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Page last updated on 11/16/24
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2024 ARCHIVE JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL MAY JUNE JULY AUGUST SEPTEMBER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER |
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Way Back Machine 2001 Ramblings 2002 Ramblings 2003 Ramblings 2004 Ramblings 2005 Ramblings |
January 1, 2024 - I had no intent to stay up or see the New Year come in - but I did, sort of... Norm and I went to bed at about nine p.m. and I was sleeping quite well when suddenly, Norm ran off the bed, taking all the covers with him and when I opened my eyes, the whole interior of my house was ORANGE! The word "fire?" came out of my mouth and I opened a curtain. The whole WORLD was orange. Holy Crap! I went outside to see this phenomenon and turns out it was neighbors to the north west setting off weapon grade fireworks. I could hear geese and ducks and howling and various other critters making a fuss. I've lived here since 1985 and I've never seen a burst of color like that in all those years. I assume they did the 'finale' first for New Years and then they just went on with basic fireworks. Sigh. I came in and tried to go back to sleep in my chair and Norm laid at my feet. We didn't go back to bed until two a.m. when it was quiet and safe. Sigh. Happy New Year? Terrorizing the local wildlife seems like a good way to bring in a new year... January 7, 2024 - All my life I would get excited by snow. I assume it was from growing up with LOTS of snow in the winter and a kid/teen. The last few years, though, the thrill is gone. I do appreciate the fact that when it snows it is so quiet outside - the snow seems to absorb sound. We got about an inch last night and while standing in the dog pen with Norman, it was so so quiet and peaceful. (Except for the six minutes of urination sound from Norman.) I think we are supposed to get several more inches of snow this coming week. We'll see. So far I've not had to have my driveway plowed. This will change... Yesterday evening I prepared all the stuff to assemble a spaghetti pie. The boys are coming over today to celebrate my youngest son's 31st Birthday with his favorite meal. (Spaghetti pie and Hot Fudge Cake.) I cooked the meat and spiced it up real good. I made the ricotta layer filling. I cooked the spaghetti. While I was waiting for the spaghetti to cool down so I could put in the egg and Parmesan cheese, I shoved all the bowls of prepared food back on the counter and came into the living room to catch up on some messages and email. Ten minutes later I see Norman had torn apart one of my hankies - he was throwing the pieces around and prancing like he was very happy. "No, Norm!" I scolded. I went back into the kitchen and there were a couple of chunks of hamburger on the counter and I thought "I must have dropped them when I put the meat in the fridge..." and then it dawned on me I DIDN'T PUT THE MEAT IN THE FRIDGE. The burger bowl was empty. NORMAN HAD CONSUMED THE HAMBURGER! I did not even notice this was happening. Norm has never taken food off the counter before. I had the meat pushed back!! He would have had to get up on the counter to pull the bowl forward. Ugh. Soon I will be making a trip in to town to get more burger to cook up for the pie. So much for my "prep early" strategy. I will never be able to leave anything on the counter again now that he knows I can be distracted... I survived the dentist and no one lost a finger or body part! Yay me. Thank goodness the techniques for a filling have come so far over the years. The dentist is very aware of my need to close/open my mouth often and tries to go in and out a lot...but his one drill was making sounds like a yowling stranded kitty and it would make me chortle. He would pull stuff out of my mouth and asked in a concerned voice - "Are you OK?" and I had to explain to him that the sound was making me laugh. Going forward, he would say, "Ok, here comes the kitty..." I got myself a Dyson V8. It's small and seems like it wouldn't be good at sucking up anything, but I adore it. So handy and fast! I would drag out the sweeper three times a week or so prior to this, and in between would walk on Norman's treat crumbs like legos. Now I just quick like a bunny suck up that stuff and think to myself, "Why did I wait so long to get this thing?!!" You have to empty the collection bin every six seconds or so - it doesn't hold much, but the ease of use is so worth it. Norman doesn't seem to be as bothered by that as much as he is the 'big' vacuum. He has only tried to attack it once. It doesn't sound as dangerous, apparently, as a normal vacuum. Win Win. Oh, and I fell AGAIN. Duh. I was letting Norman out of the pen and slipped in the mud. There was a squirrel he wanted and I was 'rushing' to open the gate so he could chase said victim, and I was NOT paying attention to the fact that the gate area was all mud. I had on old 'outdoor' shoes with no traction left on the soles. Down I went. I ended up in the perfect position for sliding in to home had I been playing softball. Thank goodness for the fence so I could get up relatively quickly, which was good because Norman assumed I was down there to play with him. He was no help at all. My youngest son said I need to do exercises that help in 'getting up' since I insist on being gravitationally challenged and going down isn't the issue - it is the recovery afterwards. My BFF scolded me for wearing my crappy shoes, (They are now in the garbage.) Sigh. This is my life now, I fear, watching life go by from floor level... January 15. 2024 - This has been a day. I will vent here while I sip on a beer. It has be very cold. Wind chill of -23 last night. I lost the water to the laundry room due to freezing. No worries, right? There is always the laundromat. Last night I left the water running in the tub, a nice wee stream. (What I've always done to prevent freezing pipes.) Norman is having fits because he hates the cold, and will attempt to poop and pee standing on two legs. This morning I woke up and there was no water. The stream had stopped. I let work know I was working from home today and then went out to check the pump house. The heat light was on, but the pressure pressure gauge was at zero. Ugh. I let work know I was running in to get a portable heater. Got two, actually, in case - put one in the bathroom and one out there in the pump house. I plugged in the old heat tape on the pipe upstairs. I waited. Oh, and when I walked in to the house after plugging in the heater in the pump house, the door handle fell apart. I called my youngest son to come fix that... The pressure gauge never came up past 20 lbs. My neighbor came over and tried to mess with it - but this was beyond his knowledge. We decided I needed to call the local Well/Plumber guys. (They will be here in the morning.) I had to call them again, since when my son left, there was water spraying all over the place out there. Sigh. Fried the new little heater... I came in and turned off the pump switch in the power panel. It finally stopped spraying all over. He unplug the rest of the stuff and there we stood, shaking our heads. Sigh. He hugged me an left, I came in and cried a little and then I knocked off the mirror I use to pluck my chin hairs and it busted all over. I decided to call it a day. My handy man up and died on me, so I will get through this myself, but I tell ya - sometimes I just want to GIVE UP. It's always something, as Roseanne Rossana Danna used to say. I will run in and do a load of laundry tomorrow and bring it home and dry it. I got extra water so I could do dishes and I am saving old water to flush the toilet with. You watch, though - my luck tomorrow I get diarrhea... January 20, 2024 - So........Update on the water crisis of 2024. I had a professional place come out and quote a fix for my lack of water. They quoted me to re-route the water lines from the well to the house - move all of the stuff into a corner of my bedroom so it won't freeze and explode anymore. It was a hefty price. My neighbor heard this and texted me and said, "You never call them! They over charge - here - call this guy!" So I looked up the info on the 'guy' and he seemed very legit and well liked. I called him. He was out that same day, looked things over and said, "I can repair the busted pipe and get you water. (He even brought a small heater with him to put in the pump house to thaw things out.) I highly suggest you don't do digging work until spring. All this walking across the area here would have pushed the frost line down. It would be a terrible job right now.." He came the next day and fixed the pipe out there. Totally redid it. He said the pump house was set up well. (Kudos to my husband - as he's the one who rigged that up 20 years ago.) Once he fixed all of that I had water. I cried. I did a small load of wash. I was so relieved until the washer stopped spewing forth water. There was no water at the sinks. I called over my neighbor to ask him his opinion, and it was decided something was blocking the inbound line. The water around these parts is 1% water and 99% iron/rust. Obviously all the jostling of the pipes broke crap loose and now said crap was blocking the flow. I had changed the filter upstairs and it was gobbed up with tons of sludge and rusty blobs of goo. That still didn't help. No water was coming in. I texted the nice man back and explained. He came back to the house and checked things out. Technically he's a well man, not a plumber. He said he's not allowed to mess with pipes per say. But he felt bad. I felt bad. He told me he would be back this morning, but he showed up last night with a portable air compressor. He hooked it up to the cold line to the washer and went out doors and put a hose on the hose fixture and he blew. OMG - so much crap came out. The snow out there is now orange and brown chunks of crap. Once he blew out the line, he hooked stuff back up and BAM - WATER. He told me to run the water for a while in the tub (as it was just as gross as gross could be) and change my filter again. I will do the filter change right after I post this. After running the water for a while, I did the dishes, I did two loads of laundry last night, and I TOOK A FRICKEN SHOWER. A NICE HOT SHOWER. My youngest son said, 'Yah, Ma - there was a week worth of Norman drool encasing you, no doubt..." hahahaha. There was still water this morning, praise be, and I did one last load of laundry. I tested all the faucets. I sent a text of happiness to the man who fixed this. He left the heater out there for me, and told me to use that instead of a heat lamp because obviously the heat lamp wasn't working in such cold weather. I looked at the weather forecast and saw how cold it was down in North Carolina at my BFF's house - 4!!! We're at -2. Winter finally came and kicked our butts. Kudos, Winter. I wanted to thank Ron for hauling over flushing water for me. He brought me a total of 30 gallons of water and even bought new buckets to do so!! He also blew out around the shed for me so the repair guy could open the doors and walk back and forth from his truck without walking through drifts. I want to thank Justin for running over to check stuff out and calming me down. I have the best neighbors and friends. Sigh. Yes, I had no water for a week, but I am still blessed. Did you know asking for help is hard? It is! But you can, apparently.... My daughter has been sending me updates on my Grand baby boy and I adore those updates and pictures. I get to help them in February, weather permitting so I will get bonding time with the wee one! I keep a picture of Irving on my desktop so that is what I see all day and it melts my heart and it's kind of hard to stay upset when such a cute face is staring at you. The birds have been eating A TON of seed. They were all so puffed up during the coldest of the weather and looked kind of cute that way. The Blue Jays looked like they were wearing pimp coats, they were so puffed up. My local hawk will show up because the bird feeding area is like a Country Buffet for him, but then my family of crows show up and chase him off, which I am grateful for, so I will let them eat what they want from the seeds, too. I will be running in to town soon to get provisions, and will have to buy more seed, for sure. Tonight - I AM TAKING A HOT BATH!! I deserve it. Have a good weekend Stay warm. Know you are loved! February 4, 2024 - The neighbors to the north a bit have their daughter staying with them, and she has two dogs. One is a pretty pit looking doggie named Luna. She seems sweet. There is also a tiny little puff ball one who is 10 years old, but when ever he's outside he is yipping. When I had Norman out a bit ago, there was the wee dog yipping and the other neighbor's roosters doing call and response. It was quite entertaining. I got a double dose of my grandson this weekend!! YAY!! The kids came over on Friday. I had taken a vacation day so I could prep supper for them. The boys were here, too. I made spaghetti pie and then made the cheese biscuits into waffles. They seemed very happy about that. I GOT TO HANG OUT WITH IRVING. Considering he is just 8 weeks old (almost) he did a fantastic job in my small little house with us large people talking. He seemed perfectly happy being where he was. (Except when he had a poopie diaper, of course - even I would get upset by that.) I had a long conversation with him, and he would coo to me and I would respond and he would respond....so much fun. I got to hold him when he needed a nap. I got to read him a book. It was fantastic. For some reason it is fun to have a baby around when it's now your own baby. You know it will leave and you don't have to be up with it six times a night to feed the little guy. Smile. My boys were not as impressed as I was - but they are adult males and, well, it was a baby. My son in law Pat is being such a good daddy. I was so proud of all three of them. My daughter had a hoot with her brothers. Yesterday they had a baby shower to go to on his side of the family. Irving slept through the whole thing. Then they came again today for beef and noodles before heading back to Chicago. (Request were made by my daughter ... she had a hankerin' to have spaghetti pie and beef and noodles. As she said, "Nursing makes you very hungry!") Norman was NOT sure about Irving. When the baby would cry, Norman would get upset and run up to investigate. When I was paying attention to Irving and not him, he was upset. He has a long way to go with baby etiquette. The boys played with him both days and I do so appreciate that. Norman at least got to hang with his "brothers". Everyone is gone now - off to their own lives. I got to get in major baby snuggles. All is merry and bright in my little world. There has been a BLUEBIRD coming to my bird feeder!! I'm 63 years old and I've never seen a bluebird at my feeders. NEVER. I hardly ever see bluebirds, to be honest. I don't put out meal worms, which is like their take out McDonald's. The robins are back in force already, too. We had one week of God awful winter and my pipes exploded, now it feels like pre-spring. Sunshine - Mud - Birds. My right ear has been blocked/full of something for three weeks. I have tried heat and my friend Linda gave me a high impact body massager to help shake things up. Still clogged. I am not a heavy 'waxer' so I know it's not wax. Back 20 years ago I let my left ear go like 6 months like this because I thought adults didn't get ear infections. I was very wrong. I had to get a tube back then. I am wondering if I am headed down that road again. I had trouble hearing this weekend with all the kid talking. Sigh. It was blocked back in November, too, but steroids took care of it back then. I will call in to my doctor's tomorrow morning, but getting in to any doctor since covid is like booking a cruise three years ahead of time... What? I changed my water filter upstairs. It's an old set up, done by my husband who knows when. I had gone up to change it and noticed it was leaking just a tad. I ran down and got a new O ring to put in. It still leaked. I was frustrated. When my boys got here today, I had my youngest go up with me to check it. We took it all apart and cleaned it again and he shoved the O ring in nice and secure, and so far so good. I have been checking it a lot. I don't need the upstairs to collapse into the kitchen from a water leak!! February 24, 2024 - Cripes - I have not updated in 20 days! This just goes to show you how boring my life is. I decided to get a new set of pots and pans. Good ones. Expensive ones. (Well, not THAT expensive - they were way more than I have ever paid for a set of pots and pans, but there are tons more sets out there that cost WAY more...) I got a 13 pc. Cuisinart stainless steel set. Dishwasher safe. Can go into the oven. Probably could have done my taxes had I waited to file them until now. They are so shiny. My BFF and I were talking about life, and she said I needed to be good to myself and when I was doing dishes the other day, I thought - GOOD TO MYSELF WOULD BE HAVING A HIGH QUALITY SET OF POTS AND PANS. The old ones are in Herby Curby. They were way past the stage where I could have donated them to anyone. I unpacked my new ones, and it took quite a long time. They were packed to survive a nuclear blast and falling from the space station. So Much Cardboard. (Whoever came up with the design for packing those best have gotten some kind of award!!) Norman was thrilled about the cardboard since that was cardboard he could rip up when my attention was on the other cardboard I was wrestling off the new pots. I was telling my friend Sue about the new pots and pans and was saying, really, that was the only thing I could get myself at this point in my life that would stay 'nice' - can't paint the walls because I own a Great Dane and I can't put in new carpet because I own a Great Dane and Danes have a tendency to cover everything is excessive drool blobs and muddy giant foot prints. I can, however, have nice pots and pans and Norman will not bother those...Sue decided when I was spewing forth these facts of life that there is a country song in there somewhere... hahahaha Let's see, what has happened to me in the last 20 days..... Work just got 'real' on Friday. We sat through a meeting online for our new software/upgrade and afterwards it felt like I was standing on the edge of the door on a plane and got pushed