rescue. I picked her up in GA at a schip lovers weekend gathering in 2000. She was one of 3 girls rescued from a puppymill auction and so pitiful looking when we got her. She was to go to another family in Tampa, but her arrival didn't fit in with their vacation plans. So - she stayed with us and we have never regretted it. We are unsure of her age as the papers that came with her were not hers. We think she is between 10-12 and due to no early medical treatment, has lost many teeth and has a partially collapsed trachea. She coughs a lot when she gets excited or plays too hard. She has also lost her hearing within the past 3 years. But she is my baby girl and sticks to me like glue. This picture was taken in February of 2006 when I had to go to Santa Fe for 3 weeks to New Mexico's Dispatcher Academy. I stayed in a motel instead of the dormitory and my husband came to visit on the weekends and brought Sheda and Tala to visit. Murphy doesn't enjoy traveling like he once did, primarily due to his age I think. He enjoys sleeping in the A/C and eating. Not much else gets him excited !!

The last picture is of Tala on the left and Phantom on the right. We adopted Tala in September of 2004 while still in Florida. She was 3 at that time. Her owner turned her into schip rescue as she didn't fit into her lifestyle anymore. She was so frightened and even though she had belonged to a woman, she attached herself to my husband and stayed in his room most of the time. She didn't want to socialize with the other dogs. At that time we had a 10 year old female rescue, whose owners had died, and Tala and Lena didn't seem to like each other very much. Unfortunately, we lost Lena very suddenly in October of 2005 to a lung problem that no one knew she had. Tala has now come around and gets along with the rest of the gang, although she is very leary of strangers and will nip at their heels when they walk through the house. She usually ends up locked in my room until company leaves. It is difficult to try and sell your house with a 15 pound fur ball chasing you!! And last, but by no means least, is Phantom. On my husbands' first trip back to Florida to pickup rescues and re-locate them, he met Phantom and it was love at first sight. My husband has never really been attached to dogs as I am, but Phantom is a whole different story. Bob can't leave the room without having his "shadow" and Phantom camps outside the bathroom door and waits for him. He is 13 years old and has lost his eyesight to cataracts since he came to us. It has not changed him in any way, other than just slowing him down a little. He is the sweetest most loving little dog I have ever met. He was left at his vets' office for boarding as his family said he didn't get along with their 2 year old. (I will not comment further here as I am sure many of your prefer children to animals. ) Okay, now you have met the fur family ....... and I must get ready for work.

Well, my first blog attempt turned out okay except I neglected to finish a sentence - duh!! I meant to say that my knitting projects are for sale at one of our local gift shops. When the weather cools down some I have hopes that the items will sell. In the meantime I will keep myself occupied working on new projects. I like to experiment with the mixing of colors in afghans and sweaters. My work schedule has been very erratic for several weeks with people on vacation. We are still a dispatcher short and I hear there is a hiring freeze on for our department. In New Mexico dispatchers have to attend an academy in Santa Fe so our newest dispatcher will be gone for 3 weeks in September. There goes our schedule again. I have been working a 4 day a week schedule, only not 4 10 hour shifts. The 12 hour day is really rough since I have a 45 minute drive to work and home again. If I make it through today and tomorrow I will have 3 days off to recouperate - and pack boxes. We haven't gotten an offer on our house yet, nor have we put in an offer on a house on the mountain. All things come to those who wait. At least that is what my husband says..........

Introduction

I am new to the world of blogging although my friend, Tuffenuf, suggested some time ago that I give it a whirl. I am afraid my life isn't as exciting as Tuff's - I am not retired yet and still have to do the old work grind. Like she doesn't work at home! I am in the law enforcement field as she was, but I work from the dispatch desk area. Strange hours, always short-handed and never a lack of "the bad guys" it seems. When I am not driving the 70 miles round trip to work, I am home cooking and cleaning for the other half and my retired Navy son who has chosen to stick close to what little family is left. We are in the midst of packing once again, hoping that our house will sell and we can move closer to work. My son also works on the mountain and of course, we never work the same hours. In addition to all else that is going on, I decided just before the dog food recall that my schips always ate better and were generally healthier when I prepared their food instead of using kibble, albeit very good kibble. So once a week on my days off I spend extra time in the kitchen putting together a weeks worth of food for 4 very eager schips. Most of the ingredients come from the local Wal-Mart (as if we had any other store here in no mans land). The oat bran comes in 50 pound bags from the health food store. The time I spend is well worth the results. I am also an avid knitter and have several sweaters, scarves and even an afghan. And if our temperatures would drop below 100 degrees I might stand a chance of selling something...............