My dogs were acting strange today. One of them, actually, was having trouble standing upright, and couldn’t walk this morning. She acted drunk. At first I thought she might be going into liver failure (as she has hepatitis and is 16 years old), but when I added up the pieces and her symptoms, it didn’t add up. Both dogs slept in super late, but I wrote it off on the fact it was a gloomy, dark day outside–even though it was exceptionally unusual for them to do this. They usually ask for breakfast, and one demands it, but not today.

Read moreAs I sat comforting my woozy dog, petting her and crying, I got this nagging feeling about our furnace, which I’ve had for weeks. Just last week, I asked my husband to test it, but he ignored me.

When I realized it could be carbon monoxide (though our two wall detectors didn’t go off), I turned off the heat, opened all the windows, and got a new hand-held tester we bought last year after we found out we had three dangerous gas leaks. Sure enough, when I put over the heat register, it alerted to a leak. I smelled no gas, so the likely culprit was carbon monoxide.

I put my doggies on the porch and called a gas guy. Sure enough, we had a leak. Our heat exchanger is cracked and from my reading, that is serious business. So tonight we sit in a cold house, trying to decide which furnace to buy tomorrow.

And my dog, who was most affected, popped back out of it after a half hour on the front porch. She started walking normally and asked for a walk within no time. I was wondering why she was weak and didn’t want to walk this week. Now I know why. Tonight she is her old self again.

I am so grateful that I figure this one out before my dogs succumbed to this deadly gas. We’ve been having headaches, and have been extra tired. Both dogs seemed to slow down a lot in the past two to three weeks. I wondered if it was old age at times. I should have listened to my gut instinct a week ago and demanded my husband spend 10 minutes to do a simple test, or I should have done it myself. I didn’t think I could operate that little beast of a thing, but I learned today.

Tonight, I am grateful for the simple blessings, the love of my dogs and my husband, even if we don’t have heat. We are safe.

I am trying to find a good place and method for you guys to share story ideas with me. I’d like to have a page setup where you all can go, suggest stories, post links and then rate which topics suggested by others are the most interesting to you.

Last week, I had a volunteer, Shina Hart, offer to help me with this, and she discovered UserVoice. It looks like the perfect tool, though I am not sure it will work at the level we need it to work in the “free version”. To upgrade, it is quite pricey at $19/month, so if this doesn’t work, we may have to investigate other avenues.

But let’s give it a try! See what you think, share your topic suggestions, and vote now. I added the first topic suggestion as a test. I suggested Nayda Suleman. I think each topic can only get 10 votes, which might be too limiting, but let’s experiment with it because it is free.

I will post a link to UserVoice on my contact page, so in the future, if you want to find it, you will know where to go.

Let me know your thoughts! Many thanks to Shina, who continues to look for and explore other options for us!