November 2, 2024 - When I woke up this morning I looked out the kitchen window and it looked like it was snowing (in my 'just woke up' brain) and it looked like there was build up on my neighbor's roof. I popped my head out the back door to check. Not snowing - phew - just a fog haze and the stuff on the roof was just frost. I am not ready for snow yet...Weather Channel says it feels like 31 degrees here but my friend Sharon texted that her thermometer showed 27 at her place. Either way, I am grateful my new split unit heating is working - finally - so far...knock on wood. I really don't miss the blast furnace sound from the old one they took away.

Last night Norm got me up to potty and I let him out, went to the bathroom to pee, and saw he was still looking for a place to poop. (He paces the dog pen forever looking for just the right spot.) I sat in my lazy boy to wait for him to scratch at the door, and next thing I know it's two hours later! Poor Norman!! He was grateful to come in. He is hunkered down on the couch and did not wake up when I got up and is having doggie dreams. I assume he thought I abandoned him...he could have barked, for goodness sake. I'm sure I would have heard that.

I just got a notice on my phone from my car that I am down to 20 psi on my front right tire. I have had to add air in that one a few times in the last few months. I believe I have a leak. Ugh. I should still be under some kind of tire warranty, but I will have to read/check that on line. (And I think my life is boring...)  Oh, and the new pepper in a pepper grinder is damned delicious and I have put that #%it on everything.

The other night there was a coyote across the road in the field that Norman saw or smelled from the dog pen. I am glad he was in the pen because Norman went nuts barking at it. Norm will pick up a ball and shake it at his intended target. I wish I know what type of behavior this was - I've never seen another dog challenge something by shaking a toy at it... Then the next night it was the same thing but this time deer were standing next to the road in the field. Once again he grabbed a ball and shook it to death in front of the deer. They were not impressed. All I can picture is Norm is sending a message - "Look what I can do this ball, don't make me do that to you!" - but you know as well as I do if they charged at him, he'd put his tail between his legs and run to me to go inside.

My neighbor Ron came up with a good one - He called Norm the "Big Dripper" - and Norman IS - so it fits and is funny. Plus Ron knows I like to start gaze, so it was funny once I heard what he said. He had yelled it over from the neighbor's house and I couldn't tell what he had said and asked his wife about it after she came over.

We got a much deserved break Thursday and Friday at work from implementation stuff. Most of the Oracle teams we work with is in India and it is Diwali time, so Thursday and Friday were QUIET. I took yesterday off, as a matter of fact. I had big plans to mulch my leaves with my mower but it was raining / misting in the morning so I ended up doing absolutely positively nothing all day long. I excelled at doing nothing - quite proud of myself.

I bought a lighted dog collar for Norm. It's so dark in the a.m. that I can't see the boy when he goes out for his morning walk about so I needed something to assist me. Every time I use it on him it makes me laugh because all you can see is this floating neon green bar boppin' along. You can tell when something startles Norm, as the yellow floating bar will shoot up about 2 feet. It should be better when we fall back this weekend and I can see him better with more light.

November 3, 2024 - I have a pot of goulash simmering on the stove. I just got out of the shower because I was packed full of yard debris. I mulched the front yard leaves today. I was hoping my son would come do that - but he never did show up, so I thought today is the day to do it since we'll be having rain for the next few days. I wanted to mulch the first batch of leaves that fell since it's good for your lawn to have that nutrition from the mulched leaves. The next batch that falls I won't worry about so much and if my neighbors accidentally come and blow those back to burn, I won't stop them. Smile. Norman was out with me for the first half of the front yard today. He never lays down to relax - he just stands there worried about where I am or what I am doing. I put him in the house for the other half. When I was done and was coming in, I could hear him barking up a storm. I'm sure he did that the entire time I was out mulching. Sigh.

I had Friday off from work and I did absolutely NOTHING all day. I did breathe but I didn't do much else - outside or inside. I slept a lot and had weird dreams. Today I made up for that lack of life participation on Friday. I did have 'dinner with Irving' Friday night. My daughter will call up on Facebook Messenger as a video call and I watch Irving eat dinner as she and I chat. He is a hoot. That boy LOVES his food, boy howdy. I may be biased, but that kid is so darned cute. You know when he's done because he'll start clapping and smiling, like "I'm done and it was delicious but get me out of this chair! I have places to be!"

Last night when I let Norm out potty there were coyotes 'barking' at him across the road. He was riled. They suddenly a bunch broke out yipping and howling across the road and then to the east as well. Norm looked at me and went to the door. "We can go in now, Mom!" I am sure he was thinking. We were outnumbered after all. Before we went in, I saw two coyote cross on the north side of the house. I hope the neighborhood kitties are all safe.

