Our Girl Pearl

There she is in all her glory, we're picking her up on Saturday!! Of course we're having moments of perhaps we shouldn't - adding a puppy to the mix is always a stressful thing. But after thinking about it carefully, we've decided to go ahead and do it. I still miss Copper terribly, as much as a pain the butt  as he was, he was also an important member of the family.  Weirdly enough after all these years of having a vizlsa it's worse NOT having a dog tail your every move. Jackson is getting excited about it too and cannot wait to go get her. I've been busy at work - no rest for the wicked. Yesterday was a very early start for me but I got off early so that was nice. Jackson stayed home - he wasn't able to get off the couch all weekend so sending him to school didn't seem like too good of an idea. Since he's failing so many subjects we've taken his TV and video games and he's restricted on the Becky thing to 2 days a week. The Becky thing can be earned back by doing homework and the games are gone until the end of school. I'm finally starting to feel better, I'm down to an annoying cough and unplugged the vaporizer last night. I'm hoping to get a couple of days off this week, according to the rules if you do more than 5 visits while you're on call for the weekend you can take a day off during the week - hmmm. I did ask so we shall see if that's a real rule or not.(since I work 2 half days I asked if I could take them off).

So Ends Another Day

I am beat. I have one more visit to do today and then Monday starts another week at work. Jackson sounds like a frog today so I'm not sure if he'll be going to school or not tomorrow. We did go out briefly yesterday to try out the Shoney's down the road. David and Jackson loved thier dinners but mine was Not So Hot - there's not a whole lot to pick from off the menu if you're a vegetarian so I had the only meatfree thing.  Lets just say "fresh fish" and "West Virginia" are not two things that should occupy the same sentence. We had to buy a second vaporizer last night and they were out of the cheapy one so I got the fancy one with the Steam-warmer and Special Steam Guard - the only thing they forgot to mention on the box was the Dump Truck Sound Effects. Needless to say, it went back in the box and back to from whence it came from this morning. I'm still working on the sweater, but am considering learning how to knit socks. The only problem is you have to make two of them the same size so I have to think about it. Everyone is pretty much sacked out today, every piece of furniture in the livingroom is occupied at the moment. And of course this week was the announcement of the passing of Don Knotts, Morgantown's only Celebrity. Yes, he was from here and we have the Don Knotts Blvd and Don Knotts Fan Club to prove it.  The only thing we have left is MaryLou Retton, but she's from Fairmont.

What Happens In Hepzibah Stays In Hepzibah.

I'm on call for the weekend and so far, I'm put over 160 miles on my car. Hepzibah was right before my actual visit so I thought I would take a picture of it. Just for the record, I'm fairly certain not much happens in Hepzibah as a general rule. I'm still sick, this is week #2 for those of you keeping track. Now Jackson has it bad, he's been in bed since after school yesterday and is running a fever today. That would be a good thing in his case as we got his report card and he's failing 3 subjects - english,german and theater. It's hard to yell at someone who can't move around too much and is lying there weakly coughing so I'll be taking a rain check on that one. I was feeling better yesterday for about 4 hours - I had a half day so I came home and cleaned the house - not a lot, but enough to get the science experiments out of the bathrooms. Then I got hit with a wall of visits - there went my last hurrah. I just havent' had time to recuperate, my last day off was  Sunday and my next day off is next Saturday -with this oncall stuff I now work 12 out of every 14 days. (Why yes, I am whining. Thank you for asking). We were going to try and get up to see the puppy but by the time everyone is well the puppy will be done and ready to go. David is down hacking at the two acres, he's clearing it as I'm pretty sure we'll be selling it in the spring. I'm sure the neighbors will be thrilled.

Latest Project

After a couple of false starts I finally got this sweater started, the pattern is hard to count and I almost gave up after having to rip it out two or three times. However, since I'm still sick (as is everyone else in the house) I'm not inclined to move around too much - I have time to mess around and got the hang of it after the 3rd try. The only thing I'm hoping is I have enough yarn to finish. I often buy the clearance yarn so I can get the expensive stuff at a good price - but the downside is if you mis calculate you can be 9/10's of the way through and not enough to finish. And there is no way to match this yarn either - it's cool looking but very unusual and elastic.My back up plan is in the works just in case.  I brought the baby blanket in to work to show Susan and will be giving afgan hook lessons at work. The boss is fine with it as she's one of the people that will learning how to do it. Work has been a bit rough since I don't feel well and am still coughing alot - last night we went out and bought a vaporizer so I could hopefully sleep through the night. Jackson was back home again yesterday, he's not coughing but just feels achy and tired. He spent most of the day in bed only coming up long to say hello, watch Dr. Phil with me and harrass the cat. I'm not sure if he'll be going to school today or not. I hope we get over this soon as I can't take too much more of this AND I have to work all weekend.