out...So it begins. Sigh. I already heard rumors of how 'bad' out choice was on the cloud package we picked - but you know what? Any package you get - anytime you try something new - there will be people complaining. I just have to live through the next year and a half or so. That is all I'm asking of myself. It may end up being 20 days between updates on the blog. I apologize ahead of time. I went to Chicago to hang out with my daughter and grandson for five days! Her husband was going to Nashville, so I went over to be nanny. I worked remotely when I was there, but IT WAS HARD - I just wanted to hang out with Irving. He is the cutest little baby EVER. I'm not being biased - he just is. He will 'talk' to you now, and coo and such and gives you the biggest smiles. He is also very active (arms/legs) and boy howdy, can that kid poop!! He watches everything and turns his head to follow voices and movement. I swear he grew an inch just in the time I was there. I honestly wish they lived closer, but hey - Chicago isn't that far away, right? When I left to come home, the way out that I took wasn't bad - traffic flowed well, but the northbound side going in was four car wide and jammed packed and backed up for MILES. Literally. How can people stand that?!?!? Isn't everyone LATE FOR WORK CONSTANTLY IN CHICAGO? How do people get anywhere? Sigh. This baffles me. No sir, I don't like it. When I was at my daughters house, we watched the first two Lord of the Rings movies (extended version) and with interruptions and such, that took us two or three days (I forget). I am a bit weird about stuff like that - if I see two, I have to see the third. I watched it the night I got home. Also weird about me - once I watch movies based on books I love - I HAVE TO REREAD THE BOOKS!! I went to get the first book 'Fellowship of the Ring' then I remembered Norman ate it when he was a puppy. Sigh. The new set of Tolkien books arrived today. I am on page 50 of the first book already. I see they are releasing the second part of the Dune movie with Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atredies and he is NO PAUL! So after I'm done with the Lord of the Rings book, I will no doubt have to read my Dune books AGAIN - even though I've read them SO MUCH I am starting to notice typos in the publisher's print... I did go to the doctor for my blocked ear. He put me on antibiotics and steroids. We know I'll probably end up going to an ENT to get tubes, but we had to try this first. I saw him for a follow up Thursday. He asked that I wait one more week before we try the ENT route. He said my right ear (which was way bad when I went originally) was still fluid filled, but not as explodey like before. Friday I got so excited because I COULD HEAR FOR SEVERAL HOURS of out my right ear. It blocked back up - but there is light at the end of the Eustachian tube!! I had a girls night out on Thursday night with my high school girlfriends. I love doing that. Sometimes I just don't want to go, but when I get home I feel so 'lifted' and happy. I went to breakfast this morning with another friend. I love making her laugh. I got to breakfast with my boys tomorrow morning then my sister in law is coming up for lunch. So, to summarize - I'm not dead yet. I am staying social to a degree, and I am going to go blind from power reading a bunch of books... February 26, 2024 - I forgot to mention the chipmunk condo I have in my back yard. I had the old huge willow tree cut down (as far as they could) a year or so ago. It was falling apart. On third of it fell and thanks to the neighbors, they got it all cleaned up back then. The when the second third fell, I decided to end it all. Willow trees are very hardy and since it was cut, it has been generating new growth on it's top so it looks like it has an Afro. I've let it do that, since it is so pretty. There is a huge piece of the tree pushed up next to the remaining tall stump of the original tree. The chipmunks created holes all through that and have started moving up the tall 'stump' of it. Now there are holes everywhere. I assume the chipmunks at the top have to pay more for penthouse fees...Norman will see the various chipmunks when he goes out and he 'trees' them in the walnut trees next door or chases them back to the 'condos' as it were. He is upset that he cannot get to them. The neighbor dog, Gertie, climbed right up there into the remaining tree part once when she was after a ball. My neighbor got up on the fallen tree part to fetch said ball, and his dog Lucy went up there too, investigating the penthouse chipmunk holes. It was pretty funny. I wonder what the HOA fees are out there? The red-winged black birds are back en force and will clean out my bird seed daily. Ugh. There are SO MANY ROBINS around, too! The turkeys are out and about to participate in speed dating. The sandhill cranes are all flying back in. The amount of herons are increasing daily that fly over. (They have that rookery down the road.) It's a noisy cacophony of bird song out there. I love my yard. I read last night until I literally couldn't see the letters anymore. I do that - read until I'm blind. Sigh. I should have gotten the large print version. I do have stronger reading glasses just for reading - but those even failed me. March 2, 2024 - I finished the Lord of the Rings books. Barely...my eyes fell out twice. Smile. Today when I had breakfast with my boys, they suggested audio books. I shall look in to that. I enjoy the Tolkien books, but Peter Jackson did bump it up a notch in the movies! Made it more exciting as it were. I just changed the water filter upstairs and I am always afraid it will leak, if you don't get it just right - it will. However, when I left it, it was not leaking. The O ring was changed last month. When I was reading the directions on the filters, it says to change the O ring every third filter! This made me laugh, because I'm pretty sure my husband only changed it once a year if even that... Yesterday would have been our 44th wedding anniversary had he lived. I was a bit down, I must say. I made a lovely Italian sausage soup the other night. I could TASTE IT! Yay! I got the idea from my BFF who described how she made hers. It was kind of like a fancy potato soup. I gave some to my neighbor Justin, who said it was awesome. I have had it every night since I made it and I will be finishing it up tonight, and I didn't mind a bit. I put in a hot pepper flakes which I liked. I was making it in my new soup pot and with my new knives. I only cut myself six times. (Pretty good, I thought, since I've never had a really decent set of SHARP knives. Only one stab needed a band aid, really...) Wow - a sharp knife makes a difference in the 'chore' of chopping!! I will have to practice my knife skill, avoiding damaging my hands. It did look like a feral cat got a hold of my left hand there for a day or so... Off I go to finish up the soup. Have a wonderful weekend! Seize the day! March 17, 2024 - I am sitting here eating a plate of heated up scalloped potatoes. Yesterday afternoon I wanted 'real food' and spent an half hour on line searching for a place that would deliver 'real food' but there was nothing around here. I finally told myself, "Get off your fat ass and MAKE SOMETHING." I had all the fixing for scalloped potatoes, so I made a dish of those. Taters, ham, onions, cheese - it turned out very good. I can even TASTE it! I thoroughly enjoyed that supper last night and there was enough to share with my neighbor and my sister in law, PLUS still have two dinners out of it! I am getting better with my new knives and only cut myself once this time!! Hahahaha. I had breakfast with my boys on Saturday and my sister in law came for lunch today. Wednesday is the second anniversary of my husband's passing, so I am meeting two friends for supper (they are also widows) and we will 'toast the ghosts' as it were. On Tuesday I have my six month cancer check up. It's been five years I hope they tell me I only have to go once a year now, but we'll see. Next weekend my daughter and son in law and my grandson come for a visit. I hope to have the whole herd here for a visit. My daughter called and had a video visit with me and Irving and I did so enjoy that. Irving actually seems to try to talk to you. He has the cutest faces in the world. (I'm not just saying that because he's my grandson - her really DOES have such cute faces.) He is growing like crazy and you can tell he has more and more control over his arms. I bet he rolls over soon... The other day it was 73 degrees here and sunny and beautiful. (Mind you, it is 30 degrees today and snowing...I have come to accept this in Michigan now. Mother Nature is bipolar.) When it was so nice out, I sat outside letting Norman meander and pee on things that needed peeing on apparently, and just sat there enjoying the turkey buzzards. They were high over head just riding the updrafts. They always look like they do this for fun - not just to search for road kill. They seem to ENJOY this so much -no wing beating needed - just riding the 'waves' as it were. Such a huge wingspan! It is peaceful to sit there and admire their agility in the sky. Kudos to them for enjoying life. I GOT MYSELF A KINDLE! I have to say it is marvelous. You can make the print as large as you want and it's takes the strain off my poor old eyeballs. I've been reading like crazy. I always loved reading - now I can do it again with little eye strain!!! Yay! My BFF has used a Kindle for a long time as well as my neighbor Sue. I am glad I finally broke down and ordered this. I could kick myself for not doing it sooner. The thought of audio books didn't make me happy, so I had to find another way to read. Viva Technology. I am off to do dishes and READ SOME MORE!! YAY!! It's the little things...Have a good week! March 26, 2024 - Burrrrrrr. It has dropped almost 10 degrees throughout the day and the wind is gusting. We got a barrage of showers earlier. March showers bring March mud. Norman wanted to go out a bit ago, so I took him. He chased he ball for me a few times but he was ready to come in. He isn't sure about the wind...that kind of wind normally indicates thunder boomers and he was not taking any chances. The kids came for the weekend. I got to spend Saturday with my grandson. What a marvelous time. It is good for a grandma's soul. He rolled over on his own for the first time, but you could tell he had no clue how that happened or how to correct it. He seems shocked - "HELP, WHAT JUST HAPPENED!!" I blew bubbles for him and he was amazed and stared at them with wonder. He 'talked' to me and he has the cutest smiles. He was also out of his normal pattern so when it was time to sleep, HE JUST CONKED OUT - BAM. Hahahaha. Poor little dude. My daughter said he slept a lot on Sunday and Monday - catching up and getting back in the groove. They switched him to a bed 'sack' instead of swaddling him since he had rolled over and all. So far I've not heard if he's tried rolling again or not. I think the look on his face after he rolled was the same look I had on my face after my first roller coaster - AIN'T DOIN' THAT AGAIN EVER! I really wish I could post pictures of my grandson, he's so damned cute - but I respect their attempt to keep him off social media. However, it kills me I can't share with the world. Smile. To me it feels like time is going faster since the whole 'spring forward' thing. Sigh. Time goes faster as you get older anyway - but this time change has thrown me for a loop. One of my coworkers is leaving me (yes, I take it as a personal thing....) so we'll have a department lunch for him on Thursday and have a beer Friday night after work. He's a gem and I will miss him horribly, but he is young and can shape his own future and I wish him well. It just makes me sad, though. There were 20+ crows out back in the trees yesterday. They were having a meeting or a funeral or something. I researched it and crows will gather to look for mates and/or share information. They are smart birds. They are also loud birds. I wish I understood bird calls. I bet there were some very interesting conversations. I made salsa last Friday and have been eating it every night for supper ever since. I gave a lot to my neighbor Justin since he came over to fix my toilet. (He ended up having to make two trips to the hardware store to fix it so it would work again.) Tonight I will finally finish it off. I think homemade fresh salsa has to be one of the best and healthiest things for you except when you eat it every night for five nights. Sunday I will have Easter dinner here for my sister in law and my sons. She has surgery next week, so I figured she could use a decent meal. She thinks she is coming to have a sandwich. I will surprise her! The boys are not ones to turn down a real meal - so they will eat anything I produce. Smile. My oldest couldn't be here this last weekend - he was stuck in Omaha. Being a semi driver can suck sometimes, especially with the winds today. I hope he does OK. (I am glad he was not Baltimore when the bridge went down...) Normally when there is an incident where semis were involved, he will send me a text to tell me "that's not me" which I do so appreciate. Apparently Norman is hungry for supper since he just slobbered my keyboard and zoomed in the screen - so off I go to feed the beast! Stay warm! March 31, 2024 - It was a nice weekend. I am tired, though. (But it is a good tired). Today was wet/misty and overcast all day. Not cold, though! On Thursday my department went to lunch in honor of Mitchell, one of our network engineers, who starts a new job on Monday. He is such a sweetie. I will truly miss him. We also met at a local bar after work on Friday to have a beer and toast his new job and give him grief on him leaving us. I wrote him a goodbye poem. We all laughed and laughed and had a good time. He gave me one of the biggest hugs I ever had in my life before we all went home. He will miss us. We are a fun group. The only reason I have stayed at that company for SO MANY YEARS is because I love who I work with. Maybe he'll miss us so much he'll come back. Friday night before the bar I took Norman to the Vet for his yearly wellness visit and booster shots. I left 390 dollars poorer. Cripes. Apparently Norm is doing OK. He actually behaved pretty well at the vet. Oh, sure - he left a small lake in that office floor from his drool, but he was a good boy during all the shots and the 'physical' - and she checked him ALL over. He was unsure of the underbelly check, but he still just stood there and was a good good boy. (The Doc said they had a huge Mastiff in earlier, so 'Lake Norm' was nothing compared to what the Mastiff left in the office...) When I took him in, he went right to the scale (he knows the routine) but they had a stuffed dog on the top of the scale reader and Norm stalked it! Hahahahah. We all assured the boy it was just a stuffed animal. Saturday was breakfast with the boys which is always nice. I am fortunate my kids keep in touch with me almost on a daily basis. The boys do their weekend in person checks on me, which also warms my heart. (Plus, I buy them breakfast, after all...) I went to the hardware store before breakfast and got a new furnace filter and some bird food. They always come back here with me and play with Norman before they take off. Before I leave I tell Norman, "I'm bringing the boys back!" and boy howdy - the boys had better show up. As soon as I let him out of his crate, he's at the door knocking stuff off shelves with his killer tail, waiting for his boys... Today was also fun. I blasted the soundtrack to Jesus Christ Superstar on my PC while I prepared food for Easter Dinner. We had green bean casserole, deviled eggs, ham, and mashed potatoes and gravy. I made a hot fudge cake for dessert. I think my sister in law was pleased. She enjoyed socializing with the boys and the boys love their Aunt. Everyone went home with leftovers and even I have ham for a few sandwiches!! So Much Ham. That piggy did not die in vain because it was a damned good ham. My house still smell like ham. (That is not a bad thing, mind you - ham smells good and I'm happy I can smell it!) I am dishwasher load #2, because I was NOT going to hand wash all the dishes I messed up during the whole dinner process. I am not sure why I make such a mess, but the food comes out very good so I supposed a mess is worth it. Norman knew something was up when washed the bathroom mirror. That is a sure sign of having company!! He proceeded to pace the floor and get in my way and watch out the windows until the boys got here. Holy Crap - I just realized this is the last day of MARCH! Ugh. When my department went to lunch, we were lamenting the fact March was almost over and it was the end of the month...and someone said, "It seems like it is always the end of a month, lately..." Very true statement. I think will print that quote off and hang it in my office. April 4, 2024 - April 8th would have been my sister's 72nd birthday. I have been having days where I really really want to call and talk to her (the 'her' before her dementia kicked in) and I have to actually put down the phone that I grabbed to make said call, because I remember she's out in the Universe now. I miss our bond. I miss making her laugh. This is the third year since she passed. I appreciate she was there for me when she was and I was lucky enough to have a good relationship with her. I don't take that for granted. However, I miss her tons. The other morning when it was sunny out, there was a robin on the topmost part of the tallest tree out front singing his lungs out. I assume, since I am not fluent in robin, that he was singing to the sun which made me smile. Then the next day when it was rainy in the morning, he was still out there singing his lungs out, so I figured out he's probably just a 'randy' and looking for a mate. The weather has nothing to do with it at all... April 8, 2024 - Happy Eclipse Day! Where I live we only get a 96% coverage. I got myself some certified "don't burn your retinas out" glasses. I will look at it and see what I see. I have seen funny memes on Facebook about the moon "mooning" the sun. Smiles. My semi driving son is happy to be in Omaha away from the crowds that will be flocking to the path of totality. Humans, go figure. My son says there are rumors of the apocalypse with this event which makes me laugh. The only bad omen about a solar eclipse like this is the fact the media screamed it at us for so long that people will be