My sweet, precious boy has an ear infection.

Awwww…..

I’ve been really worried about it, because I thought I was going to have to take him to the vet (expensive!) and get him a prescription (expensive!) and as we are drowning financially right now, that just would not be feasible.

So - being the happy tree-hugger that I am, I began searching online for natural-type remedies for such a thing. But to save my life, I just could not find what I was looking for. I knew something like that must be out there, but, I just was not using the right search terms.

So here’s where PayPerPost comes in to save the day!! They have been paying me to make posts, right? So I have a bit of spending money, right? Right!

And then - they paid me to make this post: My sweet Rosco

Well - during research for that post - guess what I found! All natural treatment for doggy ear infections!!!

How perfect is that? So first - they’ve been paying me, then they pay me to post about this company - where I find the answer to my problem! And I get to purchase that solution to my problem, because they’ve been paying me! HA! Don’t ya love it??

That is the second time they’ve come in super handy for me - in my life - besides the paying me part!! I got back into Geocaching, thanks to a post I made for them - and wound up having a great day for my brother planned when he came in town, too!

But back to the dog, PPP, and PetWellbeing.com - totally cool! Right…where was I?

Ok, so PPP rocks, we’ve got that - then I found this great ointment for Puppy’s ears at PetWellbeing.com - and then - get this…

I ordered it on Monday - it was coming from Wash. State - I pondered the expensive shipping, Puppy is shaking his head like crazy because the itching is driving him nuts! But I decided, he’s waited this long for relief, he’ll be ok.

But then guess what? - It got here on Wednesday!!! Do they ROCK, or what??

Now if it works, I’ll be singing their praises all over the place!!!

Silly me! I forgot those dirty, rotten, stinkin’ clouds mess up the satellite signals to my GPS unit!!

Shawn and I went looking for two Geocaches on Christmas eve, and TOTALLY could not find them!

First I took him to one I’d already found - it was on one of those cool one-lane bridges near where an old mill used to be, and was just a really neat area, so I wanted him to see it. And he is really good at and enjoys finding them - so we went to that one first.

And I handed him the GPS, and it was sending him 80 ft. in the exact opposite direction - I really should’ve figured things out right then! I haven’t hunted for caches in 2 years, though, so I forgot about the clouds.

And I noticed my battery was getting kind of low, so I thought maybe that was it!

I had to just lead him with hints to the cache.

Then we went to the other two, and as we were searching for the first one - I remembered:

“Oh! Shawn!”

“What?”

“The clouds! It’s the clouds! That’s why you were being led 80ft. in the wrong direction on the bridge!”

We cursed the clouds, and kept hunting, as the first one had really few spots we thought it could actually be in, and the second one was in the woods, and we can never pass up an opportunity to go hiking around in the woods! I swear, if Grizzly Adams had a family - that’d be us! LOL! All five of us just love the wilderness!

Anyway, we didn’t find either of them - ah well! I had some nice mother-son time with Shawn, and enjoyed telling him about the Geocacher who hid these last two - he’s a chemist with the Army - a genius! Very cool!

That’s right - that is exactly what geocaching is - a worldwide treasure hunt!

It is so much fun! I mentioned before that my husband got me into it - he discovered it on the web a few years ago.

It began in 2000, when the president of the United States ordered the discontinuation of the degradation of the Global Positioning System signals from satellites, which meant that civilian users of GPS are now able to pinpoint locations up to 10 times more accurately than before.

What this means is - my GPS can find cool stuff hidden in the woods! Wooohooo!

Really - people take say, an ammo box, fill it up with small, usually inexpensive, non-edible goodies, and a logbook and pencil - and hide it in the woods. They then mark the GPS coordinates, go home, log into Geocaching.com and log it there as a new cache.

Then I, or anyone with a GPS unit, can go out and find it! See - a treasure hunt!

When I get to the cache, should I find it, if I want to take out a goodie, I need to replace it with a new goodie.

The goodies might be keychains, small toys, cool Geocaching coins, and all sorts of odd little trinkets.

Often when a person first hides a cache, they will make the ‘original’ goodies kind of special. That might be a gift certificate to a nice restaurant or even a $50 bill! They don’t always do that, but, sometimes…

Also, when you find it - you sign the logbook that is in the cache, and when you come home, you log your find on the Geocaching.com website. That is the number you see in my Geocaching button - I have found 13 of them. I have searched for a lot more - some of them are very hard to find!

And sometimes the caches are tiny, so you don’t trade goodies, you just sign the logbook that is in it.

Ok, I could go on and on - there are many variations and cool things like travel bugs, but, I’ll leave that for another post.

At least now you have an idea of the game!

Thank you so much, Optics Planet - for sponsoring the previous post and getting me geared up (mentally, that is!) for Geo-Caching again!

I’m so excited! (I know, I said that already - but, dammit - I am!) I forgot how much I love this sh*t!

It was originally Mark’s hobby, and then he got the kids and I into it…and then he bought me my own GPS - and then he quit playing, for some reason. He still likes it, he just gets busy with work, and the little R&R time he does have, he goes hunting.

I’ve been meaning to start up again here in Alabama - I keep saying I’m gonna…

And you know how that goes! LOL! I even got the durn GPS out - set it on my dresser, and then never got to it.

I used to carry it with me at all times, just in case - you might be near a good cache while you’re out. Hee-hee But the durn thing was making my purse too heavy - along with the other million things in there, that is!

Anyhoo, gosh! I’m so disjointed tonight - I’m not sure what my problem is. I know what I want to say, but, it’s not really coming out very smoothly like it usually does. So sorry.

So I went outside with my purdy GPS, and marked the waypoint of my house - I had to call it ‘Home2′ - since my TX home is still in there… And we are 638 miles from that home, as the crow flies. Awww….

Then I found two really great caches, in two of my favorite places in this town - how cool! They’re definitely not my only favorite places, just two of the ones I really like. I marked their waypoints, as well.

And tomorrow - my brother is coming in town for a short visit - and I have our afternoon all mapped out! Heehee!

First we drive by the elementary school, to show him the kids’ school, then we swing back around to the town cemetery (one of my favorite places) to catch a cache, then we swing back around to the high school, to show him the other kid’s school, then we head on out to a wandering, meandering country road that Grandma and the kids call rollercoaster road (my other favorite place) where there is an old bridge over a creek with a cache hidden nearby - then, hopefully - if we have time before the monsters are due home (I use that phrase a lot around here lately..heh) we can swing over to the MIL’s place and introduce him to the horses.

I suppose, if we didn’t have time - we could pick up the monsters and then go back over there.

I had really wanted to take him over there last time, and didn’t get to.

He said he’d be here by 12 or 1pm - he just better hurry - we’ve got a tight schedule!

Isn’t it funny how MUCH time one can spend window shopping in this day and age?

With all of the shop windows right here on my home computer - geeeeez! I spend way too much time ogling and oohing and aaahhing!

I’ve just spent a fair amount of time on a site called OpticsPlanet.net and I was going to come and tell ya’ll about how I could easily, easily shop for my husband, my father, both of my brothers, both of my sons, and even my mother, the birder, on that site!

Until I noticed that they sell meade telescopes ! Oh yeah! See, I love Geocaching! And although I don’t really need a new GPS, I could sure use some of these lovely GPS accessories!

But I guess I’m not really supposed to be shopping for myself!

So I could go back to shopping for my boys - they are really wanting a new telescope, and the meade telescopes look nice! You know, though - my brother bought them one a few years ago…and they broke it! So maybe, I should just get this GPS accessory pack for me!!