It's Me Again!

Yes, I know I already posted, but there's so much going on! I took Pearl walking this morning at the river and we did the usual barking, growling, etc.. thing. I cut the walk short, we got a late start and that meant more peopleon the trail. I was going to go home but decided to try walking her in town. What a surprise, no aggression at all, quite the opposite - she went up to people, everyone that stopped got a vizsla hug. So later I went in a dog chat room trying to figure out what the difference is to her - it's very sad that I will never learn to stay away from Dog Chat. Instead of any insight I got an earful from the Head Loony who told me I should put her to sleep and then got called a dumbass for disagreeing. I was told my dog was unstable and would grow worse in time. I found it amusing that someone who was a self proclaimed "trainer" would be so rude, but I have a funny feeling the only dogs this person has ever trained is her own. I told Pearline I would have to have her unstable self put down but she didn't seem too concerned so I just left it at that. We took Ray into town today and we just walked around and browsed a bit, then went to the Beanery for a long lunch which he very much enjoyed. After we went to Barnes and Nobles, the grocery store and then home. David is laying down now and Ray's taking a shower as they'll be leaving around 8 to go get Adam from the airport. We are getting so excited! Tomorrow we're planning on dinner and a movie and then home for the New Year, what a great way to start it, with both Adam and Ray here!

We Are All Assembled

Ray arrived yesterday afternoon, amidst the sunshine and blue skies. David kept telling me he wouldn't come - he never does in winter, but I knew he would and kept yelling invites everytime he called. And here he is! The tempetures predicted for the rest of the week are in the 50's and yesterday I'm sure it was closer to 60. So he arrived around 3pm - I made a pot of coffee and then we went out to Applebee's for dinner. We picked Jackson up afterwards and hit Books A Million - I bought a new knitting book called "Naughty Needles" and it's really got some hilarious patterns - if anyone needs me to knit them some bondage equipment let me know because I have the Power. Anyhoo, David,Ray and Jackson will be heading up to Pittsburgh tonight to get Adam, I'll be home watching Pearl The Girl and being there Just In Case. Adam called last night from the airport around 1 am to let us know he was there and getting ready to board the plane, but I think he was just as excited as we are and wanted to yack with Jackson, The Boy Who Never Sleeps. I'm off from work for  almost two whole weeks, I had a half day yesterday and it just seemed to drag on forever - but the day before vacation is the longest day of the year, isn't it? I actually have to stop in and drop off paper work on Tuesday and the baby scale but I'll bring Pearl in to wreak havoc in the office which is always fun. She loves the office and slings around the desks. The last time she went in I was helping the boss look for some papers - I looked while Tammy blocked Pearl from creating more lost paper work.  We're going walking today, I'm trying not to regain all that I lost, but with the holidays, Ray, Jackson's birthday, Adam coming home and of course heading off to sunny Pennsylvania Where All Your Dreams Come True, it's going to be a rough road!

Guess Who's 17 Today!

Can you believe it, one more year and I will have two adult children! We took him out to look for his birthday present last night, but since he couldn't think of much for Christmas, he could think of less for his birthday. He does want a new trench coat but we couldn't find one, so when we go to my sister's he can get one there. Other than that it's money again. We'll be taking him out to dinner and then home for cake - it's a bit harder this year too with Adam due home in a couple of days, it's all we can think about! I try not to get too excited as until he's here anything can happen, but it's hard not to. He called us the other morning which was nice, he and the girlfriend are back on AGAIN, I just ignore the whole thing until I hear one thing or another. I've got two more days of work to go before I'm off, today I'm being sent out to Bridgeport so there'll be no walking .Yesterday I was able to get out of here early and got in an hour. Now that I've taken most of the weight off that I want to, maintaining it really is the hard part. I lost a bit extra before the holidays as I knew I was going to gain a few pounds (I like to think of it as "buffer weight") so it's not a huge tragedy but I wish it was as easy to lose it as it is to gain it. But since I'll be off for a couple of weeks I'll be able to walk and perhaps take Pearl The Destroyer with me.

The Day After...........

....is never pretty. You've eaten too much, the house is a mess and it's back to work for most of us poor slobs. I wasn't even able to go walking this morning as we're back to rain and wind. Yesterday it poured buckets as I predicted it would (for the record The Crack Weather Team predicted snow flurries, haha), but then it suddenly cleared up and warmed up. So I took the dogs out so they could chase sticks and so forth. We did eat Christmas dinner in as I threatened we would and it was a lot more fun than we thought it would be. We had candles and everything, then we did dessert (cheesecake) in front of the fire downstairs. Now of course I have to get started with Jackson's birthday (the 28th) followed by Adam's arrival (the 30th), but I'll be on vacation after Adam gets here. We're going to Janet's for a weekend, hopefully the weather will hold. David has to rent a hotel room, Adam has booked a flight that arrives at 1:30 am and David is not much for driving around in the dark - I would rather they spend the extra money and be safe. Adam will be arriving home for New Year's Eve, what a great way to start the year!

