Creature from the Black Lagoon

Bathroom antics and privacy

2011-08-13T11:36:00.002-04:00

Okay so I know you don't want to hear about my personal bathroom habits so I won't disgust you with those. :-)

What I will say is that privacy is an issue around here. Think studio apartment, but smaller. Upstairs is a one room bedroom with a bathroom. Downstairs is accessed by the outside deck and is a kitchen, bathroom, laundry room. Obviously, we live upstairs. So, bathroom use is, since we had the baby, always done with the door open (to be able to hear her cry, so she can see us, etc.) The only time I'm able to have privacy is if she's sleeping and D is gone. Otherwise, no privacy. It wears on a person.

So, that's all for the subject post. As an update, we took Bucket in for her 9 month checkup. She only had to get one shot thankfully. Unfortunately, she was very sleepy and had only been able to nap for about 5min. before the nurse came in with the shot. Although, after the appt., her grandmother (Giggy) and I went to IHOP for lunch and she did awesome. She did sleep for two hours after we got home, though.

BTW, her stats at her appointment were: Length - 26in. Weight - 17lb. 7oz. Head Circumference - 18 in.

They said she was a bit underweight for her age/size, but she's been a lot more active lately so they weren't too surprised. She's not technically crawling yet, but she scoots backwards on her belly. She does crawl some on the bed, but she also pulls herself into a standing position (using her daddy and I) on the bed.

I still can't believe she's almost a year old. Just three more months. It seems only yesterday that I was cradling her in my arms to put her to sleep. Now, I've got to lay down with her in our bed. Yes, she co-sleeps with us and I know a lot of people have issues with that, but screw it. I love it. I love being able to cuddle my baby while I sleep. I love waking up to her head in the crook of my elbow and her legs thrown over my arm. When she fusses, all I've got to do is roll over, plop her paci in her mouth, and cuddle her...as opposed to getting out of bed (to walk across the room to her crib [yes she has one]) and stay there until she falls back asleep, hopefully.

In other news...she's eating very well. While, like I said, she was a bit underweight, she loves all her foods that she's tried. Peas, green beans, squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, peaches, apple sauce, pears, and bananas. Obviously, she likes the fruits the best, but she still likes the veggies, which is awesome as we're a heavy veggie eating family. We just recently started her on veggie/meat mixtures and, while she's not sure about them, she still likes to eat them.\

As far as a sippy cup goes...she's not quite ready for it yet. We're trying, but she seems to like and do better with an actual cup...kinda like she tries to crawl, but likes standing and us helping her walk around better. I think she might be a bit advanced for her age. :-)

Well...that's about it on her. She's a healthy happy baby...the pediatrician said so (like I needed her to tell me that).

Anywho...I think, most days, I love being a mom! :-)

Has it really only been two months?

2011-01-12T07:34:00.002-05:00

I've started calling the little critter "Bucket" for whatever reason. Y'know, like bucket 'o' cute...bucket 'o' love...bucket 'o' chub, etc. It just stuck.

So, Bucket is now two months old. Maybe it's the lack of sleep, but it seems like it's been a whole helluva lot longer. Unfortunately, Bucket is going through a phase of sleeping most of the day and being awake most of the night. From about 3am until 7 or 8am she's quite bright eyed and bushy tailed. It could always be worse, though. At least for the most part she's in a good mood and rarely does anything beyond mild fussing.

She's been grabbing at things for a while now, although she's still quite uncoordinated. She's also babbling up a storm. It's fun talking to her and she tries so hard to answer back...I swear she understands what's being said to her and that she's supposed to respond. No laughing as of yet, but I have a feeling we're getting close. I tell you, the best feeling in the world is when she lays eyes on either D or I and gives us her wide, gummy grin. :-))

There was a while, th0ugh, when that wasn't the case. Early on, say within the first month, she would get aweful, painful gas. She would wail for at least an hour straight almost every night and sometimes during the day. When we took her for her one month well visit, the doctor told us about Mylicon drops. I tell you, they have been our saviour. What it does is break up the big gas bubbles into smaller, easier to expel bubbles. TMI? It's rare now that she cries due to gas build up.

In other news, thanks to some lovely medication, my post partum crap is under much better control. D hasn't had a crying conversation with me in over two weeks and I've been able to handle the stress a lot better. It also has helped that I'm more accepting of help from other people. I went into this whole parenting thing feeling like I should be able to take care of her and everything else (dishes, cleaning, laundry...), but all that on top of not getting much sleep was so extremely draining. Then, D got a contract position back at one of the companies he used to work for so, not only is he gone most of the day during the week, but I've had to completely take over the night shift. I was, I think, literally losing my mind. But, like I said, being on medication and accepting help from D's mom and letting her take Bucket while I catch a nap and get some other things done has been a lifesaver. I'm also able to enjoy her more.

So, all in all a slightly stressful, but great two months so far.

A lot has happened...

2010-11-21T07:58:00.002-05:00

since I last posted. Obviously, we had the baby shower back in September and got a lot of awesome things that we desperately needed. Bibs, more clothes, changing pad and covers, bottles, a bottle sterilizer, diaper bag, etc. The sterilizer and diaper bag were easily the most expensive thing on the list so we were thrilled to get them.

I also meant to post about our shower project that D undertook. We decided, one major thing that needed to happen in preparation for the Little Critter was to get rid of the leak from the shower, which included totally replacing the shower, the floor, and the piping that ran underneath it. It put our upstairs shower out of commission for a week and a couple days, but thankfully we had another shower in the downstairs that we could use. But anyways, that got done...new shower, re-tiled floor, more shelving...it's awesome!!

And, other than that, it was just waiting for L.C. to show up ( I was due Nov. 9th). My folks and my older sister came down on Nov. 8th. The morning of the 9th, my mom went with D and I to the doctor to see if there was any change that might signal oncoming labor, but there wasn't a whole lot to indicate that. My mom got to hear L.C.'s heartbeat, which thrilled her to no end, I believe. :-) So, the doctor said I could either wait another week or go in that night to prepare for induction the next morning. I chose the latter. I really wanted my folks to be able to see the baby and, since there was no real danger by induction, we decided to go ahead with it.

That was the longest evening/next day of my life. The evening was cool other than the nurses had trouble keeping LC on the heart monitors she was was moving around so much. That was a pain while trying to sleep and nurses coming in every half an hour to adjust monitors. Also, the first nurse majorly screwed up trying to put my IV in and gave me a baseball sized bruise on my right arm (which is only now starting to go away).

Wednesday started out just fine. They started Pitocin at around 7:30am. By 9:30 I was ready for my epidural. D was absolutely great; very supportive and I could see how much it bothered him that I was in pain, but knowing there was nothing he could do about it other than offer his hand to squeeze. I know everyone has heard horror stories about how women in labor can act almost demonic to the men that got them pregnant, but I was just glad he was there. My folks showed up at the hospital later that afternoon and I was quite glad to have my mom there. D's mom showed up later and then his dad came that evening. It was weird in that, I felt like I had to "entertain" everyone since they were there to support me (at least until LC was born and then I'd be chopped liver), but I was so tired I ended up falling asleep a few times. No one seemed to mind, though.

The worst part was when the nurses let my epidural run out. The two nurses assigned to me got called to the ER and their replacement only checked on me once. One of the machines had been kind of beeping for a while, but I hadn't a clue what it meant. When the occasional beep turned constant, my mom figured out it was the epidural bag. We called the nurse (replacement) in and she's all, "Oh, you're epidural bag is empty. Let me call the anesthesiologist." By the time he got there, I was in agony. My legs were no longer numb and I was feeling every single contraction. Sometimes, they didn't really stop, just lessened some and then would roll right into the next one. Derin had stepped out of the room before that, but came back just as the contractions got really intense. I swear, he was ready to go yell at somebody for allowing that all to happen.

So, I got my epidural refilled and, another anesthesiologist came to check on me to make sure things were getting better. And, lo and behold, he told me about the "pain button" on the epidural bag. The button I could press when I could feel my contractions stronger, which meant I needed a slight increase in the epidural dose. No one mentioned that before. That really pissed D off, I think...pissed me and my mom off, too.

But, anyway, by the time 9pm rolled around, I'd fully effaced, but was only 3 centimeters dilated. It was decided that a C-Section was the only option at that point. Things after that are still kinda blurry. They pumped me full of more anesthesia and anti-nausea meds and wheeled me into the OR. It was one of the strangest experiences of my life. Feeling them pushing and pulling, knowing they were wrist deep inside my guts... yeah. But D and Mark (the anesthesiologist) kept me well distracted. And I tell ya, when I heard that first wail, I lost it. Crying...trying not to move because I knew they were stitching me up...wanting to see my baby...overflowing with love for D and that new little person who I couldn't see except for her tiny feet...it was intense.

The hospital stay was mostly uneventful and I've talked about it to so many people that I'm really sick of thinking about it. Let me just say that nursery nurses aren't some of my favorite people and I was glad to be out of the hospital when they discharged me.

My folks stayed the rest of that first week, which was awesome. I loved having them here and it was really hard when we had to say goodbye. But, they're hoping my next November to be moved down here. We're also working towards being able to communicate by webcam between now and then to make the time away a little easier.

LC has had good check-ups at the doctor. She's surpassed her birth weight finally. We're still having a little trouble with breastfeeding, but hopefully we'll get that remedied over the next week or so.

Well, she's waking up so I guess it's ciao for now.

The garden

2010-08-17T08:48:00.003-04:00

Our table garden is doing fairly well. The herbs, not so much except for the basil we planted. We've also used a little bit of the chives, but they still haven't grown as much as we'd like them to. The pepper plants are a fairly good size. We've got about 8-10 anaheim peppers growing, 7 or so cayenne peppers, and a few blooms on the bell peppers, but no actual peppers. The tomatoes have done pretty well. We've pulled 4 ripe ones and 4 green ones (those we used for fried green tomatoes). We've still got a ripe tomato and nerly 12 more at various stages of growth.

So...yeah...fried green tomatoes. We picked up the movie of the same name at a yard sale a couple months ago, but hadn't watched it until the other night. D hadn't ever seen it and I'm glad he liked it. It's a good story for being kind of a chick flick. Anyway, it also started him wanting to try making fried green tomatoes. So he looked up a basic recipe online and we tackled it. They turned out alright. I wasn't that crazy about 'em, but he liked them a lot. I'm sure after we tweak the recipe and add some more spices to the batter, I'll like them better. They just tasted a bit too bland to me.

BABY BABBLE SIDETRACK BELOW
-------------------------------------------------

Things are coming together for the baby shower here. It's still almost a month away, but that'll be gone before we know it. D's mom has gotten a few little decorations, some really cute cute plates and napkins, and a pink tablecloth. We've also figured out the invitations so I've just got to put together mailing labels and she's got to print the invites out. Most of the people we're inviting live within a five minute drive so we'll save a bit on postage just being able to drop them in their mailboxes. I'm a bit anxious about the shower. I'm not one to be center of attention (guess I should've thought about that before I went and got knocked up, huh?) The Little Critter just needs to hurry up and be born so I can stop being the center of attention and she can start.

Anyways, there'll be a few people at the shower that I don't really know, but hopefully it'll be balanced by the people I do. It'll be mostly extended family... D's sister-in-law and her daughter, D's other nieces (if their psycho mother lets them come), a few cousins-in-law, and some wives of D's friends who I've become friends with. All in all, if everyone shows up, there should be 14 people. So, not a huge get together, but not small either.

I just need to relax and not stress about things that need to get done. Don't forget to breathe....in and out.

I've been hiding

2010-08-08T12:19:00.004-04:00

Well, not really hiding. I just really haven't felt like posting anything. There are some things I'm still trying to wrap my head around, but I'm sure it'll come in time.

Baby stuff is going along just fine. Just recently had an appointment to check for gestational diabetes and see how my hemoglobin checked out. Both numbers were spot on perfect. I was also surprised when they said I was on target for my weight gain. Either they lied or I haven't been stuffing my face as much as it feels like. About two weeks ago I made oatmeal cinnamon cookies with chocolate and peanut butter chips. Granted I did give a few to D's mom, but there are only two left in our fridge now. I won't list all the other goodies that have been slowly disappearing around here, but I guess it's not too much of a problem. Still, I'm doing my best to be responsible with the treats. Every one I eat now is one I have to work off after baby girl is born.

In other baby news, we've recently gotten the Chicco stroller/infant car seat travel system combo thingie. It's really, really nice. We also got a 3-in-1 car seat for as she gets older (thanks again, mom!)

The baby shower here looks like it's gonna be on the 12th of September. D's mother-in-law is kind of planning it, but I still feel anxious about it going right. We were originally doing it a week later, but I found out that one of D's cousins would be in town, but leaving the day before so we bumped it up so the cousin's wife could be here for the party. She's about the only other female in the family that I feel like I could be really close to. It sucks that they live outta state. I don't really get to spend any hang out time with her.

But, all in all, everything is calm on the baby front.

Unfortunately, it's all but guaranteed I won't be able to find a job until after the baby is born. No one wants to hire a pregnant girl who'll only be able to work for two months and then be on maternity leave for longer than she's worked. Hopefully, though, I'll be able to do some yard work with D's friend on the side after November until I'm able to find something else.

Things are also slowly but surely trickling in for the little critter. Hmmm...I think that's what I'll officially start calling her... Little Critter. Both grandparents have gotten some of the most adorable little clothes for her. Not to mention hats, stuffed animals, etc. We had a friend drop by a pink bunny that's about 3ft. tall. We've also gotten a little healthcare and grooming set. It had a comb and brush, baby nail clippers, medicine spoon and dropper, and a few other little things. It's kind of hard waiting for the baby shower and not shopping for some of the things I know we'll need, but aren't sure if it'll show up as a gift. But, my mother ingrained in me that you don't buy for yourself so close to a scheduled event where people are bringing gifts (birthday, christmas, baby shower, etc.)

Okay, must talk about something besides baby. We had a little shooting party here yesterday. D's aunt is considering getting some sort of pistol so it was mostly so she could get an idea of what's out there. D's brother was there and brought his pistols, D had his, and one of their cousins showed up with one. The aunt shot a few and then had to leave so then it was a free for all for the rest of us. It was a blast! I shot the brother's .357 revolver again, but this time it had actual .357 rounds in it instead of .38 calibers. Definitely more of a kick and oh did it feel good. I also shot the cousin's 9mm and it's a very smooth shooting gun without hardly any kick to it. I also shot two .45s and a .40. One of the .45s had a laser sight on it, which was pretty cool. It was hard for me to use it since I was wearing latex gloves (gotta keep from getting all that gun oil and powder absorbption into the skin) and they kept getting in the way of the laser. Still, it was an alright gun. I'd rather have either a .40 or a 9mm, though...oh and a .357 just for kicks. :-)

One day maybe.

A funny

2010-06-21T19:54:00.001-04:00

My hunny has been gone most of the day and I'm starting to feel very blah. I miss him! But, this joke made me chuckle so I figured I'd pass it on.

There was a family of three moles. They lived outside a human home. The family in the house was making breakfast. The father mole stuck his head outside of the hole and said, “I smell bacon and eggs.”The mother stuck her head out of the hole and said, “I smell sausage and french toast.”The baby mole, not able to get his head through, said “I smell molasses.”

Baby news

2010-05-29T14:49:00.002-04:00

Not too much to report on the baby front. I had my second doctors appointment last Tuesday and all is still well. My blood pressure was more normal than last time. I'm always a tad on the high side, but I think that first appointment I was just really nervous. Anyway, they also said I'm slightly anemic (low in iron I think), but it wasn't so low that they felt I need to take additional iron. My mom got quite anemic with both me and my sister to where they put her on iron supplements so I need to remember to mention that to the doctor next time.

We still don't know if it's a boy or girl. However, we do have another ultrasound scheduled for June 7th and, as long as the baby cooperates, we should be finding out what it is then.

But, baby's heartbeat is strong and healthy and I think I felt it move last week and again a couple days ago. It was so weird. It felt like a bunch of little bubbles moving in a wave across my lower belly.

Oh, D and I went and did a little baby shopping yesterday. We got a bassinet that had Snoopy coverings and a light blue mattress cover. It is oh so incredibly cute! We got it at a second hand store and the lady hadn't had a chance to clean it up, but we took it anyway because she was gonna up the price after she'd cleaned it. Once we get it cleaned I'll try and remember to post a picture of it. We also got a camouflage onsie, two pair of green camo shorts, one pair of gray camo shorts, a package of baby washcloths, and a winnie the pooh baby hat. Too cute for words. Obviously, boy or girl, it's going to be a camo wearing baby.

We also price shopped for strollers, car seats, and play pens at Walmart. Wow...amazing the kind of money you can tie up in those things. I think we're definitely gonna be hitting some garage sales and looking on craigslist for some things.

Well, that's all for now. Crossing my fingers that the little critter is cooperative on the next appointment and we can find out what it is. I'm definitely leaning more towards wanting a boy...I think D is, too.

Baby gift

2010-05-06T12:28:00.004-04:00

D and I got our first baby gift yesterday from his mom. She had me tell D that she'd just found it in the mailbox, but he wasn't fooled.

It's so adorable. She kept telling me yesterday how excited she is that there's gonna be a baby around again. :-)

Book giveaway

2010-05-04T14:07:00.002-04:00

There's an awesome book giveaway going on over at http://www.fictionalworlds.net. There's another post with a review of the book Morpheus Road: The Light by D.J. McHale and then the most recent post is a Q&A with the author.

The books being given away look like an awesome read.

Whoa nelly!

2010-05-04T13:29:00.003-04:00

So, I'm not sure if anyone reads this blog besides my dad and possibly sister who already know, but just in case you do and we're not also facebook friends...I'm gonna be a mommy!

I found out for sure April 29th that, yes, I am indeed cooking a bun in more than just a bread maker. The due date is November 10th and I've got my first prenatal appointment next week Tuesday (the 11th).

Obviously we don't know what gender it is, but we're gonna find out as soon as possible. I like surprises, but not necessarily ones that I have to wait six more months for. Besides, it'll make the clothes buying and name picking a lot easier.

There's still a great big "WOW" factor bouncing around in my brain. Sometimes I just take a pause and think, "Holy crap, I'm gonna be a mom!" But then there's the part that's all, "OMG!!! Sqeeeeee! I'm gonna be a mommy!!!!!"

So, other than that, it's life as normal. Been calling Subway off and on to check on whether they've gotten an opening. Nothing there yet, but I'm the first on their 'to call' list. The manager there also mentioned another Subway near his place that might still be hiring after a massive lay-off so I'm gonna check them out and hopefully something will come of that. Also gonna re-apply at Lowe's...again (for the 5th time). Coming up on being able to re-apply at Walmart, Walgreens, Kroger, Food City, and CVS. *crossing fingers*

D's work has picked up a little, but still not near what it used to be before Obama succeeded in fully flushing our economy down the crapper. He's done a little side work with his friend Tim who is probably going to be taking over contracts for KUB so that might turn into more of a full time thing for him.

That's about it for now. Obviously there will be regular updates on the pregnancy since there's only so much that can be put in a quick facebook update.