flocking to places to see it and there will be traffic jams and accidents on highways. The earth isn't flat, an eclipse does not mean the sun was eaten, and the world won't end unless us humans end it because as a collective group, we're idiots. I had a good weekend. Saw the boys for breakfast on Saturday and then came home and swept up Norman hair. Lordy, so much hair. You don't notice his shedding unless you are out in the sun and pet him and see the poofs of his hair floating away or end up eating half a pound of it in bed since he shares my bed. Under his crate it was BLACK with his hair. Just unreal. It amazes me every time I clean it. (If it is getting to the point where it is a black layer and I have to empty the vacuum after doing it because there is so much, then I am pretty sure I waited too long to clean...) My daughter did a video call with me and my grandson so I got to see Irving. He is a sweetie. He is learning to make new noises such as SCREAMING when he laughs and the like. I can see he is learning to control his fingers and my daughter said he can roll from his stomach to his back, but he has not rolled from his back to his stomach since he did it here. He is constantly grabbing his toys and shoving them in his mouth. I bet he is pre-teething. I bet she weans him off her boobs soon if that is the case....hahahaha. Swans flew over this morning and when swans fly over, they make a unique noise whilst flying which makes me smile. Wood ducks make funny noises, too. I feel bad about giggling at them, since had I wings and flew, the sounds I would make to move my massive bulk would be more like an elephant stuck in a tar pit while playing a kazoo. There is a pair of geese that hang out by the side of the road in the field to my west. They will honk at Norman when he goes out. Norman is not concerned about this fact. He is more concerned about the squirrels in the back yard that have the audacity to use his yard for walnut take-out pick up. When he trees a squirrel he will LEAP into the air as if he actually thinks doing that will get him up to the squirrel. The squirrels he trees just use the walnut trees to escape, jumping from one to the next, while Norman is still on high alert at the first tree. The squirrels are already a mile away and flipping him off as they go... April 13, 2024 - Ugh. Saturday morning and I should be sleeping in but I'm up at 4:30 a.m. (had to pee, of course) and I don't want to go back to bed. Maybe I will blog a bit and bore myself - that it will put me back to sleep! My poor sister in law, who recently had breast cancer surgery on both sides, has to go back in for MORE surgery. This doesn't seem fair to me, not one bit. The tissue samples they sent out after a surgery came back showing more cancer cells, so they didn't get it all. I am sick of cancer all over the place in everyone I love or know. I shake my fist at cancer. The thing that simmers in my guts the most is, somewhere, they probably have come up with a cure for cancer, but they can't just release the cure, as hospitals and tons of other places would go out of business and society would collapse in the US if people didn't get cancer. Sigh. (I am not a conspiracy theorist in any way - I am just thinking in a logical manner about that...) Plus, some freak place has billed her Medicare for things she did not get done, which is a known scam. Sigh. That has been happening a lot and actually forever so people really need to take note of any statements they get on what was billed! Speaking of scammers... I have been getting friend invites from older men on Facebook. I do not know these older men, so I delete the request. Going forward I shall also block those names. I laugh, because the requests are from such handsome fellows and come on, look at me - I don't attract anyone, let alone handsome fellows. Geez. I will also start reverse image look up as well - no doubt they are stealing photos from male models for AARP or something. I wish scammers would find real jobs. However, if people do that all the time it must be working and people fall for it - or else they would have to get real jobs. (Maybe their country doesn't have real jobs...but if there are not real jobs where they live - how do they afford the internet? A conundrum...) It was very windy here yesterday. When I came home to work from home in the afternoon, my cousin sent me a text asking how the wind was here. I replied, "It's not horrid." When I came home from work to work, the wind really wasn't bad. However, when I took Norman out to do Norman business, AUNTIE EM! The wind gusts were HORRID. Hahahaha. I have many branches down in the yard - again - and I am sure people have old trees uprooted as well. I watched an Amazon box blow by, which initially made me laugh but then I thought, "Oh No! What if my recycling Herby Curby blew over!" so I ran out to check that. Nope, not my Amazon box. Phew. Just a free range Amazon box from the next county over, no doubt. Norman would stand and sniff into the wind but his ears would blow out and back and he looked like he was flying. Plus, it could be calm for a bit right where I were standing, but be blowing like crazy at the neighbors. That always fascinates me. Weather is fascinating...mentally unstable for the most part, but fascinating. I watched the eclipse with my neighbors. Hanging out with my neighbors is always fun in itself, but add an eclipse and five dogs running around like idiots, and you have a party. So for a half hour it kind of went like 'glasses on and look at the sun', 'glasses off, yell at a dog' and repeat...The trees made eerie shadows at the peak which was cool. I saw pictures posted from people where the eclipse could be seen on the ground through holes in leaves. Even with most of it covered, it was still bright and with it being 93 million miles from Earth, the Sun must be so massive I can't wrap my wee brain around it. It is about 865,000 miles in diameter - which blows my mind. Here we all are, living in such a grand solar system in a grand galaxy and we are mostly obvious to all of it - we're too busy watching free range Amazon boxes scoot across our yards while humming the Bonanaza theme... On Thursday I worked from home. My eyes were killing me. I would have to use a cold rag on them to reel them in every so often. Every once in a while my eyes will hate me and treat me like dirt. (I looked at my 'log' that I keep on what I eat and what meds I take and such, and saw after the fact I had forgotten to use my dry eye drops on Wednesday, so it was my own damned fault). ((Dry eyes are real, people.)) Anyway - So I was happily working from home and then in the afternoon, oh my - I had the runs. It was bad for a while. Times like that I am glad my house is so small and the toilet is so close. That ran on (pardon the diarrhea pun) until late evening. My poor bum was very sore. Bless having ointments in stock. What brought that on, I don't know. Friday when I came home from work, poor Norman was crying at the end of he crate, standing there. I could smell something wasn't right. That poor dog had diarrhea and had backed up to the front of his crate and crapped his poor heart out ALL OVER THE PLACE. I let him outside and he was off to finish this job of crapping his brains out while I started clean up. (The look on his face when I walked in made me want to just cry. He looked so scared/pitiful, it broke my heart.) I gloved up and got a bucket of hot water and cleaner and started the clean up process. I cleaned off his crate bed cover, then took it off and threw it in the washer. I had to move his (gigantic) crate to get to all the debris on the crate part and carpet underneath. It wasn't pretty, folks. Once I got all of that cleaned up, I went outside with Norm, and he was still going here and there. I have diarrhea meds for him since he tends to get that when he's either upset or too excited- like a form of doggy IBS, so I shoved a dose down his throat when he came in. He was so happy I saved him. You could tell he was just thrilled I came home. He followed me a around and head butted me a lot with joy. I fixed his lunch with just chicken and sensitive stomach Science Diet food, and he wolfed that down and slept on the couch. I am not sure what brought on this bought of the runs for both of us - but I am glad I at least didn't poop on the carpet, too. He seems much better this morning, taking full advantage of the fact I'm not in in bed and has stretched out across the whole thing like he owns it. We are creeping closer and closer to launching our implementation to Oracle Fusion at work. Baby steps. There will be so much to do once it REALLY starts beside all the per-work and research and the like. I have finally gotten over the fear of it - it's my last 'hurrah' as it were at work. I will see it through to the end - but not doubt I WILL end up pooping on someone's carpet before it is through... April 28, 2024 - Bless my neighbors! I had ran in to get some stuff from the local grocery store, and when I got home I went in the house to put my purse on the table and let Norm out. I had every intention of shutting my driver's door when I went back out, but I totally forgot. They called to tell me that 'Hey, your door is open' and I thought DUH - is dementia starting? Am I losing my mind? I believe the answer is 'no' to both at this point but it makes me wonder. I just forgot to shut the door because Norman was all over the car making sure there was no TOY in there for him. I have stopped buying his toys. He has so many...He doesn't need more toys, but nonetheless he will still do a thorough inspection of the car if he knows I went to the store... I took him for a ride last night to help he calm down a bit after a very weird, frantic Norman day. This week we've had several thunder storms, and the boy is terrified of them. The other night when I was dozing in my lazy boy, we were having thunder and lightening but I LOVE that and it helps me sleep better, but I woke up to a foamed faced Norman who was panting and vibrating. He was sitting on my feet and cut off all circulation. Sigh. I had the brilliant idea to give him a half a dose of his Trazodone (from the vet to calm in in situations like this) since Friday night we were supposed to get boom booms. I could tell exactly when it kicked in: 
He was out like a light for the night. I enjoyed several hours of pest free-no Norma in my face time. However, Saturday he was not himself and he was almost frantic and it wasn't storming. He wouldn't eat breakfast, and when I did finally get him to eat, he barfed it up in the dog pen. He was hangry and spastic. My sister in law came over for lunch and I made us quiche with a burrito shell for the crust. It was good! The whole time, Norman paced and drooled and drank water excessively. I am NOT using trazadone again unless it's an emergency! He will just have to buck up and foam at the mouth and shake when there are storms. That has to be better than the effect that stuff had on him! This morning he woke me up about 8:00, foamed up and shaking. I assumed we had another thunder storm go though. It was over by then and I did manage to get him outside to show him all was well. I have never had a dog so afraid of loud noises from storms. He can SMELL and SENSE when a storm is coming! He is more reliable than the weather channel when it comes to predicting thunder storms! I wonder if a thunder jacket WOULD work for him? My BFF reminded me they existed. I might have to try - the boy suffers so. *translated : Sandy suffers so - he dog is scared and this makes her sad*  We
are in the
'chute' as it
were prior to
launch week
for the
software. We
had many
meetings this
week. After
the last one
on Friday, I
sent the team
this cat
picture.
Hahahaha. I
feel
comfortably
numb about
this whole
thing. People
keep telling
me to calm
down. I AM
CALM. As calm
as I'm going
to be through
all of this. I
didn't think I
was exhibiting
panic in any
way. "Calm
down, Sandy!"
I hear all the
time. Good
Lord - what am
I doing to
indicate I am
NOT CALM?
SOMEONE TELL
ME!!! I will
admit I would
like a
personal
secretary that
speaks "Sandy"
as I can be
very blurty
and words come
out not in the
order they
were intended.
This is
because I am
seeing the
whole picture
from
accounting til
when items
leaves the
building. I am
the one that
designs our
labels based
on customer
specs. I am
the one who
maps the
inbound and
outbound EDI.
I am the one
that currently
supports all
help calls for
our current
software. My
mind is in
MANY PLACES.
Yes, I have
trouble
verbalizing at
times. I want
to know how
this will
effect that
and I can get
it all jumbled
en route of my
mouth. I will
have to take
better notes,
and jot down
my concerns
and questions
as I have them
- and follow
up with them after
the
meeting or
session.
Trying to
express myself
at the time
creates the
need for
everyone to
tell me to
calm the f
down. Sigh. I
need a
secretary and
a wife...I am
still
struggling
with doing
things at the
house in
'real' life
that need
doing. I
actually have
to FORCE
myself to do
dishes,
laundry, etc.
I finally
dusted after a
month of NOT
dusting! It
was gross!!
I've mentioned
this before,
but the issue
continues.
After my
sister in law
left
yesterday, I
took a nap and
then decided I
had to do
SOMETHING - so
I went outside
and hooked the
trailer up to
the mower, and
put out more
yard
decorations
and planted a
few of the
plants I got
Friday after
work (which I
had to force
myself to go
get because
I've been so
damned lazy.)
Today it is humid and misty out. The whole balance of Mother Nature is early by 2 weeks. Everything is blooming and green and leafing. I am thankful for the rain, though, since we didn't have the snow we normally get to replenish the water levels when it melts, so the rain is a blessing, really. Everyone have a good day, and calm the f down, ok? April 30, 2024 - End of a month already. Seems like we're always ending the month at work. Sigh. Tomorrow IS MAY!!!!!!! I think I've come to the conclusion that my neighbors and I must start wearing a body cams, because stuff happens that is so funny that it would have been nice to have it on film. Yesterday after work I played Chuck It with Norm and he fetched the ball three times before he suddenly made a bee line to the side of the dog pen and started sniffing around. He definitely smelled something! He started to dig. I yelled at him, "No Norman! No dig!" and went over there. That's when I saw the dirt moving and so like any good parent, gave him conflicting instructions - "Dig, Norman! Dig!" Dig he did. His whole head was in the hole he made. He didn't find a mole as I am sure he had a bolt hole out of there. Norman was filthy and came in and made mud jello in his water bowl. Later in the evening I was out planting a few violas, and my neighbor Sue came over to chat. Her dog Gertie was with her and Norman was there when we all saw something running away from the hole Norman had dug. "Get the mole!" we yelled and the chase was on. Gertie was in front of it it not letting it pass. Norman was whomping it in the head with his giant paws. Sue and I were chasing them chasing the critter. The thing made it to clumps of grass near a tree and Sue said it was making noises - sort of screaming at the dogs, and I thought, "Not a Mole!" So I reached down and tried to grab it, but the turd bit my glove! It was a shrew. An angry, angry shrew. I dropped him and back he went to hiding in the grass. I got a bucket and came back and the thing decided it was running again (and we were telling the dogs to GET IT and such like good encouraging pet parents) and I ended up putting the bucket over it to stop it. Then we laughed because it dawned on us that if it wanted to get away, it would just tunnel into the ground below the bucket. I flipped the bucket and thunked the shrew in. We walked back to the hole to see if there were more in the hole, and I set the bucket down. Norm snatched the shrew out of the bucket, got bit near his nose, then ended up breaking his neck. The great Spring Shrew Hunt of 2024 was over. The only think missing was the Yakkity Sax theme song from Benny Hill. It was a good laugh. Norm got his fist "kill" which I feel he deserved after practically knocking it senseless with his paws. I've lived here since 1985 and have never seen a shrew here. (Lots of moles, mind you. Apparently my yard is grub city since there are SO many moles!) Never a shrew. A first for all of us. The old dead willow tree out back is a condo high rise for many chipmunks. They have expanded their territory to include my neighbors huge burn pile (that will light the greater tri-state area when burned) plus it seems like every morning there is a chipmunk on the highest spot on a log in my pile of wood. Maybe he's the landlord surveying his property? It kind of makes me chuckle. So many chipmunks...We also have a blonde squirrel in our yards, and so many black and brown squirrels. I love watching the younger squirrels playing chase in the trees out front. I wish I had their energy. Work is getting more intense as expected, but the challenge of it all is now having a bit of an allure to me. I have always worked better under pressure, and boy howdy - do I feel pressure!! I am kind of drained by the end of the day (mentally) however. I couldn't sleep last night until after 1 a.m., and then I must have sleeping so hard that I beat the life out of my alarm clock at 5:30, because I didn't get up until 7:00 a.m.!!! I am going to have to move it so I have to get out of bed to turn it off. Sigh. I hate starting my work day already behind.  I
went and got a
pedicure
tonight.
Normally I
don't do
'girl' things
like that -
but I was too
lazy to chisel
off my own
callouses. I
don't to nail
polish, I just
went in for a
foot cleaning.
Smile. I had
more fun
playing with
the back
massage chair.
It was
a new chair
and it MASSAGED
the heck out
of me. When it
would vibrate
hard (and of
course I had
set all the
buttons to
'stun') I
would make a
noise just to
hear my voice
vibrate. Then
I would
giggle. I am
such a cheap
date. Sigh. I
also had my
hair cut on
Monday. My
hair was about
an inch below
my shoulders
and had lots
of dead ends
from coloring
it. I decided
no more color
- I'm letting
it go gray -
but I also
wanted it
shorter. I
have naturally
curly hair,
and after she
cut off like
six pounds of
hair, IT
CURLED. I now
have a natural
afro and I
actually kind
of like it. My
youngest son
now knows
where he got
he 'sheep
head' hair. So
many curls
were on the
floor!!
