Long week

It's been a stressful week.
The saddest thing that happened this week is that my sweet grandmother passed away.  She was a sweet, tough lady.  When I was little, I got to go visit my mother's parents for a few days all by myself.  It was a lot of fun for me.  Grandma even got me store-bought chocolate milk, which was my favorite luxury as a child.  The smell of coffee always reminds me of her, which is why I love it so much. :)  My favorite thing of hers she ever gave me is a small golden music box keychain that plays the theme from Swan Lake.  I'd always loved it and one of the last times I saw her she gave it to me so I had something special of hers I could keep forever.  It is one of my favorite possessions.
My grandma was 5'2" and my grandpa was 6'3" and they made such a cute couple together.  It's been a few years since Grandpa passed on and Grandma's health had been having difficulties for a while now, so we knew it would be soon.  Even when someone is sick for a long time and you know the end is close, it's still very difficult.  It's hard whether it's sudden or drawn out to lose someone, though.  I will miss her.  She always made me feel very special.

Also this week, Zoe suddenly started having difficulty walking from time to time.  Usually she'd be running, suddenly slow down and stop using one of her back legs so she had to hop with the other, and then she would lay down.  After a minute she usually can get up and walk fine, but it's been happening more frequently.  :(  My poor girl.  We took her in to get x-rays yesterday and it looks like her back left knee cap is loose.  I'm not sure if she hurt it and it's been getting worse or if maybe she was born with a weak knee that got worse over time.  But she will probably need to have surgery to correct it.  We have an appointment to have it looked at again and to decide if our vet will do the surgery or if an orthopedic specialist will be needed.  We were just looking into pet insurance, unfortunately, so we'll need to take care of it ourselves.  I did my research, though, and have found a good provider for future incidents.  If it's going to be costly, though, there is a way to finance it with the vet or we can get a loan or something, so I'm not as scared as I could be, but pretty stressed about it.  It's okay, though.  When we decided to have pets, we decided to take care of them no matter what for the rest of their lives.  They are family members to us.  She's our little girl, you know?  I'm so worried about her.  It breaks my heart whenever her knee slips like that.  At least she can milk this for tuna from her parents though. ;)  We've kept the Christmas tree up for her because she loves sleeping under the tree skirt so much.  It's so adorable!

After a wild night chasing the red dot.

We're so glad the weekend is here at last.  One morning this week, John had to be to work by 3:15 a.m. and we haven't quite caught up on sleep still.  He'll be working nights next week, though, so I foresee drowsy times in our future. ;)