Would you send Money To This Woman??

David was flipping channels the other morning and started hollering come look - I thought it was Tammy Faye Baker, but it's not. She was yammering on about doing Holy Work, and following the Lord Jesus Our Savior, yada yada yada but I have to admit she was very distracting. She could've been talking about drinking Windex Cocktails for all I knew, she was intriguing to watch, but not fascinating enough to send any cash. There is a number on the bottom of the picture but please don't call it and send money - you just know she's going to take it and run straight down to the CVS makeup aisle. Jackson had the day off so he goofed around most of the day, but also cleaned his room and vacuumed the house which I was very happy with. I'm finally starting to feel better - I woke up at 2 am for two reasons, one was the coughing fit I was having and other was a 12 pound purring cat slung across my stomach. Vincent is about as wierd of an animal as you can get. He comes in around 2 or 3 am, drapes himself over your head, stomach,etc and then starts purring away. He's completely astounded you would want him to leave because he loves you so MUCH. Anyhow, after I extracted the cat (who rolled over and laid on David - he's not picky) I took some cough medicine and went back to sleep for a few hours. I started off feeling fairly crap-o-la but as the day wore on I got better. It also might be the quart of Robtussin I've consumed in the past two days, but who knows.

News Flash, Spring Is No Longer In The Air.

We are still currently having "light snow flurries", there's a couple of inches so far. We started to take Jackson to Becky's this morning, but halfway there were no longer able to see through the "flurries" not to mention the road became an instant ice rink, so we had to turn back. Instead of spending the day with his girlfriend, poor Jackson ended up eating cheese and crackers and watching Miami Vice with his parents. He refuses to believe Krokett and Tubbs are wearing expensive kidskin italian loafers and italian silk shirts, but insists they are both wearing women's shoes and blouses. Sometimes the early 80's are impossible to explain. He didn't seem to mind the change in plans, he never does. I have to say, at his age I'd be having a cow about turning back and would've been in the back seat loudly proclaiming the Complete Insensitivity of the party driving while expressing my disbelief that seeing all the cars skidding off the road would be used as an excuse to inconvience ME.  Jackson was fine with it, called Becky and got all happy we were having cheese and crackers. If I hadn't been there, I would swear he was adopted. Vincent and Claw have been in and out about 500 times today, they just don't know what to do with themselves. I finished the baby blanket I was making and am now scouting around for my next project. I actually HAVE my next project, I just have to find the stash of yarn that fits it.

Spring Is In The Air

But not on the weather - the temp hit 65 today, but according to news will be dropping back into the 20's over the weekend. I'm still sick - not as bad but now I'm getting to the congestion/coughing part of the program. Speaking of coughing - has anyone else seen the quit smoking ads by the  PHILLIP MORRIS COMPANY?? The cigarette corperation apparently has a "smoking cessation website"  you can log on to if you need any assistance with this difficult decison(www.don't do it here's a coupon for a free pack .com). I suppose next I'll be getting my diet advice from Dunkin Doughnuts (www.what's another doughnut, it won't hurt you .com). And no, I haven't logged on as the whole idea seems a bit wierd and somewhat trite - there has to be a catch to it somewhere since people quitting directly impact thier profit margin. Hmm. Jackson and David are better today, Jackson went back to school and seems to have made out alright. I stopped at Krogers on my way home to pick up a supply of Cheesie Pepperoni Rolls as we are Out. I'm still driving like a fiend, but still enjoy it. My true goal is to be at my job for at least a year - not that I'm planning on going anywhere, but it's been so long since I've been able to stop bouncing I thought that was a pretty good goal. I've been at Interim for a little over 7 months and I don't think I'll go anywhere else - I like my job and lets face it, it just gets too tiresome meeting new people and learning new rules.

My Sickly Valentine

We all have it now - Jackson is home from school also, I think we have the flu. I had a full schedule at work yesterday including one after hours job that I had traded with Kevin. I was barfing or anything, just achy all over and nauseous with congestion. I was running like crazy on top of it to avoid having to work today, I worked in the extra job. I did have a nice thing happen though - David had a teddy bear sent to my office as a surprise! Isn't it cute? And it has my name on it. We were going to celebrate Valentine's day today but it might be on hold until the weekend since I don't think anyone is up to a big meal or anything. The weather continues it's crazy path, all of the snow just about is gone, today it's supposed to go to the 50's, tomorrow the mid 60's and then will immediately drop back down into the 20's for the weekend. At least I'm not on call this weekend so I can just hide in the house.

