Another beautiful pre-sunrise morning

It was another beautiful early morning sky.
Now it's trying to snow and yet because it's a bit too warm, the snow is melting as it hits the ground. But the wind feels like a snowy wintry day.

While starting to write this I just noted that it's the 25th... amazing.
I feel like we lost 2 1/2 wks, and time has just moved along, and I had no idea it's a month til Christmas.
I know that Thanksgiving eve is my husband's last day of work, and we only had this short time to prepare after 25 years.
It's just disconcerting.
We are trying to get our minds around it, but time has taken on a strange perspective.
We have good moments and then moments of despair.
A lot to do with our relocating and being in 2 countries and two states in the past 6 years.
And now the fear of the unknown and will we have to sell our house and relocate once again.

I really am trying to get through this unexpected transition, but it is really difficult.
It is really hard to feel festive for the T day, let alone upcoming Christmas season.
We are trying to think ahead and plan, rather than just have despair, or fear that we will once again have to uproot and move.
The last week is again up and down and feels unpredictable.
I fear I have nothing much to say and so I didn't post all week.
In some ways the 2 weeks have flown by, in other ways they have crept along.
Trying to focus on each day's tasks and trying to somehow get through this unexpected shock to us.

Bailey is back to his normal, almost healthy self.
He and I still aren't walking as much as we did, since his stiches just came out, and also it's been blustery and cold, but he is friendly, frisky, and hungry.
So that is a good thing to celebrate.

Another corner of my house

Hi I did it again didn't I?
I kinda disappeared, but really I didn't.
I've been right here.
For the last 13 days, since Bailey's surgery he and I have spent a lot of time here in our living room, lately next to the fireplace, recuperating from lots of belly stitches for Bailey.
But the stitches are out, yesterday, and today he is well and happy and begging for food.
That is always a good sign.

On the job termination and new job search.
Well things are a little slow.
It's late November after all and the holidays are coming, and the financial markets are poor.
It's a hard time to lose a job after 25 years and with much experience.
So we are just taking each day as it comes, for after all, there is not much choice to do otherwise.

On our porch , which we started 6 weeks ago, before the job fell out from under us, I had pictures of progress to show you.
But trying to download them on my computer, either my computer or blogger is not cooperating.
So a picture of my comfy couch will have to do for today.

We had our first snow today.
And tonight it is to be 19 degrees. Amazingly cold.
Our wood insert in our fireplace is going strong and that will help keep us toasty as life outside is swirling maddeningly around us.
We go forward and hope.

Our Front Door

When one blogs, we open our front door into our life, don't we.
Little did I know what turn the last 7 months would take.
When I started this we were in negotiations to go back overseas short term(1 yr) on a quality project my husband would be directing.
Then he was assigned to India for four months, and the week he got back, last Monday he was severed from his place of employment after 24.75 years.
Is it due to his age, 59, due to time with the company, poor reviews(never always at the top of his game)or just cost cutting due to the economy?
So we are reeling and unsure. Feeling very vulnerable.

I want to be supportive, but hearing from his colleagues around the world, whom he supported in their work until just last week, when he returned from Japan, Singapore, and India, some things take more than just spousal support.

Certainly this is life changing, and both of us being pre-retirement age, we now need to get our act together and come up with a new course of action.
Of course the corporate world is struggling all around us, isn't it?
Things are uncertain in each sector of the economy.
Those things, and the worst unemployment rates in 14 years, do little help our own financial and emotional anxieties.

So I've welcomed you in my front door, and I have so appreciated your support, and wish you were here to share a cup of coffee with me.
For now thank you so much.

Bailey is walking better, eating more, and soon will be back to his normal affectionate self.

Not just another Monday morning

This is the early morning sky before sunrise.It is cold and crisp today.
The last two weekends I have raked the maple leaves into the curb for pickup.
The leaves are off the trees, and it is that fall weather that usually invigorates.

And this is not just another Monday morning.
Having launched our two kids by way of a college degree and into their professional worlds, we were just getting ready to settle into preparing for our retirement in about 7 years.

Having a long time career with a well known company suddenly and with about 5 days to prepare "it" might happen, we are both thrown back onto our heels.
It is shocking and hard to grasp.
The several days since the news, have us waking up in the morning wondering how can this be happening to us.
And wondering if it is just a bad dream and we will wake up and all will be fine.
So far it is feeling much too real, and much too harsh.
The unknown looms large and ominous.

