Yesterday I got a cartilage piercing in my left ear. That did sting! Today though, it only hurts if I touch it. Because I have to turn the earring quite often, it hurts quite a bit;) Nothing I can't handle. In a couple of weeks, I'll go back and have the other ear done. I didn't want to do them both at once because I don't like sleeping solely on my back. It wouldn't be a good idea to have two seriously painful ears going at once. I have to leave this earring in for three months before I can change it out. That's a long time!

Today is had rained all day long, and not just a little rain. A lot of rain. It was a good day to write, so that's what I did. I need to turn off my phone and internet while I'm trying to write, because rain or no rain, my phone does not stop ringing. I could get much more work done if I shut down the communication avenues. :)

The pictures are from a couple of days ago when I went to visit my baby's grave.

Kirstie Alley's show is on tonight, so I'll watch that, have some hamburgers and coffee, and relax. I can hear the rain.
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My dog is probably the smartest dog ever born. Seriously. (And no, her name is NOT Fido;) )

It's not just that she learns everything so quickly, but she also has a sensitivity to my emotions. And she's just downright hilarious. I think I found her because it was meant to be.

When I got her, it was raining and she was in a huge fenced in, muddy, disgusting yard with a lot of other dogs. She was hiding in a box, trying to keep warm and dry, I'm sure.

The breeder dragged her from the box and brought her into an under construction building so I could check her out. She was small, scared, and though I didn't know it then, very, very sick.

My ex husband went with me to see the dogs, which I'd seen in the paper for fifty bucks each. I asked the breeder's husband why so inexpensive, and he explained that while he told his wife it was a bad idea to price them so cheap, they needed to sell them because they'd gotten these dogs when the other breeder had gone out of business and they'd purchased all her stuff.

They actually bred and sold a whole different type of dog.

I didn't care that her nose was practically hitting the floor or that she wouldn't come when I called her. She tried to lean against the breeder and hide, or rest. The breeder told me she was generally very friendly, but that she was just being a little shy. Right.

Anyway, I fell in love with her right then and there, and my ex-husband put her in the car for the short ride home.

She was completely terrified of the car, and I've never been able to get her to enjoy a nice little ride since I've had her.

I got her home and the first place she wanted to go was straight to my daughter, who was lying in the floor on a futon mattress, waiting, waiting to see her new doggy. They bonded immediately. This dog was the first one we'd ever had that was so perfect for my little girl.

A few hours later when we put her in her kennel and we all went to bed, our new dog began throwing up. The next morning we took her to the vet, and discovered that the poor thing had Parvo.

The breeder gave me my money back, and offered to take the dog from the vet and care for her, but I refused. No, this was our dog now, and though I was furious with the breeder for being so careless as to sell a dog with parvo.

How my little dog must have suffered, there in that filthy, muddy open...field, of sorts, all sick and wet and cold.

The vet said he wasn't sure she could be saved. He said that if we hadn't brought her in when we did, she would have died in a few more hours.

We had to leave her there, in the animal hospital, and we came home and worried, and cried. How on earth had we become so attached to this little dog already? It stunned us. But we were attached, no doubt about it. We'd found our perfect little dog, and had fallen in love.

The week she was in the hospital we visited her, taking her cards and taping them her cage, taking her a little pooh bear with my daughter's scent on it, and just letting her know she now had people who loved her and cared about her, and were waiting for her to get better.

And she did. On our last visit there, we walked in and she actually recognized us and stood up and gave a happy bark! I was amazed and asked the tech, was that her barking? I'd never heard her bark before.

The tech let her out and she ran straight for us, and has been happy and healthy ever since.

If I hadn't gone to that place and picked her for my family, she would have died. I honestly believe she was meant for us. And we were meant for her. She made my daughter happy. She makes us happy.
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I left my hometown a few years ago and moved to another small town. This one, however, is huge and bustling compared with where I grew up. And it's only a few minutes away.