Ciao

Mini garden

2010-04-21T18:11:00.002-04:00

Our mini garden is starting to grow!! On the 11th, D and I planted Anaheim Peppers, Cayenne Peppers, Bell Peppers, Dill, Cilantro, Oregano, Parsley, Basil, and Chives. We put 'em in pots up on the deck so as to keep most of the animals away. We also got two tomato plants that went in big pots a few days before the herbs and stuff.

Anyway, a few days ago we noticed the basil seedling sprouting up and then a couple days after we noticed the dill was sprouting up. Yay!! The others should start in the next week or so, but it'll probably be at least another month or more before we start seeing the pepper plants.

In other news, I have a job interview at Subway this Friday morning. I'm hoping it'll work out positively. The guy I talked to mentioned he was really short handed, needing to let some people go, and that he was impressed by my application so... *fingers crossed* Plus, I LOVE Subway sandwiches!

Oh, D and I also are talking about the possibility of going camping this weekend. We really want to, but it'll also be the first time without the puppy, which will be really hard. Interestingly enough, I had a sad/happy dream about her last night. Before going to bed, I had an instant thought of saying goodnight to her and then remembered that she wasn't here so that probably contributed.

The dream was odd. D and I were doing something outside and D's dad and some of his friends were doing their own thing (can't remember what). Out of nowhere the puppy comes around the building and, even though we could pet her and touch her, it's like D and I knew it was her ghost or something and she wasn't really there. I don't think D's dad could see her. Pup started barking at some of the other people that were around and D automatically asked me to put her on her lead...but I couldn't because she was a ghost. So, the sad part was that she wasn't really real, but the good part was that she did seem really happy and we both got to pet and hug on her.

Anywho...it'll be hard going camping without her, but a part of me is still looking forward to going.

And that's the end of this somewhat long-winded post.

Various things

2010-03-26T10:08:00.002-04:00

I woke up at 3am Tuesday morning and could barely get out of the bed my back was hurting so bad. I got my ice pack and sat in my chair for a bit, but started hurting worse so I layed back down in the bed. It helped for a bit, but by 7am I was hurting just as bad again. The pain was mainly in my lower back, but it hurt so much that it felt like it was in my left side, too so I was worried it might be kidney stones. At 9:30 or so D and I decided that we should probably go to the emergency room since I couldn't hardly move without bawling my eyes out.

They gave me a shot of pain killer and muscle relaxer at the ER, but couldn't find anything really wrong so they gave me a prescription for a pain killer and muscle relaxer and sent me home. I felt a little better later that day and Wednesday, but yesterday was back to hurting pretty badly. I think it was just cuz I made the mistake of going halvsies on the pain killer instead of taking the whole thing.

I woke up today at 7am and took another dose of the meds and was actually able to fall back asleep for an hour or so. While I still hurt, the pain is now centered around my tailbone instead of all over. The last time I was at the chiropractor, we looked at my x-rays and it showed that my tailbone as a serious curve to it. I know it's supposed to have somewhat of a curve, but mine is pretty outta whack and it flairs up now and again (which is why I have a butt donut to sit on in my computer chair. So, hopefully things will start working themselves out over the next couple of days.

In other news, I made a kickass peach crisp last night. D's mom had given me a can of peach pie filling sometime last week and rather than eat it straight out of the can (and gain 20 lbs.) I started looking at recipes I could use it for. D went to the store Wednesday and got the stuff we were missing and I ended up combining a couple recipes. It was basically the can of peach pie filling and a can of peaches for the base and then the topping was flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, a pinch of salt, oatmeal, and butter. We didn't have any ice cream or cool whip so we brought it into the house and shared it with D's parents in exchange for the use of their ice cream and cool whip. I was worried it wouldn't turn out well since it's the first time I've ever made it, but everyone had two helpings of it. :-D Everyone was in agreement that with the amount of crumb topping that it could've used another can of peaches, but it was still uber delish. D's mom even took some to give to his Aunt...and she wants the recipe so she can make it and take to her church. I think she also mentioned something about me making it for the Easter family get together. Yay!

Oooh...I've also gotten a lead on a potential job. D's friend found out that the place his brother works at is hiring. From what I understand it's kind of an assembly line type of position at a place that makes eyeglasses. It's third shift and it'd be around 11 hour days, but it's only Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and it pays $10-$12 an hour plus full insurance. It also doesn't require any kind of customer interaction so I think I'd be perfect for it. I've got the phone number and am planning on calling them today and hopefully setting up either an interview or at least filling out an application on Monday (another reason why I need my back to get better).

So...yeah. I think that's pretty much all that's going on here right now. D's got a couple projects in limbo right now. It's just been so rainy that we haven't been able to get to any of them.

Anyway, that's all for now.

Can't think of a title

2010-03-22T09:53:00.004-04:00

I would've posted this sooner, but I could barely lift my hands to the keyboard yesterday from being so sore. Let me explain.....

So last Friday D went out with his friend Tim to do some yardwork type stuffs. I was supposed to go help, but I woke up with a migraine so bad it left me bedridden for a few hours with a hot pack over my eyes and forehead. It finally went away around 1:30pm or so, but my head was tender most of the day. It hurt like you wouldn't believe, but it's been over a year since I've had one that bad so I'm at least thankful for that.

Saturday, D headed out again with Tim around 9am and then Tim's wife, kids, and I joined them after lunch and we knocked out four really bad yards. I definitely got my workout. Lots of raking, using a 25-30 lb. tamper (which feels closer to 50 lbs. after a while...and then 100 lbs.), some spreading of mulch (50 lb. bag), spreading grass seed, fertilizer, and hay. Thankfully, having four and a half people helping (the two kids count as a half lol ), we got those four jobs done in about three and a half hours.

Afterwards, since we were pretty much out of topsoil and Tim needed to gas up his truck, we stopped at the gas station and he got everyone an Icee. I wasn't gonna get one, but Tim's wife told me he can write it off as a business expense so I got a Mt. Dew Icee. Oh boy did I need it. I think if I didn't have that quick sugar/caffeine boost, I probably would've nodded off on the 15 min. ride back to the house. It was also a good thing we weren't going to do any more jobs because on the way back to the house Tim and D heard a loud clunk and saw the temp. gauge hit red almost instantly. Getting back to the house, he lifted the hood and a big plume of smoke came out. They found out that the bracket for the alternater had broken and the alternator was laying against the radiator.

But, all in all, it was a good day. I heard Tim was quite pleased with the work I did. And, even though D and I were both quite sore, it was a good kind of sore. Still, there was much icy hot and aleve taken later that night. hehe

Sunday morning I woke up and, while my arms didn't hurt too much as I had stretched them out when we got home the previous evening, my thighs, hips, lower back, shoulders, and neck were quite achy. The ice pack fixed my back, icy hot helped the neck and shoulders, and limping around a little like I was 90 years old loosened everything else. I'm pretty much good as new. I was actually looking forward to possibly working with Tim again today, but it rained last night so everything is too wet. Also, unless he can borrow someone else's truck, we won't be doing anything until his own truck is fixed.

So, that was my weekend. Oh, and it's been pretty much in the low to mid 60s for the past few days and I think it hit close to 67 on Saturday. Yes, I went out in capris, short sleeves, and flip flops. I think spring is finally here.

This was fun

2010-03-08T12:36:00.004-05:00

This had me in fits of giggles and surprise lol, if you want to do it feel free to pinch it

Put your music player on shuffle. For each question, press the next button to get your answer. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS

If you want to do it feel free …

IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY? Say My Name (Destiny’s Child hehe makes me think of American Pie)

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY? All I Can Do Is Write About It

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL? Nothing Else Matters ( lol Metallica)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE? Welcome Home a.k.a. Sanitarium

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO? Down South Jukin’ ( hehe accurate? Me thinks so)

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU? The Invisible Man

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN? Dangerous Game

WHAT IS 2 + 2? You May Be Right (math never was my strong suit)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND? My Best Friend – Tim McGraw (how ironical)

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Callin’ Baton Rouge (pure weirdness there)

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY? House Of The Rising Sun

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? Don’t Worry, Be Happy (Bob Marley knows me too well)

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Human

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU? Angel Of Mine (awwww sweet J )

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING? Zombie (Um…well…we both love the Cranberries, but that’d be a little bit weird)

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL? Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked (hehe)

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST? Creeping Death

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET? Where Is Your Heart

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS? Sarah Yellin’ (lol only know one Sarah and she definitely does NOT yell)

WHAT’S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN? If You Can’t Live Without Me, Why Aren’t You Dead?

HOW WILL YOU DIE? Ignorance

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH? Changes

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY? Buttons (mean, evil buttons!!)

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED? Enter Sandman (huh?)

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST? Harvester Of Sorrow

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU? Gimme The Light

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE? P.I.M.P

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW? Brain Damage

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS? The Gambler

Work of sorts

2010-03-08T12:03:00.002-05:00

Went out working a little on Saturday with D and his friend Tim. Tim, in addition to driving big rig UPS trucks, also does yard repair work. He's contracted out by Knox Chapman which is a utility company so when they go out to peoples' houses to repair/inspect the utilities in the yard (water lines and the like), Tim goes out to repair the yard where they had to rip up the ground.

Saturday, D left with Tim and Tim's dad at around noon and they worked for a few hours, but Tim's dad needed to get back so I got called in around 3:30. We did three more yards after I showed up and I made a total of $20 for two hours of work.

Basically what happens is we smooth out the dirt around where the ground was dug up, lay down top soil and smooth it out, then sprinkle fertilizer, grass seed, and hay over all that. It's definitely physical work, but the muscle soreness felt good after we were done. And let's face it, $10 an hour is more than I'm making not doing anything.

D's already left to go help out again and I may or may not get called in again since Tim's dad doesn't need to be home at a certain time today. Also, Tim has to drive for UPS tonight and he'll probably need to sleep before going in so, if I do get a call it'll probably still only be a couple hours again. Still, I'll get to hang out with D and Tim (he's a really cool guy), get some exercise, and make a little cashola.

Generally Useless But Fascinating Information About Me

2010-03-03T14:48:00.004-05:00

What are the last three songs you downloaded? Letters From The Sky – Civil Twilight, Scatman’s World – John Scatman, Zombie – The Cranberries

What are the last three places you visited? K.U.B. (Knoxville Utilities Board), The in-law’s house, The kitchen

What are your three favorite movies? At this very moment Pulp Fiction, Boondock Saints, and Marked For Death

What are your three favorite possessions? My Celtic eternity necklace, my diogital camera (without it I wouldn’t have been able to have so many pictures of the puppy), and the new work boots D got me for Christmas.

What three things can you not live without? D (obviously), good books, and my creative outlets.

What would be your three wishes? Having the puppy back, a big house (free and clear), to live happily ever after forever and ever with D.

What three things haven’t you done yet? Travel to different countries, swim in the ocean, and go hunting

What are your three favorite dishes? Anything Mexican that D and I make, Philly cheese steak sandwiches, and Papa John’s pizza

Which three celebrities would you most like to hang out with? Harrison Ford, Eddie Izzard, and Kiefer Sutherland

Name three things that freak you out? Spiders, moths, and crickets

Name three unusual things you are good at. I’m pretty much a self-taught cook (mom taught me to follow a recipe, but I’ve learned how to improvise over the last couple years), I’m a pretty dead-eye pistol shooter, even when I don’t really ‘mean’ to, I have happy accidents when it comes to photography that turn out really well.

Which three things are you coveting? My own carry permit, a Mac laptop with wireless capability (and all the design programs if I had the choice), and the Hyatt family fortune.

Name three bloggers you are tagging. I have a long list and I wanna share so help yourselves I ain’t fussy.

Because I'm Bored

2010-03-03T13:30:00.002-05:00

One Word Meme

1. Where is your cell phone? Desk
2. Your significant other? Working
3. Your hair? Soft
4. Your mother? Missed
5. Your father? Ditto
6. Your favorite time of day? Evening
7. Your dream last night? Yummy
8. Your favorite drink? Grape
9. Your dream goal? Freedom
10. The room you’re in? Bedroom
11. Your ex? None
12. Your fear? Loneliness
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? House
14. What you are not? Brave
15. Your Favorite meal? Mexican
16. One of your wish list items? Books
17. The last thing you did? Dishes
18. Where you grew up? MN
19. What are you wearing? Jeans&Tee
20. Your TV is? Off
21. Your pet? Sleeping
22. Your computer? Old
23. Your life? Unassuming
24. Your mood? Anxious
25. Missing someone? Uhuh
26. Your car? Dead
27. Something you’re not wearing? Socks
28. Favorite store? Sam’s
29. Your summer? Hot
30. Your favorite color? Green
31. When is the last time you laughed? Today
32. When is the last time you cried? Yesterday
33. Your health? Meh
34. Your children? Non-existent
35. Your future? Hopeful
36. Your beliefs? Unique
37. Young or old? Unfussy
38. Your image? Me
39. Your appearance? Comfortable
40. Would you live your life over again knowing what you know? Nope
41. Song for right now? Aenima - Tool

Chinese food

2010-02-26T08:37:00.002-05:00

D and I made some awesome chinese food last night. He made a szechuan chicken dish and I made more of a garlicy/white sauce chicken dish. The base ingredients for both was sauteed onions, green peppers, carrots, and chicken. I'm not sure all of what he added to his, but I do know there was red pepper flakes, cayenne pepper, chinese hot sauce, soy sauce, and oyster sauce.

For mine, you get a little more info. since...well...I made it. hehe

I sauteed up some thinly sliced onion, green pepper, and short carrot sticks with a little olive oil, soy sauce, oyster sauce, around two heaping tablespoons of minced garlic, and half a packet of beef and broccoli seasoning. I had to add close to a half cup of water (slowly) to thin things out a bit and just let it cook at med.-high heat for five minutes or so, then added the chicken, the other half packet of seasoning, and another heaping tablespoon of minced garlic. I think I added another 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water (again slowly) to keep things from sticking. Reduced the heat then just a little and covered it, stirred once or twice again to make sure nothing stuck.

The result was a garlicy white sauced chicken dish with soft, but crispy veggies. D's dish we put over cooked ramen noodles (unseasoned) and mine we put over white rice and had a side of chow mein noodles on both plates.

It was quite yummy. His was a tad spicy, but I've become quite fond of hot food. Neither of us did any kind of definite measurements on anything, mainly just eyeballed what looked like a good amount of the various spices and whatnot. Adding the water, I used a 1/4 size measuring cup just because it was the handiest one.

I'm glad we've learned how to make decent chinese food since we're really lacking in good eatery places around here...not to mention we made it for probably $3.00 a person at most. Don't know anywhere you could get a big meal for that kind of money.

Yummy chili

2010-01-17T16:14:00.002-05:00

Just got done eating some awesome white chicken chili D and I made. I got the recipe from a Betty Crocker email and it looked so good we decided to try it. We had pretty much everything and it was great since we had recently gotten about 20lbs of chicken on sale. It's an easy crockpot recipe and oh so tasty and filling.

1 1/4 lbs. boneless chicken breast (we used close to 2 lbs.)
1 (4.5 oz.) can green chilies
2 (15.8 oz.) cans great northern beans (it says rinsed and drained, but we just dumped them in)
1 (15.5 oz.) can white hominy
1 package taco seasoning
1 (10 3/4 oz.) can cream of mushroom soup (we used chicken & mushroom)

Put the chicken in the bottom of the crockpot (uncooked), dump everything else in and set the crockpot on low for 8-10 hours. You can garnish it with green onion and sour cream if you wish, which we did and it definitely added to the flavor. We also can't really ever eat chili without crackers and so we also topped what was in our bowls with oyster crackers.

We started it at around 1:30am this morning and shut the crockpot off at about 11:45 or so. It's the first time we've tried chicken chili, much less white chili, but it was oh so delish. We both had a bowl and wanted a second, but were way too full to get more. Still, I think we're planning on having it again for dinner.

While it probably won't replace our normal tomato based, habenero and ground beef spicy burn your gut chili, it's earned its place as a regular recipe for us.

Foods

2010-01-06T14:54:00.002-05:00

I've spent the last couple of days finishing up watching season 2 of Man v. Food on Netflix. It's a show on the Travel Channel where this guy named Adam Richman travels around to different states and goes to three different restaurants (the first two he just tries different dishes they're popular for and the third he does a food challenge). A lot of the food he shows looks REALLY good. In fact, yesterday I watched one where he went to a mexican restaurant and it prompted D and I to make some killer tacos and enchiladas. :-D

Two of the food challenges I'd definitely like to try was one where he was at Tony Luke's in Philly where he had to eat a 5lb. cheese steak sandwich in one hour or less. They'd probably have to wheel me out on a gurney afterwards, but I think I might could possibly maybe do it. The other was called the B3 challenge (Big Badass Burrito). I want to say it was like a 2ft long 7lb burrito. I don't know if I'd be able to do it, but I'd definitely put a hurtin' on it. hehe

In other news, they're calling for possibly accumulating snow here over the next couple of days. It's been in the low to mid 30s since the weekend and, while it feels quite warm out today, that's usually a good sign we're about to get a storm of some sort and it hasn't actually gotten above freezing today.

We've got the wood burning stove going downstairs so if we do lose power, D said we'll just move ourselves down there for a bit if it gets too cold.

Well, off to reheat some pizza for lunch.

The Holidays

2009-12-26T09:17:00.002-05:00

The holidays here were a pretty cool affair all around. Christmas Eve night, D and I got together at his parent's house with two of his brothers for massive amounts of food. There was homemade spinach dip, sausage balls (which we made), chicken salad, potato salad, crescent rolls, various crackers and other breads, fruit salad, and a chocolate cheese ball (think chocolate cheesecake shaped into a ball, rolled in tiny pieces of nut, with dark chocolate chips in it).

Obviously, I ate WAY too much.

Then Christmas morning, people got together again for a breakfast of biscuits and gravy, but D and I hadn't slept well so we skipped that part.

Later, everyone showed up for even more food and presents opening. We had chicken casserole, broccoli cheese casserole, ham, rolls, potato salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, green beans, and glazed carrots (from my mom's Carrots Supreme recipe). Most people liked the carrots well enough, but I think it was quite different from anything they'd ever had. One of D's brother really liked them, but there were still quite a bit left over so I'm happy. I make those a meal in and of themselves. :-)

Again...I ate WAY too much. :-)

After food was stockings for the adults and presents for the kids. I got three new nail polishes, some Lindor chocolate truffles (yummy!), a new nail file, some baggy clips, a coupon holder, and some new, very pretty disposable razors.

D got one of those long clicky lighters, some beef jerky, some sharpies, and a couple other things I'm not remembering.

He and I were responsible for putting together his mom's stocking, which was oh so much fun. We got her some lotions, hand sanitizer bottles, a bag each of honey roasted almonds, cashews and a cheddar sesame trail mix, and then the day before I had made a batch of peppermint bark so we gave her two ziploc baggies full of that.

Later on in the evening, while everyone was getting ready to disperse, I ended up going back inside. D's mom had made (and don't ask me why they're called this...) diapers. They're basically ground beef and cream cheese wrapped with a kind of crescent roll-type bread and baked in the oven. Not too keen on the name, but they are oh so delish! I also got loaded down with tons of leftovers.

