When I first got Jake, I wore Shalimar and I am trying to honor our time together with Shalimar today. Is it bringing me comfort? Not really. I just want Jake here with me and alive.I might still have Sydney but she is just as lost as I am and she is confused on why Jake isn't here. She doesn't quite understand that Jake isn't coming home alive but in an urn. I know that Jake was sick and his quality of life wasn't good and putting him down was the only option left but it wasn't what I wanted.
After Jake was put to sleep, I didn't want to leave him there, cold and alone. Yes, I will be getting a paw print and his ashes in a week. It was going to the vet today with 2 living dogs but leaving with only 1 living dog was a horrible feeling.
Yes, this morning's walk was the last walk I was able to take with Jake. There were so many lasts with Jake today. The last day that he got a car ride, the last time he had his favorite treats. I will never again hear him snore, have a puppy dream, nor will I hear him bark at me for a walk. I won't smell his horrible gas or listen to him "talk" when we are cuddling. I didn't want it to be the end of the road with Jake but today was the end of the road. My eyes are red and swollen and I feel like shit. One of the things that I will miss the most is opening a Barkbox every month with Jake.
Jake had always gotten the biggest kick out of Barkbox. A package that came every month and he knew that it was for him. I know that I am going to set aside the Gordon the Giant Sloth toy along with the video game controller toy. The Barkweiser Clydesdale toy is getting set aside as well. Those were his 3 favorite Barkbox toys. It's hard to accept that Jake isn't alive anymore and I will never see him play with those 3 toys or play with his little sister, Sydney.
I am thinking of the day around 11 years ago, Pilots and Paws brought Jake to us. At the time, he was about 2 years old and looked like Santa's Little Helper. I was at work when my parents brought him home. When I had arrived home, Jake came racing right up to me, tail wagging and leaned right up against my legs wanting cuddles. In that nano second, I seemed to be his special person and was until he took his last breath. It won't be an easy few days for Sydney, my parent and I.
Right now, I have a Bath and Body Works Midnight Snow candle going in remembrance of Jake. I am currently hoping that he is at peace and playing with Bailey and Charlie over the Rainbow Bridge.
When it rains, it pours. Jake seems to be rallying but we just got a call from the vet. There might be some cancer that's on his liver. We go tomorrow afternoon for some x-rays. This is news that I don't want to hear. It means no matter whatever we do now with Jake in terms of treatment, it's going to be just a band aid. It might buy a couple weeks but the end result is going to be the same.
Truth be told, I am exhausted. Too many late nights and early mornings combined with not being able to sleep in my bed. Jake is too week right now to climb 13 stairs to and go to bed. So it's sleeping on the couch in our family room. Since there are others around right now, I might sneak away for a nap in my own bed. Perfume and candles are not really on my mind is because I am more focused on keeping Jake hydrated and see what kind of food he will eat.
Last night was our first major snow storm/event type of deal. Much to my surprise, our electricity has stayed on. I didn't want a repeat of November 2020's snow storm. The one that left me without electricity and water for a week. The only difference is that I have an ailing dog and it's January. This year so far has been pretty crappy for me so far.
I am hoping that when we take Jake and Sydney to the vet tomorrow, I come home with two dogs and not one. I am hoping that it is something simple like a bad tooth or two or maybe some kind of simple infection. We are looking for a simple fix where Jake comes home alive. He is still wagging his tail and looking for love and affection.
I don't want tonight to be the last night for a lot of things for Jake. Don't want it to be the last time I take him for his nightly walk, the last time I take him upstairs to sleep, the last time he gets to rough house with Sydney. There will be the last time and I am hoping that it is not tonight. That day always comes and it's unavoidable and we never seem to have as much time as we think we do. I'm hoping that I do have a little more time with Jake and that time doesn't come to an end tomorrow.
I think that my eldest Lab, Jake, is on a downward trend and naturally, when money is a little on the tight side, I have a vet appointment. So everything is going to be very tight for a few weeks. I'm not sure what is going to happen or what exactly the cost is but I'm hoping that it's nothing too serious and it's not horribly expensive. Dogs can be expensive and I do worry as they get older. When they get older, they have the tendency to accumulate all kinds of medication. Let's just hope that this is a quick and cheap fix for me.