Job searches for us both will have to begin, but until my husband knows where he will be applying and if he can get an interview, I will wait and then follow with my own applications.

Our year passed us by with no vacation as he was on the 4 month India project.Now a vacation feels furtherest from our minds.

Bailey has progressed in his movements but remains on some very soft vet prescribed mushy tinned substance. I will be phasing him back onto his regular diet sometime this week, and next Monday he will get his railroad track belly stitches out.
Whew... his saga all began last Monday.

So it's another Monday, another week, and somehow we will carry on.

A difficult day

Bailey was able to come home from the vet, off Iv's post surgical diet and care.
He made it through the night here.
I took him on a short walk out the door.
He is moving slowly.
He is better though than he has been since Monday.

In our other news we didn't fare so well.
My husband was 'let go' from the job he has had for 25 years, with very little forewarning.
He just returned monday from a grueling 4 month project.
It is such a let down.
We will need to find health insurance,
and both will need to find jobs.
We are in shock.
I will share more as I can
Thanks for your kindess this week.
It means so much

Surgery

Yesterday morning when I was transporting very sick Bailey back to his regular vet's office from overnight emergency vet, I made the decision to ask for x rays.
In the three days and thousands of dollars of testing and iv's and emergency care, not one of 5 vets suggested an x ray.
So at 8 a.m. yesterday I walked into the vet's office with Bailey wrapped in a blanket, having not eaten since Sunday, and on continuous iv's and said please do an x ray.
An hour later the vet called and said there was a shadow in one area of the intestine.
Doing exploratory surgery they found a piece of corncob, which was removed and surgery completed.
We live in a suburb, no cornfields anywhere near us. We have not eaten corn on the cob. I walk him on the street so he can't get into anything. He is a scavenger but this is beyond me, where he found a piece of corncob!
Bailey spent the day on iv's at the vet. At 5 p.m I transported Bailey south 20 minutes back to the overnight emergency care.
He survived the night; I just dropped him back at the vet's where he will spend the day on iv's and monitored.
If he doesn't develop complications post surgery, I may be able to bring him home this eve.
For those of you who are pet lovers, you understand what my week has been like.
For those of you who aren't pet lovers, it is hard to comprehend the level of care and cost for a precious family pet.
I have so appreciated every one's kind comments, emails, care and concern.
It means more than you know.

We have just had an incredible stressful week.
Tomorrow, after working for the same company for 26 years, my husband finds the fate of his employment. Much of this time has been spent traveling overseas to work in incredibly complicated situations.
For 5 years we were expatriates in Singapore and Japan.
Just last year we repatriated back to the US.
My husband just finished a 4 month project in India, which some of you may remember he was injured by a wild dog and had to fly to Singapore for his series of rabies shots.
It has been a very unplanned and unnerving time.

So tomorrow the VP of his division is making a visit to the local offices to have 'the talk.'

And I wait by the phone, hoping for no calls of bad news of Bailey.

The porch rafters are on, the sheeting to go on today and soon the roof.

Carry on......

Very sick little dog

"Updated at 4 p.m.
I took Bailey back to vet office; his temp dropped 5 degrees... listless.
I stayed with him 2 hours and am now going back to drive him to the emergency vet hospital in another town as we don't have one. They want him on IV's all night;
his blood tests now show kidney problems, not liver. "

For Bailey it's just been a very long month since we learned he has liver problems and possible liver failure.
He was better for several weeks, but once again since Monday he's been nauseated.
Yesterday he was at the vet's all day on an IV and all of the vets there seem stumped.
They assume it's liver, or the medications for his seizures or????
He is very lethargic and hasn't eaten since Sunday.
He is only 8 and I hope this isn't the end, but things are not looking too good, as he isn't responding to treatment.

As everyone knows it is also election day. It's been a long long almost two years of this election. I just want all the calls and advertisements and mail and pundits to be finished for awhile. After all in two more years it will start all over again.

My husband has returned from his 4 month work assignment in India; now there is uncertainty if he will even have his job after Friday. Friday the vp comes from another state to meet with him; then we will know.
The corporate world is very stressful right now and it's filtering down to us and many of our friends. Much uncertainty.

So for today I want to enjoy Bailey, turn off the pundits and tv, try to do a better job at waiting and relax a little.

The roof is going on the porch today and hope it goes on before the rain begins.It's a dreary,cloudy, fall day. I will post a before picture as soon as I get a moment to load the pictures I've taken onto the computer.
October flew by and I have no idea where it went.
I promise .. I will try harder to stay in better touch.