In other, but similar news... D and I kind of had our own Christmas a bit early. I want to say it was maybe Monday or Tuesday that we ended up picking up a check from one of his clients. He took me to Burlington Coat Factory and got me this incredibly plush houserobe (bathrobe for all you Yankees). It's dark blue and very thick and soft. I love it! Plus, we got it on sale at $20 marked down from $60. What was even cooler is that later that day, my present for him came in the mail. Being unemployed has its downsides, like not having any money to spend on anyone, but I found a way around that. I've been doing surveys for a couple different websites and one of the sites offers points for rewards. Those points can be spent at their site for different prizes from cds, books, and dvds to small appliances and kitchen gadgets. So, I used the points I had built up to get him The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy dvds. Unfortunately I didn't have enough to get the third one, but maybe it'll end up being an early birthday present or something.

Ciao y'all. Gotta go finish my coffee.

sigh

2009-12-04T09:05:00.003-05:00

Well, I didn't hit 50,000 words by the Nov. 30th deadline. I did however get around 40,000. The story isn't finished, but I decided to take a few days off before continuing the writing.

The suck part is that I probably would've been able to get the 50,000 if not for other intrusions. I ended up taking a couple days off early on, but I had been ahead of my word count goal so it wasn't too big of a deal to catch up. But, then D and I got calls for three projects (one of which was a 3 hour round trip drive) that were all done in the space of about a week and a half. On top of that, close to the third week of November, my computer started acting all wonky; running really slow, internet not wanting to work right, email totally shut down, etc. All that pretty much kept me from writing more than a couple hundred words for five days straight. If I hadn't gotten up at 3am a couple mornings towards the end, I wouldn't have even gotten that 40,000 mark.

Oh well, there's always next year. And yes, I still am planning on finishing the story.

Epic updateness and such

2009-11-09T15:51:00.006-05:00

So Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I kind of got bit by the procrastination bug. Seeing as I was a little over a day ahead on Friday, it wasn't incredibly terrible. But, by Saturday, I was behind nearly 600 words and I didn't write at all that day. I got about 1000 words written on Sunday, but it still turned out that by today, I was behind nearly a day and a half.

Thankfully, because D is such an understanding sweety (plus he had some work of his own to get done this morning), he mostly left me to my own devices. I am, as of now, 101 words ahead of my minimum word count for today. That rounds out to 15,104 words I've cranked out since November 1st. Yay me! :-)

In other news, last month I had applied for a job at the Knoxville Zoo. It was for a bird keeper position and I thought I had a really good shot at getting it. Unfortunately, I received an email notification thanking me for applying, but they decided to go with a more qualified candidate. Grrr! I also re-applied (for the third time) to Walmart and am coming up on my third time to apply at Food City. In looking at the calendar I realize that I could have actually applied two days ago. Where in the world did the days go? Anyway, I'm a little too burned out mentally right now so I'll probably end up doing that tomorrow.

As far as woodcutting goes...I'm not sure if I've mentioned that here or just on facebook. D and I finally got our first two loads of wood split down to fit the wood burning stove. We thought we were jinxed for a while. The first time we tried, the demonstrator his dad hooked up first broke down (blew a hole in the oil tank) and then the second lawn tractor with the same hook up for the wood splitter wouldn't start. His dad got them both fixed so we hooked up the lawn tractor today and it blew its oil tank. But, we were still able to hook up the demonstrator and get all the wood split. We now have a nearly 4ft. high 15ft. long stack of wood. D figures that if we can get through the rest of November without having to use heat that the amount of wood we have will most likely get us through December. That means we'll probably be out cutting more wood tomorrow.

Hmm...if I could write in my story as much as I've written here, I'd probably be a day ahead again. Oh well...my brain is now mush. :-p

Ciao y'all

Word count so far

2009-11-02T18:27:00.004-05:00

So I'm officially at a 3,850 words of a 50,000 word count. I'm too lazy to figure out how to put a word count bar on here or facebook so as I feel like it I'll update the word count manually.

Technically, if I were to just do the minimum word count each day, I'd be at 3,334 so that means I'm ahead of my daily goal by about 500 words.

D is being tremendously understanding...although (while he's listening to music on the surround sound that is echoing tremendously around the room even through my ear plugs) I'm waiting for him to go to sleep so I can write some more.

I think I'm gonna go fix some food and then drink some coffee. We might go cut wood tomorrow (though I doubt it), but other than that, the only work scheduled that I'm taking part in doesn't happen until Wednesday.

All hail NaNoWriMo!!!!!!! hehe

2 Days

2009-10-29T11:34:00.002-04:00

So there are two days before NaNo officially starts. I'm quite anxious and excited.

I've been reading posts on the website and there's one where people talk about the "reward" they'll give themselves if they complete the 50,000 word mark. I know we won't really have the money, but if we did...

My reward would be tickets to the Twilight: New Moon movie. It comes out on November 20th. Ideally I'd like to see it opening night, but it'd be so crazy crowded.

Technically, people can only enter a word count for NaNo between Nov. 25-30. If I could make that 50,000 word count goal and I had the money, I would soooo reward myself with Twilight movie tickets.

Anyway...only two more days...I feel unprepared, but I think I'll do well. I'M EXCITED!!!!!

Update on NaNo

2009-10-06T10:49:00.002-04:00

Less than a month to go until the writing frenzy starts. I'm definitely feeling the time crunch, but not terribly worried. I'm officially done with outlines for my main characters, plus a few minor ones. I should still do a few more race outlines, but I've gotten a fairly good idea in my head of how things are set up with the different cultures so I'm crossing my fingers that I won't get stuck when I actually introduce them into the storyline.

Even more so than race outlines, I really should get together some kind of map (however vague it may be) so I can at least keep the places and directions straight.

If you can't tell, this post is somewhat of a procrastination tactic so I'd better get back to it.

Ciao

Trick or Treat 2009

2009-10-04T07:44:00.004-04:00

Here's a cool link for a Halloween contest-type thing.

Going crazy? Maybe just a little bit.

2009-08-25T09:16:00.002-04:00

So we're at 67 days and counting until November 1st. For those that haven't read my previous post, you'll have no clue what I'm talking about here.

Anyway, even though I still have two months, I had a momentary freak-out yesterday at how much I still have to do to round out preparations for my story.

Yesterday afternoon when D and I got home, I started looking around online for a few more character/race names. It wasn't long before we were discussing one race in particular. Now mind you, I didn't have more than a vague idea of them in my head to start with, but D informed me that, with what I did have in mind, it'd probably be a good idea to have something more concrete (strenghts, weaknesses, etc). It turned out to be a good thing because not only did it make me think more about them, it gave me some more story-line. He even made a list of a few different things the race could be called and I've finally given the little critters a name.

That's not what put me in panic mode, though.

We continued talking and he asked the question, "So, have you decided where the story is going? Why the characters are undertaking this journey in the first place?" Um...well...kind of. So I had to think about that, too. I finally came up with the thought of creating a place that people think is a myth; just a bedtime story, and that my characters are trying to find it. There's a lot more to it than that, but I don't wanna get too much into detail yet.

I wrote down a few ideas and D continued tossing questions out there.

The basic beginning premise of my story is there's a 16 year old girl (my top main character), who gets pregnant, shipped off to live with her grandmother, and somehow gets transported to this magical realm. D and I began talking about the ages and experience of the girl's guardians once she's transported and I realized that they need to be older than what I originally thought them as. That meant that the girl needed to be older, which meant that I couldn't use the whole 'shipped of to grandma' idea. And that, ladies and gentlemen is when I realized that I needed to totally and completely rework my beginning. Which, in turn, led to a momentary, panicky breakdown. On one hand I was kind of purposely being overdramatic and it was kind of funny, but on the other I was thinking, "oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!" But, no harm done. I already had an idea for a different story using a chick in her early 20s so I'll just rework the idea a little and use that.

I realize, though, that I really really REALLY need to do a character outline on her.

Well, D is doing calculations on his computer for a job we're going out on later today and I think we're gonna mow today, too so I should probably use this time that he's busy to do some outlining.

Let the insanity begin anew!

NaNoWriMo is feasting on my soul

2009-08-21T12:28:00.005-04:00

Okay, well that might be a little too dramatic, but it's taking up a lot of my focus at present.

So, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It doesn't start until midnight of November 1st and it ends at 11:59 pm on November 30th, but I'm quite occupied with character outlines, story outlines, plot ideas, etc. I've even gotten this nifty Web Badge to post here.

The point of NaNo is to write at least 50,000 words in thirty days. It's not really a contest per se, no prizes or anything, though I think if you complete the 50,000 word requirement you get a nifty pdf certificate. People mainly do it for fun, for the challenge, and some already published writers do it to spark creativity for a new book.

I think I have a pretty good idea of the main plot of the story, but the little things are driving me to the beginnings of insanity. Thankfully I still have a little over two months to finalize outlines and think up more mini plots, characters, events, blah blah blah. I'm already ping ponging back and forth between extreme excitement and "what the crap did I get myself into?"

D is being quite the good sport about it all; even going so far as to give me a few fresh ideas that I can use. We've also been doing a sort of exercise for each other (D is a really good writer, too). We take four basic perameters (Object, Environment, Character, and Mood) and then spend half an hour to an hour writing a story. Mainly it's just something to get the creative juices flowing.

The first time I wrote a story from a kitty's perspective on moving to a new house. I haven't done any real editing on it, but it's about 1,500 words from beginning to end.

So, yeah. Pretty much my whole thought process for the next couple of months is going to be centered around writing and what I might be able to cram into this story idea of mine.

As far as the job thing goes...still haven't heard anything from either Walmart or Food City. I think D and I are headed out on a job in about a week or so and we've gotten a lead on another potential job. We've worked for the guy before and he's a total jerk, but we need the work.
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Is it November yet?

Morning wake-up post

2009-08-17T08:55:00.003-04:00

So far I've been awake for about an hour and a half and had three cups of coffee, but I still feel like if I crawled back into bed I'd be asleep within minutes. I did wake up a few times during the night, but was able to get back to sleep fairly quick...still woke up not feeling very rested.

Thankfully my back was less sore this morning than I anticipated. Yesterday D and I went out on a rather intense job, in the woods, where I had to tote around nearly 40 lbs. of weight for an hour in 90 degree heat. I was carrying a machete (strapped on my belt), and a bag that had 6 wooden stakes, 6 2 ft. pieces of rebar, and a 4 lb. hammer (to drive the rebar into the ground). So, while my lower back wasn't nearly as hurty this morning, my shoulders and upper back are a little tight.

On a up-side, I got to actually use the machete yesterday. The way D does his work, he needs clear line of sight between where he stands and where his instrument is set up so that means if there are branches and things in the way, they need to be cut down. D is definitely much more experienced at machete work so he did most of it, but I got to do a little. Let me just say that birch trees are one of the hardest to cut. By the time I got four branches cut that were about as thick around and two thumbs, he'd already finished the rest of the line. It was still fun, though. The only other times I've gotten to use the machete were to clear a short line where there were a few thin branches and really tall weeds and then to clear some branches and bushes out around a property corner.

In other news, the job situation is still unchanged. I had applied at a zoo near here, Food City, and Walmart. The zoo didn't have any openings that I was qualified for unfortunately. I would've really liked to work there. Walmart said they might have some openings later this month and when I called Food City to check on my application, the store manager was on vacation, but the lady I talked to was assistant store manager I guess and said when he got back she'd talk to him about any openings and they'd call me if there was something. So I'll hopefully hear from them sometime this week. *fingers crossed*

I'm really hoping things are gonna start cooling off here weather-wise. Granted it's only been hitting in the high 80s to low 90s so far, but it's been crazy humid. I'll be surprised if we don't break 100 degrees by the end of the month.

Once D and I get done with another job coming up in a few days, we'll probably end up taking the truck up the ridge at the back of his dad's property to get started on cutting wood for this winter to use in the wood-burning stove downstairs. It'll save a lot more money on the energy bill if we use it. I'd like it to be a little cooler when we do it, but the sooner it gets done the better.

Well, time to check on laundry.

Ciao

Harper's Island

2009-08-08T20:27:00.006-04:00

The title of the post is a show D and I have been watching off and on for the past couple weeks or so. I think, considering what happens, it was more of a short story than an actual tv series.

Lemme just say...it was quite icky!

It's about a guy and girl going back to an island to get married where the guy spent summers as a kid. Murders start happening again (7 years after a previous rampage of murders).

I don't wanna give away the ending, but it's definitely trippy.

I think we spent the whole series, up until the last few episodes, saying who the killer was. You don't end up knowing until the last few episodes. And, like I said...it's icky. Not for the squeamish and not for those prone to violence. Lots of blood and gore...made me jump a few times.

There's one time (I think the second to last episode) that I yelped/sqealed and made D jump. I would've been more scared if I hadn't been so amused that he jumped. *grins*

But, also, just like a typical horror movie...the people in it are quite stupid.

"Let's go into the dark scary tunnels where the killer is...our friends are there and we can help" ... (like it worked so well last time)

"Let's split up...we can cover more ground." (Like the last time you did that and someone got killed.)

At the end, I think D and I were both glad it was over, but it was fairly entertaining.

On another note...we got two new movies on Netflix. One was League of Extraordiary Gentlemen (I think my folks had that on dvd and I've watched it a few times) and the other was The Departed with Matt Damon, Leonardo Decaprio (sp?), and Mark Whalberg (sp?). The latter was a fairly good movie. Quite long at about 2 1/2 hours, but really good. Gory and lot's of people getting shot in the head, though (mafia movie).

Anyway...as far as other things...I've put in job applications at Food City, Kroger, Walmart, Smoky Mountain Wine and Liquor, and the Knox County Zoo. Hopefully something will pan out.

*fingers crossed*

Yesterday

2009-06-22T11:32:00.002-04:00

Well, Father's Day here went fairly well. D and I went in the house a couple hours early to help put food stuffs together. He helped cut up vegetables for salad, mash taters, and made gravy while I made hot fudge (for dessert).

We had pork chops that started seared on the grill and then finished in the oven. While they weren't as spiced up as how D and I make ours, they were very tender. We also had mashed taters, corn, green beans, potato salad, rolls, and regular salad.

By the time I got around to the regular salad I didn't have anymore space on my plate (I'm sure you peeps know what that's like) so I had intentions of getting some on the second go 'round, but was way too full.

For dessert there was hot fudge cake (two 1in. slices of chocolate cake with about an inch or so of vanilla ice cream in the middle, with hot fudge poured on top). It was made for D's birthday in April and it is oh so good, but this time was made for one of D's brother's birthdays that we were also celebrating yesterday. I decided though that no matter how good it tasted, that this time I just didn't need those extra calories. Besides, I'm sure it's not the last time it'll get made.

In other news, it has been so freakin' unbearably humid here. The overall temperature hasn't been too bad (high 80s to mid 90s), but with between 75%-85% humidity. But, it's raining pretty hard now so hopefully that's gonna cool things down soon.

p.s. message to my momma...I got the last package you sent. Thanks for the cd and the rings...and those other things. :-)

Dinner last night

2009-05-04T09:12:00.003-04:00

This was another of those $2.50 whole chickens D and I got at the grocery store. Unfortunately, we didn't have anymore stuffing so D made a rub of various spices and smeared all over underneath the skin and then on top of the skin as well. We also cut up onions to stuff under the skin. After that, we cut up about four potatoes to put around the chicken and half a bag or so of baby carrots. The green stuff on the veggies is fresh parsley.

It was absolutely perfect. We both could've eaten it until we hurt, but we were good kids. What we didn't eat mostly got put in a container and frozen for another day, puppy got most of the skin and some other bits and pieces, and then the bones and such got put into a gallon ziploc baggie for making chicken stock (our third bag by the way). :-)

I think it's been 4 months since we started collecting bits of things for making the stock. We've been watching the Food Network and it seems a lot of the chefs make their own stock. The contents of our bags vary from chicken leavings/bones, the necks of the chickens we've used, onion leavings (skin and roots included), green onion leftovers, cabbage parts, pieces of parsley stems, and some of the chicken broth that's settled into the bottom of the dish after baking it. It'll definitely be an experiment, but I'm optimistic about it.

1st camping trip

2009-04-30T13:44:00.002-04:00

Now that something interesting has actually happened, I feel like I've got something to blog about.

I'll get to the main topic in a second, but first let me say that I had one of the worst scares in a long while last Thursday through Sunday. My cat, Calli has been getting a little more adventurous as she's gotten older (she's about a year and a half old now.) It used to be that she'd never go outside and then it was only if D or I were outside. Finally, she started going out on her own, but would always be close to the deck.

So, Wednesday night we left the door open a crack so she could come and go. We woke up Thurs. morning...no Calli. She usually wakes us up at some point during the night and then yowls her head off for food in the morning, but she was nowhere to be found.

D and I decided that, even if she didn't show up by Friday (when we were leaving to go camping) that we'd still go and ask his sister-in-law to keep an eye out for her. Well, she didn't show up. There's been coyote sightings around here for the past month or so and I figured that if she wasn't home when we got back that most likely she'd had a run-in with them. Honestly, I was worried sick, but tried to stay positive so as to still have fun camping.

Good news was, on the way home Sunday, I got a text message saying that the sis-in-law has spotted her on Saturday, but she'd run back into the woods. By the time we got back around 3pm Sun. our little critter was waiting for us on the deck. She was a little dirtier and quite a bit terrified, but all in one piece. I think she hid under the bed for about 5 hours that day, but it wasn't too long until she was back outside. :-)

Now, on to the main event. D and I took our first camping trip of the year last weekend. It was a blast to say the least.

We got to Citico Creek (think I've posted a couple pictures from there on my Flickr site) around 2:15pm Fri. It only took us about a half hour to unload the truck and set up the tent. We kinda lounged around for a little while and went off to collect more wood. We'd brought some with, but not near enough for the whole weekend since we've got to fit wood, supplies, and the puppy in the truck.

Our first meal that night was typical camping fare (hamburgers), but we'd also brought along a little something for the next day that was going to be a total experiment. What we brought for Saturday night was a whole 5lb. chicken. Yep...that's right. And I'm still kicking myself for forgetting my camera.

Picture two long sticks tied in crosses on either side of the fire with a long stick wedged on top. Basically a homemade camping rotisserie. We brought a box of stuffing mix and made it with a little less water than called for so it would be stickier and then we stuffed (no pun intended) the stuffing under the skin of the chicken and then sliced up onions to put in there also.

We realized after that we needed to have the fire hotter because we started it at about 3:20pm and it wasn't done until a little after 11pm. But my...oh...my was it tasty!!!

The grocery store here had the chickens on sale for around $2.50 a bird so we got 6-7 of them and have cooked 2 so far.

In thinking back on it, we really didn't do a whole lot except forage for wood, eat, and do a whole LOT of relaxing. It was very nice to get away from all the everyday stress.

Oh, I did however get to learn how to use a chainsaw. I can almost see my mom cringing at that thought. Saturday afternoon D and I went on another wood gathering trip and found a felled tree that he cut in 3-4ft long sections just to be able to haul it back to the camp site. When we got back, he pulled them out so they were hanging over the tailgate and then had me hold the end inside the truck while watching him cut it. He did two of the four logs and then...*gulp*...it was my turn. It was actually easier than I thought. And yes, mom, I still have all my limbs where they're supposed to be. hehe

As fun as it was, we were naturally exhausted when we got back. It's close to a 2 hour drive each way with most of it being busy highway (what we affectionately call the Alcoa Motor Speedway).