The first
thing I used
to do when I'd
get home was
take off my
bra and shove
my hair into a
bun. Took me a
few days to
realize I do
not have bun
capacity hair
length
anymore...but
I have so many
scrunchies...I have see two Orioles at the grape jelly feeder. This pleased me. No hummingbirds yet, but friends of mine around here have seen them. It's just a matter of time for them to show up. Tonight I went out to check the grape jelly thinking they birds were not eating much - but IT WAS ALL GONE IN ONE DAY! They cleaned out all three little tubs of jelly! I washed and refilled them. I hope to see a grossbeak soon at my neighbor's crab apple tree. I do so love my birdies. I suppose I should head to bed and see if I can get some decent sleep tonight and wake up on time. Happy May to all. May the Force be with us! May 15, 2024 - Goodness, I've not updated in a long time. No doubt my two readers are worried. Today is a sad day for me. One of my dear friends lost her husband last night. His heart finally decided it was done operating properly. He died at home. They took turns doing CPR until the EMTs got there to take over, then they worked on him for a long time until my friend finally said to let him go. They gave it a valiant try. She has been so strong the last few years with her husband through many health issues. She's never given up. All I know is the emotions I held after my husband passed, and I know what she must be feeling and I wish I could suck all those bad feelings away from her. Death is hardest on the living... I get the distinct impression from my daughter that I've failed at raising Norman. It is true - I am just having a hard time admitting to it. Norman was there for me after my husband died, and I have spoiled him horribly. Plus Great Danes are very devout to their key owner and Norman gets jealous when I share my affection. He gets jealous of my grand baby and he can be rough. I just yell at him or use the ringer on the shock collar to make him calm down. I don't shock him. I ring the buzzer. Controlling a 130 pound dog is not easy for me. Even my best friend pointed out that when I scold him I do it in a lilting voice. The damage is done. (Did I ruin my kid's lives too? Maybe I am not mother material.) I had offered to baby sit my grand baby Friday night, but my daughter is worried Norman would knock us both over and hurt us both. At first I was mad at this - because when it comes to protecting my own, I thought I was good at it. However, I understand her concern. I would be concerned over that situation if it was me leaving my only baby over night at someone's house with a jealous slobber monster. Still, it made me very sad. I am no longer trusted to keep a child safe. That hurt my feelings and it will take a while to recover and come to terms with this new fact in my life. Work has been challenging, too. It sucks out what little brains I have left, but the team at Oracle has been very good at helping me understand. All of their terminology is different from ours, and that has been a challenge. I swear they've made up new words for things. I have read so much documentation that my eyes are falling out. I have a doctor's appointment on Friday for several things - my ear still hurts from time to time, although I actually think I can hear out of it most of the time and every once in a while (way spaced in between incidents) I've apparently have been having 'ocular migraines' where my eyesight gets weird, a strip of pretty kaleidoscope colors in my right eye, but with no pain - I called my eye doctor about this, and she said that is something my primary doc would take care of, and causes of this range from dehydration to high blood sugar. I've been upping my water intake. I feel like I'm falling apart sometimes. Getting older is not for the faint of heart. I have been tracking my sugar and what I eat and trying to move more than my normal sedate self. I have been having high morning sugar counts, too. My warranty has expired. Time to trade me in for a new friend? So, in conclusion - today is a sad day for me, emotion wise. I have a unruly dog, I am falling apart, and tomorrow isn't Friday. But I shall continue... Side note - I talked to my daughter and feel better. It's just 'first time leaving their kid with someone' jitters. I understand. However, I also told her eventually she will be begging strangers to take him just to get some free time. The fist time is the hardest. May 19, 2024 - It was a lovely weekend with the kids. They came in on Thursday night, then my daughter and grand baby and my boys came over Friday afternoon and hung out. Irving is so darned cute. He was really infatuated with my oldest son. Norman was being a turd head and was being very jealous of the baby, and finally my son said, "Norman, you're being a dumb ass!" which made Irving laughed. (Needless to say the term 'dumb ass' was then repeated many times to get the baby to giggle.) Then finally my son put Norm in his crate. "Time out for you, Norman!" Norman is used to being the center of attention. He was upset by Irving stealing his limelight. He would take a slobbered up toy to Irving and shake it a bit and make a humph sound loudly like, "This is my toy - you can't have it..." Seriously, it was kind of funny, but he was WAY to possessive of his normal humans when it came to the baby. I kept Irving Friday night so my daughter could go to my son in law's gig, and that didn't go as well as I had hoped. We had given Irving a bath to keep him on his routine, and she nursed him and got him to sleep and put him in his bed in my bedroom and left. She wasn't gone five minutes when Irving woke up, was looking around (I am sure he was thinking, "This isn't by bedroom!!!!") and he started screaming. He was UPSET. He did have to poop, which he did with gusto because he was crying so hard. He also had a burp. After I got him changed, I got him calmed down enough to put him to bed again when NORMAN decided it was time to bark in his face. The screams started over. Up I got him and managed to get him back to sleep and decided I would put him to bed and just be in the bedroom with him, so I shut the door. Norman began digging at the door and barking. So, basically, from 8:30 til almost 11, I really tried to give the little guy comfort and it WOULD HAVE WORK if Norman wasn't the most jealous male on the planet. I got him asleep in bed by 10:55, and my daughter got home at 11:10. I felt bad for Irving, the poor dude. He had been overstimulated all day with his uncles and us and all the laughter and the goings on, then is left in a bed he had no clue to its location, plus had Norm barking at him. I would have been upset, too. My daughter said he slept 8.5 hours Saturday night. Hahahaha Saturday they had gone to our little Burg to see a Fleetwood Mac cover band playing in the street there, and Irving did good (they had headphones for him so he did lose an ear drum) and he was gushed over by many people. NO wonder he slept so good. Today we all went to breakfast and Irving was a bit grumpy. He was done seeing so many new humans and was in no mood to be good. My son in law walked him around to calm him down a bit. They also had a brunch to go to for my son in law's cousin so she could show off her new baby. I bet they will all sleep good tonight after their exciting weekend. Next time they come, I will herd my nieces down here and my in laws over to meet him. I will admit I took a very long nap (so did Norman) on Saturday after every one left. It was a 3.5 hour nap - hahahaha. I appreciated not being at work this weekend. It felt good not to think too hard. Back at it tomorrow. After the kids left this morning I did get on line to do my normal weekend stuff and answer a few emails. My youngest son stayed and mowed my yard after breakfast. It is 83 degrees at this moment, and hotter earlier. I broke down and turned on the air conditioner. Norman appreciates the air conditioner as much as I do. Wish I had used it this weekend because holding Irving makes you HOT. That kid puts off some major heat. I have gotten my dishes done, caught up on laundry, and put things away that were amiss. Now I'm going to look for something I can consider junk food in this house and sit down and enjoy the rest of my evening. May 20, 2024 - Every morning there is a Pileated woodpecker getting bugs off my neighbor's dead tree trunk. I love watching him. They are so big. Their heads are SO big. I wonder how that works for balance... If our heads were that big in proportion to our bodies, we'd all be falling down a lot. I have to fill the grape jelly holder every day as not just orioles eat the jelly, so do finches and some sparrows. I do so love my birdies. I grumble and say they are eating me out of house and home, but deep down, this pleases me. I love the dog pen. I observe stars from the dog pen at night and bask in the morning sounds of my yard whilst in the dog pen, and it finally dawned on me WHY I love the dog pen. I feel safe in there. At night, if someone or something was out there in the dark, they'd have to go over the fence before getting to me which should give me enough time to get back in the house and lock the door after no doubt crapping myself from fear. (Bonus.) I have motion lights in the dog pen, and sometimes at night they will randomly turn on when there is no motion, so I've taken to talking to the spirit or whatever set them off. I never see anything that could set them off - I'm not moving - so I just say hello and make small talk in the general direction. The kids always say that when I go mental and lose it in my old age, they are building me a fenced in area where I can roam free but can't wander off too far. I can see now where that would actually be sort of comforting. Smile. Every morning Norman goes for a walk about where he has to sniff the places he always sniffs every morning. I assume this is a perimeter security check. He ends up popping in Justin's yard. Justin's one dog, Steve, backs butt end in to my flower beds and uses them as a toilet. I bet we could teach Steve to poop in a toilet if the toilet was lower to the ground. This cracks me up - I've never seen a dog back into an area an poop until Steve. It is supposed to get up to 86 degrees again today. So early in the season for these types of temperatures in my opinion. May 26, 2024 - I love watching dragonflies! The most common ones out now look like Apache helicopters used by the military. They are out there munching up buggies and I appreciate them. I appreciate the bats out at night and wee early hours of the morning, too. Also munching up skeeters. Very helpful things with wings!! The other night when I was decompressing in the back yard, watching all the dragonflies, there were several smaller planes flying about, and I was pretending the sound was from the dragonflies. I entertained me for quite a while, further proving I am a cheap date. Norman is currently out in the dog pen. He refuses to come in. Why, you may ask? Well, he woke up this morning shaking his full head off - Great Dane ears are huge and I'm pretty sure at any time he'd get airborne - and he obviously was in dire need of ear care, so I gave him said ear care. OH HELL NO! Just because Norm is miserable with an icky ears gives me no right to clean them! Duh, Sandy! Honestly, when I was cleaning it - you could tell it felt better for him, but then he was outta here - hiding in the dog pen. It is supposed to storm later, that should bring him in. Last night someone was setting off fireworks in mass quantities, and that drove the poor boy nuts. I didn't get much sleep last night. Sigh. He is the most sensitive, dainty GIGANTIC DOG I'VE EVER MET. The boys took me to breakfast yesterday. That is the end of "Mother's Day Month" where my oldest paid for a full month of Saturday breakfast meet us. I appreciated it greatly and I also love seeing my boys. It was raining yesterday morning, so my youngest came in the afternoon to mow after the sun came out. "If I don't mow today, it'll be a few days before I can..." he said, in a wise voice. He also has a weekend concert coming up - so he won't be available that weekend to mow. I assume I will remember how to operate the tractor. Smile. I have HAD IT with my little Stihl weed whacker. Ugh. I have battled with that thing for three years, and I've very over it. I shouldn't have to be a rocket scientist to use a weed whacker. After I post the blog I am looking for a quality weed whacker that can stand up to an aggressive old woman who weed whacks with a vengeance. My Stihl FSA 57 was only like 129 dollars, and it works like it was only 129 dollars. Sigh. My BFF has a birthday coming up. I wish I could drive down and surprise her, but she knows I can't at this time, and she knows how much I love her. We're connected at the spirit level. If I survive this implementation, I am driving down for her birthday next year for sure. Norman finally wanted in. I had shut/locked him out of his crate, so he's on the floor the furthest he can get from me. You never know when I'll go nuts and go for his ears again, after all... I am trying to get the gumption up to make potato salad. It sounds good to me and I can share it with my neighbor. The last two nights I made myself a steak. One night I had steamed broccoli with it and a baked potato. The other night I tried some sweet corn from the grocery store. Ick on the corn. I can't taste much, but that stuff did not have any flavor at all. I did enjoy the melted butter, though. Now I'm off to boil potatoes and make my eggs for the salad. Wish me luck. Viva Sundays! June 2, 2024 - Ah, this was a weekend, for sure. Now it's over. Now it's almost time to go to bed to start a whole new exciting week. Friday after work I washed my sheets and comforter, and took a nice hot bath and went to bed smellin' fine. Saturday was breakfast with the boys which is always fun. They came back here and played with Norman for a while before going home. As I sit here pondering, I honestly don't remember what I did for the rest of the day?? It must not have been too exciting. OH - I did go get some more plants to plant. The pansies that lived through the winter and bloomed so pretty this spring are pooping out, so I got a tray of petunias to replace them. I also got a tray of orange marigolds, but where I will put them I'm not sure yet. They looked like they wanted to come home with me. My morning glories are going nuts. I will have to put up climbing twine soon. Today my niece came down for a visit. It was good to see her. She's looking good! We went to lunch, which was nummy. While she was here, she found a tick on Norman's neck. (Norman has NEVER had a tick on him ever up until this point. Ticks 'round . these parts are terrible this year...my neighbor Sue has found several on her and even more on her doggie and Justin has found a lot and...ick. Just ick.) Wendi finally got it and pulled it off, but then Norman was convinced we were going to hurt him any time we touched him!! Ugh. She saw another on inside of his floppy ear, but we couldn't get near him to remove it. (Thank you, Wendi, for finding those bastards!) After she left to go home, I got the pinch collar out and rigged up Norman with that and tied him to the dog pen so he couldn't move. I got the tick out of his ear. No dog that sleeps with me is going to have ticks living on him!! After that, I stripped my bed AGAIN and washed everything. I also did some weed whacking with my new weed whacker, so I was covered in dirt and grass and grime. Of course, it felt like I was covered with ticks. Hahahaha. I took a nice shower to get rid of the debris. I have a clean bed. I will do a tick check on the slobber monster before we go to bed. I can take about any kind of bug, but not ticks. They creep me out big time. I have no issue ripping them off a dog or cat and killing them - I just 'feel' them forever crawling on me after seeing one. My youngest son was supposed to mow today, but he's got physical issues. He thinks he may have an inguinal hernia. He says he's known something was up for about a month. He has no insurance. I told him you don't mess with a hernia. He will call a doctor tomorrow. He can always work out a payment plan or something with the doctor/hospital. I hope if it is a hernia, they can get him in on an out patient basis. I don't care how old your kids get, you are going to worry about them. Sigh. But he is an adult male. I suggested that he look to see if he can get signed up for some kind of insurance, but I am pretty sure he missed the sign up window for Marketplace plans...He will have to get on top it right off the bat next year, for sure. My nice neighbor Justin mowed for me. He's good to us old folks. Back at it tomorrow. I have been watching a lot of videos about Oracle, the SaaS we're going to. I gave my eyes a break this weekend and they are very grateful. I was ever so happy to find out you could speed up those videos up to 5 times the speed. I like to take them at 1.75. Sure helps scoot through them. I am the type that will have to play in the 'sandbox' as it were to understand things - videos are great and all - for an over view, but I want to see THE MEAT! A red bellied woodpecker was eating seed off the ground in the dog pen. (I keep my seed feeders in there to deter deer and raccoons.) I had not filled the suet feeders up, hence the reason it was in the pen, no doubt. It was kind of funny - it was scarfing down seed, and when another bird would get too close, it would open its mouth wide and hop at them. MY SEED!! That was very entertaining. There were martins out scooping up buggies when my neighbor was mowing. They are such talented flyers. I have my own personal air show here most days...I got to see a male cowbird trying to pick up a female on on my fence, too. He did is puff up and dance routine several times. He finally flew away after she rebuffed his advances, poor guy. Have a marvelous first week of June! Be sure to check yerself for ticks... June 9, 2024 - It is a beautiful day out, but VERY windy. It does wonders for my natural curly hair. Norman went out with me to plant the few remaining *living* marigolds I had. He likes to steal the little plastic plant holders and ripping them up. He was disappointed today as I did not let him steal any. It has been very breezy 'round here several days in the last week. My oriole feeder blew off the pole and broke. My son's lost a tree in their front yard. I am just grateful it's just winds and not storms!! Tomorrow is our official 'launch' date for implementation. We've been having many pre-launch meetings all last week. This