Sweet Black Toffee got to come home from the vet last night. She is trying to walk herself around again. She wobbles and falls over a lot. Back left leg working great. Right rear leg comes and goes. We are to do physical therapy with her three times a day and she has some meds.
As long as she can eliminate on her own I think everything will be okay. As the doctor was explaining it to me the first day his scenario was we'd be doing basically a colostomy bag and physical manipulations to help her go potty, which wasn't the type of life we wanted for her or ourselves.
So far so good. She went potty by herself this morning and is on predisone which is keeping her thirsty & kidneys going as well. Mostly she is back to her usual sleeping all the time. You can wake her up and interact with her on any given day and within 2 or 3 minutes she'll tire out and curl back up to sleep. She is after all a little old lady!!
Toffee - 2005
Vet bill on the CC to the tune of $180.00. Will pay that out of the Veterinary Fund. Thank goodness for pre-planning, although obviously there isn't enough in there for anything major.
Talk about your up and down days!!!
Right before we left for the vet my sister called and asked 'when was the last time I had talked to our Mom?' I had spent about 2 hours on the phone with her just the day before. Okay, she says, now she is wearing one of those heart monitor packs for 24 hours. Say what??? Both my parents are falling apart at the same time. I live one hour from my Dad and an hour and 1/2 from Mom.
I get off phone w/Sis, go to the vet w/Hubster & CashHappySon thinking we are going to say goodbye as they closed w/i 15 minutes, find the dog much better and get Toffee, come back home and call my Mom.
Seems she had recently changed health clinics to one closer to her home and they had changed her medications from one she takes twice a day to a time released type. The new one appears to be what is making her heart race.
After I got off the phone w/her CashHappySon started acting the 'wicked-child' again and I frankly did not need the additional stress. Hubster had his job cut out for him again trying to referee!
Ay-Carumba!! Thankfully the rest of the evening smoothed out and I went to bed early w/a warm corn-bag (microwave heated) and de-stressed w/a good book. I'm reading about the Ochs family who started the New York Times newspaper. Very interesting. The Trust: The Private and Powerful Family behind The New York Times, Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones, Little, Brown and Company, 1999.**
Giving parental units time this a.m. to get up and running and I'll be calling to check in with both of them!
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$20 CHALLENGE
$007.38 balance
+003.25 wallet cleanout
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$010.63 March MTD
2008 Challenge Total $65.07
Cumulative Challenge Total $593.68
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When I was paying bills yesterday I thought I'd do a little addition and check how the utilities are running. This is more for informational purposes into the retirement planning stages because if we pay our house off and stay here I wanted to see where we'd be.
Going to try and start logging them here monthly.
Utilities for March 2008
$90.68 Phone*/Cable/DSL
$97.00 Natural Gas
$14.00 Trash Service
$62.00 Electric
$49.40 Water/Ambulance Fee**
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$313.08
*Landline charges. I recently ended my cell phone contract that I'd had for about 6 years and have gone with an Emergency Use Only tracphone (pay as you go.) Cell is now paid out of my budget and Hubster doesn't carry one.
**A couple of months back the rural water district we live in decided to start charging us $2.50 month for emergency medical services fee in the off chance we need to use an ambulance. If we had our druthers we'd pay for an ambulance IF and when we needed one. Boo Hiss!
Okay, back to the utilities, so w/the projection of having the house paid off right about retirement time and adding in current house taxes of apprx. $56.00 a month and we'd be sitting here (in today's dollars) paying right at $370.00 to live in our home. Not too shabby, eh folks??? But, we must not forget to factor in that nasty inflation!!
$370 a month - That's low enough that we could stay here and hire out the lawn care, if we wanted to. Ahhh, the joys of not buying TOO MUCH house!
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I personally had a no-spend day yesterday.
March 28th, 2008 at 04:25 pm 1206721501
My Utilities for March:
TV 111.85 (yeah, yeah, I know!, we rarely go out okay?)
cell 27.15
garbage 40.90 (every 2 months)
Gas and Electric $218.99
Landline/internet: $83.13
Water/sewer $31.98
Total $514.00 ouch!
Theoretically the gas and electric was for the month before, well not really, but sort of. Already have this month's bill (paid actually) and it was down $60!
March 28th, 2008 at 06:38 pm 1206729496
March 28th, 2008 at 06:43 pm 1206729801
House Insurance sits right now around $84.00 a month. So, $454.00 a month total to live in my house.
To be honest, you've got to factor in household repairs as well. Something is going to happen eventually and I do have a couple of escrows - New Roof Fund and a Carpet Fund as well. Both of these are things that I don't need to replace right now, but will one of these days. Also the heat/cooling system will likely have to be updated some years into the future. New when when purchased house 8 years ago.
March 28th, 2008 at 08:22 pm 1206735774
March 28th, 2008 at 08:43 pm 1206737012
313.08 utilities + 56.00 taxes = $369.08 housing costs
+
insurance of apprx. $84.00 monthly = $453.08
March 28th, 2008 at 11:39 pm 1206747563
I am so HAPPY to hear the good news about your Toffee! I wish her? a speedy recovery.
March 29th, 2008 at 12:10 am 1206749453