LulaRoe & Loss

This week has been chaotic as usual. Those of you who are longtime blog readers know I consider my youngest a little prophet. Despite our lack of regular church attendance he often tells me about things Jesus has told him. He can "hear church" in his head, he says. The other morning while getting ready for school he randomly informed me that when we are in Heaven before we are born we get to decide how difficult our lives here on Earth will be. I was like, "Um, can I revise that decision?" Evidently I was an overachiever in Heaven!

Anyway, over the weekend we were visiting our son at college to see how he is doing. If you've been wondering, he's okay. He finally got to see a doctor after nearly a week and got on daytime insulin, so we don't have to worry so much about him having a reaction from very high or low sugar. He also saw an endocrinologist at last and is on a different insulin that seems to be working a little better. We are going to stay home this weekend to give him a little freedom now that he's more stable but last weekend while I was in Asheville I picked up a huge lot of LulaRoe clothes to sell for a consignor who has lost too much weight to wear them anymore. (If only that would happen to me! Maybe it will... you can follow along with my diabetic awareness/weight loss journey on my Instagram or Naturally Amanda Facebook pages.)

I have LulaRoe Perfect Tees, Classic Tees, and Nicole dresses in sizes L-2X in my eBay and Poshmark shops. These are selling extremely fast, so I recommend you head to the shops to bid or buy if you see some you like. I have only one of each in stock, so you will want to hurry to get your favorite.

Once we arrived home we could see it was time to "make a decision", as the vet said a few weeks ago, about our 15 year old Eskimo Spitz, Eli. Around April, Eli started dragging one foot and the vet thought it was a loose kneecap. We got him a very expensive leg brace, which he promptly lost or hid. The paralysis spread to his other leg and then to his back. He was too old for surgery. Up until this week he was still his happy go-lucky self. My husband built him a wheelchair and ramp and he used it some although the ramp scared him. However, the pet sitter said he had a "rough" night while we were away and when we got home we could see he had become completely incontinent. He also seemed to be in pain, groaning when we would carry him in and out. I have been holding on to him selfishly, I realized. We got Eli a few months before my oldest started preschool when I was grieving because we had just been informed we wouldn't be able to have any more biological children. My husband got me a "baby", Eli, to make me feel better. Eli represented a time when we were all young, when my son was still healthy, and I didn't want to let go, but I finally understood I was hurting him keeping him here. I couldn't take him to the vet; my husband had to do it. We said goodbye to Eli on Wednesday. I am devastated but my youngest son informs me Eli is running in Heaven and might have already been reincarnated as a new puppy, so that is a comfort.

Because we are insane and this wasn't unexpected I have had my eye on a few litters. I saw a shelter dog I wanted but he was snapped up immediately and all the others I looked at said they couldn't be around kids or cats, so they were a no-go. We are going to view the most promising litter tomorrow and I'm getting a little excited about it. Luna, our 1.5 year old Aussie has been extremely clingy and sad lately and I think she will love a new puppy to play with since Eli has been too feeble recently. My husband asked, "HOW long was it before Luna slept through the night?" So, I may be rather incoherent for the next few months from lack of sleep if all goes well tomorrow! Sometimes I think I should breed dogs and cats. I do enjoy them!

Another exciting event for me is half my orders today came from my website or my Atelier Mandaline Facebook page. I worried my website wouldn't be worth the cost, so if it's going to start paying off for me that's huge. I would so love to have my own freestanding store surpass my shops hosted by other sites! Fingers crossed!