Oh dear, Oh dear......sorry, with an explanation.

I am finally back. I know, it's been too long, but I was having some trouble with my computer and could not see any colour in my blog, therefore making it impossible to write anything. I have finally had my computer fixed and I'm ready to go. I've missed writing on here.

So, lets catch u all up on what's new around here! In the obituary section....we lost Bunny and had to have her put down. She was a very sick girl so we let her go. Our poor baby. We now have two other dogs and 3 cats in addition to the others. What a petting zoo!

I am living right next door to my wonderful grandbabies and I love it. I don't miss anything now. I will be putting up new pics a.s.a.p. of both kids and animals.I have loved my life since moving here. I've made some great friends and enjoying my family.

Next Thursday, Holly is taking Ashley on a her dream 4 day holiday to New York City. Ashley has always wanted to go there so they are heading out on a bus tour and will be back Sunday. Ashley is so excited as they will be seeing the Rockettes Christmas Extravaganza and dining at one of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants. I'll be making sure that the babies are being fed and Rob isn't going crazy.

I will be going back to school for my BA in Christian Counseling so I'm excited. Keeps me out of the pool halls..ha, ha.

Holly is doing great, but she's the worst driver ever! Worries me sometimes, but she doesn't go far, thank goodness. She's doing well in school and is keeping at it.

That's all for now, but don't worry, I'll be back!

Tory

Happy New Year!!! O.k. I'm back....