Merry Christmas!

It's not even 10 am and I've already eaten almost an entire box of chocolate covered cherries, played in the yard, had 3 cups of coffee and a doughnut and just in general had a good time. I love being home for the holidays and not working the overnight shift!! We didn't go overboard in the gift giving dept with each other this year, even Jackson was having a hard time coming up with stuff he wanted. I did manage to get him an unexpected and perfect present - when we were in the bookstore I spotted a book called "Plucker" - there was just one copy sitting by itself in the wrong place. I don't know why I even bothered to look at it, but when I took it down and paged through it's intricately detailed pages, I knew it was perfect. The story is completely demented - it's a dark bloody tale of childhood toys, the Jack in the box carries a sword and the doll is posessed  - right up Jackson's alley. He's had his nose in it all morning and I have no doubt he'll have read the entire book twice by tomorrow. Don't you love when that happens? Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas Eve everyone - I hope Santa brings you what you asked for. I know he will bringing me what I asked for as I picked it out and handed it to him myself. On Friday I was out and about past Holbrook and realized I was only about 3 miles from Hixie's General Store out in New Freeport. At Hixies you can get: automotive and plumbing supplies, hunting and fishing equipment plus any license, carry out pizza, souveniers, gift items, groceries, gas, all in the middle of nowhere. It's way bigger than it looks, it appears over the years it's been added to so it kind of rambles around, one section leading into another. I did indeed get a souvenier which is what I was after,  a little cedar box with an indian on it, tastefully done of course. We are still working on Christmas shopping, we're going out today to finish up and will be eating dinner out, but staying in for Christmas. Very few restaurants are open and the pickings are slim so we've opted to make our own. The weather continues to refuse to co-operate, staying up in the 50's and raining, but it does that every year, doesn't it? We all get this picture postcard of a snow covered holiday, but honestly, how often does that happen? In reality most holidays are soggy grey affairs with the occasional ice storm or oddly warm weather. Jackson is enjoying his vacation, cheerfully counting his chickens before they're hatched as he tends to get alot of cash. Some of it will be deposited in his CD which matures on the 18th, but he knows this and doesn't object. Over the years I've taken the excess and deposited in a little account so just from extra birthday and Christmas money he'll have over a thousand dollars when he turns 18. I did the same with Adam who prompty blew the entire amount in a few months, but at that age I would've done the same thing.

Let It Snow Dammit.

Well, the tempetures remain in the 50's - it's hard to feel christmassy when you're wearing a sweater and carrying an umbrella, but we are trying. David put up his beloved $10 tree, I was even impressed with it. I've got the lights on (after being tough and pitching out the 5 sets that DON'T work and never will no matter how long I save them) and the top, tomorrow we'll finish decorating it. David mailed off the presents today, I apologize to the Recipients ahead of time. Work continues to be busy and yes, I'm working extra again tomorrow, but can't complain. I can't complain because my boss gave me off from the 30th to the 11th for Adam's trip home. And YES he really is coming home this time! I've been trying not to get too excited as we've been through this  a few times and it hasn't panned out but he has the tickets so we'll finally get to see him. I wish he had enough time to get back to LI but maybe next time. Sometimes I find it weird that I have a 23 year old son that lives on his own in Japan no less , who would've thought?  I was thinking the other day about how when I was kid I thought how neat it was that my grandparents had been alive before space travel, etc - and now I'm in the same boat. I was microwaving and for some reason thought of Aunt Karen. Microwaves are so commonlplace now you don't even think about them.but way back when she had one of the 1st ones I'd ever seen - it had a dial, was about the size of a small refridgerator and very impressive. The reason I remember it so clearly is she always had to do things to the limit. Everyone else was popping corn, heating tea - Aunt Karen cooked us a 25 lb turkey in that sucker. And it was rather ghosty white if I remember correctly! Isn't it strange the things you remember?