Happy Valentine's Day

Aside from the fact the temp is in the 20's, I have to work late, I have a cold  - it is Valentine's Day. David and I will be celebrating it tomorrow when I'm off (sort of - I've got one job to do). David took Jackson uptown to buy roses for Becky, the ones he could afford were pretty sorry - David said he would've been embarrassed to let him buy them, so he kicked in and Jackson has some very pretty roses to give. He's bringing the whole dozen to school so she can show them off and he will look like The Best Boyfriend You Can Have. We were having trouble with AOL again today, I'm hoping this isnt' going to blow up into anything expensive. We've noticed lately that someone is trying to log on with our old screen names which makes me think that when we had that virus someone was able to obtain them and is now trying to use them a few weeks later when they think we won't notice. But this morning when I tried to log on, my AOL said it couldn't find the modem, even after I shut down and did a restart. It seems to have resolved itself, it's probably just one of those occasional glitches but I guess we'll have to keep an eye on it.I heard from Adam the other day - his stint in the US Navy has been extended by a year and he will of course be spending it in Japan. I'm glad he got it as he's been working hard and will now be in with the firemen, but I'm a little sad for me as it means one more year that we can't see him. It's hard to believe he's been gone since he was 18.  I've been coughing and so forth all morning, that stinks of course. Not enough to call off, but enough to make me crabby. I did sleep well last night though, I fell asleep at 8:30 and didn't wake up until 4:30 with Vincent bumping noses with me and purring like an engine. It's a thinly veiled ruse to get us to feed him earlier but I like it! The temps are supposed to get up into the 50's - and maybe 60's - by Thursday and then drop back to the 30's for the weekend. It's pretty annoying because you spend most of your free time putting on and pulling off various outfits. Oh well, Happy Valentine's Day!

That Groundhog Is Toast

I personally feel French Creek Freddie (the WV groundhog) should be lightly sauteed with a side of butter for his wrong weather assessment. On the other hand, I'm sure there's a spot for him on our Crack Weather Team which has pretty much the same abilities as the groundhog and probably uses the same equipment. It wasn't all that bad - I think we got about 3" all told and the roads were cleared by 8 am. I did go out for my walk, I try to walk everyday I have off unless it's raining and the snow didn't start up again until I was almost home. Jackson had a great time at the dance, I asked if he had danced and he said yes, he did. He said he wasn't going to, but then Becky's dad told him either he dance with Becky or dance with him -and Jackson decided to go with Becky. We've started feeding the birds again, we put an old platter out on the deck filled with bird seed the other day and are attracting all sorts of birds. The bird feeder is gone, they didn't like it and I don't think it worked so well anyhow with a 12 pound cat hanging off it. The cats are fascinated and spend most of the day drooling on my french doors. I was worried when I let the cats out but the birds are quite aware of thier presence. I'll be glad when spring gets here so I can shave Charger down - his hair is at that out of control stage and brushing him has become a mammoth task - neither of us enjoy it and he has so much hair it takes a least half an hour. I'm considering shaving him, spinning it, and knitting him a sweater out of his own hair. Hmm.

The Places You'll Go, The People You'll See...

I think one of the things I like about this journal is I can keep track of all the towns I've been in since starting my job - some of them are no more than a field and a fence on some backwood road, others go on forever. (Granville for instance meanders all over the place and no one can quite figure out where it ends). Yesterday I was in both Pa and WV which made for a long day, I was exhausted by the time I walked in the door after 6pm. I'm on call this weekend and could've done the last job today, but the weather is predicting a huge snowstorm off and on - they've been very wishy-washy about it. They've predicted everything from a dusting to a foot so I guess they feel they're bases are covered. The Crack Weather team's new approach is to predict EVERY possibility which keeps them from being wrong all the time. So I figured I'd play it safe and tack it on to the end of the day, but I drove from one end to the other - the last job was about 100 miles round trip - more than I'd planned on. But it's extra money - puppy money!! We got the contract yesterday and will be sending it off on Monday, we are getting a girl dog this time and we've decided on the name Pearl. I've read every one of the Robert Parker Spenser novels and I love that dog in them so the puppy will be named after the dog in the books. We've figured out the logistics of  where the puppy will be sleeping and kept during the time we're out - we're pretty excited about it. I'm not sure how the rest of the zoo will feel, I think everyone but Claw will be ok with it. Claw isn't even ok with US, so that's not a big news flash. Jackson is going to a dance tonight, it's a charity event and Becky's parents are taking them. Because they'll be getting back so late he'll stay over there and then we pick him up in the morning. Since Becky's dad is the chief of University Police, I'm not overly concerned about him staying put.

