You want Bryan/College Station. Day trip to all the big cities/beach. If it ever comes in....on the high speed rail. Better than average salary/cost of living. Also, TAMU is bringing in a new campus across the county so, the whole area is about to explode with brand new growth over the next 10 years to support an electrical job. Stefanie

I wouldn’t worry about it. Heart worm checks use blood, not feces. But, if you want to feel better about it, Heartguard is Ivermectin, and it has a very high tolerance range so it shouldn’t hurt to give it now and then again on schedule. I’ve routinely given my dog on the weight cusp the higher dose to use up meds and I double dose my horse with it every two weeks in the summer. Stefanie

Thank you. I’ll work out. My grandma’s passing was the blessing kind (very peaceful) and I have expected it could be any day since Thanksgiving. In 4 days the drama will be a distant buzzing when the culprits retreat to other parts of the state and they’ll never have to get together again. In the meantime....it seems all areas of my life are a very intensive lesson in how to pass the bean dip and my mom and I have gotten quite good at it. Stefanie

Not bad, but not great either. Presents were done last week; and thank goodness we got the bug up our butts to get it done early because my grandmother died on Monday and we’ve been doing the death vigil and funeral stuff since Saturday. But we’ve since moved the location and menu for family Christmas. I’ll be in Houston tomorrow and then back home for a Solstice party, Ft. Worth on Sunday, and back halfway to Houston on Christmas Day. Nothing has been cleaned. I made a pie today after the funeral while my cousin and I made and decorated some Christmas cookies with our kids because they missed the school parties today. Have to get up early to get hay and cards or I’ll be out of hay before the holidays. And the extended family is feuding again...... Ready to be done..... Stefanie

Good luck with the dog. She’ll be perfect and it sounds like your friend has a lot of experience with small dogs. I firmly believe our current dog was hand delivered to us by God too. We found her on the side of the road, dumped in a field to die, of all places. She’s wasn’t spayed and a bit thin but well socialized, basic obedience training, crate trained, house broke, obviously an indoor dog, and socialized to cats to boot. Stefanie

Ugh. FWIW, I don’t think it’s bipolar either, even though they may have a diagnosis. Best thing to do is to never play their game and eventually they’ll go away. After 5 years of not getting her way (and being unpleasantly put on the spot in return for her efforts) DIL doesn’t try with us anymore. We only get run ins when whatever games she’s playing with her parents or my stepson run afoul of us. Stefanie

Is it the kind of lie/situation where if you were to press the issue you’d get them to circle around to 5 different versions of what was going on; like they are fishing for the situation you’ll buy into that gives them what they want? Stefanie

It is possible that the “depressed” is a preferred manipulation tactic, one that has been learned as getting the most bang for their buck so to speak. That is what I suspect of my DIL. She says all the right things to get people to jump or make excuses to not be held accountable, but it doesn’t actually come across as real. Stefanie

*hugs* Your not alone. This is my DIL to a T. Doesn’t get her way.....make up some other high drama mental health crisis to control you. What you describe is not the way to handle these types of people. Stefanie

I have been under the impression that soy has high levels of a pseudo estrogen that can interact with estrogen receptors. Stefanie

DH and I voted early. I am done with elections!! I’ve spent the last two weeks actually counting votes and matching them to historic vote data. Ugh. Stefanie

We took the rest of the week off. I wound up having major GI episode on Wednesday and fever throughout Thursday. Oh well, retool through the weekend and start fresh on Monday. Stefanie

It’s been a couple of weeks, but we have been doing school in between the sniffles. Still not feeling 100%. The dog has been a pill, but we haven’t been able to burn off all the energy because our field is a bit waterlogged. Stefanie

So, she has had blood work done? If not, she needs it done and you can’t rule out diabetes. Diabetic dogs go blind because the extra sugar in the blood encourages cataract development. Especially if she’s an unspayed female as the hormones promote insulin resistance. Most vets are woefully uninformed about diabetes in animals. I’ve had one of my dogs, an unspayed female develop diabetes at age 7 and she went from diagnosis (emaciation) to getting better to blind to dead within 3 months. She wouldn’t probably wouldn’t have even been diagnosed if it wasn’t for the fact we had to go to the local vet school because it was a holiday. Stefanie

Why is she blind? Have you checked her for diabetes? Many dogs go blind from being diabetic and it can contribute to malnourishment. Stefanie