will be a monumental project. I dare not think more than a day ahead or I panic. One day at a time is the only way I'll get through this next year or so. Large sigh. When I am out in the dog pen keeping an eye on Norman on his poop walk abouts, the chickadees and the sparrows are not afraid of me whatsoever and will take that opportunity to go to the bird feeders and dig through the seeds to get just what they want. This is a big bonus for the mourning doves and cardinals that don't perch to eat seed, but why bother when the little birds are throwing seed all over the place. It is also a boom for the damned cow birds, red winged blackbirds and my crows! There is always food on the ground, but they won't come up when we're out there. Good. Let the wee ones get their chance. It cracks me up when the chickadee(s) are sorting through the seed - throwing so much out as they look for just the right seed - they remind me of Beavis from Beavis and Butthead - just the look in their eyes and I can almost hear them saying in Beavis' voice, 'Hehhhh....Yeah, yum...yeah..." Friday night my oldest came over to 'babysit' Norman so I could mow the front yard. It was fun to mow again! I bought us sub sandwiches for supper. It was nice. Saturday he was my date to the old car show in town. We looked at a few streets worth of cars. So shiny. One was a kick butt metallic blue. I pointed out others where I could never get out of something so low to the ground. Smile. The main goal was to go see the local band I like. They performed from noon - three p.m. It was fun! I appreciate the my boys don't mind hanging out with me. I got a corn dog for lunch; another goal of mine. There were a lot of people there and I wonder what the estimate will be on the number attending. All the food places were busy as all get out. I got a call from the Otolaryngology office that my family doctor referred me to. They wanted to schedule an appointment for my ears. I'll have a hearing test first, then a visit with a doctor. They can't get me in until NOVEMBER!! Wow. Just WOW. In a way, secretly, I'm glad because of the whole implementation thing - but that seems a long way off. Heck, I've had issues with my ears so long, this really won't be a big deal. What? June 16, 2024 - I am updating this damned blog whether it kills me or not. My best friends and favorite family members check this, and they are due for an update. In the past week - there were two phrases that came up in conversations at work that made me laugh and also would be the PERFECT name for a new rock band. #1 - "Preempt the Dump" and #2 - "The Moles are Revolting." You would have had to hear the whole conversations involved to understand why these phrases were uttered, but I am recording the Rock Band Names here for historical purposes. We lived through our first week of launch. Not much happened. It was just an over view of LAUNCH. I think just so all software companies involved can start billing us, really - but still... Technically, according to them, it should take a year (or less). Um, ok. If you say so. It will be longer, but what do I know. We are so lean on team members that unless we hire more people (which won't happen) it will take longer than a year. I see many weekends buried in data in my future. (cxwdqs AZsssssssssssssssssssssw <--I am leaving that blurb there - Norman was helping me type. I had gone to the bathroom and came out to find his big head on the keyboard, drooling all over. It is, however, kinda how I am feeling about this whole implementation.) The weather in the early morning hours and at night has been wonderful. Such a clean, crisp type of coolness. If the whole summer was that temperature, it would be divine. Heat comes during the day, however, so you grab the hours that are the best when you can. Norman just got done with his first morning walk about to find a place to crap, and it was just nice sitting out there, secretly wondering why it takes a 135 dog 20 minutes to find the perfect poop spot.... My oldest son is officially out of work. Wednesday was his last day. The truck line he drove for the last eight years shut down. My youngest son has been trying to not over due it on his groin hernia. My daughter has had a flare up of strep, I fear. She texted this morning that her throat was on fire. Sigh. Isn't funny how once a kid falls out of you, you NEVER stop worrying about them? I can distance myself from some of the stuff in their life, but I will always want to either 'take care of them' or give them advice they will never take. Being a Mom is hard. The only true fun part about having kids was the 'creation' part of the whole process, and with me back then no doubt beer was involved... On Friday, I knocked my huge Tervis glass of ice tea all over my desk here at home and had to stop work to clean it up. I moved some cords (there are very few outlets here in the old p.o.s. house, so many power strips are in use around these parts). I decided, in my infinite wisdom, to replace the 'main' power strip I had with the new tower one I bought. Well, then - that would have been a great idea, except I proceeded to knock my glass over again, so I had to crawl around and clean it all up, and Norm was trying to hump me from the back (always a compliment). Finally got the tower up and stuff plugged in, but I was missing the cord that goes to my pc and the left side of my desk power strip. Again, I was on the floor, in the door of my desk, looking for where that cord went to. IT WAS SO DUSTY IN THAT CUBBY HOLE - so I had to sweep it out. I traced the cord to the outside of my desk to the side of my desk (while, again, Norm is 'helping') and finally found the damned plug. I was back up and running. Ugh. What a way to spend a lunch. I have put off cleaning ANYTHING in my home for so so long, that I am sure I will never catch up if indeed I did start to clean. I have pondered hiring a 'maid' of sorts, but that is stupid since I am perfectly able to clean my own house. The thought of help, however, makes me happy. Maybe I will look in to it. If someone came once a week and the chore was not left up to me, at least the place wouldn't look so USED. (With Norman in the house, though - it will always look VERY USED.) June 21, 2024 - Another perfect name for a rock band -"Spastic Little Puds". I do so love my friends who spew forth funny things constantly... Norman got me up at 3:58 a.m. He woke me up to tell me he had peed in the kitchen, apparently. Sigh. I had a supersized pee pad down for him in case and the boy had it FULL. (It was my fault. I filled the kiddie pool up yesterday and he spent a lot of time splashing about and drinking TONS of water and I did not drag him out to pee before I went to bed.) Once I cleaned up the Normanization of my kitchen, I spent 15 minutes chasing flies around with the fly swatter. Always advisable for an old woman who just woke up to have a weapon in her hand so early. I decided I was just going to stay awake. We hired an external program manager for our implementation project, and he comes today to meet us. My poor boss hurt his back last weekend and is still out of commission, so it will just be us three ladies from the steering committee to show him around. My oldest son volunteered (after I asked him) to come entertain Norman for me today whilst I'm gone longer from home than normal. (Usually I work from home in the afternoon.) Bless unemployed offspring. I had a three month cancer check up this week, since the doctor did not like what she felt at my six month check up. She has scheduled a diagnostic mammogram and sonogram for me. She still doesn't have warm fuzzies about my right breast. Sigh. I am not worried a bit at this point. If it is cancer, it's cancer. If it isn't, it isn't. I will deal with issues as they arise. My dear friend Grace who has also gone through cancer twice agrees with me when I tell her that it's pretty bad that the only time we get any 'action' is when we go to for cancer check ups. She reminded me that we also have to pay for it, too. One must find humor in life, I say. I ordered myself a new desk at the prodding of my sons. I had my neighbor come over and carry the HEAVY box into my living room for me. One of my sons will assemble it, I assume, otherwise I will just have a giant heavy box in my living room as decoration. I must admit, I will be happy to clean behind my desk set up now - as it has not been touched in forever. I will no doubt find new forms of life and gigantic dust bunnies who belong to a union or the dust bunny mafia. It won't be pretty. Off I go to tackle Friday. Arise, Go Forth, and Conquer. Seize the day! (Insert other lame inspirational quotes here...) June 25, 2024 - I am going to vent about my day because I can. Please note I understand my life is better than 80% of all humans on this Earth. I do understand that fact. I have just petty "first world" problems. However, I'm venting nonetheless, so there. But first, the weekend! It was a nice weekend. On Friday - I had to be at work most of the day, so my oldest son who is currently unemployed came to 'babysit' Norman. I had also purchased myself a new desk. My son assembled said desk when he was here Friday. This was a wonderful thing. On Saturday, we went to breakfast and came back to get rid of the old desk and move in the new one. He destroyed the old desk and took it out to the burn pile. I was labeling cords and organizing things. We did a bit of Swedish Death Cleaning on the contents of the old desk. SO MUCH CRAP I HAVE NOT NEEDED FOR OVER A DECADE. Time for it to go! There were things I had in my desk that I didn't even remember what the heck it was or what it went to!! After that process, I started to move stuff on to my new desk and wire things back up. I am happy with the desk. It has taken me a while to get used to it, however. The old one had one of the under the desk keyboard holders and all this week so far I keep reaching down to pull out the keyboard. Duh. It's ON THE DESK. (It's been like losing your reading glasses but you have a pair hanging from your cleavage and a pair on your head....) Sunday was a trip to see my sister in law who lives in Sturgis. It was a nice drive down there - almost a straight shot from where I live. She has a lovely apartment down there. She was going through 'boost' week for her radiation and I remember well how bad that can hurt, so I decided it was better if we went down there. (I can't stay as long for a visit because of Mr. "I'M SCARED OF ALL THINGS AND I'M A DELICATE FLOWER" Norman, but it was still a nice visit.) It was fun spending time with my oldest son, too. He's fun to talk to and has a good sense of humor and he has a lot of insight on life. (I assume that comes from being an over the road trucker for the last 8 years and listening to a million pod casts...) Since I don't keep up with the news, he keeps me posted on major things. I will be sad when he goes back to work. There are so many jobs for truckers out there- he won't be unemployed long. I thought I had thrown away my charger for my smart phone during the clean up, as I couldn't find it anywhere, so I ordered myself a new one...it came today. It was a grand weekend and then here comes Monday and back to work to spoil it all. Sigh. Off to work I went, and got a lot done for some labels I'm designing. Then I came home and worked from home the rest of the day. (Mind you, my business day starts at 5:30 a.m. before I physically go in to the office. I come home at lunch and finish the day here.) Today I woke up at 4:45 and as I was debating if I should go back to bed or not, the motion lights in the dog pen came on. I could see a very large racoon literally sitting in the corner of the pen under the bird feeders, scooping up seeds, rubbing them around like he was 'washing' them, then shoving them in his mouth. This kept me entertained for a while. He was so casual about the whole deal. I finally knocked on the back door to get him to go. He has been here before, and he always comes in over and departs over the camera in the dog pen. All I get are close up shots of a nose and whiskers or a black out from his butt. I stayed up. I started work. I saw the weather and knew we were due for a good storm, too. When Norman got up, I gave him a dose of CBD call the hell down chews (I have to shove them down the back of his throat as he won't just eat them like a normal dog) and I got him to go out to go to the potty. He had diarrhea. Norm has that a lot. He gets upset and it comes out the other end, but at least he did it outside! I had a 7:25 a.m. chiropractor appointment, so I finished up a few things for work, then took a shower and crated Norman and headed out. I closed all the curtains in case it did storm, so Norm couldn't see the lightning. I can't stop the thunder sounds, but I can prevent the flashing lights. As I drove to the chiro, it was SO DARK out. An angry storm front was moving in. It kicked in when I was in the doctor's office, and just after he finished up my adjustment, the power went out. Ugh. His building had a generator kick in so it was only pitch black for like 10 seconds, but I knew my house was no doubt without power too. (Our one plant near town lost power as well.) I drove to work and got started on what I wanted to finish. Lordy, did it storm! SO MUCH RAIN. So much thunder! I was kind of freaking out about Norman, knowing he must be having a fit. I worked until about 10:30 a.m., and decided to go home and check on the boy. It was still raining, but not like the storm we had just had. It was still thundering and lightening, but it was tolerable. I got in the house and it was so dark! Norm was in the corner of his crate crying. Sigh. I let him out and called my neighbor to see if he would come start my generator for me. (I am not strong enough to get that thing going no matter how much I practice. Sigh.) We got the generator going and I came in and was able to get on to work right away, and internet wasn't out, just power. I even was able to attend a Teams meeting. My neighbor told me the power came back on, but I wasn't going to get disconnected from work just to turn flip the switches and turn of the generator. After the meeting, I did do that, however. Norman even went out to poop (diarrhea, of course) and then he came in and finally ate. Phew. I kept saying to myself, "Give the boy his anti-diarrhea medicine..." over and over like a chant, so I wouldn't forget. I forgot. It was about 11:40 a.m. when the internet went out here. I tried to use my phone as a hot spot, and was able to connect my home PC to the internet, but the VPN to work DIDN'T LIKE THAT ONE BIT. Had I not had so many pressing things to do for work, I would have taken it as an "oh well" time off, but I couldn't. I put Norm back in the crate and off I went back in... I worked the rest of the day on site. Got lots done. Then it was time to leave for the day - I got stuck by a long train. A very long train. I sat there with a million other people waiting, but I do like to appreciate the art work on the sides of the cars. There are some pretty cool ones, and other ones that make me say, "You could have really tried harder..." Once the train cleared, I went home via town, and got stuck by another train. I had to laugh. Sort of... I walked in the door and thought I smelled something odd, and there was Norman back in the corner, but with a pool of diarrhea in the middle of his crate bed. Ugh. At least he didn't shoot it out on to the carpet. I opened the crate and he practically flew over the pile of pooh because he wanted outside, and while he was out I carefully folded up his bedding and got it outside. I hosed it off. It's very tough fabric, and I had just washed that thing. I cleaned it off good. It's drying now. I hosed it down with Lysol. I had, of course, forgotten to give him his meds. It's my own fault. I know Norm has awful separation anxiety. I know Norman doesn't like change or new things. I know Norman hates storms. I KNEW he would crap himself, but I totally forgot the pills. There are large limbs down outside, and big one blocking my driveway. I think those will stay until tomorrow. I might have the gumption to move them tomorrow, right? Until then I'll drive through the yard to get around it. I leave to drive to Chicago to spend ten days at my daughter's apartment with them. They have weekend plans for both weekends I'm there and I will get to take care of Irving. During the week, though, I have to work. I will come home the morning of July 8th. July 9th I have to get my right breast scanned because my cancer doctor didn't like what she felt. The 10th I have my quarterly sugar check up. I am giving my insurance company lots of things to do... What else can I complain about? When I went back in to work, I had forgotten I had put on my grubbiest clothes to wear around home so I went back to work looking like the bag lady I aspire to be... The flies are just god awful since the 'tropical heat' has blessed us. I fear for small children and animals - I am pretty sure there are enough vampire flies to carry those wee ones away...Norman just got done eating supper and I left my purse on the chair had he just stuck his grubby face all in it and over it... OK, It think I'm done venting. I am off to eat a Chicken Greek burger and a baked tater, precious. I have been addicted to the Chicken Greek Burgers since my BFF told me such a recipe existed. (Or did I tell her? Who knows!) Have a good day/night (depending on when you see this. Don't forget to give your pets their meds! July 7, 2024 - Happy July.
I've been at
my daughter's
place in
Chicago since
6/28. I will
be the first
to admit I
miss Norman
and his
slobber. I
leave tomorrow
a.m. to go
home...it will
be
bittersweet. I
am anxious to
get in my own
environment
again, yet I
will miss
these people
with all my
heart.
Spending time
with my
grandson has
been, well -
GRAND. He is
so damned
cute. He's
growing up so
fast. He wants
to crawl so
badly, but
can't quite
figure out the
mechanics to
that yet. He
loves his
solid foods.
He laughs with
gusto. He
shoves
anything and
everything in
his mouth. I
swear I see
two teeth
ready to burst
through his
wee little
gums. It has
been so
marvelous to
spend time
with him.
Babies are
good for the
soul
(disclaimer:
only if you
don't have to
raise them and
care for them
24/7.)
Watching my
kids be
parents
thrills me.
They seem to
have gotten in
down pretty
well. Funny
how having a
baby will
change you. My
son in law
participates
in all the
'baby' stuff
from changing
diapers to
getting the
wee one to
sleep. My
daughter seems
to thrive
being a Mom.
It warms my
heart.