My hometown holds the family cemetery, which is where my little girl is buried. I went there today, and took photos of the scenery. It's beautiful, just very lonely, that town.
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Do you play Words With Friends on your iTouch or iPhone? I like that you can put a word in and then go back an hour or a day or a week later and play again. It's fun.

I'm watching Kirstie Alley's show on A&E. I don't know why it entertains me so much, maybe just getting lost in someone's world and forgetting mine for a little while.

Still writing on the new book, but it's going slowly. Sometimes they take off like they're on fire, and sometimes, I don't really pick up the pace until a lot of words in. I'm also editing a manuscript for a friend, but not nearly quickly enough.

Tomorrow I'm going to visit the cemetery. I hope they've put in the headstone by now. When I go up there, it's sad to see the number of family members we've buried. My brothers, my sister-in-law, my niece, my daughter...

My girl is the roughest on me, of course. I miss them all, but when she went, most of me went with her. Now I feel like I'm just waiting, and waiting anxiously, for my time to come so I can go be with her. I'm not sure if that's normal or not. I don't know how long I'll feel this way. Maybe I will until I die. That's a scary thought.

I know I have to do things to get me out of my own head, out of my own sorrow. I've signed up for classes for the upcoming semester at the university. I'm going to apply to the athletic trainer program. Athletic trainers, for those of you who don't know, are the people who take care of the athletes when they hurt themselves, who try to prevent injuries, etc.

I loved the health field before my daughter's stay in the hospital; after that I couldn't stand it. Everything made me remember what she went through. The athletic trainer program has the medical work I love, but it's not taking blood and dealing with sick people or seeing the poor little hurt children. This, I can handle.

I'll probably shadow a trainer one day soon, to get a better handle on what they do. I'm pretty sure this is what I want. Now if they'll just accept me into the program...
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I had this blog post typed up, with a few photos hanging on at the end, and suddenly, kaput! the whole thing disappeared. At times this site has a few issues. Seriously.

I couldn't get it to work again until now, so I'll try to remember what I wrote.

The meeting with the prosecutor was quick and simple. Or it was supposed to be, anyway. Just some information about the upcoming penalty phase of the trial, mainly.

But family was there, and they started talking about my brother, telling stories and such, and I just...broke down. I don't cry in front of people. I just don't. But it burst out of me like water from a broken water pipe, and there was not a thing I could do about it. I had no control. I cried noisily and messily, with my hands to my face, part of my mind standing back going, "what the hell?"

Today I had an appointment with my OB/GYN, unfortunately. Fun, fun, that. The weather was so wonderful, so warm and sunny, that I spent most of it out on the deck, once I returned home from my appointment.

I took pictures of what I saw on my ride home. Starkness, ugliness, beauty...it's all out there.

Not one second went by today when I didn't miss my daughter with an intensity that made it difficult to breathe. Sometimes it just hurts so very, very much.

I'm going to break out my Elisabeth Kubler-Ross book, on Life after Death, when I've finished this post. It comforts me. It gives me hope.
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Not pretty, but the day was bright
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Beautiful, lonely little tree
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Lovely
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The weather was wonderful today. 60's, sunny, warm, with big white fluffy clouds in the deep blue sky. I spent a lot of time out there today, then felt guilty because my girl would have loved it.

I puttered around out there, took some pictures of the sky and the dog. Re-potted some plants, stuff like that. It was nice. Peaceful.

Tomorrow is the meeting with the prosecutor. I'll ride down with my mom. I'm not sure who else in the family is going, except for my dad, stepbrother, and nephew. The prosecutor is going to talk to us about the upcoming penalty phase of the trial. I hope it doesn't take the jury too long to come back with a decision.
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Today has been a mix of good and bad, up and down, relief and anxiety. All these feelings, overflowing like a boiling pot of pasta. Which, by the way, I had for dinner.

I slept well last night, for a change, but still couldn't remember my dreams. Just little bits and pieces of barely grasped memories, ones that make absolutely no sense. I so want to dream about her, I want to communicate with her in my dreams.

