April 4, 2025 - I have not updated because, really - what is there to update?? Work is every so very worky and it would be boring to explain how it is sucking the life out of my brain. My coworkers and I, by Friday, have a hard time forming words or completing sentences. We get implementated out by Friday. (I think I came up with a new word there!)  Plus twice in the last two weeks I've been taking notes for follow up and Norman has grabbed them and attempted to consume them. Sigh. Bless his Great Daney Soul.

It has been raining - a lot. The grass is quite green now. The daffodils are popping up at a rapid speed. However, if April Showers Bring May Flowers, there had damned well be a fancy greenhouse in my front yard come May. I want my wee one to clean up the sticks in the yard in his free time, but most of his free times falls into the time frame of torrential downpours, so I will wait. I really need to get out to the shed where my John Deere lives and see if it will start, too. When fall/winter approached this year, I did not treat the gas with Sta-bil (which I've been super good about doing up until now.)

Norman has taken to digging up the yard when he is on active duty mole patrol and he senses a disturbance in the force beneath his feet. Sometimes I let him do it - sometimes I scold him. I am an inconsistent parent. How did my kids survive and turn out so awesome?  The boys will be here for lunch and my sister in law will be here too. She enjoys listening to the boys talk - she says she 'learns so much' from them. Norman is obviously upset this morning because I didn't leave and bring back the boys - which is weekend traditional when I meet them for breakfast and they come back here and give him attention. He will be happy when they show up for lunch, at least.

My cancer check up was fine and I was told I didn't need to take my anti-hormone pill anymore. I had my cancer sample tested last year and it was deemed that pill was not necessary anymore to prevent the type of cancer I had. I have to go in September for my bone density test and my yearly mammogram. I think if I am not taking the anti hormone pill anymore, the bone density tests should stop as well? We'll see.

There are many protests planned around the country today. Good. I hope all these people also vote next time. Had they all voted, maybe this wouldn't have happened? I mean, the government is corrupt and we all know this, and clean up is necessary but you don't blast through the doors knocking things off the shelf wielding chain saws and spewing outright lies and making up rules that SHOULD go through due process for approval. No leader ever has been a god. We have rules for a reason - checks and balances. Sigh.

I suppose I could get off my fat butt and sweep before humans get here to see what a lousy housekeeper I am although I have already established this fact since my husband died - but I could at least try. Oh, and yesterday I had music blasting in my headphones while I worked. I used to do this when I had tons of homework as a teen. It seemed to help. That is one thing my brain can do it separate music from the processes of thinking, but be inspired by said music. I have kind of stayed away from music since my husband died since music can cause a mental meltdown of sorts, but yesterday it was actually helping - UNTIL a song came on my Spotify list from Jude Cole, "Baby It's Tonight" and that was a song where my husband and I would sing the chorus to each other. I instantly started crying. BAM. I listened to the whole song, twice, and let the tears come. I supposed I should just embrace the emotion instead of hiding from it, huh? Sigh. (But seriously - songs from AC/DC and Nazareth really helped me plow through a lot of stuff at work yesterday...)

April 11, 2025 - Oh my, what a long week. Monday night I had a complete mental meltdown. My poor BFF called me in the middle of it and got me through it. It was work related, I am sure. After working all weekend, it was just too much most likely. I cried and cried. I was so tired on Tuesday, and barely made it through the day. There was an on site meeting on Tuesday, so I hired my youngest son to baby sit Norman for me. I came home and was in bed by 7:30 p.m. Norman was quite confused. When my son was here, he did dishes and swept the floors and picked up all the big sticks in the yard. This made me feel some comfort.

I think it's kind of funny the core steering members have not had time nor inclination to get hair cuts or take care of ourselves properly. My hair looks like Denethor from Lord of the Rings and I'm in dire need of a hair cut. I kind of want to color it again. I have not in a long time. It's grown out longer and gray. My boss' hair looks like a over achieving q-tip, and it makes me kind of smile to know to do our best during this project we have to give up something - like ourselves. Not a good thing to do, mind you - but really - when would we go get clothes, haircuts and such? I really wish this whole implementation would include a spa day once a week. My coworker said that Friday's should be pajama days 'til this is over, because by Friday we could use a good nap mid day...