I bet you guys thought I fell off the face of the earth by now. I didn't, but what a ride it has been.
So, I left the job at the shelter, as they wouldn't let me get involved at all except to cook all day.  I went in to the directors office and told her exaclty how I felt and she offered me a job there.  I said no and left that day. 
I then went on to enjoy the rest of the summer at the lovenest and had the grandkids up.  We had a ball at the beach together.  I realized how much I'm really hating it being so far away from them and missing so much of their growing up.
You know, I'm not one of those 'kid people'; I just don't like little kids that much, but my grandkids totally have my heart and I really love spending time with them.  Even after a week of a messy and noisy house, I still don't want them to go.
So, at the end of the summer we had to make a discision as to where we wanted to live.  We ended up back in Toronto, not far from NAi Hubby's mother.  Which was handy.  We were able to have her over all the time for dinner and now that Holly was driving, she would take her shopping and she loved having a 'grand daughter' as much as Holly liked having a grandmother.  Mom spoiled Holly silly and even paid her tuition into pastoral college.  I was floored.  That was so generous of her.  Anyway, Holly was definately her favourite person on the planet.
So, Ashley, Rob and the kidlets came down for the Chistmas holidays and Holly went back with them to spend some time with her sister.  She ended up staying there for nearly all of January and kept phoning and saying that she wished that we would move back to our old area to be near Ashley and the kids.  I didn't think Holly would ever want to go back there again.  I was telling NAI Hubby this and he suddenly said, 'O.k., let's move there.'  I was stunned.  I would never want to live in this scuzzy little town again but the area is gorgeous and I actually missed it.
So, Holly and Ashley were thrilled that we would live close together finally, as that's what we had planned all along, but Rob is a small town boy and Toronto just wasn't for him.(and I didn't blame him!)  So, Holly came back home to help pack and I went out to Ashley's house to look for a place to live.  I was there for about two weeks when Hubby called and said that they had to take his mother into the hospital with stomach pain.  I was quite worried, but not overly as she was a pretty healthy 72 year old woman.  She was still living in her own house and was very indepenent.
The next day Hubby called to say that her bowels were leaking and she was toxic and they would need to go in and repair the leak.  I knew then it was very serious.  I told Hubby I should come home and he said not to because the Dr.'s felt they could fix it.
After the operation, she had one good day then one bad, and it went on that way for a few days.  She began to have respiratory distress and very quickly things went downhill from there.  My poor Hubby called me in hysterics last monday pleading for me to get home a.s.a.p.  I have never heard Hubby like that before and it really freaked me out.  I felt desperately helpless.  I grabbed my insulin, a few meds and Ashley and I hit the road.  I was so afraid I would not get there in time.  And I really didn't want my Hubby to have to go through this alone.  Plus, I wanted to see this precious lady one more time.  She was so good to me.  I just felt sick when we started on our journey home.
Ashley doesn't have her full liscence yet, so she is not allowed to drive on major hiways, so we had to take a slower secondary highway from just outside Ottawa to Toronto.  On a regular highway, it would take about 5 hours.  It was all good going up until Kingston, the halfway point.  We suddenly were hit by a blizzard so bad, we had to drive at a crawl.  Ashley is a good driver, so neither of us was worried, but we knew this was going to be a very looooong drive home.  I was praying for two things, 1- We would get there safely and 2- We would get there in time. 
Then it got dark and Ashley was having a terrible time seeing.  She couldn't tell what part of the road was the part we should be driving on.  It was not busy, but there were still some cars coming towards us on the other side.  I could tell Ashley was a bit nervous.  And with my eyes, I could barely see Ashley, never mind the road.  There were two cars coming towards us and Ashley turned the wheel just slightly to make sure we were on our own side when we suddenly spun out in front of the two oncoming cars.  And just as suddenly, the car spins around and we end up in the ditch on our side of the street, with our front tires totally in the ditch.  We were missed by just a hair by these two cars.  When we finally came to a stop. Ashley was completely unhinged.  She was shaking so badly I thought she was going to have a nervous breakdown.  Nof one of those two cars stopped to see if we were alright; they just kept on driving.  Great, out in the middle of nowhere, blizzard conditions, no clue where we even were, and my kid's falling apart beside me.  Hmmm, what to do.  Finally I asked Ashley if the car was a front wheel drive.  She was still in a panic and said she couldn't remember.  Finally, a guy that was behind us stopped and came over to the car.  I asked him if he knew if our car was a front wheel drive and he said yes.  I asked him where we were and he mentioned a Native Reserve.  He said he'd go back to his car and call for help.  I'm thinking tow trucks and hassles etc. so I told Ashley to just floor it and we'd get out of there.  She did and voila, we were out.  What really had her shaken up was that she's afraid of the airbags in the car.  She is a very tiny girl and has to sit pretty close to the wheel to reach the pedals.  She has heard so many stories about the airbags going off on small people and really injuring them.
O.K. Back on the road....30 K/H....sometimes 20 K/H...poor Ashley, and the weather was getting worse with every kilometer.  And she was very freaked out because she had barely touched the wheel and wasn't even near the break and we spun so bad.  It freightened her that it could happen again at any time for no reason.
So, we're crawling and up ahead we see a bunch of cop cars etc. and there was an officer standing in the middle of the road stopping cars.  We thought it might be a R.I.D.E. program so we stopped and the officer said there was a huge accident just ahead and we'd have to take the major highway past the accident.  So we turned around and Ashley is freaking because she isn't even liscenced for the big highway.  But we have no choice.  I tell her she'll do fine, just go slower and just make it to the very first cut-off which shouldn't be too far away.  It sounded good in theory but I didn't think of one thing.  The trucks!!  They were zooming by at well past the speed limit and it was blowing us (at 30k/h on a 100k/h road) Everytime a truck or any other vehicle could be seen in her rearview mirror, Ashley would immediately pull over until the coast was clear.  Sometimes it was every 20 feet.  Then she'd pull over and cry.  She was so scared.  It took us nearly an hour to get to the next cut-off.  And the weather was just getting worse.  I felt terrible I had got Ashley into this mess.  She was a wreck.
We finally got to a gas station in the middle of nowhere and called home.  Poor Hubby was worried sick.  He had even called Ashley's house just after we left to say don't leave, there's a storm coming.  So, I promised to phone every two hours or so.  Altogether, it took us 16 hours to do a five hour drive.  We then went straight to the hospital.
Mom was in a private room and she was asleep most of the time, as they had her on a morphine drip.  She seemed happy to see me and I told her I loved her.
Very long story, just a little shorter....Mom died on Saturday.  I was the only one there when she took her last breath.  God Rest her soul...
The memorial will be on this coming Saturday. And I have no underwear...
So, we are staying in her house right now until everything is done and then we are gone for good.  Hoooray!!!  I really hate the city and will be glad to see the back of it.
Well, I'm exhausted and have a cold, the second one this new year!?  So I'll write after the memorial on Saturday.
Again, forgive my lengthy absence.  I'll try to do better.  Lots of new things up ahead for us, so I'll keep you posted.
Forsythia, thank you for your patience with me.  I hope you're good.