I think I slept for 10 hours Sunday night. Thankfully, the two jobs we've got going on right now weren't going to be ready until Tuesday so we got a day of recuperation.

We've got another trip tentatively planned for sometime next month with at least one, but possibly two other couples and D and those two guys might end up taking a boys only trip at some point this year.

I guess there's not a lot else to report besides our latest camping trip.

I'm missing my folks like crazy and wanting to make a short visit, but it's just not financially feasible right now...especially with the sucky economy.

I've gotten a couple applications out...one for the Knoxville Zoo so here's hopin'. *crosses fingers*

Until something else of note happens,
Ciao

Becuase I forgot

2009-03-10T17:48:00.004-04:00

I meant to post this awhile ago, but I forgot.

Our second and biggest snow of the year:

It dropped about 5 inches or so and actually stuck around for almost a week. I was jazzed. Unfortunately, the only other time it snowed it was only about 2 inches and was gone by the next day.

So...there ya go.

Ciao

As promised...

2009-03-10T17:36:00.005-04:00

D and I just got back from our third and final visit to that humongous house that's being constructed and, as promised, I've got pictures.

This is the whole rear of the house minus a couple feet behind me. I was standing pretty much center in the garage area.

Here's one of the front of the house from the corner of the garage at the bottom of the picture. The house is a total of 156 feet long.

And here are three of the view from the mountaintop.

I'm not nearly as sore this time and it wasn't hardly cold at all. I brought a jacket just in case, but it got up to about 75 degrees so it was actually rather hot with no shade. I even got a bit sunburned on my arms and the back of my neck.

But, it's done and I'm glad.

Hard work

2009-03-03T16:22:00.002-05:00

Let me preface this post by saying....I am so exhausted! But it's in a good way.

D and I made our second trip out to a construction site today. It was the phase of putting big nails into the ground so the masons will know where to pour concrete for the walls of a massive house. The cool part was that we were up on the top of a mountain with a very impressive view (I'll try and remember to take pictures next time we're out there). The not so cool part was that it was about 30 degrees with crazy cold wind, and there were 118 nails that we had to put in the ground. D was nice enough to give me a break towards the end because I was really starting to drag.

So, while I feel very accomplished, I'm also very worn out...and sore...and muddy. It was a sloppy, muddy mess up there.

So...yeah. That was my day.

Fantastical dinner

2009-02-20T14:16:00.003-05:00

Since I was way too tired last night and this morning to even contemplate making a post, I'll do so now.

I just have to brag about the absolutely delicious dinner that D and I made last night.

1. Smoked salmon. My mom got D and I a smoker two christmases ago. We'd used it probably four or five times before one day, after washing the glass lid to it, the lid literally blew up in our dish drainer. I don't know if I posted about it, but it was aweful. Not only did we have glass all over the bathroom (our makeshift downstairs dish-washing area), in the sink, and the toilet...we also had it all over the rest of the room. Thankfully, I'd almost shut the door to go upstairs when we heard the crash so no one got hurt. But anyway, my mom sent us her smoker a couple months ago since she doesn't use it...so we have a new lid again.

I'm not sure what D used to season it, but it was oh so delish.

2. Microwave taters and onions. Again, not sure what he used to season with besides pepper and rosemary, but mmmm mmmm yummy!

3. Cabbage. We used a glass casserole dish with a half head of cabbage (1/4 for each) and seasoned it with a healthy dose of butter, Tiger salt, garlic powder, and paprika. It was so juicy and tender and by far the best cabbage we've put together.

4. Brown rice. Nothing special done here, but it was the bed for the salmon.

The taters were kind of the odd thing out. I was half-way done with my cabbage, salmon, and rice before I'd even touched my taters. Still...all in all, a VERY tasty meal.

Just stuff

2009-02-12T17:59:00.002-05:00

Well, while the construction business slowed down to a virtual crawl during the winter, D and I are working a bit more now that things are kind of picking back up. I only say kind of because people still aren't building as much as they used to with the current craptacular economy.

Now that the godforsaken writer's strike is over and our shows have come back, D and I at least have things to occupy us during the evenings. Burn Notice, 24, and Heroes are just a few. Lost just came back on last week, but we need to re-watch a few of the episodes from last season. We watched the first episode from this season and were completely...well...lost. LOL Thankfully we've found quite a few different websites that will show full episodes of certain tv shows with only 5 or so commercials during the hour show.

Besides that, though, our other time occupation has been reading. D and I have been taking turns reading a book series to each other that D first read when he was about 12. It's called The Dragon Lance series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Very, very good books.

Um...what else...oh it's been hovering around 70 degrees the last couple of days. While there's still a chilly wind blowing, if you're in the sunshine, it's not bad at all. How cool is it to be able to wear capris and short sleeve shirts in February?!

In other news, I've been getting more and more addicted to facebook. I've been able to connect with my cousins whom I haven't seen in...gosh...3 years...4 years? Something like that. Pretty cool if I do say so myself.

My nieces...well...almost nieces, have been trying to get me to make a myspace account, but between this, sodahead, facebook, and the various web surveys I do everyday, I might as well superglue my butt to my computer chair, because I'd never get out of it.

I'm definitely glad it's warming up. Maybe D and I can take a camping trip soon. We tried to take one in early November before it got really cold but we just never got around to it. I'm itching to go, though.

Not too much else to report, but I'll keep everyone updated on everything nonetheless.

Ciao

kitty fun

2009-01-28T20:06:00.004-05:00

Let me preface the post by saying that Calli (our kitty) is completely crazy.

One of her favorite games is attacking D whenever she feels he's either ignoring her or giving attention to me that she feels should be given to her. Pretty much anytime she's awake while D and I are sitting at the computers, she'll come over, jump up, wrap her paws around D's arm and start biting at him. Most of the time she's gentle enough to not hurt, but if we haven't clipped her claws in a while she definitely marks us up.

Anyway, today, I'd layed my head on D's leg and he was scratching at my head and rubbing my hair. I had my eyes closed so I didn't realize that kitty was right there until she jumped at me and smacked my head with her paw underneath the armrest of D's chair. I started messing with her and lunging my hand at her, making her jump around. She'd been sitting there for a moment and I figured she was done and I stuck my tongue out at her...she smacked it. I kid you not, she jumped up and smacked her paw right on my tongue. She was at least sweet enough to not use claws (plus I'd clipped them yesterday), but it made us both laugh for a good 5 minutes.

She's crazy, I swear.

the holidays

2009-01-01T15:02:00.002-05:00

Well Christmas here was pretty low key. Christmas Eve we all got together (minus one brother and sister-in-law) and had simple finger foods. There was crab dip, spinach dip, rolls, cheeses, crackers, sausage balls, and D and I brought chicken salad.

Then, Christmas day everyone showed up and we had the real food...ham, turkey, broccoli cheese casserole (yummy!!), mashed taters and gravy, stuffing with cranberries, sausage/grits/cheese/egg casserole, green beans, plus all the finger foods from the night before.

I did pretty well with the eats. The only desserts I had was a small piece of plain fudge, a small piece with walnuts in it, and a reeces pieces cookie. I didn't even have any rolls so I could have a tiny bit of the stuffing, and those rolls are darn near the best ever.

Anyway, after food the kids opened presents and then we all got our stockings. I got 4 new nail polishes, some chapstick (because I go through them like crazy and Calli likes to hide them), a bottle of almond milk hand soap, and a bag of milk chocolate Lindor Truffles. I've been really good with those, too and have only had one so far. There was a time when that whole bag would've probably been gone by the day after christmas.

D got some beef jerky, a new clicky lighter thingy for the grill (the igniter is broken on it), a couple other things I can't remember, and some chapsticks which he ended up giving to me.

Then, last night was the lowest of the low key holidays. We were invited to the 'rents if we wanted, but we ended up going out to get some beer and watching movies. When we noticed the time, it was 12:03 am.

Nothing else really of note going on. What with the holidays I haven't been able to find anyone who's hiring, especially full time, but I'll be starting to re-apply at a lot of places soon.

The last thing is that my 30 day mark for the working out and such is coming up on the 17th. While it's occasionally been difficult to stay motivated (as far as the actual work-outs especially when my back is hurty), I've noticed that my back has been feeling gradually better.

Guess that's about it.

Ciao

Christmas yum-yums

2008-12-19T12:37:00.002-05:00

Okay, so in my previous post I went on about how I was going to get in the habit of being healthier starting now so as to get those good habits going for during Christmas. While I see that as a very good thing, it's also very much doody. *giggles* I said it...doody!

I've been looking at the Pillsbury website for a while along with a couple other websites getting recipes for things I want to try making for D and I. Well, along with those websites comes emails with scores of recipes for Christmas goodies. *sigh*

In addition to that, one girl's blog I read had a recipe for T.B.P.B.F.K.T.M. (The Best Peanut Butter Fudge Known To Man). The only ingredients are flour, butter, peanut butter, sugar, milk, and marshmallow creme. So, that said, it's probably one of THE most unhealthy things in the world. There's no way that, just because it has milk and peanut butter in it, that you could even remotely pretend it's healthy. Nuh uh. Not a chance. But it looks sooooo good. *sob*

The girl also calls it "Badonkadonk Butt Fudge", which sounds like it'd be a good name for it, but not as tasty. And, since eating it would most definitely give me a badonkadonk butt, I better not make the fudge.

Still, I think I'll be getting some chocolate in my stocking this year. D's mom knows I'm addicted to chocolate so I usually get a little something on Christmas and my birthday. I may put D in charge of it and let him dole it out to me once in a while.

I have a feeling that these are gonna be the best stockings D's mom has ever given out since us adults aren't doing the present thing and even though she agreed to it, she just can't help but give presents. :-)

Oh, I'm not so sore today, but still a little too sore to do the Turbo Jam again so I went for a 45 min. walk instead. I think I walked about a 2 mile round trip. Go me.

Well, I think that's about it.

Ciao

News

2008-12-18T10:19:00.004-05:00

Okay so I'm pretty much ready for the holidays to be over. I'm bummed I can't visit family, but with the construction market slowing down so much for winter, there's just no extra money for that sort of thing. Bah humbug.

So, on to more positive stuff...

I've started working out again. Okay, so I've only done it once (yesterday), but I'm planning on really getting back into it. When I moved down here I borrowed one of my mom's Turbo Jam dvds so that's what I'm gonna be using. I've tentatively scheduled my next workout for tomorrow, but we'll have to see how my muscles feel. I don't wanna overdo it and I'm really feeling it today. My back is a bit tight (but it usually is anyway), my shoulders and ab muscles are tight, and my *ahem* butt muscles are a bit sore. So, depending how I feel tomorrow, I may reschedule for Saturday.

I figure if I get into this now, then maybe I won't go overboard with the goodies on Christmas. I've also set a few goals for the rest of this week. 1. No eating at least 1 hour before bed (D and I have a tendency to eat dinner late and then pop off to bed) 2. Work out at least 3 times (which will be 2 times if I have to postpone til Saturday) 3. Take vitamins at least 4 times this week. I've also started a notebook where I'll log what I eat everyday so I can see where the improvements need to be made and such. We already do pretty well on that...we have some kind of protein with just about every meal, but too heavy on the carbs (what can I say, they're delish). I also need to get better about eating regularly. We usually have two meals a day, but I need to start eating something in the morning...probably fruit would be the best, but my body has gotten used to not eating breakfast and it's hard to make yourself eat when you're not hungry.

I know that by getting healthy again that my mood will improve, I'll have more energy when going out to help D with his work, and I'll definitely be able to fit into the clothes my mom is sending me for Christmas.

Well, I've babbled on long enough.

Ciao

p.s. the frame on my glasses broke the other day so I've had to get used to wearing contacts again. I swear, I look a little like a zombie. My eyes seems to be permanently red from all the poking at my eyeballs and rubbing the crap out of them when I take the contacts out at night. Oh, and flourescent lighting? Forget it, makes me look as pale as Michael Jackson. Ugh!

It be cold

2008-10-22T11:13:00.005-04:00

It seems like only a couple days ago that it was hitting 90 degrees and I dreaded going out in anything other than capris, t-shirt, and flip flops. Right now, it's about 58 degrees and windy as all hell. (well, technically I don't think hell is windy and if it is then its blowing hot air, but I digress)

I think I teared up once I realized that I had to forgo my trusty flip flops in exchange for tennis shoes or boots. And, I had to bring up the long sleeve shirts, sweaters, and jackets that had been stored downstairs. :-(

Anyway, in other news, I have pictures.

1. The last couple times D and I have gone to the store, we've passed up our usual Southpaw beer brand for a mix 'n' match deal that Food City has. You pick six beers for $9 and change. It's been pretty cool. The first time I got a Dos Equis, Black Lager (sammy adams), and an Irish Red Lager (not sure what company). They were all pretty good, but I realized I liked the Dos Equis less than I used to.

Then, this last time we went, I got a Winter Lager (sammy adams), and 2 German beers. I've only had one so far and it was yummy good. Here's a picture of the label.

It tastes very similar, but milder, to what D and I brewed with his friend Taylor back in early March.

2. I have a crazy cat. Seems no matter what kinds of pets I get, they always turn out to be a little off in the head.

Please excuse the mess, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity for this picture. That's our cat Calli with her head inside an empty dog treat box. I think she was trying to get the few leftover crumbs that were still inside it.

Well, that's all for now.

Ciao

Still have my city-girl moments

2008-10-13T16:56:00.004-04:00

So early last week, as D and I were headed out to the grocery store, I noticed his older niece picking up/peeling walnuts from the walnut tree in the yard. Going over there I jokingly asked, "So you gonna eat all those?" You may ask why it was jokingly that I asked that question, but after all, who eats walnuts that fall out of a tree? You buy them at the store, right? *smack upside the head*

She wasn't going to but was picking them for her family. To which I replied, "You can eat these things?" *shrugs* I say again, who eats walnuts that fall out of a tree? You buy them at the store, right?

I guess it never really occured to me where those prettily packaged walnuts at the store come from. I asked D's mom and she said they taste heavenly and they're the same you'd buy at Food City or Kroger. Huh, go figure.

So, a couple days later I decided to do the same thing. At first I was peeling them barehanded (very messy by the way), but my hands very quickly turned a puky shade of yellow/black. After putting gloves on I went about walking around the tree, peeling as I went, and dropping them in a small garbage can. The tree was all about mocking me as it kept dropping fresh walnuts every few minutes. Finally my back could no longer take the constant bending over so I brought the can back to the bottom of the deck stairs and proceeded to fill two plastic grocery bags with the rest of the unpeeled walnuts.

I've just finished peeling them all and now I've been told they need to sit and germinate and dry out a little bit before cracking them open. Ya see, freshly peeled walnuts have an enormous amount of black/yellow goopy stuff on the outside of the hard shell. Not to mention there are little greenish white worms that apparently eat that goopy stuff. There's a lot of scraping to get all the wormies off, which is quite difficult when wearing latex gloves.

Anyway, I've gotten about 1 1/2 plastic grocery bags full of peeled walnuts. Probably in another week or so here I'll try cracking a few of them to see how they taste. *crosses fingers*

Made me giggle

2008-10-09T10:26:00.000-04:00

For Trade

One 16 year old who knows everything.

Except:
How to cook.
How to clean.
How to manage money.
How to wipe up spilled water.
How to drive.
How to write a check.
How to answer a phone.
How to do math.
How to treat people.
How to be nice.
How to be polite.
How gas is paid for.
How cell phone bills are paid.
How to work the can opener.
How to take medication.
How to sweep, dust or vacuum.
How to make a bed.
How to do laundry.
How dictatorships work.
How to shut up.
How to get a job.
How important it is to finish high school.
How the world goes round.

She can text. And she can argue. What else does she *possibly* need to know in life??

I’d like to trade her in. For a puppy.

Updateness

2008-09-14T06:09:00.002-04:00

I know it's been over a month since my last post, but I have my reasons.

I'm no longer working at Elavon. Due to the stress of the job that wasn't only affecting work, but D and me, he and I decided that it be best I not work there.

So, enough about that. I had an interview friday at a place called Digital Graphics. I think it went pretty well, but they still had a couple more people to interview so I'll just have to see. That's all I'll say for now since I don't wanna jinx it. :-)

In other news, things are going rather well. D has gotten bombarded with new projects over the last week so we've been quite busy. In fact, we're working later today just to make sure we stay caught up with everything. And, once the weather cools, I think we're gonna try for a camping trip before it turns too cold. It's been in the high 80s and 90s with humidity around 65-80%.

Um...what else. Oh, with all the work we've been having to do, I haven't had much time to read, but I did borrow a book from D's sister-in-law a couple days ago. It's called Death's Acre Inside the legendary forensic lab the Body Farm where the dead do tell tales. I found out that there's an actual place here in TN called The Body Farm. Dr. Bill Bass (who's like the #1 forensic anthropologist in the country) heads it up. Basically the whole place is dedicated to experimenting and documenting rates of decomposition based on various conditions. i.e. shallow graves, submerged in water, locked in a car trunk, etc. Yeah, I know it's a little gruesome, but it's very interesting. After all, once upon a time I wanted to study forensics.

Anyway, I'm about 1/4 of the way through the book and the sister-in-law has another one Dr. Bass wrote that I'll be borrowing when I'm done with this one.

Guess that's all for now.

Alrighty then

2008-08-07T19:02:00.002-04:00

Yesterday went pretty fair. Paul (my partner on calls) and I did rock, paper, scissors to decide who was taking calls first. Even though I won, I could tell he REALLY didn't wanna go first. I also wanted to get mine out of the way so I took calls in the am portion of class. It was pretty cool...definitely a learning experience as I realized some things I messed up on. Nothing drastic thankfully.

I also got a call from a merchant that is requiring continued follow-up. My very first follow up call. :-)

So today, we were all taking calls on our own. No more partners. Yesterday I took a total of 11 calls and today I think I was at 14 calls. Oh, and I got my very first angry caller. It's cool because even though it rattled the hell outta me, I can't remember what she called about. Normally I'd stew over it for days at a time.

The lady ended up, after repeated attempts to offer solutions and try to help her, she asked for a supervisor so I just transferred the call. It was the third time she'd called in so I can't blame her. In explaining to said supervisor what the issue was and what I'd told her, the supervisor said I'd done everything right. I still needed to take a little personal break after that to pull myself together, but I got right back on the phones. No nervous breakdown for this girl. X-D

We had a class on a new service we're offering and then after lunch we got back on the phones. I was able to do a lot of calls without having to ask the trainers for help so I'm pretty proud of myself.

I did have another caller, the bank rep was actually calling in, but brought the merchant on in a three-way call. Sufficed to say, the merchant was pretty upset. She'd canceled her account, but was still getting billed. Someone else had already submitted a request for a refund so there was really nothing I could do. While I was still a bit un-nerved, it didn't affect me nearly as much as that first caller. Yay for me.

And...drumroll please...I get my own desk tomorrow! I'm a teensy bit nervous about not being in the same room with people that can help with me just raising my hand, but I'm sure it'll be alright.