The Blah Continues

On the upside it's Super Sunny again. The downside is of course the warm weather seems to have disappeared back from whence it came. It never got over 35 today, we had a very brief dusting of snow this morning. Jackson asked repeatedly if we'd seen the news til we yelled at him to get dressed and cut it out. They haven't had a snow day in a month and are all going into Snowday Withdrawal. I've got alot of traveling to do in the next couple of days so I was relieved that the predicted snow didn't make an appearance. My boss is on a business conference in Ohio so I'm in charge of myself which is easy. I tell myself to do stuff, I give me a hard time about it, and then I resent me for being so bossy. David's still busy, but is slowing down a bit which ok with me. There's some stuff around here that needs doing but with both of us working it's hard to get anything done. And I've been doing extra at work - I've got to work on Saturday again. I hate the work but like the money. We heard from Adam the other day, he's fine and still willying about whether he'll stay in the navy or not. He's at the end of his stint in July and is not sure what he'll be doing. I would like him to come home personally.

Blah Blah Blah

I haven't been writing because there hasn't been much to write about. Everything is in that stasis mode, just sort of dragging on toward spring. We had  couple of  very nice weeks - where it's cold enough to be not quite spring but warm and sunny enough to really enjoy. We all knew it wouldn't last, after all it is February and this weather is not normal. The other day the clouds rolled in and my thermometer dropped and now we are back to cold and icky. The trees are all grey and brown, acres of drab and boring. It's not even nice cold weather, it's just uncomfortable. We're busy collecting our things for tax time, David is actually doing that and will be shipping the whole mess back to Hampton Bays where our accountant has been for years. It's hard to find someone you trust and Joel always does a good job. I'm almost done with the second Samuri Kabuto hat and will be putting that pattern up for awhile - it looks deceptively easy but takes weeks of knitting to complete. Work has been crazy, we've picked up a few patients that have visits after and before hours so for the past few days I've been out by 6 am and finished around 8:30 at night - I'm not doing extra visits, that's just the way they ended up spreading out. I had to take a CPR renewal course in Bridgeport too - that wasn't bad. AC Moore's yarn sale was fairly stinky but I got another pair of knitting needles - ok!ok! TWO pairs - one was a pair of Lantern Moon and the other was an on sale acrylic pair in purple. I have promised to cut down on the yarn, no one said anything about needles. Jackson and I did make it to the movies on Sunday, we saw Underworld 2 which is a great movie if you enjoy the werewolf clan battling the vampire clan with a bit of mutant hoochie thrown in. I have no idea why you have to be so filthy at all times to fight evil. There were several times in the movie I just wanted to take a washcloth to most of them, the main characters spent the entire movie covered in mud, ashes, blood and various bits of entrails and the entire cast was of course wearing black leather everything. But I suppose you have to do what you have to do and it did break up my week a bit.

Sunday Is For Sleeping In

Winter decided to come back - we got a dusting of snow last night - not enough to fun, but enough to be annoying. The roads will be awful I suspect since it rained all day yesterday, but I wasn't planning on going anywhere anyhow. I'm not sure if my interest in chuch is flagging or it's just this time of the year, or work has been so busy and stressful I have a hard time wanting to do anything on the weekends but stay away from people. And the crappy weather today isn't helping. Did you know that WV has it's own ground hog for the prediction thing? My co-workers informed me our ground hog is named French Creek Freddie and he lives in an animal preserve by the same name. I made a comment that I was surprised since this is WV that he had not been eaten yet.....haha. Anywhoo, our groundhog did NOT see his shadow so that would mean an early spring. Hmm. The snow is not making French Creek Freddie look good so far.  I started walking again yesterday - it's a bit of a trick I have to say. I started walking down Rt 100 toward the coal mines since there's a road  just past there.. The road that turns off appears to be heavily populated by rottieweilers, dobermans, etc - all tied up but a bit disconcerting with them pulling on thier chains,etc. so I decided to walk the other way. The other problem is near the mines the road is covered in coal dust mixed with water and dirt and it's pretty slick and gross. The other direction wasn't so bad and no dogs that I could see so I think I'll start walking on my days off.  And Mr Lee so far seems to be ok, apparently a little yarn in your diet won't hurt you. I still can't believe she ate that! I'm also putting up the latest puppy pictures, we won't know which one is ours until we get it, but I don't think I care - I would take them all right now they're so cute!!