Tonight I think I need to soak in a hot tub and then cut my nails.That is another thing I've not paid attention to. My finger nails are way too long for my liking. (I am not a fan of long finger nails on me.) My toes definitely need attention, that's for sure. Ugh. When my husband was alive and after he got quite the huge belly, he wouldn't bend over to trim his own toe nails, so I would cut them for him to his dismay. (His feet were very sensitive and he would cringe and yell at me that I was killing him. Hahahaha...) I wish I had a pool boy or personal keeper to do that for me. I could use some pampering.

Yesterday Norman would want his meal(s), eat them, go outside, eat grass, and hurl it all up. Sigh. He acted like he had something stuck in his throat. This has happened before. I feed him one can of wet food, one cup of dry, and a baked chicken breast for every meal - three times a day. I buy boneless chicken, but I'm sure there is the occasional bone that makes it through. I have found them during chicken cut up. I no doubt missed one? Last night I took time to rub his throat for a while, too. He seemed to appreciate that. He seemed better today and he was VERY hungry...

On Monday I have the maintenance men coming to look at my washer. It is only two years old, and some of the cycles just don't work anymore but I am still under warranty so come fix it!! On Tuesday I get my new dryer. I have an older one that my husband bought and picked up and assembled when he got home with it. The door has always been wonky after that. This week the control knob broke off. To have someone come check it out and fix it would be close to buying a new dryer. I just bought the new dryer. The family has come to know major appliance issues as the "Easter Appliance Paradox" where at least one major appliance takes a crap around Easter time. Oh, sure - there were a few Easter times that nothing 'died' here, but it's normally a sure thing and it is not even shocking anymore. Sigh. My friend Grace said it sounds like I need to have a priest come and exorcise the demon that is hopping from appliance to appliance. You know, I am almost thinking she's right!! I have been drying my clothes on a rack under one of the heating units inside plus a fan. I forgot how soft a dryer makes a towel feel. Now they feel like when we had a wringer washer and had to hang stuff outside to dry - kind of crunchy without the fresh outdoor scent.

I am off to clean my tub (something I've not been doing either) and take a soak and cut off excessive keratin that is in dire need of harvesting. Viva attempts to self care!

April 17, 2025 - Ah, Thursday. I have to remind myself on the day of the week a LOT by the end of the week because my head gets so clogged up. Wednesday I sent my partner in crime at work a .gif that was HAPPY TUESDAY and she wrote back, "Well, sure, if it was Tuesday..." Sigh.

I picked myself a bouquet of daffodils to bring into the house. One of my most favorite flowers of all time is the daffodil. Norman helped by attempting to pee on the bunch in the ground, but I diverted him from that. I have not been able to stop him from 'marking' the ones in the backyard, however. So the daffodils out back are apparently now Norman's flowers.

I made myself cabbage soup on Tuesday and ate a bunch. Not too long after that, oh my - did the gas start and I had to spend a considerable amount of time on the toilet, too. Yikes. I told the kids I blew my back end off and they were kind to share cute gifs of an air raid siren and explosions and people jumping behind things for protection. Hahahaha. I had warned them if they heard sonic booms, it was from me. I made a lot of that soup, so last night I chanced it and had a bowl for supper. Nothing. Then I got to thinking - I had some salad for lunch from one of the 'pre made' bags you can get of salad products on Tuesday - I am pretty sure THAT is what gave me the explosive diarrhea and excessive gas and not the soup. Tonight I am eating a salad I assembled from raw items. Wish me luck.

The birds 'round these parts have been quite amorous and randy. The boys chasing the girls, the girls flying away. The male turkeys across the road get all puffed up and run after the group of hens...Ah, spring is in the air. I have seen the herons flying over with long pieces of lake grass to make their nest up the road in the rookery. There was a sparrow on my dog fence with feather's in his beak that it had picked up in the dog pen where the bird food is - and birds tend to loose feathers as it were and I'm sure it makes nice nest material. "Look, darling - I brought you some nice feathers!' Hope springs eternal. We have to keep hope even though lately it feels like things are hopeless in this country. We have to keep on keeping on...