On another note, I had a lot of people yesterday and today that thanked me profusely for my help and said I did a very good job. *insert excited squeal here*

today and tomorrow

2008-08-05T22:17:00.002-04:00

Today, from 11am until noon, we all took test calls from various trainers outside the classroom. It was rather nervwracking at first, but by the end I'd decided that it hadn't been as bad as I thought it'd be.

I got three calls total. Two of 'em I kinda messed up on, but the other I did pretty well. I also found out that I say "alright" a lot when I'm confirming information. On the first call...well, I'd have to give a ton of background info, but mainly, I filled out a form requesting equipment pick-up when I didn't need to. I filled out the form perfectly, but in that specific case, the form wasn't needed.

But, tomorrow, we take real calls from real merchants. I'm pretty nervous. They've paired us up with another person in the training class, so one will take the calls in the morning while the other helps and then after lunch we'll switch out. Come Friday, though, we'll be on the floor taking calls like everyone else, with the exception that our "managers" will be the transition trainers instead of the actual floor managers.

Other than that, I've got about 5 more weeks of an 8am-4:30pm shift and then I move to my 10am-6:30pm shift. I'm DEFINITELY looking forward to that. No more 6am wake-ups for this chickie.

One cool thing, though, the only real anxiety I felt today was about 5 min. before we started taking practice calls. I seriously felt like breaking down in tears and running to the bathroom to throw up. Other than that, it was just general nervousness. *grins* We'll see how I do tomorrow.

In other news, my back has been doing pretty well. No real pain except for some tightness when I wake up in the morning and lingering tightness when it's been a couple days between chiropractic visits.

Also, I heard on the news yesterday that Morgan Freeman was in a car accident. Last I'd heard, he was driving home and allegedly ran off the road. He had a broken arm and shoulder, but I haven't heard anything further.

I hope he's alright since he's one of my favorite actors.

Last test

2008-08-01T12:50:00.002-04:00

We had our last test today for the classroom portion of training. I was kinda nervous about it just because of how much they played up the difficulty of it and the fact that the last two systems we learned were quite complicated.

I was ready to walk out of there on Thursday because I just couldn't seem to grasp that last system. But towards the end of class that day it was much better. The last half of class (after lunch), we mainly did review and then practice calls again. This time the trainer took turns calling us with "problems" he needed resolved. It wasn't too bad, until one of my co-workers got an actual call from an actual merchant. I think everyone was pretty freaked out after that. We were sent on break after that thankfully...I think us smokers all needed a cigarette. *grins* I wasn't event the one taking the call and my heart was pounding. We did some more practice calls after break, but I don't think any of us wanted to on the off chance we got a real call.

I think the instructor realized we were really over it all because we played "Who am I?" for the last 45 minutes.

So, test day. We got in this morning to a smorgasboard of Panera Bread bagels and cream cheese and started the test around 8:45. Again, not as bad as I thought it'd be. There were a couple things I struggled with, but skipped over them and came back later after figuring out what it was I needed to find in answering other questions.

I got done around 10am, but the two instructors were grading a couple other tests so I had to wait a few minutes. I think that was the worst part. Finally I heard my name called and went up to the desk to take a look at how I did. Out of a possible 100 points........I scored a 98. X-D
WOOT!!

I think I was like the 3rd one done and a few more got done while I waiting for D to pick me up. But there were a good 6 people still taking the test when I left. There are a couple people in particular that I'm wondering if I'll see come Monday. I hope they passed.

But, now that the boring class-type stuff is over, I get the immense joy of being nervous all over again because I'll be taking live calls come Wednesday. I think Tuesday will be just managers and trainers calling in to our phones to give us a little more practice, but then it'll be real merchants, with real problems, and real chances to royally screw up. Oh joy!

Anyway, I'm gonna go relax a bit.

incoherent screams and laughter

2008-07-30T19:41:00.003-04:00

I had typed my post in, but stupid blogger disconnected and didn't save my post. *sigh*

I'll try and re-create it.

Today was rather interesting. The first thing we did was practice calling our classmates/coworkers, switching off being the merchant calling in and the CSR taking the calls. It was nervewracking to say the least. After I'd made my first call, I sat waiting for a call to come in. Terry, the instructor, ended up calling me pretending to be a cardholder (person instead of merchant) wanting to lodge a complaint with the merchant. It was funny because I had to put him on hold to ask him what to do. I knew the answer, but my mind went completely blank after saying, "Thank you for calling Merchant Services...." My hands were seriously shaking by the time I ended the call.

We were taught some other stuff and then during the last hour of class we did the phone call stuff again. It went a bit better, realizing that this is probably the only time I'll have to practice without it being a real merchant on the other end. Still, it was difficult.

Tim, one of my classmates, was being a butthead (in a slightly humorous way). He would play with the key pad during the call and ended up punching out a tune on it. He would also say stuff and break up like there was static on the line. I had to put him on hold just so I could laugh my butt off (which I've been told actually happens). Another thing...after I got back from having him on hold, he asked to be put back on hold because "the music was so nice."

*shakes head*

Our last test is this Friday and the instructors are bringing in a continental breakfast (from Panera Bread I think).

All in all it's been alright. Oh, but tomorrow, we'll be learning yet another system. *insert sarcastic "yay" here*

I keep asking myself why the hell I think I can do this. But, I just got my paycheck today and it's about a month's worth of shifts at Lowe's. I just need to keep reminding myself of that.

In sadder news...

2008-07-28T20:40:00.002-04:00

Yesterday (Sunday) morning a guy walked into a Unitarian with a 12-gauge shotgun and 76 shells hidden in a guitar case and started shooting.

There was a kids play going on and the guy I think originally came through a back door and was told (thinking he was part of the program) that he needed to go through another door, which he did. There was an usher that was right there when the guy came back in and took a shot right in the chest. The guy got two more shots off before a couple of the church people tackled him.

I heard this morning that 2 were killed and 7 have either been released or are still in critical condition. One scary thing is that one of my co-workers has an aunt and her family that go to the church. The niece was supposed to be in the kid's play, but woke up with a sore throat so they didn't go to church that morning.

Another scary thing, that church is only about 5 minutes away from where D and I used to live and we've driven by the place about a hundred times.

Apparently the guy had written a four page letter on why he was doing it. According to the letter he was pissed off over not being able to get a job and blamed the liberals and gays. As a result, he targeted the church because they had "liberal" beliefs in welcoming gays to their church, among other things. Also, I think, the letter said that he planned on killing everyone he could (except the children) until police showed up and killed him.

I think they're considering this a hate crime considering that in the videos I've seen of the police interviews, there's FBI all over the place.

The suck thing is that people are using this as a pulpit for their own agendas (i.e. gun bans, god's judgement, etc.) Nevermind that innocent people were killed and kids traumatized.

It's a sad, sad world we live in.

Ugh

2008-07-28T20:32:00.003-04:00

Today definitely felt like a Monday. I didn't feel all that tired when I went into work, but within a couple hours I was so over it.

We started learning yet another new system and, instead of teaching it like they normally do, our instructor had us pair up and go through some initial things. It was alright except for the fact that I couldn't take notes. I learn/remember best when I can write things down. So, I spent half of my first break going back through everything and making notations.

By lunch, I was so ready to go home. I've started bringing my Gevalia travel mug to work (probably about a 12oz. container) and had two of those full with Cappuchino by lunch. Thankfully, though I got to talk to D over lunch break so that made me smile quite a bit...I needed that.

I grabbed another Cappuchino on my way back to class, but by 2 o'clock I was dead tired. So much so that, when I leaned my head on my hand for a second, the next thing I knew, one of my co-workers nudged my leg to wake me up. I was still hearing the instructor, but it was like a low-level buzz in my ears. At that point I finished the Mt. Dew I'd brought and said co-worker gave me a few pieces of candy to help perk me up. :-) She's a sweetheart.

All in all it was an okay day. We learned some preliminaries of how to use the phone system, too. That was quite interesting. The instructor said that tomorrow, if we have time, he'll let us play around by calling each other in the classroom. That outta be hilarious.

Well, I'm out...still gotta make dinner, possibly put clothes in the dryer, and set up my lunch for tomorrow.

Peace out

2008-07-27T18:29:00.001-04:00

D and I just got done watching the movie Boogeyman. It has the guy that played the oldest brother on 7th Heaven.

Anyway, let me just say that I never was too fond of closets and I'm glad the closets we have don't have doors on them.

Finally Friday

2008-07-25T18:48:00.003-04:00

Today was a very good day. We had representatives from different departments in the company come in to talk to us. Basically telling us what they do and such. I think, if I were to transfer to a department it would probably be Loss Prevention. That seemed the most intersting.

In other news...with all the people coming in, we didn't get to lunch until about 10 min. after our scheduled time, but it was no big deal. The company had Five Star come in and serve us lunch. BBQ chicken sandwiches, coleslaw, beans, and a drink for $4. Not bad price and VERY good food.

We also had our first test and, while I wasn't the first to turn it in, I was tied with the second to turn the test in and we first 3 all got 100%. So I'm definitely in for next week. And...it's now the weekend so double bonus. I actually get to sleep in tomorrow!

I'm still very excited about the job. So much so that I think D might be getting a little bored with hearing about it.

Anyway...hope y'all have a good weekend...I know I will. :-)

Long week...not over

2008-07-24T17:51:00.002-04:00

A little background....

So remember when I posted about getting that job? Well, I showed up as a back-up for the training class on the 7th (didn't get in), but turned in my two-week notice since I was told I'd be in the class on the 21st instead. I was called around the 14th by the temp. agency and told that Elavon, the company, had decided not to use temp. agency people and instead were using direct hires. So sorry...can't be helped...sorry you're out of a job now. I fumed for a bit, but started looking for something else.

Well, not too long after, I had such bad back pain that I was pretty much bed-ridden for most of the rest of that week. Major suck!

But, I got a call again from the temp. agency around the 18th that they wanted me to show up as a back-up again. I didn't think much of it, but told 'em I'd be there.

Well, on the 21st, the temp. agency called to confirm that I'd be there that afternoon, but they weren't sure exactly of the time and would call me once they knew. About ten minutes later I got a call asking me to choose between two shifts. I got in!!

So that's where I've been all week. I went in from about noon-thirty until 5 on monday and it's been an 8-5 shift since then.

Right now, it's just classroom work...learning different systems and such. I honestly feel like my brain is about an inch from oozing out of my ears. I was a bit nervous at first and still feel a tad bit overwhelmed, but it's all good. It's like I'm back in school again, but getting paid for it.

D and I did some calculating and realized that in about 4 months of working there, I'll have made as much as if I'd worked a year at Lowe's. Pretty nifty, huh?

So, my first full-time work week is almost over. Cool thing is, we have casual fridays so I get to wear my Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt, jean capris, and tennis shoes tomorrow. I've spent the majority of the week in skirts or nice slacks. The slacks I don't mind so much, but while I'm getting used to sitting in a skirt, it's getting fairly old. I definitely look forward to changing clothes when I get home. Tomorrow is our first test day, though. I'm not really nervous about it. I've been fairly good at taking tests and when we do our daily reviews there are only a couple questions I'm hazy on. Cool thing is, it's open book/notes/computer programs.

So, next week is also classroom, 8-5 and then, while the 3rd week we'll be in classroom, we'll pretty much all be switching around shifts and actually taking some incoming calls from merchants. I'll be working 8-4:30 then with wed/thur off. And, while I'm not too thrilled about working both Sat. and Sun., at least the weekend shift is also casual wear so it'll be a little bonus.

I'm also getting to sleep in about a half-hour more than when I worked at Lowe's and it's a lot more fun. I think I get an average of about 10 people a day (that I don't know) saying hi/good morning to me. Also, since I'm technically employed there through a temp. agency, I'm not eligible for benefits yet, but I only have to work 400 hours (10 weeks) to be employed full-time by Elavon directly, which is less than the normal 90 days I've waited for benefits other places.

All in all, I'm pretty psyched about it. It's the first full-time job I've had in about 3 years. Plus, with my first paycheck I get to go shopping for new clothes. Granted, it'll be yuppy corporate america clothes (no offense to those of you corporate america types), but still, new clothes are always fun. :-)

Peace out and I'll let y'all know how the test goes tomorrow.

Nostalgia

2008-07-10T16:22:00.002-04:00

In listening to music on Youtube.com (great site by the way), I recalled one of the best memories of my life.

My dad and I were at Mall of America. I don't remember if we went to Radio Shack (don't remember how old I was) before or after, but I do remember stopping at an icecream shop. It was one that had an old-fashioned juke box. Now don't get me wrong, I love The Beatles, but I asked my dad for a quarter (or whatever it cost) to play a song on the jukebox. I played "Chain Gang" by Sam Cooke.

D and I were playing "oldies" songs on youtube.com and I found Chain Gang. It almost made me cry with the rememberance. While those times were quite a bit difficult for me, I do appreciate the influence I've gotten from my father, music-wise.

So...thank you dad. My music tastes have changed over the years, but I'll always remember what I heard as a little kid and still, to this day, like what I heard back then.

I love the "oldies"

News on the job

2008-07-07T08:18:00.003-04:00

I've been meaning to post on this, but have been way too occupied with stuff to force myself to sit here and focus on it. But, I got a comment asking about it so I figured now is as good a time as any.

I got the job. :-)

Let me give a little info. on the company. They mainly handle payment processing for credit & debit cards, electronic checks, gift cards, etc. Y'know when you slide your debit card through the little card reader machine at the grocery store? Elavon (the company I'm gonna work for) handles the information from that machine and processes the card...much like a middle man between the merchant and the banks. I'll be starting out in their incoming call center. So as far as I understand it right now, it'll be mostly people with questions about statements, verifying their transactions went through, that sorta thing.

So, after the initial interview with the temp. agency, I went in to Elavon and had like a 10 minute interview. I got asked a few standard questions and they had me listen to a phone call, and that was it for the day.

I got called back a couple days later to come in for fingerprinting. I guess because their affiliated with US Bank that their background check is a little more stringent than most. Again, I was there for about 10 minutes and was out the door. And then, a couple days later, I went to a separate facility for the drug test.

And now...I'm headed there today for training. Well, sort of. Officially I'm scheduled to start training on the 21st, but they're wanting me to come in today as a back-up in case someone doesn't show.

So...in a nutshell...I got the job. :-)

Various thingies

2008-06-20T20:05:00.002-04:00

So, my sister-in-law (yeah, she's D's, but I'm just gonna start calling her that) and I went to a sort of job interview today. She'd found an ad in the classifieds for a call-center (in-bound only) and we found out that it's actually a temp. agency hiring for a company. So, we got down there aobut 9:35 this morning and started filling out the paperwork. The lady in charge took us back to two cubicle-type rooms to do some testing and said we could finish up the paperstuffs after.

I took a test on call-center skills, 10-key, data entry, MS Outlook, MS Windows 2000, and general typing. It was alright...fairly easy for the most part, but those who know me will understand when I say that my palms were pretty sweaty the whole time and my heart was chuggin' along at a fair pace due to anxiety. But I made it through and obviously didn't die.

Tangent here, but it all ties in:
Yesterday morning, I got up in order to get ready for the original appointment to go to this temp. agency. Due to things with the sister-in-law and what she's been having to deal with, we had to postpone it. As a positive result, though, I was able to go out and help D on a 4 acre project. Unfortunately, about an hour after I got up I started feeling some pain in my back up where my shoulderblade is. It just got worse as the day went on. Then this morning, I realized that it was still a tad sore, but not very bad.

Tie in:
Midway through the testing I was doing this morning, I started feeling the pain coming back with a vengeance. By the time I was on the last couple questions of the last test I could hardly concentrate (though still think I did well on those). When we finally got done with the end interview and out to the car, I was ready to bawl my eyes out it hurt so bad.

Still, stubborn as I am, I went to work tonight....and lasted about 1 hour and 5 minutes before I was asking to go home. Thankfully they had plenty of people to close so I didn't have to feel so guilty.

It's now about 3 hours later and the pain hasn't lessened at all. I'm mainly just trying to ignore it and shift every once in a while to find a less painful position to sit in.

At first I was wondering what the hell could be wrong, but the consensus that I've gotten from some people I've talked to and from my own history, it's most likely just stress. I spent about 6 months feeling like I was dying from intense stomach pain that turned out to be stress. So...try telling someone prone to anxiety and all sorts of the same to not stress....go ahead...try it. *grins*

Anyway, I just hope I get this job. I don't wanna jinx it by explaining how great it will be yet. I'm gonna wait until (fingers crossed) I get the job.

In other news, I'm starting to feel like I've developed multiple personality disorder with this whole two-name thing. So, for those of you who might read this, I'm no longer going by Nikki. All my emails and calls will be from Danielle. Unfortunately it's not so easy at Lowe's, but (again fingers crossed) I won't be working there much longer.

So I guess that's about it for now.

Hope everyone in my state of birth is all well and good.

Danielle

Ganked from a livejournal I read

2008-06-17T10:51:00.003-04:00

Close your eyes....And go back....
Before the Internet or the MAC
Before semi automatics and crack
Before SEGA or Super Nintendo...
Way back.......
I'm talkin' bout hide and go seek at dusk.
Red light, Green light.
Playing kickball & dodgeball until your porch light came on.
Mother May I?
Red Rover
Hula Hoops
Running through the sprinkler
Happy Meals
Wait......
Watchin' Saturday Morning cartoons
Fat Albert, Road Runner, Smurfs, Picture Pages,
G-Force & He-Man, Wonder Woman & Super Man Underoos
Playing Dukes of Hazard
Catchin' lightning bugs in a jar
Christmas morning.......
Your first day of school
Bedtime Prayers and Goodnight Kisses
Climbing trees
Getting an Ice Cream off the Ice Cream Truck
A million mosquito bites and sticky fingers
Jumpin down the steps
Jumpin on the bed.
Pillow fights
Runnin till you were out of breath
Laughing so hard that your stomach hurt
Being tired from playin'....
Your first crush......
Rainy days at school meant playing "Heads up 7Up"in the class room.
Remember that?
I'm not finished yet....
Kool-aid was the drink of summer
Toting your friends on your handle bars
Wearing your new shoes on the first day of school
Class Field Trips
When nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got there.
When a quarter seemed like a fair allowance,and another quarter a miracle.
When any parent could discipline any kid, or feed him or use him to carry groceries, and nobody, not even the kid, thought a thing of it.
When your parents took you to McDonalds and you were so cool.
When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home.
Basically, we were in fear for our lives but it wasn't because of drive by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc.
Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat!
And some of us are still afraid of em!!!
Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say,Yeah, I remember that!
There's nothing like the good old days!
They were good then, and they're good now when we think about them.
Share some of these thoughts with a friend who can relate,
then share it with someonethat missed out on them.
I want to go back to the time when............
Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-mo"
Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "do over!"
"Race issue"; meant arguing about who ran the fastest.
Money issues were handledby whoever was the banker in "Monopoly"
Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening.
It wasn't odd to have two or three "best" friends.
Being old, referred to anyone over 20.
The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sexwas cooties.
Nobody was prettier than Mom.
Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better.
It was a big deal to finally be tall enough to ride the "big people" rides at the amusement park.
Getting a foot of snow was a dream come true.
Abilities were discoveredbecause of a "double-dog-dare"
Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling downwas cause for giggles.
The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team.
Water balloons were the ultimate ultimate weapon.
Older siblings were the worst tormentors, but also the fiercest protectors.
If you can remember most or all of these, then you have LIVED!!!!
Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from their "grown up" life...I DOUBLE DOG DARE YA!
Gosh that felt good! It is nice to go backand I wish we had the same for our children.

