In shock.

It's amazing how quickly ones life can fall apart.

End of April, I lost my job. I'd tried to cut back on my hours of work time to spare myself of the sort of stress I've endured for ten years with the company, stress that has left me with a permanent heart condition. And when I wasn't as insanely productive as a result, my position came to an end.

I've applied for all sorts of jobs, had many interviews, but no takers. If I thought I had stress before, it was nothing in comparison to what I'm experiencing now. Thank god for the heart meds I'm on. We may lose the farm if I'm unable to find work, fast.

We lost one of the sheep to Leptospirosis on July 1, and another sheep contracted it and barely survived. She only survived because, once we had a confirmed diagnosis from Cornell on the first one we lost, I vaccinated the entire flock against Lepto and put them all on high dosages of antibiotics to try to prevent further cases.

LW was accepted by the pre-school. For the afternoon session. She's looking very much forward to going. I can only hope that her school experience is far better than mine. My parents jumped us around from school to school because of my brother's learning disabilities, and it wreaked havoc on me socially and academically.

The donkey that lives just down the road has made his early morning happy bray. Time for me to log off and do some chores while the rest of my family is still asleep.

Tea Party. The Liberal, Nice Kind.

Last week, Little Woodchuck and I got invited to a mother-daughter tea party! It was held on Saturday, and boy oh boy did we have fun.

There were five little girls and five moms. The little girls all got dressed up, even LW got dressed up, and had lovely snacks and treats at a little table. The moms all got dressed up, except me of course because I didn't know I was supposed to, and we chatted while our little ones had their snacks. The food was really good, and LW ate everything I put on her plate.

As us moms were chatting, I suddenly realized that every one of them but me was a psychologist, psychiatrist, or therapist. After listening to them kvetch about their work for a half hour, I managed to change the subject to more general topics, and it was much more relaxing after that. Not only for me, but for them too.

Mister Woodchuck starts his work for the US Census in a couple weeks. It will be good for him to get out of the house. I'll be stranded without a car, but I'll manage.

LW was screened for preschool recently. I hope she gets in. She'll be four in September, and she desperately wants to be with other children. I set up as many playdates as I can, but the structure of a good preschool will help her immensely. She's an extremely well-behaved, respectful child, but she needs more to do every day than I can supply.

The kind of excitement I don't really need.

So I'd been having an irregular heartbeat for a while.

A week ago Friday it got REALLY bad. Thursday night I dreamed that a dead man fell from the ceiling and landed on me, and I woke up with my heart thudding so hard and irregularly I thought I was having a heart attack right then and there. I got scared. I called the medical center first thing Friday morning. They told me to come in right away.

Had an EKG. On the spot. Right after they listened to my heart and it sounded like intermittent gunfire. I got to see the printout. It was pretty bad.

And now I'm on heart medication. Fortunately, it's a generic and not expensive. My mom is going to help me pay for last week's trip to the medical center and this week's follow-up trip, as I have a $4000 deductible on my health insurance.

It's been very scary, believe me. And now I'm in my 40s and on heart meds. Damnitalltohell.

A Life Lived Well.

Just when we thought our guard llama was getting better -- he was improving so much -- suddenly within two days he spiraled down hard.

I had him euthanized on the morning of February 7. That morning was the first time he was in pain, not just weak, and that was the deciding factor. The vet was very gentle and very quick with the procedure, as we all kneeled in the straw in the llama stall and comforted my brave llama boy with soft words, hugs and kisses. He was very calm and very brave and he put his head on my shoulder and let go of this world.

I miss him so much. He was a beloved friend and amazing fellow, who loved every moment of his interesting life.

It was cancer, by the way. We couldn't have beaten it. I'm just glad we gave our boy the best quality of life possible, and helped him every step of the way with love in our hearts. Even the last step.

Two months later...

There has, quite literally, been no time to post to my blog. I don't have time now, either, but I'm taking a few moments this morning to fling something, anything up here.

Thanksgiving was nice. Christmas was also nice. This was LW's 3rd Christmas and therefore a big, important one for her. We had a lot of fun involving her in holiday traditions, giving her her first long-term holiday memories.

After the holidays, everything came crashing down. Two weeks ago, my best guard llama went down, hard. It's taken two weeks of intensive medical treatments, force feedings every 2-3 hours day and night, and physical therapy to keep him alive. Two days ago we finally saw some improvement. I don't know if we'll be able to save him in the long term, but we're doing everything we can do to try. Other llama owners who have been through the same thing have been giving me life-saving information and advice, via the internet. One gal in particular with a herd in upstate NY has been my lifeline in all this. If the llama survives, I owe her something really, really nice as a thank-you. I love this llama dearly, he's been with us for 13 years since he was a 6-month-old weanling.

MW has had no incoming work from his clients for almost two months. There's nothing in the pipeline either, and we're both pretty scared. He's started a job search to find some sort of work locally. I don't care if he ends up flipping burgers, he's got to get a job. I don't make enough to support this family by myself.

Thus far, 2010 has been full of suck. I had high hopes that it would be a better year than 2009, but at this point, it's worse for us than last year.

Sobering bookmarks from a sad time.

In between vacuuming all the rooms in the house today, I've been tidying up my computer on my breaks. I tackled my browser bookmarks earlier. It was very sobering to see an entire section of URLs I bookmarked that were sites about losing one's baby while pregnant, in second or third trimester.

I had a really bad pregnancy. Really bad, and dangerous. Our ob-gyns weren't sure if the baby was going to make it through the entire pregnancy, and when I went into labor prematurely, things quickly went from bad to worse and there was a point when no one was sure that either or both me and the baby were going to survive. I had tried to prepare for the worst early in the second trimester when things started to take a bad turn, thus those bookmarks. Only MW and I knew just how bad things were, we didn't tell our families but they must have figured something wasn't right when we refused offers of a baby shower. We'd come home from the preparation for childbirth classes and I'd cry and cry, because it was so hard to keep up the appearance that everything was going okay. And when I went into labor early, we didn't call anyone in the family. Just wanted it to be us at the hospital in case things didn't work out well. MW called our moms when it was all over.

I can't have any more children, which is fine really, and I'm grateful each and every day that my little girl is here in my life.

Even so, today I wept with remembrance as I deleted those sobering bookmarks once and for all.

Craft Nite.

Just for the record, I want to express my love and appreciation for the folks who come to craft each Tuesday night at the Rendezvous in Turners Falls. I was away from Craft Nite for two months, went back last Tuesday for the first time in what seemed like forever, and was entirely thrilled to see the crafty peeps again.

With the end in sight for my deadlines, I'll be going back to Craft Nite as often as I can this winter. It's damned good for my mental health.