Portrait Of A Rat Fink

Yes, Mr. Lee - who is supposed to behave - is at it again. We are debating on whether or not to call the vet or see what happens. Last night while watching TV I was also knitting (I'm making another pain in the butt Japanese war helmet for Jackson's girlfriend Becky) I had a few scraps of yarn on the coffee table. Mr. Lee was sitting up there swatting and playing with them, then she started licking them. That's not unusual for her - I tell everyone my projects are made out of love, yarn and cat spit - but then I realized she was SWOLLOWING the yarn. Jackson and I dove for her but she's very fast for a 16 year old cat and she ran away while gulping down the rest of what was probably about 5" of yarn. She refused to feel guilty at all and this morning doesn't seem to be suffering any ill effects. Not to mention I wonder if this is the first time she's done this since I tend to leave tiny piles of yarn ends about most of the time (occupational hazard). We might call Dr. Kenney but since she's not having any distress we'll probably just wait her out. And to think we're going to add a puppy to this mix! My work at week is finally over, Friday was just stressful more than anything else. I'm not on call this weekend either so I get a break from it all. I have to renew my CPR next week too but will be doing that in Bridgeport which just happens to be down the road from my favorite yarn shop. Jackson is trying to get me to take him to the movies this weekend - they built a movie theater at the new plaza about 7 miles from us. The new plaza is VERY cool - it has everything from Best Buy to Barnes and Noble which makes it all very convienent to us. There's also a Pet Smart where we buy a lot of the toys for the cats. Bad cats.

Oops, I did it again!

Once a fool, always a fool. I took one of my infamous shortcuts again today, Dogtown Road started off very nice and then did the usual - tar, tar and gravel, gravel, gravel and dirt, dirt,dirt and mud holes - we all know the routine. Sigh. Actually, after having navigated Mayfield Rd, Butternut Squash Hollow (remember - the one with the missing bridge and the missing road....) and Monkey Wrench Rd ( I do NOT want to talk about that one)this one was almost disappointingly tame. I was out on Racoon Valley Rd again today, I'm obsessed with the charcoal ovens, can you tell? David thinks I should be careful of snakes since we do have rattlers here and I think cotton mouth, but this time of year they're hibernating so I'm not worried. I also stopped at my FAVORITE  store, the Rt 7 Farmer's market and picked up some stuff. WV does have some interesting food - buckwheat pancake mix, sassafrass candy (for David's dad), they've got amish butter and fresh pork sausage which I didn't get because it was pretty warm today and I didn't want to leave that stuff in the car. Ew. Jackson finally got his favorite WV food - the Pepperoni roll. Here is how you make them. Take a roll. Stuff in pepperoni. Bake it. There ya go. Yesterday we made a special trip to Krogers, braving college traffic and worse - college student shoppers. We went there because Krogers is the ONLY place that sells the elusive Cheesie Pepperoni Roll, $3.29 a dozen. I limited him to 3 dozen since I'm not sure if it qualifies in any food groups, I'm sure if it does it's in the tiny Not Good For You part. They're like pepperoni rolls but have some sort of cheddar/Velveeta mix thing going on and they weigh about the same as a small dog. I have one more day of work - given the way the week has gone so far, I'm not holding out any great hopes for it - I'm sure it'll be just as long and horrifying as the rest of the week has been.

Jackson The Trouble Maker

We have been cracking down on Jackson lately - David and I have HAD IT, big time. He just sort of slugs along and with our schedules and having to drive him every day to school and back, we just can't do it. So now we've become relentless hurrying him along, much to his annoyance but he is starting to come around. I've pointed out that we don't have to drive him - we can always transfer him into University High School, Home Of The Arch Enemy and he can go to a school with people he doesn't know again. We can also resurerrect the Shower Timer to bingle at 10 minutes which of course will be followed by The Screaming Meemee outside the bathroom door - for crying out loud do I look like I have time for this?? I have to work again on my pretend day off, we are having some sort of big official survey in the next couple of weeks and just to add in the fun all of my patients are still having all sorts of difficulties plus we are adding new ones plus there are all sort of surprise things - such as the news that one of my patients needed to have his labs changed to first thing this morning instead of his usual Friday. This would've been less of a problem had we not found out at 10 to 5 last night because the one party who had this information forgot to tell us. So I volunteered which is a bit Stinky for me, but will help accrue Brownie Points in the future if I ever need to ask for anything. Always think ahead. David's starting to add a fence in anticipation of the new puppy, it won't be done until March 3rd, but like anything you have to wait for that will seem forever and then will be right here before you know it.