I was thinking how I used to enjoy celebrating the 4th of July every year - even though I was never proud that our ancestors (who were technically immigrants) came over here and stole the land from the Indians and I'm sure the Indians stole it from someone else, but I was so proud over all of the men and women who fought to save the world during WW1 and WW2. To save us from insane dictators... To save other countries from the same thing. I don't feel proud anymore. How can we celebrate 'freedom' when we've taken so much away from so many? Knowing they are sending so many to 'concentration' camps in an attempt to deport illegals - I wish we all had to spend a week in one of those places - even the current administration, to show us all what is happening. A lot of us would die, but a lesson learned, perhaps. My friend Jeff explained to me that at one time, when we were a new country, we needed immigrants to help populate and build this country but we don't need them anymore. Ok, fair - but that doesn't justify the way we've 'deported' so many to camps and El Salvador prisons and such, does it? I won't whine anymore. I am just not feeling the 'pride' anymore. Government in general is a bloated, cheating evil entity. Republicans suck, Democrats suck - people in power have taken advantage of their titles and status to steal, lie, and they do not serve the people. Nothing is by the people, for the people. It's all an illusion. We can all just go grab a chainsaw and take what we want and do what we want. I believe something is wrong...and here I am without a chainsaw...

Maybe I've mentioned this before, but Norman has taken to waking me up in the middle of the night, and I get up to let him out to potty but he'll stay in the bedroom and jumps in my bed! I have decided I am not happy about this, so when he does that I just go back and plop back into bed. He has to get out, since there is not room for both of us. The other night we went through this little game several times. Normally, he does have to potty sometime during the night, but this whole I WANT THE WARM BED game has lost it's humor to me. There are times I wish I had kept the king sized bed, for his sake, but other times I remember, "HE'S A DOG......."

All of this week I've played "smack the snooze alarm like 600 times" and have gotten up late. I like to start work around 4:30 a.m. but it has gotten so it is almost six a.m. before I log in. I could move the clock, sure, but I'm lazy enough to just lay there while the alarm goes off and I would fall back asleep. I have a clock that the longer the alarm goes off, the louder it gets. Still - SMACK goes the snooze.

I like to leave the dandelions growing so the bees have some food source to start out until flowers bloom. They are yellow, too, so they rate high in my book. I don't make any effort to extradite dandelions. We may need them if there is war - you can eat dandelion greens...

I was out watching the turkey buzzard's flying the other day. I love to watch them fly. Their ability to maneuver air currents is unsurpassed. Then I saw something on Norman's underside that looked like a large, swollen nipple so I am in the yard chasing after him to check, and he's running away from me because anytime I approach him at a high speed I'm usually trying to clean his ears or put drops in them, so of course he runs, and I am yelling, "Norman, Stop! I just wanna check your nipples!!" Eventually, when I did catch him, it turned out to be a piece of a milk bone stuck to him with his own slobber. I feel sorry for my neighbors...

April 19, 2025 - Today is filter day. Once a month I change the water filter (which is jury rigged/set up in the upstairs for some reason, I am not sure why it was set up like this). I am glad it was 'filter' day - it had been leaking.

A year or more ago, I don't remember when, I had changed the filter and let it go for two months or more until one day I noticed drips coming from the kitchen ceiling. All that time it had been dripping away up there, soaking in to the already questionable frame work of the floor. Sigh. I've learned that I have to thoroughly clean everything on that filter and also keep the o ring changed. Now when I change it, I have foiled rigged up under the filter casing and it will drain into a pan I have up there if it drips. Normally I go up to check it every week due to my paranoia, but I had not this last month. I really don't want my ceiling caving in any time soon. The water filter was especially rusty today. It might have to do with all the rain we've been getting, stirring up the water table. Around here, everyone's water is rusty. I will also sweep off the filters on the indoor split units. Those get quite dusty.

