I want to start by saying thank you to Adamsdarling, Afton, Sissy, Shiva, January, Debbie, Els, Camera Chic and Anonymous for posting about my loss of Poco.  I really appreciated your understanding words.  He has been gone over a week now, but I still miss him a lot, and so many things remind me of him.

Time marches on, though.  I had a birthday last week, and circumstances caused me to really miss the family birthday parties we used to have when I was young, with cake and ice cream and lots of presents!  Since my birthday was close to the start of the school year, I mostly got school supplies and clothes for presents, which I would have gotten anyway without it being my birthday (duh!), but it was still fun to have things to open and be with my parents and brothers and their familes.

My family quit having birthday parties several years ago because we are more spread out now and everyone is busy with lives of their own.  But this was my first birthday since my mom died (in March) and I had lost Poco three days before, so I was feeling a little blue.  Then to top it off, the night before my birthday my husband said he had decided that I had enough "stuff," so he wasn't going to get me a present, but he would  take me out to dinner.  Ain't it grand to be married?  I think the honeymoon is over, after 31 years! 

The antique mall where I work just had a huge four-day sale for Labor Day, and I have never been so tired in my life after working those days!  We were constantly running out of change, out of paper to wrap things in, and out of boxes to pack things in, and we had so many customers buying so much stuff we could never even work in a lunch break!  I don't want to ever work a holiday weekend again!   Fortunately, I don't have to think about it for awhile, because the next one isn't until New Year's weekend, and who knows if I will still be working there by then.  I'll keep you "posted"!