The only year I’ve ever gotten the flu was the year DH got it. We got it before the “season” so the shots weren’t out, and it wasn’t a strain that was covered by the shot. I don’t get the shot because I don’t usually get the flu......it’s probably the one positive of severe allergies. All the routine coughing, sneezing, and blowing keeps the buggers out before it can set up shop. Stefanie

I have never seen anything else quite like it. It was particularly gross and unexpected. We had gotten in at 2 am and was exhausted or I would have cleaned up the mess before bed. It just goes to show how aggressive some molds can be. Galveston Island for the record. Some types of mold will affect everyone, not just those with an allergy. Stefanie

I’d say mold....especially since it is getting worse with the changing of the season to moister air. Is it noticibly worse before/after a rain? I have a significan’t mold allergy and there are some places I can’t spend more than 5 minutes in without having issues. You could do a non-scientific test and leave out a used bottle nipple and see how much mold you grow in a night.... One hotel I stayed in the plastic nipple was coated with mold in 6 hours...... Stefanie

The problem, in a nutshell, is that mental health treatment kind of relies on the patient being truthful and wanting to get better. Many mentally ill people, for a lot of reasons, aren’t. The daughter can faithfully see a therapist, psychologist, social worker, etc.....but if they aren’t being truthful to them, they’ll never actually get appropriate treatment to get better. My DIL tells each one different things depending on what she’s after at that visit. Stefanie

In our case, we wouldn’t allow my stepson/DIL to stay at our house or borrow a vehicle; no matter what is going on. They have a history of drug use and a history of not respecting our rules and spaces. We also have had things go missing. I personally would never recommend allowing anyone with such a history to stay in your home in such a situation. In our case, if there was really no where for them to go, we’d find a weekly rental hotel room with kitchenette or an appropriate shelter situation and spend the next week attempting to get them to work on where they are going from there. Under no circumstance will we ever again pay for anything that can reasonably allow them the mental wiggle room to play games with paying for responsibilities first or decide they can quit their job and have us pay for something. We will not make up the shortfall for their bills. We spent too much money agreeing to pay $ for x bill only to have them come back 2 days later to show off the tattoo they got the night we gave them the rent money. If there is a real crisis, depending on what is going on, we may decide to help, but sometimes we do not. If asked, we are willing to talk over decisions. But if they don’t want to follow our advice, we don’t bail them out. Last year my stepson/DIL separated and she left their car with him. She spent months trying to manipulate him into giving her that car. It was a car that we bought for him.....which at the time she tried to manipulate us into putting it into her name. He got a final unemployment check and called DH for advice on it. He and DH had multiple conversations about it. Well, he made his decisions, that turned out poorly, but we let him own them for at least 6 months before we finally bailed him out of it. The problem is, the mental illness usually makes them at worst pathological liars, and at best delusional enough they can’t possibly acknowledge the reality of situations, their role in how they got where they are, or the reasonableness of other’s reactions. So, we have to be very selective in how we choose to interact. The bottom line is, your friend is going to get to this point eventually; she just needs to decide if she’s going to do it from a place of perspective and strength or from a place of having hit rock bottom with her own sanity at stake. Stefanie

At some point the mom is going to have to step back and let the girl go. It’s hard, but she can’t keep living like this. The girl is responsible for her own life and her own choices. We’ve had to to this. We no longer give major financial support it just encourages bad financial decisions. We no longer try to prevent bad decisions in general. You just can’t allow yourself to be held hostage to “I’m going to kill myself”. We offer advice and sympathies when asked but otherwise hold firm to our boundaries. Stefanie

Riding lesson this morning. DD and I did a group lesson together at her Western barn. She got a touch of heatstroke, fainted, and fell off the horse. Fortunately they weren’t going very fast. Hair appointments and I think we’ll just take it easy for the rest of the day. Stefanie

Non school day. I had a riding lesson this morning. Very happy with the work I accomplished.....but it does drain me so much. I met DH in town and got the kids and we went to the library and got some frozen yogurt. Have a dinner to go to tonight. Not looking forward to it.....but I promised I’d go. Stefanie

Blah day. I went to the barn to ride this morning since DH has to work tonight. Didn’t have a long ride, but I accomplished my riding homework from my instructor. Now I’m exhausted and ready to sleep. I think I have celiac disease so, I don’t always have a ton of energy or recoup it very fast. Honestly, the kids spent the night with granny and have been playing so getting them to come back to work for school doesn’t work so well. DD and I read a math book, but honestly neither of us were into it. Tomorrow we won’t have co-op so we’ll have a full day before we go to the library and grocery shopping. Nap time.... Stefanie