I'm still waiting on that huge winter storm to come sailing through my neck of the woods. Not seeing anything that would suggest a massive storm headed my way at this moment. But I am waiting for it but when that storm does hit, our water pump won't break this time. As soon as I hear about a winter storm, I will be a little better prepared this time around. I am going to make doubly sure that my phone stays charged, that need paying are paid but I know I at least have plenty of candles if the electricity goes out and stays out. I am not willing to go through a week without running water and days without electricity again like November 2020 when we did have that snowstorm. I am just hoping that if a snowstorm comes, I will be scheduled off that day. And hopefully, stocked up on groceries too.
When I made diamond status on Ulta, I had a choice of a perfume mini or something with makeup. Naturally, I had to choose the mini. If I remember right, the only option was Philosophy Amazing Grace. Amazing Grace has been around for a while and have never gotten around to trying it out. I've just never got around to even trying any of the Philosophy line.
Amazing Grace has been around since 1996, just as I was entering high school. I don't remember anyone in high school wearing it, it was mostly Happy, CK One or Cucumber Melon that permeated the halls and classrooms of where I went to school. People might have worn it but for high school students working part time jobs, it probably wasn't all that affordable and probably a little more difficult to find. Happy was probably pushing it in terms of affordability.
Amazing Grace is not all that amazing to my nose. It's a lily and musk type of thing. The musk is a clean type of musk and I am not smelling the sexiness of the musk at all. People who have reviewed it as a sexy perfume due to the musk and I have no idea how they can call it sexy. Maybe MKK and BaV has spoiled me or ruined my nose in what I consider sexy. I did have a bit of a liking for the lily note but this perfume really smells like something from the 90's. The whole clean, your skin but better type of thing. It's really not my thing but might have been a thing for me when I was in high school. Mercifully, the edt didn't last too long on me and think Ulta maybe could have done a little bit better when it came to the choice of perfume mini when there are probably better perfumes out there. The whole your skin but better thing has really got to stop in the perfume world. What's the point of your skin but better in terms of perfume? I will admit that I want to wear a perfume that smells like I am wearing perfume.
Ever since the pandemic has started, the prices of everything has gone up. Groceries, gas, and household items have started to become very expensive.I've had to make some choices with groceries that I didn't quite want to make but had to do it because I am making an effort to have my paychecks stretch a little farther.
I have mostly stuck to a few things so far but it's 3 days into the new year and I already goofed up. My last candle purchase was made on the 29th of last year and I have already finished 2 candles and don't have the desire to add more at this point but will have to see what happens a few months down the road.
After I stockpiled all of those Ulta rewards points, I had stocked up a quite a few bottles of Chanel perfumes. This first order was made a few days before the new year and the 2nd one was today. I was poking around Ulta's website and saw that the price of every Chanel was raised at least $5 or more and when I cross checked the Chanel website, it was the same deal. Out of curiosity, I was checking out the Les Exlusifs line and holy shit, the price went up at least $50. So after the Sephora spring sale, I guess I won't be getting any more Chanel products for a very long time. But at this point, I've stockpiled enough Chanel perfume. My only plan is to get just another bottle of no 5 extrait. I have enough of the no 5 edp and edt. I don't need anymore Coco Mademoiselle either. I don't wear Coco Mademoiselle as often as I thought I would and I don't need more of it. Yes, perfume prices are a first world problem and perfume is a luxury but it's become harder and harder to justify something that makes me happy.
There aren't too many things that I stockpile but over the past 3 or 4 years, I have amassed a huge collection of candles. I never did those massive Candle Day runs. If anyone else has done the Bath and Body Works Candle Day sales, you will see people loading up on the maximum allowed for the sale and after then turn around a buy more. I've heard snippets from others passing by that they go to at least four or five stores and do this. They are either scalpers or just greedy. Most of the time, I only get a personal maximum of 4 in a single sitting and only once have I bought 10 in a single sitting. Truth be told, I haven't even had the ability to get 20 candles in one sitting and it does seem like pure greed to go out and wipe out a store's entire stock.
Even in the beginning of the pandemic, when states were starting to shut down, I didn't go to any store and buy every last roll of toilet paper and cleaning products. I figured that other people needed that stuff as much as I did and I didn't need to hoard things. I've already hoarded enough candles and perfume already. Now let's get back on track with the using up what I have and not sink more cash into my hobbies.