There was a mallard duck and his mate in my back yard this morning. I've never had a mallard duck in my back yard that I remember seeing! Geese, yes. Turkeys, yes. Sandhill Cranes, yes. Crows, yes. Turkey buzzards, yes. Peregrine Falcon, yes. Mallards, no. Norman ran right past them and didn't 'see' them, or he was ignoring them on purpose out of respect for my love of birds. They sat there for a long time while my boys did duck noises to the best of their ability trying to get their attention. "Maybe they are just decoys that blew in from someone's yard?" my oldest suggested. They did eventually look up at us, so I knew they were real. (When you live in the country, having duck decoys blow into your yard during a storm is a real thing...) The pair sat there until another group flew over, and then they flew off to join the group. Norman still was not interested in them.

However, DEER do get Norm's attention. There is a herd of about 8 - 10 deer that use our yards as a roadway from the woods/field across the road to the west to head east to the field/woods there. Norman will see them out back and run at top gallop speed but he always stops at safe distance away. By then they are jumping over the fence, running off with their white tails a waggin'. I wonder if they think Norm is one of their own? I wonder what Norm thinks about them? "YOU GUYS WANNA PLAY WITH ME??" Squirrels get Norm's attention, too. He will kick up dirt running so hard and fast after squirrels. If you say the word "squirrel" out of the blue when you are outside with him, he will run way out back at top speed. If he trees a squirrel, he will leap high into the air at that tree. Once day a few weeks ago I was walking over to my neighbor's house and I happened to see a squirrel in one of the trees in his yard, holding on the tree for dear life - all flattened out. All the dogs were out, so I don't blame him. It was funny, though, to see him try to blend into that tree.

I met the boys for breakfast this morning at the new Screaming Chicken for breakfast. (That's not the name, but I always forget that place's real name...) Oh my, it was delicious. I had a veggie omelette made as a wrap, and splurged and had butter pecan french toast. They boys had jalapeno omelettes as wraps. After we were done there, we went up to Tractor Supply Company and picked me up bags of dirt. I need dirt for my new planter boxes I bought. The boys loaded the bags and unloaded them for me once we got home. Norman is always so happy to see 'his boys' and was a hyperactive spaz for a few minutes. Norman also sniffed all our faces - I think he knew we ate somewhere different than normal.

My blood work came back and I had my quarterly sugar doctor visit. My sugar A1C was up. I knew it would be because for the last three months I've done nothing but stress eat junk food. Sigh. A week before the doctor visit, I realized I had to change my ways, and started watching what I'm shoving in my face again. One does feel better when one eats better, I will admit. I discussed this issue with him, plus my blood pressure was too high for his liking. Other than that, I was impressed with the blood work overall. Just that A1C reading was marked as 'ABNORMAL' which seems kind of cool since I'm basically abnormal to begin with...

I put up my hummingbird feeder this week. I normally hang it on April 15th, but I was a few days late. I got a cool new glass feeder this year that looks holgraphic-y on the outside. I am a sucker for shiny stuff... Now I notice it is cock eyed. Leaning tower of sugar water it is. I didn't notice that it was crooked when I bought it. I just grabbed the shiniest feeder and ran out of the store with it like Gollum with the ring. I am sure they birds won't mind that it is crooked. I keep track of their migration on a Hummingbird sighting map and they are over the southern Michigan line. It won't be long...

It got up to almost 79 degrees on Friday, then it stormed Friday night, and is back down in to the 40s. The daffodils went crazy on Friday - poppin' out all pretty. The maple trees turned 'green' - all the buds busting open. Technically the yard needs mowing already, seriously, but I'm not starting that yet!! My dandelions are EVERYWHERE and excelling at what they do so well. I wish I was smarter about mower/motor things. Since my husband passed, I've gotten the John Deer tuned up every year. I wonder, do you HAVE to tune up a mower EVERY year? I will send a message to 'my guy' who normally does it and ask. He will be honest with me.