I am off to get a bowl of goulash. Have a good week!

November 8, 2024 - Norm got me up early to go potty at 4 a.m. and I let him out the back door to do so, but as I am standing there half asleep with the door open waiting for him I hear this little ‘mee-ewww…….meeee-ewwwwww’ sound and think “OMG - It’s a kitty!” So, I’m in the dog pen in my bare feet calling ‘here kitty kitty kitty’ as I walk to where I think I hear the kitty and it took me a minute to realize it was just a booger caught sideways in my nose causing that sound in my head every time I inhaled/exhaled, not a wee kitten in need of my attention. Norman was staring at me like, “Ummm, What??” but he did help me look…not knowing of course what I thought I was looking for…what a way to start a Friday. I can't wait to see the ear doctor in two weeks....

Then, to top that off - I went in to work this afternoon for an in person meeting of our internal implementation team. We're discussing stuff and explaining things to each other. I kept smelling my hands. Something smelled 'weird' to me and I couldn't figure out just what it was. I've said it before, I've had trouble with smells since radiation, but I knew there was something foul in the air. I finally looked at my feet and I saw a leaf on the carpet, then I saw WHY there was a leaf stuck to my shoe - MY SHOE WAS COVERED IN DOG POOP! My left foot took a direct hit from a pile of crap. From what I could smell, I'm pretty sure it was Steve's poop (neighbor dog). When I looked down to see that, I said loudly, "Ewwwwwwwww, dog shit!" and took off my shoes and ran out of the room. When I got back in we all had a good laugh. My boss said, "I was thinking it was YOU smelling like that - like maybe old ladies have issues with that sort of thing and I didn't want to hurt your feelings..." Seriously - we all laughed and laughed. I finished out the meeting bare foot, and left my shoes of death in my office. After the meeting I tried to clean the spot where I had left crap debris on the board room floor. I had some of that in my office, too. After scrubbing a bit, I hosed both places down with Lysol.

....and I thought my life was boring......

November 16, 2024 - I cannot wait to see the ENT on Monday. My right ear has been constantly full of liquid forever now. I hope they just stick a tube in it. I want to be able to tell if I'm hearing a kitty or a booger, ya know? I know my Mom's side of the family has a history of going deaf, but I am not going down without a fight. What?

I saw my family doctor on Friday and we went over my blood work and my state of mind, etc. Blood work was wonderful EXCEPT my A1C level and that had gone up by .2. I told my doc that I knew why this was an issue because for the previous months I had been doing nothing but stress eating. We discussed this issue. I explained about work and all that is going on. I also told him I realized this fact a week or two ago and refused to buy any junk food since I had that epiphany which helps because if junk is in the house without an armed guard over it, I'm going to eat it and not just a small bite - the whole thing. So this morning I started my food diary again to keep me focused. I will break this attempt come Thanksgiving because it's is a day for consuming too much and I will and I probably won't record it in my little diary. I also asked for a mild anti anxiety med that will help when about mid week I'm ready to go screaming into the night from the demands at work. I just have to get through the next six months...

I have been pushing myself to do something after work every day instead of just shutting down mentally, which is SO easy to do. Especially when I feel overwhelmed which has been every day since the implementation has started . I want to shut off my brain and hide from the world. I have to stop this practice. Life is going past me so fast - I mean, come on - it is already NOVEMBER after all and I've let work suck the life out of me long enough. Thursday night I dragged down some Thanksgiving decorations and put them up, which means cleaning the stuff you are taking it down and packing it away and putting up the turkeys. (I even ordered myself toilet turkey clings and put them on the toilet! Hahahaha.) Last night I swept the house with Norman helping by trying to destroy the vacuum. I ended up putting him in his crate. I do so need to mop the kitchen but I will wait until closer to Thanksgiving. The night before that I swept off the filters to my heating split wall units. Goodness, the debris on them!!! I have added that little chore to my calendar as a monthly thing! When I change my water filter to the house, I will sweep those off. I had a plastic tub full of toys set aside for my niece's dogs because Norman gets spoiled and had TOO MANY TOYS. Norm found the tub in the bedroom I put them in and so he's been slowly bringing them out one by one. So last night I put all the rest of them in one of those bags you can suck the air out of - that has stopped his antics there.

My daughter has been video calling me so I can have "Dinner with Irving" and I do so enjoy those calls. When the calls stars and Irving sees me on the screen, he gives me the most adorable smile, but then - look out - Irving wants food so screw the lady on the screen - he's going to eat! He's 11 months old now and he is walking. I can't wait to see him at Thanksgiving! This little living room will be full of humans, dogs, and chaos and as we all know, I do so love the chaos.