I woke up at four (my time) and 3 CST. I decided not to attempt to go back to sleep. Not for a while, at least. I will nap later this a.m. I baby sit for the kids tonight because they are going to a concert. It will just be Irving and myself. Solo Grandma time. We went out on errands the other day and leave it to ME to biff it and trip on a curb. Down I went again. My left knee was the victim in this tragic event. My knees have been very sensitive since I fell in December in their parking lot (when I hurt both knees) and so here I go again throwing myself onto cement. (My daughter let her brothers know they were NOT pushing me down every time I came here. Hahahaha.) My son in law ran in to a Walgreens to get me large band aids and while he was doing that I was cleaning up the blood. Sigh. The kids won't be able to take me anywhere. Seriously, though - I have been trying to be careful. Steps are different here. Curbs are different here. I just didn't watch myself well enough in the excitement of the outing. Sigh. My oldest son sent me a link to a place from China or Japan that is designing body suits for the elderly that work like air bags. If the clothing detects a fall, the air bags go off. This made me laugh, mind you - but actually seems like a good idea. However, they have not designed just knee bags. I will have to buy myself some of those construction worker knee protectors. Sigh. I am really not proud of myself one bit. My Mom was always (literally) terrified to fall. When I was like 7 we went downtown Kalamazoo to a department store and I remember she fell in front of construction workers. I swear she was going to cry. I am sure she did cry. I just know she was always paranoid about falling. Me, however - I go into a fall like I was doing a stunt for Evil Knievel. I have always 'fallen' over the years. I get so excited about things and don't pay attention to where I'm going or what I'm dong. (Ok, a lot of those falls in my past were due to beer consumption, let's be honest ...) I assume I will have to see a therapist for my new fear of high cement curbs and cement parking blocks. While I have been here, the kids have had me watch all eight episodes of "The Rings of Power." I don't often get in to a 'series' but they forced me into it. I hate to watch 'series' anything because I get so enthralled with them that I would stay up all night watching the whole thing. Just like with books - if I read a book, I READ A BOOK. It was pretty good, I must say. It got me looking up the fact that Amazon paid the Tolkien estate 1.5 billion for the rights to Lord of the Rings. They can take all the freedom they want with the material now, but they did try to stay true, to a point. It is now 5:03 a.m. MY time. I am trying to be very very quiet so as not to wake the kids or the baby. I will log in to work in a bit to catch up on a few things. At the end of July we will have the 'wall walk' where Oracle comes in and sees how we do things now. I will have to hire a dog babysitter for that week since I'll have to be on site. The trials of owning a dog that has separation anxiety. (Which no doubt is my own fault - instilled in him by me somehow.) July 12, 2024 - Today my grand baby is 7 months old!! ALREADY?!?!!? Wow. The kids went our for dinner tonight and gave him a garlic knot to nom on. HE was very happy about that. He gets excited about eating, that's for sure. When I was there he had oatmeal for the first time and he couldn't get it in his face fast enough. He really liked the blueberries and yogurt mix. I adored being there and seeing all the 'first times' for him. Ah, memories. I came home the morning of 7/8. Outbound from Chicago was pretty mild, traffic wise. I think I've got a pattern down on when to go and when to leave! I miss them all, but I will be the first to admit it felt good to sleep in my own bed!! Norman was SO HAPPY to see me. He kept pushing into me and shoving his face in my face and trying to crawl under my skin. He followed me everywhere. I was happy to see him, too, but I didn't try to possess his soul like he did with me. Hahaha. This has been a long long week. We are not even into actual moving of data yet for implementation, and I'm already exhausted mentally. Sigh. I am no longer a spring chicken. Doing all this extra stuff means you have to work longer to do your 'normal' stuff. After I logged of work tonight, I sat in my chair and passed out for an hour. When Norm woke me up, I said, "No, Sandy, you are NOT going to sleep the evening away!" and I got outside and weed whacked. Ugh. That about killed me. Hahaha. I had not weed whacked for three weeks. I didn't do everything, just around the house and the sheds and the dog pen, but it's been bugging me so I felt better. Tired, but content. I had to re-thread my new weed whacker (I got an Ego) and it has an auto threader thingy where you push a button and it rolls up the string by itself. Very cool. Me likey. I came in when done and got in a nice bath and cleaned off all the debris that I had all over me. After the tub drained, it looked like I had a patch of grass starting to grow in there... I have bug bites on my left arm, and right arm and left leg. (Not bed bugs!) Normally mosquitoes shy away from me - they don't like my aura or blood or belief system or something, so I don't think it's a rogue mosquito living in my bedroom. I think it's a spider? I sprayed bug spray under my bed two days ago thinking that would help, but I woke up with another bite on my elbow. Last night I stripped my bedding and made sure everything was clean and fresh. I was going to do a thorough sweeping of the bedroom tonight to get all corners and under things, but I did the weed whacking instead. I will do that Sunday. Yeah, that's the ticket. The bites itch so much that I have had to take Benaydrl to ease the itching. I use anti-itch cream on the spots, too. IT DRIVES ME NUTS. I will find whatever is causing me grief, though. Mark my word! It won't be pretty...some insect is going to die. July 16, 2024 - Monday and today felt like I've worked three weeks straight. Ugh. I did have a good weekend, though. Saw my boys for breakfast, then my sister in law for lunch on Saturday. I do need to socialize once in a while. After my sister in law left, though - NAP TIME! Smile. The last two nights we've had storms. Storms mean Norman is scared and foams at the mouth and vibrates and keeps me awake. I gave him CBD chews to help calm him early on, but you cannot calm Norman when it comes to fireworks and storms. Not much sleep was had last night by either of us, and I need to go to bed but I'll type here first to get crap off my mind. It is not important stuff, but stuff nonetheless. I just took two industrial strength Pamprin. (Blue Bottle version.) I am way past periods, but that stuff can relax me like all get out. Might just be psychosomatic on my part, but it works. After work tonight I ran in to town to get some things I wanted from the local grocery store. (Meaning I totally forgot to pick things up at lunch when I came home.) I had a prescription to pick up as well. In the parking lot of the grocery store was a hot dog stand. I'll give you one guess as to what I had for supper. Smile. Sometimes you just need a good hotdog. When I got home I decided I should change the water filter to the house. It is upstairs. I was over due changing it. (I try to change it on the 1st of every month.) The water has been super rusty so I knew it needed a new filter. I got the water running, grabbed the new filter and a bucket, and went upstairs. To get to the filter housing and to shut off the water flow to said filter housing, I have to get on my hands and knees. Someone forgot they had a bad knee. Man, did that hurt when I got on down there. I managed to flip onto my butt so the pressure was off the poor thing but DAMN. Ouch. I cleaned up the filter housing and got the rust chunks out of the threads and made sure the o ring was seated. It looked OK to me. I put he filter housing back on. I turned on the water. No leak...I was happy, then EXPLOSIVE LEAK! I turned off the water again and took it apart. Double cleaned everything and pushed down the O Ring in the grooves. Tried one more time. It leaked worse. "Time for a new O ring no doubt..." I muttered to myself going down the stairs. I got the new one, went back up and made sure the housing was dry and debris free - again. I even cleaned out the O ring groove extra well. I carefully screwed it all back together. Knock on wood - third time is a charm. Wait - I best go check real quick. You can't trust an old crappy water filter set up like that one... OK, it's still not leaking. One wee victory for Sandy. My knee, however, is flipping me off. I also decided to change the water filter the water pitcher I use to filter water for the coffee machine and cooking. I do that normally on the first of the month, too. For the life of me - and I tried four times, I couldn't keep that thing from leaking out the sides of the new filter. O Rings and Seals are on my crap list today. I have disassembled the whole thing and will let it dry out over night and try in the morning. If it is shot after all the use it's been through - I will buy another one, I guess. Speaking of which... My stove died. It started acting up over the weekend. Finally it just died. Sigh. I looked up how old it was, and figured it would be just as cheap to buy a new one than pay for someone to come fix this one. My new one comes on Thursday. (Window Time is 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. That narrows it down, doesn't it?) I paid extra to have them take the dead one away. I do use my stove a lot, so having a working one is a bonus. I thought I deserved a working stove and since I myself am still working - so I said "screw it, I'm getting a new one." Let's see - dog foaming at the mouth, O Rings and sealing rings from hell, suicide stoves... I think I covered all of my excitement for you. Now go, be jealous of my life. Smile. July 25, 2024 - I got up at 4:15 a.m. to pee, and decided to stay up. Get me 45 minutes of 'Sandy Time' this way before my business day starts. Normally when I do this I just catch up on house chores, but this morning I will babble about my hell bent for leather exciting life. Three of my girlfriends had bible study together a few weeks ago or so, and they came up with two new cool/possible band names that made me laugh. "Ironically Pious" and "Insidious Cat Piss". It's the little things that makes me laugh that I treasure. A burst of laughter is like a gift. I have dinner with those girls tonight. GNO - Girls Night Out - even though husbands are involved as well and we don't get crazy and maybe, if we're lucky, make it for a full hour together since we're all tired but we all laugh when we're herded, so it's worth it. Smile. My new stove is here and installed and working. She's pretty. Heavy duty as all get out. Now, all I have to do is USE it. The oven got it's first test with making Norman's chicken. IT HEATS UP SO FAST!!! There are two medium flame burners, one small one, and a huge one for big pots. Pretty impressive. I will bake 'real' things towards fall, as then is when the mood will hit, I'm sure. My son came over to mow the yard on Monday after he was done with work, and he had only been out there a short while when the mover blades stopped working. He checked out what he knew to check out but was not sure why they wouldn't deploy. "I was making a turn and they just stopped..." I see how the boy mows (and he takes after me) he goes fast and makes sharp turns and all. (Remember the John Deere commercials - "It's Not How Fast You Mow - It's How Well You Mow Fast" - well, I considered that a challenge.) I called my 'mower guy' and he stopped by to check it out. We are starting with the plug thing for the blade control. I bought one from Amazon and it should be here today. If that fixes it, that would be great, and I can handle doing that myself. If that doesn't work, then he will take it back to his place and trouble shoot some more. One more thing in life. Like I said, it's the little things...good or bad... I was just about to let Norm out the other night before I went to bed and there, traipsing through my yard, was a coyote. I kept Norm in and watched it. It looked at me with indifference and continued through my yard to the corn field across the road. By then, Norm was having a fit and wanted out. After I knew the thing was gone for real I let out Norm, who immediately flew in that general direction. I think he would have charged across the road after it had he not had to have an emergency poop. Hahahaha - here he was running like the wind and then he put on the breaks to take a crap. That distracted him enough where he just tracked the smell of it into the back yard. Yesterday afternoon there were two female turkeys and seven 'teen aged' turkeys that came through between my house and the neighbors. When I let Norm out into the dog pen the teens flew into trees! The two Moms just ran fast. Once they were far enough in the back to feel safe, the kids came back and off they went. My car was screaming for an oil change. (Well, not screaming - it has a polite light that comes on and gives you a count down on your oil life then gently says TIME TO CHANGE YOUR OIL SOON!.) I called the Ford dealership and they have a mobile service truck that will come to your house and do the work. Amazing. The dude came out and changed my oil and rotated my tires and did an inspection, and topped off all fluid levels. Awesome. It's my first oil change since I bought it, so it was all covered under the warranty! Who's to complain. The annoying (yet polite) light is now out and peace reigns in my car once again. My cousin and his wife Kathy sent me wind chimes. This was a pleasant surprise. Even better, they were Big Foot wind chimes! hahahahaha! I have them out by the other Sasquatch items on a shepherd's hook. They make lovely noise, kind of a pleasant 'tinkle tinkle' sound. I suppose I will go start my business day! July is almost over! Cripes! Time is flying. On the down side of life, the roller coaster picks up speed, that's for sure! August 2, 2024 - Tonight was a Sandy Maintenance night. I deserved it. Self Care. I have to remind myself sometimes to do that. My BFF reminds me. My daughter reminds me. I remind ME. Sometimes I actually listen to all of us. I stopped working at 4:30 p.m. (started at 5:30 a.m.). I took Norman for a ride - it was raining and I thought that would help associate rain with fun stuff. He loves going for rides. I drive slow around neighborhoods so he can hang out the window and check out the wildlife or other doggies or kids or humans. Oh, and so he can totally drool all over the side of my car and all over the inside back of the car. I am just waiting for someone to report me and a cop car car pulls me over for stalking various neighborhoods... has not happened yet, but I assume one of these days it will. I had a check to deposit at the bank, so I went in to the local credit union and deposited it at the drive through. A 'live' teller came on the screen (because it was over a 1000 dollars) to talk about the check. Norman saw the dude on the screen and got all excited. He knows when you go places where I 'pull up' he gets cookies. The teller and I had a good laugh about that. "No, Norman - no cookies!" All around our little Burg are flags marking gas lines and other lines - they are putting in high speed internet all over the place. Norm found all the men in holes all over the place interesting. I watch one the guys marking lines just shooting them in the ground with a flick of the wrist! I bet he's done that before... Back home I came with Norman happy with the ride and I came in and did some chores. Folded laundry, started a new load. Put away dishes from the dishwasher and loaded it back up. I cleaned the bathroom mirror and dusted in there. I stripped my bedding and put on clean bedding. I ate corn on the cob and a piece of spinach pizza for supper and due to the corn and the spinach, I used my Waterpik to blow out the corn and spinach packed between my teeth. hahahahaha. I ran my hot bath and soaked in said bath. It was thundering by then so Norman was in the bathroom with me the whole time. I didn't acknowledge his fear, I just soaked and used sugar scrub on body parts and washed my hair. When I was done, I noticed I was able to use my left knee to get out! It hurt like crazy, but my knee if finally healing. All the 'scab' part is gone. Now it is just a very pink, vulnerable spot. I try like hell to keep Norm away from it, but that is sort of hard when he is so huge and tries to melt into me whenever he can. I came out and clipped toe nails in dire need of attention and used lotion on my legs, also in dire need. I can't believe how dry your skin can get when it is not winter!! I think it is 'old lady' dry skin, to be honest. I used a LOT of lotion. I cleaned out the tub (bath bombs leave debris sometimes) and got Norm to go outside. He did not pee, but he did go out, stood there as close as he could to me as he sniffed the air. Seriously - Norm can SMELL thunder storms. Even if it is sunny out and not too many clouds but there are storms due later in the day, HE KNOWS. My dog is a meteorologist. He does a better job than the Weather Channel. He is now asleep on the couch, so the sniffing must have indicated we're all clear. He only ate once today, which bothers me - but he's a DOG and I hear tell dogs will eat if hungry... I saw the coolest thing the other day. Well, cool to me. I have house wrens raising babies in a decorative Jim Shore bird house that I have hanging on my fence. Mom and Dad wren are coming and going all day feeding the babies. I am too scared to go look at them as I don't want to freak out the parents...but I digress. I was in the laundry room and looked out the window, and saw one of the wrens out there taking a dirt bath. I have NEVER in my life seen a bird take a dirt bath with such gusto! It made me laugh. That bird was almost flat to the ground, gyrating in the dirt, rubbing his face in the dire, flapping his feathers in the dirt, flattening out again and wriggling around like a worm in the dirt... For some reason it made me happy. One thinks to themselves that they've 'seen everything' but we've seen nothing, really. Always something new to see or learn. That damned bird made my day. The wrens always chatter when they come back with a worm or bug, and I thought they were scolding other birds or Norman or me, but I think they are just saying, "You kids shut up and open your mouths! You think I'm made of worms!?!?" My grandson is taking swim classes. He didn't seem too impressed with the whole ordeal - he was more concerned about getting the floating balls in his mouth. His two top teeth I could see when I was there are ALMOST out. He is a drool factory. My daughter sent me the cutest picture of him before they left for class. He is pulling himself up now on anything he can get a grip on and he is almost really crawling. They had to lower the crib mattress as he's pulling himself up in there now, too. He is growing up so fast!!! I do so wish they lived closer. Sigh. In ten days he will be eight months old. I hired my youngest son to babysit Norman in the afternoons I had to be at work all day this week. When I came home Wednesday, my son was out mowing. He had also put together two shelving units I bought to replace really really old ones I had. I called my oldest son and asked him to pick up pizza I ordered for us and come on over. It was fun to see the boys mid week. They were both hungry. I must have clicked like an idiot because I ended up ordering two spinach feta medium pizzas! Duh. So since Wednesday, I've been eating spinach feta pizza. I don't think I can stomach a bite more. Work this week was stressful. Monday afternoon I spent with explosive diarrhea which I'm sure was from worry/stress. We had the software company in working with us all day Tuesday and Wednesday. I worried for nothing. The team they sent clicked with all of us and it was a good two days. Long days - but good days. I was so exhausted when I got home Wednesday night, though. Next week we really get 'in to it' but hey - we're moving ahead. The team at work is playing nice and seems excited. The software team are all gems. I think as tired as I am or as I will get, it will at least be fun/tolerable. (Remind me I said that when I in recovery at an insane asylum.) Sigh. I am off to take two industrial strength Pamprin to relax. Viva Friday Nights. August 17, 2024 - The moon is almost