Seven

2008-06-10T15:58:00.002-04:00

Seven things to do before I die

1. Accept who and what i am

2. Decide what i want to be when i grow up

3. Learn how to snowboard

4. Visit Ireland and Scotland

5. Stop biting the inside of my cheeks

6. Write a book

7. Be able to wear a bikini

Seven things I cannot do

1. Trigonometry

2. Sleep straight through the night for a whole week

3. Keep a plant alive for more than a couple weeks

4. Read music

5. Give good directions

6. Play the piano

7. Drive in a nail with only 3 hits of the hammer

Seven things that attracted me to my other half

1. His strength of character

2. His sense of humor

3. His ability to make me feel special

4. His intelligence

5. His ability to make me weak in the knees

6. His patience

7. His ability to make me smile when it's the furthest thing from my mind

Seven things I say most often

1. Nice

2. Whatever you wanna do

3. I love You

4. I'm just in a weird mood

5. I'm sorry

6. Yeah, that's cool

7. Dammit, i knew i forgot something

Seven books I love

1. Interview with the Vampire

2. Beauty's Punishment

3. Watership Down

4. Eragon

5. Harry Potter (any of them)

6. Wizard's First Rule

7. Dragon's Blood

Seven movies I would watch over and over

1. Lord of the Rings

2. Pulp Fiction

3. Under Siege

4. Robin Hood Prince of Thieves

5. The Princess Bride

6. 300

7. Pirates of the Carribean

Seven people I want to join in... I'm not tagging anyone specific, so if you've read it, consider yourself tagged. *winks*

Funny

2008-06-10T15:57:00.001-04:00

Q: How many women with PMS does it take to change a light bulb?

A: One!!! ONLY ONE!!!!

And do you know WHY? Because no one else in this house knows HOW to change a light bulb! They don't even know that the bulb is BURNED OUT!! They'd sit there in the dark for THREE DAYS before they figured it out!! And, once they figured it out, they wouldn't be able to find the light bulbs despite the fact they've been in the SAME CUPBOARD for the past 13 YEARS! But if they did, by some miracle of God, actually find the bulbs, 2 DAYS LATER, the chair they dragged to stand on to change the STUPID light bulb would STILL BE IN THE SAME SPOT!!!!! AND UNDERNEATH IT WOULD BE THE WRAPPER THE STUPID LIGHT BULBS CAME IN!!! BECAUSE NO ONE EVER CARRIES OUT THE GARBAGE!!!! IT'S A WONDER WE HAVEN'T ALL SUFFOCATED FROM THE PILES OF GARBAGE THAT ARE A FOOT DEEP THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE HOUSE!! IT WOULD TAKE AN ARMY TO CLEAN THIS DARN HOUSE!

I'm sorry. What was your question?

new job

2008-06-09T14:31:00.002-04:00

No, I haven't gotten a new job yet, but I dropped off an application today for a place called Brookhaven Retreat. As far as I know, it's a place that houses women who have been victims of abusive relationships and right down the road from there is another place (can't remember the name) that has a connection with Brookhaven, but deals more with housing children. I've applied for a housekeeping job that's supposed to pay like $10.50 an hour plus benefits. So keep your fingers crossed for me.

If I don't get that, it's probably off to Food City or some such thing. But, I heard that they start at around $7.50 an hour which is a pretty big pay cut from what I'm making now...although, it would be full time and I'd still get benefits.

I'd just rather have the housekeeping position.

Camping

2008-06-02T10:21:00.002-04:00

Well, camping was interesting, to say the least.

D and I left around 2pm or so and got to the campsite around 3:30. It only took us about 30 minutes to set everything up and then we went driving down the road to look for some more wood. We'd brought some with, but knew we'd need more. D was able to bring his dad's small chainsaw so that made it tons better than the other times we've gone.

We got back with around 7 big logs and a bunch of smaller stuff to fuel the fire. Basically the rest of the day was just sitting around drinking beers and playing with the fire. We weren't really motivated to do anything major for dinner so we just put together a cold sandwich and had cheetos with them. A little bit later D decided that we should go driving so he tossed me the keys. I was a bit nervous, but it was pretty late by then so it was almost guaranteed there'd be no other cars on the road. I drove us around for close to an hour and then headed back to the campsite for bed.

The next morning we got up and stoked the fire again. We'd brought some breakfast-type food (even though neither of us really eat breakfast). While D toasted bread and Cajun roast beef on the griddle, I mixed up bacon in scrambled eggs (with some of the camping spice he made). We made sandwiches out of everything using the toast and put some cheese on it...and again had cheetos with it. :-)

Probably around 10am or so we decided to take a short nap, but ended up not waking up until close to 4pm. We sat around for a couple more hours and decided that we'd need some more smaller stuff to keep the fire going. It was getting close to dark so we put together hobo dinners and stuck them in the cooler while we headed out. I drove again and it was quite different in the daylight. Still didn't meet any other vehicles so that was good.

We cooked up hobo dinners close to 9pm or so and they were oh so delish.

I don't know if I've mentioned what hobo dinners are, but they're really easy to make. It's ground it's around 1/3 lb. ground beef, one apple, 1-1/2 small potatoes, about 1/2 of a large onion, like 1-2 handfulls of sliced carrots, and a very small amount of butter. You wrap all that in aluminum foil and cook over the embers (or coals) for around 25 minutes each side. So that was our dinner that night.

I wanna say we crashed close to 11pm, but I just couldn't fall asleep. It was really stuffy in the tent and I just couldn't get comfortable. I think I'd just fallen asleep for maybe a half hour or so when I was woken up by some idiots driving by our camp and honking their horn. We'd left the puppy off her lead for the night so D worried she was in the road and not moving. When he went to check on her, she was laying by the back of our truck so it turned out they were just being stupid (probably drunk). They drove by like 2 more times and the last time actually started pulling into the campsite. D grabbed his pistol and got dressed, but by the time he got out there they were gone. He thinks they were some locals that decided to camp last minute on a Saturday night and were pissed to find someone in "their" usual camp spot. Needless to say neither of us felt much like trying to go back to sleep. When D checked the time it was 3am.

We again stoked up the fire, made some coffee, and sat around trying to wake up. We'd decided that once it got light out we'd made burgers, but probably close to 5:45-6:00 we noticed flashing in the sky. We watched it for a bit, thinking it might be just heat lightning, but when the thunder started we figured that at the very least we could pack up the tent (since we were leaving later that day anyways) and be ready in case it did start raining. It was a good thing because pretty much just as we got the tent loaded it started lightly sprinkling and the thunder was getting louder.

Everything was packed up and we were on the road by 6:30...and got to laugh at all the other poor saps who hadn't been up for 3 hours already and had to pack up in the rain.

We got back home close to 7:30, took showers, stayed up for a couple more hours and ate, then crashed until about 4pm.

Overall it was a fun experience. I didn't get to operate the chainsaw (which was fine by me), but I got pretty damn adept at using the axe and machetes. It was good cuz it gave D more of a chance to relax and not have to get up every few minutes to tend the fire.

I'm definitely looking forward to the next trip, but I'll be fine if it doesn't happen for a little while at least. :-)

One more thing

2008-05-29T18:51:00.002-04:00

Something I forgot to mention in my last post...

One of the things my mom got D and I for Christmas was a food smoker. I can't remember the brand off the top of my head, but it's very cool.

Last night D and I used it for the first time and made Salmon steaks in it. We added a little bit of salt, pepper, and dill weed and it only took about 15 minutes to cook. It was oh so tasty...the best fish I've ever had I dare say. We made brown rice and a vegetable medley with sugar snap peas, red pepper, and potatoes as go withs.

So...yeah...thanks mom! :-)

New things

2008-05-29T16:03:00.002-04:00

Well, it's been over a month since I last posted, but not too many things have been going on. The main thing has been that D and I have gotten our downstairs "kitchen" useable.

After getting all of his dad's stuff out of there we brought down our microwave, toaster oven, and other odds and ends. We cleaned out the dresser we've been storing down there, put contact paper down and that's now our dishes/dry goods "cabinet" and it works pretty dang well. After that, D got our new sink hooked up in the bathroom down there. It's very big and very deep...more like a sink you'd find in a workshop or something, but it's awesome and we've been doing a fairly good job of keeping it dish free.

After all that it was time to get the oven hooked up. D's dad helped A LOT. What was supposed to be a 2 hour job, though, turned into a 7 hour job. We just kept hitting roadblock after roadblock. But, 7 hours and 3 trips to Lowe's later, we got it in (and had baked potatoes that night). And the very next day made homemade pizza (on a premade crust).

So, after doing all of that, D and I realized that we were fast running out of freezer space for meat and leftovers and such and decided that, instead of setting up office space down there, we moved the desk out that we'd been using and moved our old deep freeze in. Now we've got about 10+ pounds of meat in it, frozen vegetables, a frozen pizza, extra bread, etc. etc.

I guess the next step is to get the leak fixed in our upstairs shower.

Change of topic:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
D has decided to get rid of his land surveying business. The housing market is steadily dropping off and there just isn't enough work to be had for one person trying to build a business. So he's been looking at getting a full-time job somewhere. Nothing is for sure yet, but he's been looking on Monster.com and so far has found about 9 different jobs (using his surveying license in some form or other) in Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Las Vegas, and Colorado. So the ways it's looking, if that's the route he decides to go, it'll involve us moving.

I'm looking to find a new job as well in the meantime. I'm just so over Lowe's and there's no chance of me getting full-time work there and I'm needing the hours and benefits. It would've been nice since, y'know, I already work there. But it's not happening.

Um...what else...oh, we're going camping tomorrow! Yay!! We were gonna go last weekend, but being Memorial weekend we would've likely had to drive all the way into NC to find a spot and D's truck is still acting up. But, surprise surprise, I was given a morning shift tomorrow and Saturday and Sunday off so he's gonna try and get the truck all loaded and ready while I'm at work and then we'll grab a quick bite for lunch and we're off. It's supposed to be around 80 degrees tomorrow so I see some river swimming in the plans.

That reminds me, I need to finish washing dishes and getting the laundry ready to pack. And I'm already starting to feel like a new mom leaving the baby with a sitter for the first time. I tried to convince D to let us take the Calli kitten with and get a harness for her, but she's still too young and scared of the outdoors. But, his sister-in-law has four cats so she's gonna feed Calli while we're gone.

That's all for now.

Ciao

Update

2008-04-11T10:12:00.002-04:00

Just an icebreaker (heh, irony just realized) to this post... it's been at least 65 degrees here for the past two weeks. :-)

Anyway, about a week or so after my family visit, D's and my refridgerator went out. Thankfully we hadn't just made a big shopping trip, but the food we did lose still hurt. Interestingly enough, as we were parked outside the bank, ready to withdraw money for a new fridge, D got a call from his dad saying that D's aunt had a co-worker with an old fridge they were giving away. They delivered it from over an hour away. Completely incredible considering we were about to spend $500+ dollars on one.

Other than that, things have been pretty low-key around here. Work has been pretty steady for D and I've got a small increase in my hours at Lowe's. I'm still not liking it there very much, but there's not much else I can do right now. But, all in all, it's cool being able to work with enough time to help D out with the stuff he has to do.

Oh, one of the boxes of my stuff that my mom brought down turned out to be my Audiovox 5-disc changer. We've been without a stereo in the room for almost a year when D's surround sound went out. We borrowed a couple speakers from one of his brothers and have it working perfectly now. It'll be nice not having to have the tv on to listen to a cd now (have been using the dvd player when desperate).

Um...what else...another thing my mom brought down was a GT Xpress 101. I thought it was just a sandwich maker like what I grew up having...y'know, the square spaces just big enough for a full slice of bread sandwich and then it crimps the bread and makes it into a pocket of sorts. This one...not like that, but WAY cooler. We haven't done a ton of things in it so far and you can only do a half sandwich at a time if two people are eating but it's so incredible. The first couple times we used it we made roast beef sandwiches with onion, green pepper, and swiss cheese (yummy!). Then last night we made what I guess could be called chicken quesadillas. We'd had chicken left-over grilled chicken so we sliced that up, put onions on it, and cheese (D had swiss and I used american cheese). The second ones had bacon added and were oh so delicious.

I'm really wanting to try omelets in there, but we have yet to make another trip to the store for ham and shredded cheese. Oh the possibilities of this wonderful invention. *grins*

Pictures on flickr

2008-04-03T22:32:00.003-04:00

I finally posted the pictures from our Cade's Cove trip while the fam was here. It's a scenic route kinda drive in a part of the Smoky Mt. National Park. So...enjoy. Here's the link again if you weren't able to find it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22373699@N05/

Forgot to mention...

2008-04-03T08:53:00.002-04:00

I got a new phone and local number while my fam was here. So...if by some stretch of the imagination someone wanted to call me at my old number, they'd reach my sister...not me.

I'm all localfied now. :-D

Prolly a long post

2008-03-30T12:43:00.000-04:00

I'll try to make this as "nutshell-like" as possible, but there was a lot that went on this past week.

So...my mom and I had it planned to where she, my sister, and brother would come down for a visit. Well, the week before it was supposed to go down, she called and said it wouldn't work due to owing money for taxes and that it would have to be pushed back to the summertime. I was understandably dissapointed, but since they weren't coming down I decided that our cleaning on the room could wait a little bit longer.

As it worked out, mom called the Thursday before they had been planning the trip and said that she decided to come on down anyway. :-) *squeal* I was so excited that the reality of all the cleaning that needed to be done didn't hit for a while. Then I realized that what D and I had had a week to do, now had to be crammed into three days of intensive work. But we got it done and D was a huge help. I was scheduled to work Friday and Saturday night so he continued cleaning Friday night on his own and I ended up calling in on Saturday because there was still so much to do.

Anyway, after about an 18 hour drive (minus a nap and pit stops) they arrived. D and I met them at the motel and hung out for a bit, but it was pretty late.

Everyone got together Sunday afternoon for Easter dinner/lunch. It was nervewracking for both D and I to say the least. I know that probably sounds bad, but you have to understand...family meeting family for the first time after I've already lived here for almost 2 years... with his family already having developed their view of who I was... But it turned out very well. At the end of the evening it was D, his mom, my family, and me talking in the livingroom. I think that is the longest time to date that D and I have spent in the house during a family gathering. Those of you who know me know that I'm not by nature a social person...this visit definitely pushed the limits of that (in a good way).

The next day was shopping day. And again...the longest time I've EVER spent shopping and even though it was fun, it was a little bit more fun than I ever want to have again. 7 hours (not counting drive and meal time) of shopping is about 5.5 hours more than I spend on a good day. It was mom, Amy, Giggy (D's mom), and I. We left their motel at about 10:30am and got back about 7pm. My feet haven't been that sore from just walking and shopping for years. But, like I said, it was cool. I got a Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt, some socks for D, and a few other goodies that were just for the fun of it.

Tuesday was mainly just a hang out day. The fam came over while D was out working and we watched I Am Legend. I'd already seen it but had no problem whatsoever watching it again. It's that good. D picked up Buddy's BBQ for lunch on his way home and we all hung out for a little bit longer before they all went back to the motel at around 6:30 or so.

On Wednesday... D, my fam, and I drove up to a place called Cade's Cove in Townsend, TN. We took both my mom's and my car (me with mom and Amy and brother Matt with D). It tickled me to no end hearing their ooohs and ahhhs while we were still on the backroads driving there. I think I took around 54 pictures (which will be posted on my flickr page soon), but I'm sure mom and Amy took close to 100 each.

After Cade's Cove we drove to a place called Lookout Rock. We stayed in the main parking area which had an amazing view in itself, but there was also a .5 mile path that went up to the actual overlook area. With my mom's asthma and such, we didn't end up going on that trail, but D and I are planning on doing that within the next week or so. We ended the night with Pizza Hut in the house with D's parents.

Thursday, Mom picked me up with her other urchins and we went to Big Lots. I got a few things and she bought some stuff for her townhouse. It was another long shopping trip (about 5 hours or so) which ended in a get together of sorts with burgers for dinner. It was their last night in town so everyone said their goodbyes. D and I were meeting them for breakfast in the morning, but it was still kind of a sad time.

We met up at Cracker Barrel around 9:45, ate and shopped a little bit in their store, and said our goodbyes around noon. Like I said above, they got home safely around 4am. :-)

My mom's wantin' to come down in the fall for the leaf changes and D and I are talking about visiting up there for Christmas, but it's still all up in the air for now.

We didn't get to do all the things we wanted, but there are definitely gonna be more visits. I miss 'em too much for there not to be. :-)

Well, guess that's all for now...like I said, I'll be posting a ton of pictures on Flickr. The link is in a fairly recent past post if yer wantin' it.

Ciao

Visit from the fam

2008-03-29T13:00:00.001-04:00

I haven't really had a whole lot of time to post before now, but my mom, sister, and brother came down for a visit this past week. In fact, I think they made it home around 4 o'clock this A.M (central time).

I promise I'll post more on it later, but I'm heading out right now and have to work tonight. So...laters.

Yesterday was a good day

2008-03-19T14:31:00.000-04:00

Early yesterday evening D and I were sitting out on the deck and he started singing American Pie by Don McLean. We decided to find it on youtube and sang along with it. He ended up finding another video someone had made with information on the meaning behind the song.

I never really understood who he was talking about, but according to the person that made the video (and Wikipedia), McLean was talking primarily about the plane crash in '59 that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper. When I was growing up, I'd thought that Buddy Holly had taken the Big Bopper's place on the plane, but turned out that it was one of Holly's band members (guitarist I think) that lost the coin toss and had to ride the bus. Guess who....... None other than Waylon Jennings.

Anyway, that was just an interesting tidbit of info. I found out.

D and I ended up listening to music again last night for about 4 hours or so. I'd talked to one of his brothers about a guy named Mark Knopfler. I haven't really thought I'd like him because the brother described him as lighter than the stuff I normally listen to. What I didn't realize was that he composed the entire soundtrack to The Princess Bride. In addition, D played me some Dire Straits (of which he's the lead singer/composer) and I really liked it. Unfortunately that means I've gotta kind of eat my words and tell the brother that I do in a way, sort of like Mark Knopfler.

But regardless of that...I do not want my MTV.

Snow? In Tennessee??

2008-02-27T13:45:00.000-05:00

Yup, that's right. It started late last night and continued on into this morning. It's stopped at the moment, but we're supposed to be getting more later this afternoon. At the moment we've gotten about 2 inches. There are a couple more pics on my dreammaster1984 flickr account that show the snow.

The above picture is the sight that greeted me when I stepped out on the deck this morning. That's the view of the yard between where D and I live and his Papaw's old house where his brother and sister-in-law live now.

I've been waiting for this for the last year and a half! :-) I just hope we get more.