My stepbrother came today and brought me a movie, Perfect Stranger. It's not like the cheesy lighthearted feel good flicks I usually watch nowadays, but it's okay. In the evening when it's quiet and dark outside, I like to put in any movie that will help take my mind off stuff.

I just this second realized that I'm due to take my 'help me make it through my life' meds. Off I go, to get the required bowl of ice cream and the pretty little pills. I can't swallow pills, have I mentioned that? I have to go through this whole routine of crushing them, or opening them, and pouring them into ice cream. Nothing else takes the taste away like ice cream. Plus, I do like to eat that ice cream, and all the other sweets, as if that might help fill up that hole inside me.

It never does, but it tastes good going down.

This weekend the weather is supposed to be gorgeous. In the 60s. That'll be a heatwave, compared with what we've been hit with this Winter. I do look forward to that. Everything seems better in the sun.

I found a wonderful woman online who has also lost someone, and her words of understanding and hope just light up my heart. That is my Good Thing for today.

Off to get that ice cream.
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This is the ecstatic face of our dog when she was wrapped in my daughter's arms. Hilarious!
 
Just like with the anger, I seem to have no control over my tear ducts either. Sometimes when it happens, it's okay; I'm alone. At other times, I try to hide it, or run to the bathroom, or hide behind the clothes in a department store.

It's immediate and surprising, almost always. Sometimes it just waits for a visitor to leave my house and as soon as that door closes, wham, I'm hit with a big crying jag. Or someone says something kind, something sympathetic, and there I go.

If anyone reads this and has had an NDE or knows someone who has, please tell me your experience. I'd love to hear it.

Today my thoughts are disjointed. On the TV guide channel I keep seeing on Nickelodeon all the shows she loved. Spongebob and Dora and The Upside Down Show, and then on TV Land, All In The Family and Family Matters-was that girl ever crazy about Steve Urkel-Three's Company...In the mornings I see Barney pass by and remember her throwing her little arms around in wild abandon as she danced to The Wheels On The Bus and If You're Happy And You Know It and all those other Barney songs. I never disliked Barney, simply because she loved him. Always, always at the end of the show when he sang the I Love You song, she would pull me close and hold me until the song was over.

She couldn't walk, but she danced just the same. She danced with perfection by using her arms. When we watched ice skating she skated along by moving her arms. She couldn't really talk, so I never knew if she wanted to ask why she couldn't walk or dance like other kids.

She was a beautiful, wonderful, perfect child. I was so lucky to be her mom. I just wish I could have kept her forever.
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Lately I've been really angry. Furious, really, and at the drop of a hat.

Like when someone who knows me asks, what's wrong? Is something wrong?

I want to scream at them, yes, of course something's wrong! My daughter died! My heart was ripped out and stomped on and every single breath I take hurts. Every single thought I have is of her. Every single moment I live is filled with despair. I want my baby. I want my baby! And I am so mad.

But that was over two months ago. Some people think I should be moving on with my life, and what, faking happiness? I understand, I do. I know people just don't want to see another person hurting. They don't want to have to think that I'm in such pain. But I am.

It's only been two months. Two months, which seems unbelievable to me. Have I only been feeling this way for two months? Hasn't this pain been going on for years?? Two months, really?
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 It's snowing again. Ask me if I'm surprised. That would be a big fat nope.

 I went to do a little shopping, nothing major. My mom wanted me to pick her up a few cases of water, and I also bought some nail polish, emery boards, pop tarts, bread, diet coke, chips (Munchos, pretzels, and cheddar fries), a clear glass vase, and a bunch of cut daisies. I put them in water as soon as I got home and here they sit, cheering up the room.

 Before I dropped my mom's water off and got home, there was about an inch of snow. Now there's around three. Tomorrow, my stepbrother wants to take me to 2nd Street to get "the best footers in the world" because he found out that though I've lived here my entire life, I've never tried them. But if we get much more snow, I don't think I'll be traipsing out to get a hot dog.

If I do, I'll take my camera. Maybe I'll find something interesting to take a picture of ;)
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