When lost

They say you don't know what you have till it's gone. I have learned that very well today. I didn't know how much I relied on my fibro meds. I didn't realize how much they managed my pain.
That is until today. I woke up exhausted which isn't new but this time it's didn't eventually go away. I felt like I might fall asleep while standing, sitting, cooking.
My body was stiffer than usual which made moving hard to do. I ached in places that usually don't give me much problems.
The moment of clarity was when I was headed for bed. To keep down utility costs we keep the heat down. My room was pretty cold, so I brought my space heater in to warm it up. Even with it on and under the covers I felt so cold it almost felt feverish with chills. That caused my temperature sensitivity to make getting comfortable impossible. I had to do go pee which brought me back to bed in tears. I was no longer just achy I felt like I was being stabbed.
 I rely on my health insurance and last month I couldn't pay for it. Even tho is just right under $50. So this month I can't afford to get my medication. Without insurance it's $175+. With my insurance it's completely covered.
You don't realise how much you take for granted the little things, like the meds you take daily. Or the insurance you pay for each month. That is until you don't have it. I typically see at least one doctor a month, 2 - 4 on the months I have my regular follow ups.
How I'm gonna make it through this month is beyond me. But I know I'll never take the little things for granted again.

Most Dangerous Breed

Something that you all will learn about me is that my posts are usually inspired by an experience, a conversation, or even something I have read. This post was inspired by all three in fact. If you haven't guessed already I am an avid animal lover, mostly dogs. I can't stand seeing a dog suffer or feel any kind of pain. Unfortunately there are people in this world that think that animals don't have emotions so therefore their life is less important. I know that as being so far from the truth, but I digress. The reason I decided to write this post is because of a conversation that I had with a friend, a very cautious friend. Cautious of what you might ask, of dogs. We were having a discussion in our ministry about how she refused to go to a house that had a pit bull. Me, being a former pit bull owner myself, I find that statement quite judgmental. I know that people could spout off pit bull horror stories left and right, but I can counter as well. She told me that a friend of hers said that their dog would never hurt a fly, I have to add that the breed of said dog was never mentioned, but then turned around and killed their two year old child. My counter, Tater Tot, a pit bull foster, saved a two year old's life by alerting his parents to a non responsive child. They later found out that his blood sugar had dropped dangerously low. A story I resently noticed was of a dog that saved two children's lives from a pit bull attack. My counter, a pit bull saves a baby from kidnappers. If we look hard enough we can see that you can't judge an animal because if its breed. I personally am not afraid of dogs. I respect their space and their power. I mentioned to my friend's son that I am not one of those people that is ignorant of a dog's power, I have been bitten before and the majority of the bites were from small breed dogs. Studies have shown that small breed dogs over all are more aggressive than large breed dogs. I will concede to one thing pit bulls are powerful, they are, I know the kind of power that pits have behind those jaws. They were bred to fight bulls they had to be powerful. But behind all of that power is a kind heart that just wants to be loved. Pits at one time were even called Nanny Dogs because the parents would leave the children in the dogs care for protection. Yet Pit bulls as a breed are banned in numerous cities, they are left to die in animal shelters all because of their breed. What we need to recognize is that the real danger is, US. People, humans, mankind the most dangerous breed of all. We breed animals for money and yet millions of animals are being euthanize every year.
How do we live with ourselves. We hunt for sport, I am not dissing hunting for food, we breed any animal we can make money on, and we still can sleep at night. Birds the freest animal I can imagine reduced to a depressed life in a small cramped cage. Pit bulls are dubbed a dangerous breed just like it's predecessors the Rottweiler, the German Shepherd and the Doberman. They have all been charged with being "dangerous". When are we going to start taking responsibility? We pit animals against each other for sport. I have seen the damage that can befall a dog from a dog fighting ring it's not pretty. We are the ones that need to be trained. Ceaser Milan says it best that it's not the animals that need the training it's the humans. We get mad at our dogs for peeing in the house when we have been out all day. Well you sit in a kitchen for 8 hours straight without a potty break. At least humans get breaks and lunch breaks your pets do not.
The one thing that breaks my heart more than anything is seeing a dog tied up. I could rant on this for hours but I feel that I should bid you ado. I hate to cut off in the middle of a post but it is quite late. So I ask you to please refer to the picture below I hope that it will reach hearts and change a few lives.    