full and beautiful tonight. It's cool out and the bats are out eating the skeeters. Very peaceful out there. I sat for a while, not thinking, really. I swear I could hear music way off in the distance. I can't wait to get into the ENT to get my ears checked. I can't tell which direction sound is coming from anymore. That bothers me. My right ear will still ache a lot. I know that one must need a tube. Getting in anywhere to see a specialist is very hard since Covid hit. Sigh. My Mom's side of the family had tons of ear issues, and no doubt I will, too, but some of it can be fixed, I'm pretty sure. My son's suggest that they take off my ears and install megaphone shaped things to amplify the sound. Hahaha. The other night, I let Norm out to poop at 3:30 in the a.m., as sometimes his poop schedule gets creative, and as soon as I opened the back door for him, he started growling and ran up to the fence with all morning glories on it. A racoon (a teenager) hid on the top in the morning glory leaves. Just his eyes and ears were showing. Norm assumed he had scared away the critter, pooped, and came in. I used a flashlight out the kitchen window to check, and he was still there. They can be annoying critters but they are so darned cute. Seems things to be going so fast this year. Leaves are already falling. My decorative grass is sprouting the cool tuffs on top already. Maybe it was because we barley had a winter before 'spring' and then spring was super hot. Who knows. The Earth is under duress. It has rained so much that I'm sure our water tables have been replenished, but it also made everything very Amazon Forresty like. The mosquitoes were/are horrendous. Work has sucked so much out of my brain that now I see this as another 'thing' that is just happening. Had breakfast with my boys. Always fun. I hope my daughter, son in law, and grand baby come to visit soon. Maybe over Labor Day weekend. I want to try out the griddle on my new stove so we'll have breakfast for supper. A big limb fell this afternoon into my yard from a tree in the neighbor's yard. I alerted my boys, requesting they come clean it up when they can. I do get frustrated being alone with no one to 'take control' of situations around the house. Sigh. I have yet to reach a balance with work and the implementation prep. By Friday I'm quite grumpy and snippy and wish a meteor would hit the earth. A year from now all will be well, I'm sure. Just getting there is like trying to figure out how to climb a mountain when your legs and arms have been chewed off by jackals. I am off to go to bed. My dreams have been quite detailed and some even scary the last month. I'm sure it's the extra stress on my brain. Some stick with me for several days - they were so odd. Who knows what cells of hidden thoughts are getting stirred up with all the extra brain work. I wish I could record my dreams - some would make very fascinating movies. August 18, 2024 - I forgot to mention that I also wake myself up talking! I've never done that before. I will be making a statement in a dream and wake myself saying the same thing! Odd. Maybe I should research that? Now that I talk in my sleep, I'm no longer eligible for covert operations for the US Military, no doubt. Smile. Yesterday when I went to breakfast with the boys, I stopped at our local grocery store to pick up a few things before hand. I got out a pair of glasses from my purse so I could read the expiration date on the chicken I was buying for Norman. "Man, these are crappy glasses!" I proclaimed. Hard to focus on the date field. I threw them back in my purse, but had to get them out again at the restaurant to read a card our waiter/friend shared with me. Once again, I muttered "These glasses SUCK!" My youngest son was staring at them and then he asked, "Mom, is one of the lenses missing in those things?" Hahahahahaha. Sure enough, the left lens was missing in action. We all laughed so hard. Pretty sure that is why they were so crappy, huh? We laughed quite a long time. I hope my kids are enjoying my decent in to old age as much as I am... August 22, 2024 - I will take this entry time to blow off some steam. I think I'm entitled to whine sometimes. I think the older I get the more I whine, though. Must be an age thing? I've been working a lot of over time, so I just stopped when I should tonight and walked away before my brains exploded. I will start with Norman. He's had diarrhea most of the week. He is a delicate flower and will get the runs after thunder storms or fireworks, and he has naturally 'looser' stools that most dogs. However, he's been a explosive water fountain since Monday. I have been working with the Vet on this issue. She had sent me a quote for checking every possible thing out....which was 1229 dollars for all of the tests and all. I asked if we could start first with the "Comprehensive Diarrhea Panel" (which sounds quite fancy) for 293 dollars. ("I'll take CRAP for 300, Alex...") I took some of his butt production into the vet yesterday afternoon. Today, however, he was still spewing forth and when I got home from work he was in the corner of his crate because he had crapped all over the place. I spent my lunch time cleaning that up. I called the vet and explained the issue. (They had not given me anything for his trots since they wanted to see what the panel showed first...but I begged so they gave him some meds to tide him over so he wouldn't "run" himself to death) I am concerned since there have been no explosions from fireworks or thunder boomers lately - so something is really wrong with the boy. Sigh.So there's that. I went to make myself a PB&J for lunch after all the clean up fun and saw the tell tail signs of mouse poop on the counter!! I literally said loudly, 'WHAT? MORE SHIT!" I took a second to clean that up and sanitize that counter. I set traps. "I am in no mood to deal with mice!" I declared to Norman who was concerned why I was fussing and fuming in the kitchen. When I was going potty in the middle of the night (while Norman was outside going potty) I swear I heard something behind the toilet. My ears are bad and I can't get into the ENT til November, but I know what I know and I swear I heard varmints relocating behind me... I put traps in the bathroom, too. After I am done venting here, I will put the rest of the traps upstairs. I really really miss having a house cat. They are worth their weight in mouse prevention. Let's see, crap....more crap....oh, yeah! For two weeks I've been having gut feelings about my 65 years old furnace that sits in the living room. This house has no duct work. There is just that huge Rheem heater RIGHT THERE. It has done it's job well for all these years, but something was eating at me about it. PLUS, every time I was worried about the furnace in the evening and things hover in the back of my brain, a commercial would come of for a furnace company. After about a week, I figured it was a sign of sorts. I called for a quote. When the man walked in his mouth dropped to the floor and he said, 'HOLY SHIT!!" then he apologized profusely. "I'm sorry, but those things were made for like a two story farm house!" He pulled the cover off to confirm how old it was. He was shaking his head as if in disbelief. I assured him no one died from that furnace, and I had carbon detectors all over the place. He was speechless for a bit. "I can't replace that thing with an actual 'furnace' without duct work plus this is SO out of code...I am going for a walk around the house..." and off he went. When he did come back in he pulled up a picture of a multi zone heating/cooling pump type thing where the main part is outside and then inside the house are individual splits where a small unit is installed. He said, "That is the best bet, but it will run you around 18,000" he said. We sat and talked a while. I told him I was a widow and doing the best I could on my own. Once we laughed a few times about life, he said, "Just chuck this place and move to a condo!" and we laughed again. I told him that I probably would die here. I love the location. I raised three fine kids here. I also told him I can't do anything until Norman crosses the rainbow bridge and Norm's been my rock (be it a shitty rock or not) since my husband passed. I told him my house was a crappy old former garage but it was, well, OK for me. "As long as it's heated..." I laughed, "or the pipes freeze..." "I'm gonna walk around outside one more time..." he said. When he came back in after about a half hour, he had a quote written up. Everything totaled just under 13,000. "Are you SURE?" I exclaimed. He said they could do it for that. I didn't argue. I had researched this company before calling of course, and they had good reviews and an A++ with the BBB. "It won't be pretty, though - there will be conduit running from the power box out back, and then the covers for the lines that run into the house for each unit." I looked around my living room. "Sir, as you can tell, I am not in any contest for Woman's Day House of the Year any time soon.." I explained how material things didn't mean much to me, never have. We chatted some more and off he went. I sighed. I felt so much better. My savings account does not, however, but I feel better. Kids don't need no stinkin' inheritance, anyway, right? This will all happen mid September, before the winter cold. I also called a place I had researched that sounded wonderful to come to a DEEP CLEAN of this crappy house. Ever since my husband was sick, I've fallen behind on that sort of thing, and now with work being so worky - I figured I deserved it. The quote she came back with made me CRAP! "I don't feel like I can afford 552 dollars for a deep clean at this time, but I do appreciate the effort on the quote" I responded back. If I am paying anyone to clean now, it will be myself. After Norman's crate explosion today, I've moved out his crate and cleaned behind there and did the window and washed the curtains. It is a start, at least. Baby steps. I guess I'm done complaining. I feel better for doing so. There really isn't anything major to be upset about now that I type it out. Work is way too overwhelming and I'm sure this implementation will kill me, but other than that, I suppose all is well. I will keep on keeping on until I have another melt down, yes? Yes. August 31, 2024 - The day, weather wise, is starting off nicely. Cool and sunny. I'll take it. Let's see. What trivia can I entertain you with about my life?? The funniest moment was Wednesday at about 4:45 a.m. I got up to pee and fell asleep on the toilet. I woke up when I head my alarms at 5:30. OMG! My butt and legs were asleep to say the least. Norman was upset because I wasn't turning off the alarms. "Dude, I'm sorry - but I can't move at the moment!!" I pulled myself up with the handles my son had installed for when my husband was bad. I could not move my legs. I couldn't even really tell if I was standing or not. I let myself fall forward and supported my body on the bathroom sink area. Slowly the painful tingling started. Slowly I was able to move my legs a little. Seriously, it was not fun. I was in awe of myself for being so stupid. That was an interesting morning. Advice - don't fall asleep on the toilet. I have gotten three mice since I noticed the mouse turds on the counter in the kitchen last week. One in the bathroom, two on the counter. It's been quiet since the initial culling. No more traps have been tripped upstairs or downstairs. This pleases me for now. Along the base board in the kitchen under the counter of the turd assault, I put out a couple of the really sticky pads where bugs and critters can get stuck. I noticed Thursday morning that there were two crickets stuck to the one. Very large crickets. Super buff (probably on steroids) crickets. I forgot to pick it up and toss it, duh. Thursday night Norman was being a turd head and acting out, ripping up one of my hankies and one of his drool towels, and then I head this thwap thwap sound from the kitchen. The dude has gotten that sticky cricket thing on his paw. He came flying out to the living room on three legs, his front paw in the air. It was freaking him out. I went to grab the sticky pad and he tried to bite me! "Oh, hell no dude, I am helping you!" He hopped into his crate. I crawled in after him. I know he was upset and scared because something was stuck to his paw, but I still didn't want him to bite me over it. With my left hand I held his collar and head up to the crate side, and with my right I grabbed the sticky pad and just held on for dear life. I let him do the work. In his panic he ended up pulling so hard it came off. Thank Goodness. That was fun. (Not really.) So there was that excitement... Friday I took an actual vacation day from work. I did my 'morning' duties, because those are tedious and I didn't feel like making my back up do it. However, after that - I did not check work. I started to disassemble my king size Sleep Number bed. I am downsizing to a full bed. That bed comes today. The Sleep Number has several layers of things you have to take off and unplug and the like. I got the top stuff done and did the deflation. The boys were coming over last night to finish the take down. Yesterday I also burned my brush pile down. There was no wind and I thought that would be the best time to do it as the smoke would go straight up. My youngest son got out of work early, so he came over and mowed the yard. The my oldest son came over after he got out of work. Then my daughter, son in law, and Grand Baby showed up. It was a packed house. We had supper together and I had to put Irving in the play pen so Norman wouldn't hurt him, but Irving did not want that. He is at the age where he is able to free range by crawling and pulling himself up and going along the couch and such. He was not happy in the playpen. My daughter got in the play pen with his - hahahaha - and that made him happy. He had a piece of crust from her pizza and I had gotten him some Gerber 'Chew and Sooth' banana sticks. (My son said, "So basically they are like raw hides for babies, right?") The boys put off moving the bed out of the bedroom until we had all eaten and visited and kicked out my daughter and her family. We needed the living room to stack up the Sleep Number so they can haul it away today! Good Lord - the dirt. There was so much hair, dust, and spider condos under where the bed was...I had to empty my vacuum canister twice. I got in all the corners. I was soaked with sweat and dirt when I was done. Ugh. I felt so ashamed of myself. "How did I let it get that damned dirty!?" I said out loud. It's not like I could have ever moved the bed on my own, it's was so heavy. Still, just GROSS. Norman got several balls back that were under there, too. He was happy for a while. Sleeping was a challenge last night. I started out sleeping in my chair. You can only sleep in your chair for so long. Norman had the couch. I kicked him off the couch and I took it. He then just paced from his crate back to me, into the bedroom and back out. He is so spoiled. His two favorite sleeping areas were in use or gone. Sigh. He finally crawled onto the deflated mattress part and slept there for like a half hour, then was back up and pacing. Even if the new bed is crappy, I bet I sleep good tonight, I'm so tired. Norman will not like the fact there is not room for two in that new bed, I bet you money...we'll see how he takes it all. I think that is about it for Sandy adventures. I am sure September will be full of more and more adventures. I am sure you can't wait. hahahahaha September 7. 2024 - I've been waking up and not wanting to go back to sleep around 4 a.m. lately. Ugh. Might as well update this thing, huh? Let's see, I got my new full sized bed. Check. They brought the wrong frame. Check. They are picking up the wrong frame today, and I ordered a new one and had my youngest set it up, so that's done and I'm not smashing my ankles on the big frame. When I contacted them about the wrong frame, they asked if I wanted to return it (well, duh - yes) and then said the only frame that they had that would fit my bed was one that was 50 dollars more (well, no thank you) so I just told them to come get this one. A simple return as it were. Of course, I won't get any money refunded until they pick up the wrong frame today. Then it will take 7 - 10 business days. I love how companies can take your money faster than you can provide it, but giving it back takes a long time. Something is wrong here... My sugar has been running high and I have swelling in my feet and ankles. I have contacted my doctor about the swelling part. It's been going on since late July. I narrowed it down, I think, to the blood pressure medicine I take. I have been in contact with my doctor and discussed things. Monday I have to turn in a blood pressure sheet so he can see how that is over several days and we'll go from there as long as I don't have 'chest pain, shortness of breath' or death and stuff. Getting older sucks. If you remember, I reacted to the prior blood pressure medicine by thinking I was having a heart attack and calling an ambulance. Sigh. I need a spotter person in my life. Someone who can slap food out of my hand when I get out of control and someone who can chase me around to get my steps up and maybe someone who knows voodoo or something and can make me younger, too. Doubt anyone with those qualities are looking for work out on Indeed... The activity at the humming bird feeder has increased. I am going to guess they are getting buffed up to fly south soon? All I know is there are eight holes on my humming bird feeder and no one, absolutely no one can share. So instead of perching and getting some sustenance, the birds are constantly fighting. They act way too human if you ask me. I won't fill it up again. Normally I stop by 9/15 every year. My youngest came and blew the green crap off the north and west side of the house for me with a power washer. Bless him. I wanted it off before they start the whole heat pump thing. I pray to God and the Universe that it goes fairly OK, that installation. I am not fooling myself that it will go smoothly - since this is the oldest house in the greater tri-state area. I had my electrician come and check stuff out and he will be the one to run electric back to where they will install it. The two days they are supposed to be working on it (Sept. 16/17) are also two full days of meetings at work for 'deep dives' into the new software. This should be interesting - me trying to participate in meetings while Norm is going crazy about strange people in his house. Sigh. When the electrician was here, I left Norman out in his dog pen and when I went to get him, his whole head was covered with drool/foam and all you could see was his eyes! Seriously - he looked like a crate of AlkaSeltzer had exploded all over him. The kids were all here over Labor Day weekend. I got to groove on my grand baby. He is such a doll. I'm not being biased, either. He is just too cute. We went to see sunflowers at Gull Meadow farms last Sunday and he liked the tractor ride and he tried to eat the sunflowers. He is just go go go now that he is mobile. It won't be long and he'll be walking, too. He wants to so badly, you can tell. He's constantly 'free standing' after pulling himself up and will take steps towards you if you hold out your hand and hold his hand. I made everyone breakfast for supper last Friday and it was yummy. (Too much work, but yummy!) My son said, "Why do we go to breakfast every week when you could do this?!!" and I just stared at him and raised one eye brow and said, "Because I would HAVE to do THIS every week...it's a lot of work!!" I am grateful they appreciated my efforts, however. Grand baby Irving is fascinated with my oldest son. Now mind you, my boys want NOTHING to do with babies - it's not their style, but when my oldest talks, Irving stares at him and grins ear to ear. Hopefully they will engage with him when he's a bit older and they can play with him. Then, things will change... The bad thing about waking up at four and staying up is now I want breakfast and I'm hungry. Hahaha. Oh well. I can wait til the Saturday a.m. breakfast meet up with my sons. I think. My stomach sound like it has other ideas. I think when we get home from breakfast I will force my sons to help me put away the summer yard stuff. Yeah, that's what I'll do...they just don't know it yet... I have a step stool that was made by my Grand Father on my Mom's side. (He was an excellent wood worker.) I remember playing with it when I was a wee child, using it for a