South Minneapolis visits South Knoxville

2008-02-22T02:25:00.000-05:00

D and I were heading to a little diner/gas station here for a bite of dinner before going to Taylor's to bottle the beer. As we pulled into the parking lot, I saw a cop car, but didn't think much of it until I noticed that the only open spot was next to another cop car. Odd, but no big.

We sat there for a minute seeing it was crowded and debating on going somewhere else when a guy that had been standing around came and knocked on the window.

Apparently (and I got the real version later on), an 18 year old guy ran into his girlfriend's ex-husband. Whatever happened it made him come to the diner (where we were going and where the girlfriend works) with a gun. He threatened a customer with the gun, but somehow it was gotten away from him. He then went out to his vehicle, came back in, and cut his own throat. In the version we heard originally, the guy died, but he ended up getting rushed to the hospital and the cut was non-life threatening.

But when we got there, they had the whole place locked down and as we were leaving yet another cop car pulled in.

It's crazy because Taylor's wife never goes there and she just happened to stop there probably an hour or so before this went on.

But, D and I are obviously alright and no one but the kid got hurt.

On another topic, we got the first 5 gallons of beer bottled. We've got 2 more 5 gallon buckets to bottle, but it got too late to finish tonight so we're gonna go back over there tomorrow.

I didn't taste any of what we've made yet, but Taylor found a couple bottles of beer he'd made like a year ago. It does end up going bad so I was a little hesitant to drink any, but I did and it tasted oh so delicious. :-)

Well, that was my night.

P.S. to the previous post

2008-02-21T13:57:00.000-05:00

If I told you Lynyrd Skynyrd made me cry, would you believe me?

Cuz they did. :-p

Expanding horizons

2008-02-21T12:48:00.000-05:00

Okay so maybe that's a little dramatic, but I couldn't think of anything better for a subject line.

One really awesome thing about D and I is that occasionally we'll get into a particular mood and will end up spending hours just listening to different music. That's how I learned to really like Pink Floyd, Billy Joel, (I already liked The Eagles, but hadn't heard much of them), and Tool (among various other artists).

So anyway, a couple nights ago, D and I had another music session. Mainly it was Metallica and Lynyrd Skynyrd. I'd already heard Metallica a bit and own the Garage Inc. 2 disc set, but I didn't realize just how much I'd missed out on. Mainly, Metallica's Black album. Holy... Did you know they sold around 22 million copies of that cd?

D found a lyrics site online so we were able to read the lyrics as the cd played and oh my word. No wonder parents thought they were a bad influence. *grins* Lars has kickass guitar solos by the way. :-)

So I've found a new appreciation and liking for Metallica's music. Last night I listened to Master of Puppets by them while playing battlegrounds in World of Warcraft. Muy Bueno! Oh so much fun. By the way, Metallica ended up doing a concert using the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Oh. My. God. It's so...just wow. I'm planning on either getting the dvd or the cd for D's birthday. He used to have the dvd, but it got borrowed and never returned. :-(

Oh, and I grew up knowing about the whole deal of people holding up lighters at concerts, but never understood why or what started it. Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird. Very, very good song. Incredible group. Junkie is a pretty interesting song, too and I like Tuesday's Gone.

Anyway, so I'm slowly but surely expanding my musical tastes. It's quite the experience.

In other news, something I forgot to mention back when it started. It's probably been close to a month ago now. D and I got invited over to his friend's (Taylor) house. Taylor and D used to work together and still keep closely in touch with each other. Anyway, D and Taylor also like to brew beer. D and I had done it once back in like August of last year, but haven't really had the means to do it since. Taylor is a brewing fiend so he had a ton of stuff to play around with.

So, D and I went over there and helped with the brewing while Taylor made us and his family homemade pizza (right down to homemade dough). Every time D and I would step outside for a minute and come back in, the house would be filled with the nutty, chocolatey smell of the beer we were making. And, hopefully tonight is when we'll be going over there to bottle it up. Unfortunately I think it's still gotta sit in the bottles for another week or so before it'll be good to drink. And, if I remember correctly, we'll be getting about 80 20oz bottles of the stuff (that's only about 1/3 of what we made). I'm soooooo excited!

We were supposed to go over there last Sunday, but D and I were right in the middle of our icky sicky time and so were Taylor and his kids. Oh well, what can ya do?

I'll let y'all know how the beer tastes. :-)

Ciao

Sickness

2008-02-18T12:32:00.000-05:00

It's been going around. One of the girls I work with went home early on tuesday having flu stuff going on. D got sick tuesday night and on into wednesday and a little on thursday. Two more people I work with went home early on Friday. Then I got it Saturday morning. I started feeling nauseous about 20 min. before having to be at work, but it was obviously too late to call in and I didn't really think too much about it, but it just got worse after being there for about an hour.

By the time I got out of there at noon I was seriously out of it. I'd already emptied my stomach once while at work, but there were no extra people so I had to stay. D and I picked up a few things at the grocery store on the way home and then it was straight to bed for me. I'd gotten some gatorade after work to replenish all the fluids and nutrients I was losing and it, and water, were the only things I could keep down.

At the risk of TMI, here's a tip: If you're throw-uppy sick...fruit punch gatorade is the best thing to drink because it makes everything taste like fruit punch on the way back up.

So...yeah. The last few days have been hell for D and me health-wise...oh...and this place is a wreck. But, we had burgers last night and I was able to keep it all down so I think I'm about to kick this thing. Yay...just in time for work tonight. :-p

Tornadoes

2008-02-08T11:36:00.000-05:00

In reply to a previous comment about the tornadoes here, D and I are doing just fine. The tornado (was there more than one?) hit in the Memphis area which is on the SW tip of TN...Knoxville, where D and I are is much further NE thankfully so we just got a bit of rain and some pretty wicked winds, but nothing to be concerned about. Heck, it didn't even rain as much as I wanted it to. Guess I shouldn't complain too much considering like 55 people were killed by that tornado.

So...yeah...we're just peachy here.

In other weather news, it's been hovering between about 40 and 50+ degrees here for the past week. It's supposed to get back down to the mid-30s to low 40s I think, but still...not that I'm bragging or anything. :-p

Newer update on the puppy

2008-02-08T10:09:00.000-05:00

For those who have inquired, the puppy is doing just fine. We've got her back out using her underground fence again and realized last night that she'd gone off running. Her running off for a while isn't as big of a deal as it was before since now she's updated on her shots and such.

As far as the coon, it didn't fare so well. It ended up dying about a week or so after the fight. Animal Control was supposed to pick it up, but they never came and got it. As far as I know, it's still sitting in the cat carrier out back of the smokehouse. You'd think, if a domestic animal gets in a fight with a wild critter, they'd be all over that.

Anywho, I knew if I didn't get this written now, I'd forget. I'm still half asleep and am gonna go drink coffee now.

Peace out

Update on puppy

2008-01-16T13:00:00.000-05:00

So, yesterday D dropped me at work and then took the puppy to the vet. I would much rather have gone with him instead of sitting at work wondering what was going on. But, at about 5:30 or so D called and said that everything checked out alright and the vet didn't seem too concerned about rabies or anything.

We've still got the coon in a cat carrier so we're keeping an eye on both it and the puppy for a while. The coon seemed really sluggish yesterday and the day before so D and I are thinking it's probably sick, but the sister-in-law thinks it might be a momma about to have pups. She'd found evidence of a next in a brush pile at the back of the property, but no babies in it. I guess it could be a possibility that the coon is pregnant, but that still doesn't explain why it was out in the day time. The only two reasons are that it's a momma just had her pups and gone out to find food or it's sick. Since there weren't any baby coons in the nest, I'm leaning more towards the sick option. But, we'll just have to wait and see.

Uh ohs

2008-01-15T15:56:00.000-05:00

For those of you who might have visited my flickr page yesterday, you would've found out that our puppy treed a coon early in the afternoon. I'd heard her barking and howling like she will when she sees someone she knows or has found something she wants D and I to come check out. D was out working so I poked my head out the door and didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

I'd been doing some laundry so I went downstairs to put the clothes in the dryer (we've gotta go down the deck stairs outside and then back inside downstairs) and the puppy was all hoppy-jumpy-happy down near the closest tree in the yard. She'd run over to me and then back to the tree. I looked up at it, but from the angle I was looking I couldn't see anything.

Anyway, D got home and told me that the puppy had a raccoon trapped up in the tree. Hence, the pictures.

Well, she must've pissed it off, making it sit in the tree for hours in the cold because sometime during the night it came back. D got up early to go out working and when I got up a couple hours later he'd told me that the puppy had gotten in a fight with the coon.

I didn't see it, but D found it. He said it looked the same size at the other so we just figured it was the same one. When he found it, it was just laying in the yard so he went over to check on the puppy and she yelped when he touched her ear so he knew she was hurt.

After D and his sister-in-law got it in a cat carrier to cart it off, we brought the puppy inside to clean her up. All the marks she got had been bleeding so she had a bunch of caked blood in and on one of her ears, a scratch on the side of her muzzle, one above her eye, and what looked more like a puncture wound than a scratch on the top of her nose.

Unfortunately the puppy isn't up to date on her rabies so we're a bit worried about that. D is taking her to the vet after he drops me at work so hopefully that'll take care of things.

Ironically, yesterday evening when the raccoon still wasn't gone, D talked about shooting it. If it really was the same one that tore her up, I wish we had followed through on that thought process.

And now a word from our sponsor

2008-01-09T19:00:00.000-05:00

I thought, in the spirit of Buddah Pest's blog, that I'd let our new kitty Calli say a few words.

Hi big people. As my mommy told you, they say my name is Calli. The big people at the place I stayed before mommy and daddy got me called me Christin, but I think I like Calli much better. I'm actually starting to pay attention a little when they say my name. Although, right now, I'm not sure if my name is Calli or Calli-no.

Mommy and daddy say that my personality is starting to come out in a big way. I admit that I was really shy when I first got here. My favorite place was under the bed and mommy seemed to know that if she couldn't see me anywhere, that's where I was. She was really nice and let me stay there, but sometimes daddy would pull me out and set me on the bed. It seemed mean at first because I always went back under the bed, but it's not really so bad. And, once I was sure mommy and daddy were keeping me and that there was nothing out there that would eat me up, I got quite a bit braver. Now the only time I'm under the bed is for nap time. Oh, and daddy still sometimes pulls me out even when I've just been sleeping.

Now, a couple of my favorite places is on daddy's or mommy's lap while they sit in front of the computers (I think that's what mommy called it). They sit there for a long time and they don't mind if I sit with them for as long as I want. I like it because I can watch while they make things move on the screen. I tried jumping at it once, but daddy got mad and put me on the floor. It made me sad for a minute, but then I found out how fun it was to play with the string on daddy's jacket. He didn't seem to mind that as much.

The one thing that this kitty isn't quite sure about yet is that big, white, furry thing that lives outside. Sometimes she comes in, but that's when I go back to my under-the-bed hiding spot. It's WAYYYYY too big to be a kitty so I think it's like those other non-kitties at the place I was at before. I got a little brave last night and went outside with mommy and daddy. I walked around on the big wooden thing outside the door where the non-kitty was laying. I even went as close as two of me put together...but then she moved and I got scared and ran back inside. She doesn't act like she's gonna eat me up, but I'm still not gonna get any closer to that mouth full of teeth. It looks big enough to swallow me in one gulp.

Oh and I found out that I have uncles at my mommy's mommy's house.... three of them; Uncle Buster, Uncle Rocky, and Uncle Dizzy. I hope I can meet them one day.

Well, I think I'm gonna go run around the room some more. Say hi to all your kitties for me.

Pictures

2008-01-02T11:49:00.000-05:00

I finally got all the recent pictures I've taken off of my digital camera and onto my computer. Note the new icon. :-)

We used to have that huge spider living on a huge web under the eave of our building. What he's eating is a huge flying grasshopper. These things were quite abundant up at that cabin D rented for our anniversary.

Anywho, I realized how much space it'd take up to put photos here, so I went to the trouble of making a flickr account. Why not? Everyone's doing it. *giggles*

So here's the website: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22373699@N05/

I realize this isn't the best time to get back into the habit of taking pictures with it getting so dang nippy out, but we'll see what happens.

Warning: Potentially Long Post

2007-12-24T09:27:00.000-05:00

I don't know if I've ever wanted the Christmas season to be over as much as I have this year. A big part of it I think is that this is the first year I've worked in retail during this time. It bites... I had to open Saturday morning and from 7am until about 9:45 it was as dead as dead could be. There were maybe a dozen or so people that came through the checkouts. Anyway, one minute there were maybe 2 people in line at other registers and before I knew it all four of the self-checkouts (where I usually work) were being used and there were about 3 people waiting in line. Plus, there were 3-4 people at the other three registers that were open (one of which was being run by a non-cashier person). I swear, I didn't get to stand still for more than 2 seconds from then until I left at 12:15. Glad that's over anyway...I'm off now until the day after Christmas.

On the upside, I already know what D is getting me for Christmas. We picked her out last Friday and get to take her home today. :-) Curious yet?

After that hectic few hours of work Sat. morning, D picked me up and asked if I could hold off on lunch for a bit. I asked him what was up, but he wouldn't tell me. We ended up at an animal shelter in downtown Knoxville. He knows how much I love animals and I thought we were just gonna look around. We went in and the lady at the counter asked what she could help us with. D pipes up and says, "We're looking to adopt a kitten." Say what?! I just looked at him open-mouthed.

I'd had my heart set on getting a boy kitten, but the only one there was a 9wk old girl kitten. D and I sat in a private room with her for about a half-hour after which we decided she was the one. :-) Adoption fees included her shots and getting spayed so that's why we couldn't bring her home that day. But....*drumroll*....we're picking her up today at 4pm. Yay!

D and I have been toying around with names (which is really hard when you've only spent 45 min. with the furball...hey that's a good name), but I think I've kinda settled on Lucy......or Jasmine.

If I ever get all the pictures downloaded off my camera, I'll try to put a picture up of her.

In other news, one of D's brothers has come back into town for dinner this evening and then I think we're doing presents in the morning.

Think that's about it....is it 4 o'clock yet? :-p

2007-12-13T08:28:00.000-05:00

Well apparently some people think that when I don't blog for two months I might've met with a tragically horrific and very untimely death. Obviously not the case people. *grins*

My time has been pretty occupied as of late. I'm getting about 20 hours a week now at work and doing a little bit of training/helping new cashiers here and there. But y'know what I don't get? Okay so they had to cut all the part-time people down to practically nothing for a few weeks because they over-hired and couldn't cover it in the budget. Now that we're getting busier again and starting to get our hours back...they hire even MORE people. That's crap to me right there.

Anyway, D and I are still in process of remodeling the downstairs. We've had a couple setbacks recently so it got put on hold. But...we've gotten the bathroom completely painted and all that's left in there is to drill a hole in the bottom of the vanity cabinet to fit over the piping and voila...finished! Well, almost but not quite. We still need to do almost everything in the main room, but we've gotten all the crap out of there and gotten our dining table and oven in. I'm sooooo looking forward to being able to cook and...*gasp*...bake again.

Well, that's about it. As little as is going on, it still doesn't seem like I have enough time in the day.

Oh, and Christmas is only 12 days away.........but that's another post that I may or may not make in the next two months. :-p

Various things

2007-10-22T13:49:00.000-04:00

In work related news, I'm having to make the decision as to whether to increase my hours at Lowe's to full-time, find another part-time job while still working at Lowe's, or find a job I like better and try and get on full-time there. Problem is, due to budget constraints at Lowe's (why they've cut my hours enough to force me into this decision making process in the first place) even if I asked to be made full-time it probably wouldn't go into effect for at least a couple more weeks. And, I'm not sure what else I'd want to do. There's a daycare near here that's hiring full-time people, but I haven't figured out if I wanna go that route or not.

Other than that, there's not much going on. One of D's brothers, his wife (Lisa), and their kids have moved out here to "the old homestead". There's a few acres of land here where D's parents and Poppy's (D's dad) sister-in-law live. D and I are in the guest building behind the parent's house and and then a few months ago, while they remodel or sell their house, the brother's family moved into the house that Poppy's parents lived in . I thought I'd have a harder time of it since I haven't really spent much time around them and there's been some tension between me and Lisa (long story). But it's been pretty cool. D, Lisa, and I have hung out here and at their place quite a bit and the other night Lisa, the kids, and I went to Walmart to do some shopping. That stressed me a little cuz the youngest is a complete chatterbox, but it was still cool. It was quite interesting having both her and the teenager asking my advice on jewelry and nail polish. It's funny because that is sooooo not me, but they seemed to accept it. I felt oddly Aunt-ish. *grins*

Anyway, I think D and I are headed out to do some work stuffs so I better keep this short. That's really all that's going on anyway. :-)

Camping Trip!!

2007-10-08T16:29:00.000-04:00

D and I got back yesterday from our first couples camping trip. It was an experience to say the least. Our friends Pat and Becca were there, then Pat's sister-in-law and her son, and Becca's sister and her husband came. D and I got there a little after 6pm on Friday and the rest of 'em showed up around 9 or so.

Pat and Becca brought their two dogs and Becca's sister brought hers so our puppy had to deal with that. She wasn't thrilled, but things went better than expected. She only snapped at one of them when he got too close to me wanting some attention. Our puppy is VERY possessive of her people...and she seemed to think everyone there was "her people."

We all mainly just hung out around the fire, but we did go on a hike Saturday afternoon. After the hike D and I stayed at camp while everyone else went to the nearby lake to go swimming. Just before they left, as I was sitting at the fire, I felt this weird sting/burn on my arm. I thought that some embers from my cigarette had fallen and burned my arm when I layed it down on my lap although there wasn't any mark on my arm. Within a few seconds it started itching really bad and a bump the size of a nail head popped up on my arm. It could still have been a burn but it was hard and still itched. I showed it to D and a couple others and they figured it was something called a Sweat Bee (never heard of it). They don't usually bite until you try to pick them off or squash 'em. It was gone within about 20 minutes, but it was really weird.

Anyway, it was a pretty uneventful weekend overall, but it was fun. Both of us are definitely looking forward to it happening again soon. In fact, I think we're gonna try and talk Pat and Becca into one more fall camping trip before Becca has her baby.

So, that's what I did this weekend...(and why I didn't reply to your email until now, dad). :-)

Home project

2007-09-18T18:12:00.000-04:00

D and I got the go-ahead yesterday from Poppy (D's dad) to renovate the downstairs portion of the guest building we're living in. :-D

It's gonna involve totally re-doing the ceiling, tiling the floor, painting the walls, fixing a leak from the shower upstairs, putting in a new sink/vanity in the bathroom, and insulating a portion of the wall. The ceiling mainly needs to be done because the last couple times it was drywalled and there was flooding from the shower and pipes upstairs that completely collapsed the ceiling. So, we're gonna do things differently and put a drop ceiling in.

The walls are just drywall and spackle right now so we'll be sanding spots and painting it. I'm thinking blue-ish gray with dark blue sponged/smudged over it. I'll have to repaint it white when D and I move, but no big.

D's got a friend who has a business renovating houses so he's gonna try and get him over here to give us an idea of how much work we have ahead of us.