Yarn Over

https://www.facebook.com/CrochetStitch

https://www.etsy.com/shop/CrochetStich?ref=si_shop

I know that I haven't written in a while and I apologize. I frankly have been uninspired. Until now of course. I have been busy as a bee crocheting hats and scarves for my family and friends. The people in the photo above are my Aunt Peggy and my Uncle Jon modeling my beard hat and my sashay scarf. My post today is really to promote myself. I am not usually one to toot my own horn but since I am trying to make some money from this I thought that I would show some of my work off. I have a page on Facebook called Crochet Stitch, I advertise my hats and scarves and attempt to sell them. Attempt being the operative word. I am from a "small" town and the occupants don't always have the funds to order such items. So I am reaching out to you, my readers. Being such a small blog at the moment I can't imaging there being a lot of viewers but those of you who are kind enough to read my blog I ask you this favor. Please like my page and share it with your friends and family. I will even post a price list at the bottom of my blog that you will all get an idea of what I ask out of my items. I also have an Etsy page but it is quite unknown at the moment and under "construction". I will also add a link to it as well so that if you are interested in ordering items you can place an order there. 

My Items are priced as such,

Hats:Infant - teen: $15 Teen - Adult: $20 Crowns/Headbands:Infant - Teen: $8Teen - Adult: $15I will also do special order and pricing depends on size.

Dog Tails

After racking my brain for something to write today I was finally struck with inspiration. When I browse Facebook, and other subsequent websites, I always seem to get caught up on any kind of animal stories. Since I took a personality test and found out that my personality is that of a dog, I felt like I should share the story of my first dog. I would love to say that Lady. our mixed breed chow, was my favorite dog, but I feel like that isn't fair, I think every one's favorite dog is the current one that they have or the last one that they had. Lady came with our house we moved to the country. We not only got a house, but we got a dog and a cat as well. Me, being the bright eyed 4 year old that I was, I was thrilled. Lady was very protective. She had her favorite people, but she also had people that she wouldn't even let up on our porch. When I think of that over sized fluff ball, two stories come to mind. The first one is where I truly believe that she saved my life. I don't remember much about what happened, I just remember walking down to our pond, alone, at around 4-5 years of age. To this day the only thing I remember after that is being carried on her back, she was taking me back up to the house. I was all bloody from falling or something along those lines. I owed her my life and all the love that I could give. Which trust me, love her I did. That wasn't the last time that she saved me from danger. I remember we had weeds in our garden they were so tall they were over my head, at 5-6 years of age that probably wasn't really that tall. My grandpa had went into them for some reason or other, and we, my sister, my grandmother, and myself, were going to go in as well, but she stopped us. That's the only time Lady ever growled at me. I remember thinking something must be wrong. She disappeared into the weeds, I heard a scream, a bark, some growling, and then she emerged carrying a good sized snake in her mouth. I remember her getting old, and then one day no longer being there. My grandpa had to put her down. At that age I didn't really understand, but I still miss her to this day. As much as I love my baby Millie, and every dog I have had since, no other dog will quite hold the place in my heart that she does.

Random Rantings

As a person I believe that we are all entitled to respect. I believe that if you work in customer service, you should respect the people that you are interacting with. I had an experience today with an auto insurance company, and the people were rude and disrespectful. I mean, really? How do you expect to "sell" your company off as being reliable, if you can't even treat a person you are dealing with with respect? I should probably explain the reason for my rant. On May 16th, the day before we moved into our current residence, my sister and I were in a car accident. It's wasn't severe, but we both had to undergo a few months of chiropractic adjustments. We have been trying to settle this case for the past 3 months. We have waited and waited for them to send papers and make offers, but to no avail. I got an offer, not long after we finished our chiropractic visits, with a ridiculously low amount. I then tried to counter offer, and the woman said that she couldn't "entertain" my offer. When I spoke to her boss today he at least attempted to try and settle the case. The only thing that he and I accomplished was for me to become annoyed, and him nervous when I asked to talk to his boss. He avoided the question, so Crystal, my sister, called him back and got his boss' name and number and boy was he scared. She then called to complain about the service that we had received between him and the woman that we had to work with before. He told her that even tho he didn't handle claims that our offer wasn't unreasonable and that he was going to have a talk with his team. So here we are awaiting the results, that we should get no later than tomorrow. I will be happy to have this all settled and done with so that we can get on with our lives, and no longer have to worry about this whole thing.

The Beginning of the Beginning

Since this is my first official blog you will have to bear with me. My name is Cortney Harper I am 23 years old and most of my blogs will more than likely be about animals or cooking, considering that these are the two things I am most passionate about.

I have a dog, Millie; she is a 7 year old Shi Tzu, and I love her to peices. I adopted her from a veterinarian's office when I was shadowing a vet tech. A breeder brought her in trying to find her a home since she couldn't sell her and couldn't breed her. Millie has "disabilities", she has problems with her knees and she has a hole in her head where it didn't close as a puppy. She almost died a couple of times when she was a baby. I have had her since she was 6 months old and aside from a food allergy and a couple of problems with worms she hasn't had many health problems since we got her, which is awesome.

Creating a blog actually wasn't my idea. I have been attending a writers group, with as much as I like to write I don't do well with fiction, so Cory, one of the people I am in the group with suggested that I create a blog since I prefer more journalistic writing. She had a really good idea so I am testing it out. We'll see how this journey unfolds and see how this all works out. I hope you enjoy this ride with me.