housing unit for my toys and such. I know it's over 63 years old, that's for sure. I am not sure how long Mom had it before that. I do know it's not usable as a step stool anymore as the legs are all wonky. I do use it for a storage place for my water and other things in the kitchen, though. Why I mention this is because I've been trying to do the whole Swedish death cleaning thing to get stuff out of the house so my kids won't have to worry about it when I cross the rainbow bridge (that's right, I'm going to dog heaven instead of normal heaven) and I want to get rid of that stool, but it's hard. I mean, it's served a purpose for so many decades. Sigh. Humans attach too much meaning to material things, don't we? When my youngest was upstairs the other day he came down and said, "Man, we need to get a dumpster in here.." and I had to agree. So much crap accumulates. I really need to sweep the living room and kitchen so I will go do that, I guess. Hold me back - do I know how to party on the weekends or what? September 15, 2024 - Ah, life. I think that says it all. My electrician is here running power out to the back where they will install the new multi-zone heat pump that is replacing my furnace. He does his part today, then Monday and Tuesday the furnace guys come and do their part. I do NOT look forward to that. Norman is upset enough with just one electrician. Ugh. I sat out in the pen with him while the electrician did the panel stuff inside. I just brought him in since the outside stuff is starting. Norman will have a heart attack tomorrow, for sure. I have stayed as 'calm' as I can so nothing flows to him from me. Norm is a dog. I am sure he will survive this. Me, not so much. As soon as I sent a message to my doctor about my higher sugar readings and my leg and feet swelling, it has gotten better. Ugh. I stopped washing my hands with the special foam soaps I have before taking my sugar levels, and that seems to have helped just using Ivory soap. Why, I don't know? My blood pressure is lower now, and I don't know why. (Stress from work has dropped for me as we've started to see how the new software looks. My first impression of it was 'Oh, it's just another software...kind of like ours but better...") My stress levels have dropped which I am sure helps blood pressure. Self care is hard. My poor grandson suffered with hand, foot, and mouth virus all this last week. It is very contagious and spreads fast once it's out there - so he might have chewed on a contaminated block or toy somewhere when they were here over the long Labor day weekend. Poor dude. Everything goes in his mouth at this age and they visited a lot of places. He had his first real fever from it. He got the blisters on his hands and feet. Then, my daughter got it!! It is rare a parent will get it from their child, but leave it to my daughter to be an over achiever. She sent me pictures of it on her hands and it looks kind of like chickenpox in a way. I studied up on that virus.There is really nothing you can do for it except treat the fevers and put anti-itch lotions on the bumps. It has been a miserable week for my daughter and my grand son. Her husband was out of town all week, so she bucked up and did it all on her own, but she had a lot of pain from her blisters. You don't want to scratch them and open them up as it is full of contagions, but damned if you don't wanna itch. I feel so bad for her. It was her birthday yesterday, too. What a way to celebrate. When she first told me what Irving was sick with all I could think of was hoof and mouth disease - but this is NOT that. Hahaha. September 18, 2024 - We're on day three of heat pump/furnace installation. The first day they immediately came in on Monday and took away the 'beast' - the 65 year old Rheem furnace that's been here forever. I was giving my kids play by play in text, and my daughter wrote back, "Rest in pieces, you furnacey bastard!" hahahaha - made me laugh hard. They have run in to problems on Monday and Tuesday. Under the siding is cinder block bricks and they had to get different things to use to mount the conduit and such. Then yesterday they stopped because they need different insulation for the cords going through said conduit. I sure hope they are done today. Norman is finally calming down a LITTLE with strangers running in and out. I will end up having to redo my bedroom layout and my desk here as I don't want my bed directly under the heating unit in the bedroom, and I don't want to sit under the one in the living room at my desk. My My My .... so much to do. The workers have been polite and courteous. If it were me out there, I'd be swearing up a storm. Maybe they are, but keeping it under their breath. The house is extremely dusty from all the work, so that will be a chore when it's all done. Today WHEN THEY FINISH (see, I'm being positive) they will show me how to run the thing with the controllers. Cross your fingers there in no explosion when they turn it on.... September 21, 2024 - No explosions, which is always good, but something wasn't right with the units set up. I had them leave the one upstairs off, as well as the one in the bedroom, and just ran the air in the living room. When I got up Thursday morning the living room was blinking green. I looked this up and eventually just turned it off and shut off the breaker and when I turned the breaker back on, it was a solid green light. I reported this to the owner via email. He called me to tell me to let them all run all the time, just set the temp up if you didn't want it to cool. So I did. I had the bedroom controller set to 75, then 85, then 89 because the bedroom kept getting colder and colder. I put a thermometer in there, and it was 50 degrees in the bedroom!! I took a pic of the controller settings, a pic of the thermometer that showed 50 degrees, then I shut it all down. I sent the pics to the owner and explained. I had an over achieving unit. (That's what she said...) I went to bed and covered up good. Burrrrrrrr. The owner came yesterday. He started to analyze what could be wrong. (I will reader digest this - it took a while.) After swearing a bit, he figured out the 'boys' had connected some wires wrong. "Is this their first install of this type!?" I asked. Apparently not, but they did not follow procedure and long story short, after they had to unhook everything on Wednesday and re-hook it up for some reason, they mismatched where things went. The owner traced back wires from the units and got them all in their place. TaDah! It is now working. There was a lot more technical stuff he told me about and showed me, but I won't bore you with that. All I know is that it's nice to know there will be heat when it's time. (Maybe, the air works, I didn't test the heat...) My youngest son is in Ohio at the Lost Lands EDM festival. (I like the lights of EDM stuff, all the flashy lasers, but not the 'music'.) He normally comes home sick from those music festivals. I hope he is OK. September 27, 2024 - My BFF lives in North Carolina. I just tried to call her and check on her, because there was flooding on her mountain, but her phone isn't working. I will now worry until I can get in touch with her. Mother Nature sure gives us grief sometimes. My friends in Florida that I know are safe. Phew. They have SO MANY DRUG COMMERCIALS on TV. This bothers me. They have spent all this money to make the drug sound/look so glorious, but then they read us the side effects...let's review some of the side effects of most drugs on TV, shall we? "fever, swollen glands, night sweats; vomiting, diarrhea, weight loss; skin lesions or a mole that has changed in size or color; weakness on one side of your body, problems with speech or vision; changes in your mental state; blood in your urine; burning when you urinate, little or no urination, excessive and explosive diarrhea; fur growing on your palms; attracting cats to your yard; feet or toes may fall off; urge to run naked down the street....." OK, I made some of those up but geez! The commercials go all out with musical numbers and dancing and butterflies and unicorns, when in reality, most of those drugs will probably make you feel worse. Sigh. Old lady rant over! Tomorrow I am making my oldest son's requested birthday dinner. The boys get to pick their meals for their birthday. Good old homemade meals from Mom. I just baked the brownie part of my son's creme de menthe brownies he requested. Once those cool, I will frost them and stick it in the fridge. Then I will melt the chocolate and pour it over the top and back in the fridge they go. He turned 44 years old today. For the meal part, he wanted scalloped potatoes and spinach and sweet corn. Smile. I suppose I am happy he will eat veggies at least once a year. I can't believe he's 44! My daughter just turned 37! Where is the time going? One thing I do miss about baking for an event is my husband hovering around me waiting to 'taste' stuff - or take the bowl to scoop up the leftovers. I do miss that. It made me laugh because you knew he appreciated the fact I could cook. (Although I will admit there were times like Thanksgiving that he was out there so much it bothered me! hahahaha). OH, and - I only need two tablespoons of creme de menthe! Do you think my little burg had a little bottle of that stuff?!?!? NO! I had to buy a 5th! That should last me until I'm dead!! Might just give out shots on Halloween.... Work (for me) has calmed down in my mind. Still tons to do, mind you, and I work a lot of hours still - but mentally I am taking it better. I am so ready to sign off work on Friday's though. Last night I logged off work and things were bothering me that I didn't finish, so I got back on line and did stuff til that feeling of being behind went away. Tonight, though - when I had my ten hours in - I was DONE! October 15, 2024 - Around the weekend of 9/28, there were tons of anorexic tumbleweeds from all the high winds we had. I have lived here since 1985 and NEVER saw an onslaught of these things! I am not sure where they came from - the field in the back, perhaps. The air was full of 'em in the afternoon/evenings during the high winds that came from the East. They are not real tumbleweeds, and after an extensive 30 second search on the internet, it may be windmill grass? I've never seen the like of them before! They came in on those days, and then we had more winds blowing back to the East, so they migrated back. They made it a specific point to pack into my new heater/air conditioner unit vents out back there now. I could peel them off in a sheet - more like a bale of 'em. My BFF was able to get a hold of me and now we communicate by calling each other on Facebook Messenger (since her phone is still not working). There is just so much damage down by her in North Carolina. She is an insurance agent and it's taking it's toll on her mentally by taking all those calls for claims, and she can't help anyone because NO ONE can afford flood insurance down there. Can you imagine hearing all those sad stories hour after hour, day after day?? Poor Kid. Poor people! They have to file, of course, in order to get denied so they can file for FEMA help, but I feel so bad for my Vickie and all those people that fell victim to Helene. Mother Nature has no mercy. I have been following her local town's Facebook page, and the stories of support, help, love, giving, helping is amazing. I get overwhelmed reading about all the way people are trying to help. People who lost everything but still have a car are driving far away to get groceries for those back home. People from a local church weres bringing the mountain people meals if they could get through. The sludge left behind was like 4 feet thick and no doubt now it's turned in to a sort of cement. People are still missing. The devastation down there was unreal. I wish she would move up here, and only have to deal with tornadoes and snow and anorexic tumbleweeds... My birthday was last week and I turned 64. I am happy I made it this far. I was spoiled by people at work and my friends. My dear friend Grace decorated my office and balloons and got me the cutest card and Hershey Kisses (which I may or may not be stuffing in my gut at this very moment...) The Scheduling/Purchasing people had a pot luck and got me a cool cake. (Which may or may not have made me gain five pounds...) I got cards from my Reva in Texas and my Judie (who both make the coolest homemade cards) and a ton more cards from my other friends. My friend Deb brought me smiley face slippers. My sister in law came up on the 5th and brought me a cool card and presents. My neighbors/friends brought me a gift card to my favorite diner. The High School Herd of my friends went out to dinner on my birthday. That was a hoot. I adore those women (and their significant others.) Getting older doesn't bother me much mentally anymore, but my body parts are not happy about it. That is their problem, not mine. Smile. Oh, and to finish celebrating, I got my covid/flu shots. Hold me back - I went wild. The heating company that installed my new split box heat pump came out on Friday morning to 'clean up' their mess. The boss was NOT happy about how they left things. So after first one guy came out to correct the errors of their ways and ended up breaking the coolant connection, he left to get coolant, a new fixture, and more stuff to cover all the wires with... He came back and another guy showed up (two trucks in my yard now). I am not sure why they were having issues, but a third truck came and they were all working on it. Towards the end of the day, there was a fourth truck, but that dude just sat around and petted Norman. My daughter and son in law, and grandbaby and my boys were here in the afternoon Friday, and the one dude came in and asked it the unit in the living room was putting out cool air, and the fan was blowing and we were all hot, so it did feel 'cooler' but it was NOT actually putting out cool air. The furnace herd all left. After the kids all went home Friday night, I tested the units. They all ran *for a while* but didn't cool. Ugh. I turned in a help ticket via their web site AGAIN (third time's a charm, right?). It got chilly Saturday night so I turned the units to heat and turned on the one in the living room to 68 and the one in the bedroom to 68. They did not work. They just started blinking on and off. DAMNIT. I turned them all off, put on a warm nightgown, and put in ONE MORE ticket to explain this. Sunday the owner called me. He said he was sending out one of the guys to fix this mess. I wanted to say, "If this was not ME, you would have such bad reviews on Facebook by now..." but I am not that kind of person.... but I was getting close to being THAT KIND OF PERSON. Now that I ponder it, I only once sent a meal / meat back for more cooking in the last 64 years...I normally try not to rock the boat. We had a kick butt thunderstorm on Saturday evening/night which of course drove Norm into a foaming mouth, shaking frenzy. I ended up giving him CBD chews to take the edge off. Eventually he stopped shaking and drooling, and just sat there staring at the windows watching the lightning. He was upset anyway because all kids were here taking up his space and we were fussing over Irving and he was jealous. Norm gets very jealous. Sigh. I got a wooden play pen for the living room to keep him away from the baby, but it takes up most of the living room. Norman would walk past the pen with a toy in his mouth and bark at Irving. Grumpy Old Man Norman. I think one of the funniest things about my grandson this weekend was when we went out to eat. He loves his food. He would 'flirt' with the waitresses because they were going past him with food, and he was pretty sure one of those plates should be his. When that didn't work, he'd bang on the table, then go back to gabbing at passing waitresses. It was pretty funny. I am sure he was saying, "Hey - bring me some food!!" It made me laugh. Work has been having meetings starting at 7 a.m. Ugh. I requested from my team at work to NOT schedule meetings next week. STOP FOR A WHILE. We are all horribly behind on our 'real' jobs. I had to call a time out. It's our project after all - so Oracle can back off a bit. We need time to herd our ducks into a row, if that is possible. I am sure it isn't, but we gots to try! Quack. October 19, 2024 - The furnace company came back out Monday morning. Just one guy, this time. He went out and put more coolant in the lines and then went around and tested all three units in the house. Test the cool, shut them off, wait ten minutes, test the heat. It seemed to be working this time. He said goodbye and went out to his truck. In a few minutes he was back in. "Boss wants me test them two more times...." Hahahaha. I told him to go for it. I am glad. I am not sure my patience would be there anymore after all the furnace replacement fun I've had. I made him use a thermometer during this process, to be sure. Well, they scheduled meetings this coming week. I was upset. I really needed a week 'down' from the implementation and it did not happen. I was so frustrated I cried. I got sassy in an email and said, "Why not? We all have 24 hours in a day to work!" I doubt I'll live through this project... This morning I met the boys for breakfast. I didn't have anything to 'tell' them of any interest to them, so I told them about my pepper issue. "I ran out of pepper..." I started, and my youngest said, "Who ever runs out of pepper?" I continued to tell them I had run of pepper and every time I went to the store, I forgot to get pepper (even if it was on my list) and so this morning when I went to the store before meeting them, I sang "PEPPER PEPPER PEPPER" all the way there and in the store and went and got my pepper first thing. "Man, Mom, I was on the edge of my seat for that story..." my youngest said. "I got nothin' else to tell you!" I told them both. Sigh. Normally I'm more entertaining... When all the kids were here last weekend, the boys went through my fridge and threw away all the expired stuff. There was a lot. My fridge is now bare, really. I was 'touched' that the boys were concerned enough about me to do such a thing, but then again I am thinking "My kids think I'm already senile" and that made me feel sad , but then again, I am thinking, "One less thing for me to do.." They harvested the corn across the road yesterday. I had meetings starting at 7 a.m. yesterday, too. I could NOT get Norman out before that with the combine and semi and big wagon that were out there. He freaked out. I totally forgot about Norman during the meetings. In between meetings I saw that Norm had peed all over the rug. Sigh. He had to go, but he wasn't going out with the MONSTERS across the road. For such a large, scary sounding dog, he sure is a wimp. He is such a delicate flower. Since I downsized my bed from king to full, Norman cannot sleep with me. There is no room for him on the bed. Now, Norm has a new trick - he will wake me up between 2 a.m. - 4 a.m. and act like he has to potty, so I get up and stagger to the back door to let him out, but he's already hunkered down in the warm bed. I do not appreciate this one bit. I mean, sure - I gotta pee. I have to pee like sixty times a night - but the fact he tricks me every time bothers me. I'm so gullible. However, I also know he will normally poop late at night, so I don't dare take a chance to tell him to get lost when he wakes me up. No one should have to clean up a Great Dane poop festival (in the house). The Orionid meteor showers have been peaking this week, so this morning since I was fooled once again by Norman I went out to watch the sky. We had the hunter's moon earlier in the week, and when I saw that I swore out loud. "Damn!" It looked so huge. It's just bigger because it's the closest to us, but DAMN - it was just stunning. I muttered the line from 'Joe vs the Volcano' that Tom Hanks said - "Dear God whose name I do not know… thank you for my life… I forgot… how big… thank you… thank you for my life… " That pretty much summed up how I felt at the moment. Anyway - I go out in the dark a lot to see the night skies, and I did get to see Norther Lights when they were strong back on 10th or so, and I wanted to try to see some meteors. Out there in the dog pen gives me a feeling of safety because I'm penned in. There was a cry from across the road. It sounded like a howler monkey. "Hoooooo Wahhhhhhhh" - and I know it wasn't a monkey and was most likely an owl, but I've never heard a call like that from an owl. One learns all sort of cool things in the dark in the wee hours of the morning in a dog pen. |