But, we did get a new vanity/ sink combo yesterday at Lowe's for $80. It was normally about $250 so even without being able to use my discount it's a good deal. It was kinda funny how that happened. We'd gone in there and I asked one of the guys why it had been put on clearance. It's the Lowe's I work at so I'm friends with the guy. It was originally marked down to like $190 or something. M, the guy I work with, said that it was probably discontinued so they were just trying to get rid of it. He took a look at it and said, "Well, let me make this a little cheaper." He whipped out his Sharpie and said, "There, how's that?" He'd marked it down to the $80. How cool is that? :-)

Anyway, so that's the skinny. Today, involving the downstairs, has been mostly measuring stuff and playing around with the placement on AutoCAD. I'm liking the set-up and we'll even have space to set up our Christmas tree. :-)

Oh, we also priced tile and we figure we can get the whole space tiled for about $250 and my employee discount will pretty much take care of the sales tax on all that.

I'm so excited! *squeals with glee* hehe

2007-09-14T09:05:00.000-04:00

Sharon Stone was on Burn Notice last night.

This has been another...useless fact.

Trivia

2007-08-28T13:02:00.000-04:00

Can anyone guess what this is from?

Yo, the name is Batty

The logic is erratic

Potato in a jacket

Toys in the attic

I rock and I ramble

My brain is scrambled

Rap like an animal but I'm a mammal

I been brain-fried, electrified, infected and injectified

Vivosectified and fed pesticides

My face is all cut up

Cos my radar's all shut up

Nurse I need a check-up from the neck up, I'm Batty

2007-08-28T12:57:00.000-04:00

D and I got back from vacation a little before 11am yesterday. That's how these people screw you...check-in isn't until 3pm and check-out is at 10am.

Anyway, the trip was awesome. We got there exactly at 3 and were in the hottub within about 5 minutes after unpacking our food stuffs. We hadn't even taken the suitcase into the bedroom (we didn't even decide which room we wanted to sleep in until actual bed time).

We just kinda putzed around the first day...in and out of the hottub, finished watching the movie Black Snake Moan (very cool movie btw), and I relaxed in the jacuzzi while he watched some tv. And my oh my was that bed ever comfortable. I've realized that the bed we have now, while cushy and comfy, is a little too cushy for my back. I had hardly any pain in my back when I'd wake up in the morning while we were there.

So, on Sunday, our friends Pat and Becca came up. They're so incredibly cool. Becca is hilarious and had me in stitches most of the time. I almost spewed the beer I was drinking when she said something off the wall, which I can't even remember now. *shrugs* I also had my first experience with moonshine. Becca had gotten some from a guy she used to work with so we all (with the exception of Becca, since she's preggo and all) partook of that wicked brew. I'd had a shot of vodka and got a nice little buzz off of it, but that moonshine knocked me on my butt.

They were debating on staying the night, but Pat had to be up for work in the morning so they decided to go back.

On a side note...my stomach didn't hurt the whole weekend. It felt a little funny Monday morning, but went away fairly soon. Unfortunately, the pain is somewhat back. It hurt off and on Monday and today so I'm pretty sure most of what's going on is stress related. I mean, if I had ulcers it wouldn't really matter whether I was stressed out or not at any particular time...it'd just hurt, right? And, if it was gall stone related, it'd be the same, correct?

But, anyways, after we got back yesterday we stopped over at Pat and Becca's so I could borrow the latest and last :-( Harry Potter book. D has to be out most of the afternoon and I can't go so I'm gonna see how much I can knock out while he's gone.

In other news, did you hear that Owen Wilson apparently attempted suicide yesterday?

It's been a while...

2007-08-17T12:59:00.000-04:00

For those of you who do read this, sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been feeling constantly sick (no I'm not pregnant) for the past couple months so I haven't really wanted to interact with anyone but D. Unfortunately, being the faithful employee I am (*snorts*), I still have to go to work and interact with people. It's hard enough being social with strangers and co-workers when one is not very social to begin with, but add to that being in constant pain and discomfort...it's very exhausting.

Sorry for the lack of details about being sick. At this point I'm about as clueless as everyone else as to what's going on in my stomach. The medication I was prescribed hasn't helped. Changing my diet has lessened it all some, but it's still very much a problem. So...yeah.

In other news, D's and my 1 year anniversary is coming up. I moved here August 26th of last year. D told me to see if I could get the Saturday before and the Monday after (I don't ever work on Sunday) off of work so we could rent a cabin for the weekend.

It was really weird how things turned out. The people that rent out the cabins are just brokers for the actual owners of the cabins. Well, the one we reserved had ended up being sold without the broker's knowledge so she had to find a different place for us to stay. The cabin we were gonna get has 2 bedrooms, a livingroom, diningroom, kitchen, 4 person hottub, jacuzzi tub, and a tv/dvd player. We were already getting a deal on that one, but the one we ended up getting bumped up to has all the above with the addition of another bedroom, a second livingroom, and instead of a 4 person hottub it fits 6. I think D said it was like a half million dollar cabin. And we're getting it for $110 a night. :-) How cool is that?

Well, that's about it. I'm going back to the doctor soon. It may end up being before we leave for vacation, but it'll probably be after if nothing crazy bad happens. So maybe I'll have more details then. A couple people have said it sounds like something's wrong with my gallbladder and that's something the doctor was trying to rule out, but we'll just have to wait and see I guess.

Never wanna again

2007-07-05T17:46:00.000-04:00

Last night I thought I was dying. Seriously.

D and I were playing World of Warcraft when all of a sudden it felt like the room raised 20 degrees. My face flushed and I broke out in a sweat and then my vision got all blurry. I was having trouble breathing and my stomach hurt really bad. I swear, I felt like I was dying.

What happened after I had to rely on D to tell me. I do remember pushing away from the computer desk, but then he said that I leaned back in the chair, my eyes rolled up in my head, and I started gasping for breath. My head went to my chest and he had to physically pry my chin up so he could look at me. He said my name a few times and then yelled it a couple times.

The next thing I remember was hearing him yell my name and my vision started clearing a little, but I still couldn't focus. I was soaked in sweat and was really shaky. D told me not to get up, but instead wheeled me (computer chair and all) over to the bed to lay down. He even had to help me stand up because I was so weak.

I was fine within a couple minutes of laying down with the airconditioner a few feet from me. We decided not to go to the E.R. right then since I was feeling better, but to go to the doctor in the morning.

I was still feeling a bit sick this morning, but went to work anyway. I was only there for about a half hour before I started feeling a little lightheaded again and my stomach was hurting. D showed up at work about an hour later because he wanted to check on me since he was still worried (ain't he sweet?) and we decided to see if I could leave early so we could get to a doctor. Unfortunately, all the walk-in clinics and a couple others were either closed or booked up for the day. We ended up at the E.R. around 10:30.

They did an ECG and put me on a heart monitor, but it was all relatively normal. I talked to the doctor for a bit and he came to the conclusion that I have a mild case of GERD (Gastroesophogeal Reflux Disease) which is being caused by an overproduction of stomach acid. The stomach pain in turn made my blood pressure drop, which caused me to pass out. This explains the fact that I've had mild stomach pain and nausea almost every day for the past couple months.

He gave me a prescription for Zantac so hopefully this'll clear up soon and I'll be back to normal. Well...as normal as I am anyway. *winks*

Never, EVER do I want what happened last night to happen again. It's so not fun.

Pains

2007-06-06T16:32:00.000-04:00

Oy, does my shoulder ever hurt. I realized it this morning when I merely picked up my coffee cup and felt an ache in the muscle where my shoulder joins my torso. I told D and he said something along the lines of, "Yup, it's from the shotgun yesterday." I asked if he felt anything, but he didn't since he only shot twice and I shot 7 times. I emptied it of the six cheap shells we got and he only did one of those and another of the 8 shot.

In addition to the six I did I also shot one of the 12 shot shells which is somewhat more powerful than the 8.

I just wish we could shoot more often. The only other time we've done it was back within a couple months of when I moved here. That was all kinds of fun. M...one of D's brothers asked if I really had never shot a gun before because I did really well. He gave his son J, D, and me nicknames of famous gun slingers. :-) It was cool.

Anyway, I think, whenever I'm able to get a carry permit, I'll want to get a regular pistol like D's and also a .357 revolver like the one M has. I really liked it.

So, sufficed to say...my shoulder aches today and I still have little spots where the blood vessels were broken. But I had fun and it's well worth the little bit of pain. :-)

Unfortunately, I think that, along with all the riding in the car yesterday torqued my back a little bit. I've been going to a chiropractor for the last month and have been having better and worse days the last week, but was in so much pain this morning that I could barely function other than to put Biofreeze (similar to Icy Hot) on my back and cry for the first hour or so that I was awake. But, I'm feeling much better now.\

WARNING: Sappy love stuff a' comin'

I can't believe some days how lucky I am that D and I found each other. I got a lot of grief from some people before I moved, but in thinking about it...I mean, how can it be coincidence? Out of the millions of people on the internet, D and I found each other. We click so well. His patience with me is overwhelming at times to where I've even asked him how he puts up with me. His answer to that is always, "I don't put up with you...I love you."

He's just such a fantastic man and I can't believe how lucky I've been. I never thought in a million years that I'd be this happy. He's the best thing that could ever have happened to me.

I used to be so buried in my own self issues that I couldn't see anything good in my life...or if I could it was so outweighed by the bad (or perceived bad). But now...I'm the happiest I've ever been.

The only thing that would make my life absolutely perfect is if I could see my family on a regular basis.

Guns 'n' stuff

2007-06-05T19:10:00.000-04:00

D and I just got done shooting his 12 guage police tactical shotgun at some pizza boxes. Boy does that thing pack a punch. We were planning on doing it Memorial Day and bought some cheapo shells for it, but didn't get around to actually shooting it.

So anyway, I shot three of the cheap shells (mostly used for squirrel and rabbit shooting) and by the end I could tell my left ear was starting to go a bit numb. I had popped quite a few little holes in the box, but when he shot one he totally demolished it...one shot...center mass.

After that I shot one of the 00 Buck Shot that we normally keep in the gun. It was quite a bit more powerful and I ripped a fairly good size hole in the top of the box I was shooting at. Heh, after I shot, I felt a little numb spot on my shoulder where the butt of the gun had been. I looked at it a little later and there were a few tiny blood vessels that had been burst just under the skin.

Anyway, D shot one of those, too and, again, straight center of the box. It was wild to see the little tiny holes in the front of the box and the finger-sized rips where the shot came out the back.

But, cool thing is, I feel a lot more comfortably with my ability to handle the shotgun now. :-)

Unquestioningly updated

2007-05-15T12:12:00.000-04:00

Things are going relatively well here. Derin (correct spelling) is doing well and trying to help me deal with the heat as well as possible. It's been in the mid to upper 80s for the past week+ and I'm realizing more and more that redheads and heat don't mix very well. I've definitely gotten more tan in the past couple months than I think I have at any point in my entire life...even when I was 8 years old and outside for hours and hours at a time. So far haven't gotten sunburned *knock on wood* and it's strange, but, when we're in the car and the sun is shining through the window onto my bare arm, I can actually feel a difference in how hot it is compared to the same situation driving in MN. I definitely see a close bond forming between myself and a bottle of sunscreen this summer.

Work is going well for him. I've been helping him lay out a humongous house. I mean, this place is gonna be so big that it'll have an elevator in it. How eccentric is that? We have one more trip out there and then we're done, but the last trip will be the hardest. Putting over 100 nails into hardened concrete where you can't be off your mark more than a hundreth of an inch of so will make that probably a 3+ hour job.

Our puppy is as sweet and perfect as ever. She likes to snap at the wood bees that fly around her, but yesterday it was some other kind of bee that was hangin' around. D said it was probably a queen wasp or something cuz that thing was huge. What was cool though was that, when the puppy saw it, she knew it wasn't some harmless wood bee and she hopped up, dove into the room through the open door and proceded to stand guard between us and the offending bee. :-) How sweet is that?

Work at Lowe's is going alright. Not too, too many crazy busy days, but I'm sure that'll change once it's consistantly warm and non-rainy. I still get ever so irritated at the people that come in 5 min. before closing and then shop for a half hour, but hey, what can I do? I'm still not officially past my 90 day evaluation period, but they've pretty much just started scheduling me as running the self-checkout when I work so I take that as good news that I have an "assigned post" as opposed to just being used to give people breaks and fill in where they need someone. Plus, I work with a lot of really cool people. The environment is really cool because pretty much everyone is friendly with everyone else or at least says good morning and asks how things are going (there are always a couple people that seem in a constant bad mood, but you find those everywhere).

In other news, so far no baby squirrels have found their way into my care...but I'd bet I've seen as many possums as I have squirrels. In fact, I think I mentioned about the possum we thought the puppy had gotten...well, it was gone when we got up the next day but we woke up a few mornings later and found a dead one in the yard. D thinks one of the dogs in the neighborhood was leaving a present for the puppy. D got rid of it and then about a week ago we found a dead baby possum on the deck steps. I don't know which is worse, seeing a dead possum or seeing a live one skulking along the side of the road at night.......they are ugly, creepy little vermin.

Um...what else...Mother's Day was a subdued affair here. Since there are three moms in the family we all ('cept one of the moms and I'm not sure where she was) went out to Cici's Pizza for lunch. Before we went, D and I made a quick trip to Lowe's and got a huge hanging fern for his mom to hang on the car port. She'd had two up, but then we had a frost where it got around the 20s and 30s for a week and a half so they ended up dying. So, we got her a new one. :-) I think she liked it.

Well, that's about it I think. Time for coffee.

insert subject line here

2007-05-04T09:15:00.000-04:00

Sorry, too tired to think of a witty subject for the post.

Anyway, things are pretty much same old, same old here. Still working and having to get up at 5am some mornings. It's not too bad. I work mostly evening (4pm-9:30pm or so) shifts, but it sucks just a bit when I work the evening shift one night and have to work the morning shift (7am-noon getting up at 5am) the next day... like today. But still, I can't complain since I have money coming in every two weeks.

D's still doin' what he's doin'. I helped him lay out stakes for grading last week on this huge house he's working on. We ended up having to move the house about 10 feet or so earlier this week, but it wasn't as bad as first laying it out. Although, the final stage of putting nails in the concrete for the masons to lay block down will involve over 100 point (nails in the concrete). I'm not looking forward to that. It'll probably take us at least 3 hours stretched over two days if the batteries on his equipment don't hold out.

Let's see, what else? Um... D's started teaching me some martial arts. We've done a little bit here and there since I moved down here, but more just situational type stuff and what I could do to fight someone off...but yesterday we actually started in on the first part of the first Kata in the form of Ishinryu. D and his cousin studied for years under some of the best instructors (one of whom actually trained with the creator of Ishinryu)... and now I get to learn. :-)

We're planning on spending an hour a day practicing, though how practical that'll turn out to be remains to be seen. Still, I'm looking forward to it and once we get into it more, it'll be a tremendous workout.

Oh, I think my mom is talking about visiting in early July. *cheers* That'll be cool. She's not expecting me to take time off work for all the days she's here so I have to figure out which days will be good to take off and which shifts I should try and request for the day(s) I might end up working. I also gotta find some stuff for her and my brother to do while I'm at work. It shouldn't be too hard since we're not terribly far away from Pigeon Forge (Dollywood and tons of tourist spots), but I still gotta figure out where she'd like to go and get directions for her and all that, plus possibly looking at places for them to stay that are relatively close to the house here since we're kinda out in the boonies now. But it'll still be really cool to see both of them.

Well, that's it for now. Think I'm gonna go take a Vivarin before I head to work in about 20 min.

of possums and things

2007-04-17T10:41:00.000-04:00

Last night, as D and I were about to drift off to sleep, we heard a distinct thump and the whole building shook. Needless to say I let him go check it out and was ready to grab the pistol if need be.

D came back in saying that our puppy had caught and killed a possum. Normally I'd be all for going to look at it, but I was all ready for bed, sleepy tired (since I only got about 2.5 hours of sleep the other night), and we'd seen another one (alive) fairly up close as we drove by it on the road yesterday afternoon.

So...D decided he was gonna get rid of it with a couple plastic bags. The puppy also broke her collar (the thump we heard) and she had been leashed off to the deck (why the whole building shook when she lunged after the thing). She couldn't get to the possum after we rehooked her lead to the deck so, since D remembered the phrase "playing possum" he decided it best to let it alone just in case it wasn't really dead. After all, those things are wicked mean.

It was gone this morning when he went out so it was either taken off by another dog or it wasn't really dead and he was uber smart for not messing with it.

yikes

2007-04-16T14:25:00.000-04:00

D and I watched the movie Deliverance the other night.

It was disturbing.

hate, hate, hate being sick

2007-04-04T07:09:00.000-04:00

As you can see from the subject line, I hate being sick. D started feeling a bit better today. He's still congested and coughing here and there, but I'm pretty sure his fever is gone and he actually plans on going out and doing some field work today. Wish I could say the same for me...

I started getting a bit obsessive yesterday about what my temperature was doing. I figured if I didn't get a fever then I'd be alright to possibly go to work with the aid of cold medicine. So I took my temp around six in the morning and it was 98.8 so not too bad. Checked it a couple hours later and it was 99.4...still not too bad. Then, 'bout mid-afternoon I checked again and it was up to 100.4. Ugh. It stayed there most of the day, but in taking my temp before bed I found out it was 102.1.

With all the weird waking up at 4am we've been doing I ended up falling asleep last night during House M.D. and the two hour episode of The Shield. But of course, when it was over and actually time to go to sleep (around midnight) I couldn't fall asleep. I dozed off and on for a couple hours, but have been wide awake since 2am.

So...needless to say I'll be calling in sick to work today.

Creature from the Black Lagoon

Bathroom antics and privacy

Has it really only been two months?

A lot has happened...

The garden

I've been hiding

A funny

Baby news

Baby gift

Book giveaway

Whoa nelly!

Mini garden

Various things

Can't think of a title

This was fun

Work of sorts

Generally Useless But Fascinating Information About Me

Because I'm Bored

Chinese food

Yummy chili

Foods

The Holidays

*sigh*

Epic updateness and such

Word count so far

2 Days

Update on NaNo

Trick or Treat 2009

Going crazy? Maybe just a little bit.

NaNoWriMo is feasting on my soul

Morning wake-up post

Harper's Island

Yesterday

Dinner last night

1st camping trip

Becuase I forgot

As promised...

Hard work

Fantastical dinner

Just stuff

kitty fun

the holidays

Christmas yum-yums

News

It be cold

Still have my city-girl moments

Made me giggle

Updateness

Alrighty then

today and tomorrow

Last test

*incoherent screams and laughter*

In sadder news...

Ugh

Finally Friday

Long week...not over

Nostalgia

News on the job

Various thingies

Ganked from a livejournal I read

Seven

Funny

new job

Camping

One more thing

New things

Update

Pictures on flickr

Forgot to mention...

Prolly a long post

Visit from the fam

Yesterday was a good day

Snow? In Tennessee??

South Minneapolis visits South Knoxville

P.S. to the previous post

Expanding horizons

Sickness

Tornadoes

Newer update on the puppy

Update on puppy

sigh

incoherent screams and laughter

insert subject line here