Dog Gone

I wish I meant this literally! Remember a previous post titled "Evilness"? Well, she's back in full force and worse! I love dogs, always have, but boy, I'm wishing I didn't have any right now. In fact yesterday I was thinking that when my two pass some day, I will never get another dog! I can't say this with 100% certainty, but I'm pretty sure Barley is our culprit. Within the past week I noticed a chew mark on my couch cushion, not happy. Yesterday I came back after taking my son to Target and found that my dish rag had been obliterated and thrown away (my husband found it after coming back from volunteering in my daughters class). Today I come back from Kohls (almost went to Target again because I forgot trash bags, but decided against it and I'm glad I did) and find that my couch cushion that had minor chew markings had been destroyed. A huge hole right in the front of it, irrepairable! So, who do I blame? You guessed it, Barley. Now I brought her back inside by herself once I found it and she gave me some tension when getting closer to the damage. Disciplined extremely, probably should have brought her close to life's end, but I couldn't, my weakness. Then I brought Vader in by himself and took him over to the damage, no tension, just excited. So that led me to believe that I was right in my opinion. Vader has never shown any form of destruction, none, ever! Barley has even before we got Vader, so I'm sure she did it. I can't believe this. I'm beginning to think that if she keeps up this destruction, she's not worth having. Chewing my trim around the front door as a pup (still needs repaired, but very easy), chewing toys (that's been handled), chewing towels (don't use them in kennel anymore), chewing a hole in the carpet (never has been attempted again and it was repaired for free in home warrenty by the awesome carpet guys), chewing off the insulator material around the pipe to the ac unit (2x), chewing my dish rag, and now my couch cushion. I'm sure there's a few more things I could list, but the list is pretty extensive as it is. So what am I to do? Why now, why would she all of a sudden resort to this extreme behavior on my furniture? She's never even bothered it once before this ordeal. I need Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer! Maybe she needs to get out more and "work" off her anxiety, maybe she needs to know that her life hangs in my hands! Well, I guess I'll be looking for new couches sooner than later. Obviously not too soon, but one of these days when she's done being EVIL.

DONE

This is probably going to be the most real, truthful, bearing all post I've ever done. I have to be honest, the past 2 weeks have been absolute hell. I thought I'd been to hell and back with the last few financial dry spells, but nope, this one has broken the camels back. A combination of things have happened these past few weeks that have added to this feeling of defeat, my feeling right now. I felt as if I was handling it pretty well, until Monday. I've been doing nothing but praying, pleading, claiming God's powerfulness and trying to hold it together so that my children see nothing. Today I find myself still holding onto these last few hours before our time is officially up financially, holding onto hope. I don't know what will happen, all I know is that it will be a true miracle for us, whether God chooses to do that or not, I don't know. So on top of all this I've been dealing with sick children since last Tuesday and now finding myself catching the same thing as of yesterday. We've had cell phone mishaps that resulted in paying for a replacement (talk about really bad timing), my car is now pouring out antifreeze every time I back out of the driveway, my camera has failed me (bad timing, once again, and right when the holidays are coming), and to top it off, I get a phone call last night that I didn't want to get. I knew it was coming at some point, but not right now, not with all of this happening. I get a phone call around 8pm last night that my Grandmother is "shutting down". She has a UTI (urinary tract infection) and won't drink, eat anything, nor is she responding to anyone. I broke last night, I'm done. I can take no more and God has to know that. This morning I'm woken up by a phone call just after 7am, my Grandmother passed last night just before midnight. What hurts the most is I have no idea if she was saved. All I remember as a child is her arguing with my dad (we were the only saved ones on that side of the family) and getting ticked off at him resulting in crying. All I can do is hope and pray that somewhere in her heart, a sliver of what was shared with her on many occasions over the years made it back to her heart in those last few moments. I pray she is with our Maker, but I don't know. So, this is where I am right now. I usually don't open up this much, don't even know why I'm writing this right now. But there you have it. I'm tired.