Bah. Humbug

I was supposed to have a half day on Thursday due to all the extra work I did last week but ended up cancelling it as there is too much going on at work and sometimes, even if you don't want to, you have to be the grown-up. I got home today a bit late with a screaming headache and rolling stomach - no, I'm not sick. A lot of people around here have propane heaters that are set in the wall and old fireplaces. They're very economical because you can heat the rooms you are in, but the rooms you are in tend to be overheated and there is something about them that give me a headache especially if I'm doing a long infusion. So I got home and was a big Crankypants with David who ran back outside to continue clearing the two acres down below with Pearl in tow. Apparently some people prefer a Brush Hog to a House Crab. Anywhoo, I got the rest of christmas gifts wrapped and ready to be mailed tomorrow and now we just have to shop for each other. David got our tree today too, on my way home I saw that at Southern Supplies they had all the trees for $10 apiece - and NICE trees to boot!! So he was happy and excited, no matter what happens over the holidays the thing that makes Christmas for David is a cheap tree, go figure.

Is It Still Monday?

The one thing about being on call all weekend and working is you keep thinking it's Monday. Then when it IS Monday you feel like it should be the weekend. We went out to dinner last night at Applebee's - I like to eat there because you can sustitute a veggie burger so eating isn't a problem. We did want to go to Garfields but learned very quickly there was no way we were getting near any restaurant near a shopping center - the Christmas shoppers were out in force last night, I have no idea where they all come from. The college students should be leaving after this week and then we'll have the town back until the end of January. It's funny how I grew up in a resort town where everything's quiet over the winter and you come to dread summer when you're up to your ears in summer people. Here the summer is great but the fall brings the crowds. Jackson's last day of school is Thursday, thier vacation isn't very long because they need to save for snow days but if they don't use them, then spring vacation gets extended. We still dont' know if Adam is coming home or not, but I'm going to make sure I have the time off just in case.

Hot Child In The City

The temps are finally strarting to drop down a little - I think we made it into the 50's today -and yes I know! when it gets back into the 20's I'll be grousing about that. I took Jackson shopping today, David was supposed to but he faked sleeping so I ended up taking him after I got back from working. We are running very late this year and are still not done, but we do soldier on, don't we? I was trying to get it done this week but I keep ending up doing extra at work and didn't get a thing done. Shopping was crowded but not overly bad - they actually hire enough help around here to get you in and out, unlike LI. I think it might be because the competition is a bit steeper here and people have to drive further (unlike LI where everything is 3 feet apart). We also had to go to Sam's Club for groceries and had a minor crisis when Jackson couldn't find the Cracker Barrel cheese assortment - apparently nations will fall if you can't find that.(yes, we did find it, thank you for your concern.) Then he spent an embarrassing amount of time hanging around the free sample guy for the cheesecake and managed to glom a total of 4 samples off of him. He got his own cheesecake that I'm avoiding like the plague as it has 500 calories a slice and according to the box it has 12. In my world I think there might be 3 slices per cake, 4 if I'm feeling generous. However, that also means in my world there are about 2000 calories per serving. When we got home David was out chopping down trees so we came in to start dinner. The bathroom door was shut and no one remembered shutting it - I hate when you come home and there's something different that you didn't do. I mean the reasonable me KNOWS the dog might have pushed it or something but the unreasonable me (LOOK OUT HE HAS A KNIFE) gave a little squeek when David encountered some resistance before getting it open. Happily enough there was no psycho killer hiding in the loo so we could eat our french toast and sausage in peace.

Is It Indian Summer Again?

So, we had one week of cold weather complete with a bit of snow and now we are back to the springlike temps. It's actually that weird temp that it's too cold for a sweater and too warm for a coat so you spend all day removing and adding clothes, never quite comfortable in whatever it is you have on. I've heard from Adam who is still planning on coming home so I guess I'll start arranging things on my end. I'm trying to keep it level since the last two times he was supposed to come it got cancelled. I was looking at the pictures we took, how different everything is now! David and I managed to get half a day of Christmas shopping in yesterday, I'll finish up on Friday and then spend the weekend packing it up. With the warm weather it's hard to get into the spirit of things and of course David has that stinking tradition of putting the tree up on Christmas Eve which I have changed a bit over the years but not much. I HATE THAT - like you don't have enough to do on Christmas Eve and then the person who swears it's his family's tradition refuses to help since apparently his MOTHER traditionally did the whole thing while the rest of them sat on thier butts and watched. This would be how the tree thing got moved a week up since I told him if it was his tradition to knock himself out decorating. La la. And to add to the mix we now have two potential tree-wreckers to keep an eye on - Pearl of course and Vincent who considers it his playground. I'm on call this weekend which is alright - at least it's only every 3 weeks

Eek! How Many More Days??

David finally put up some Christmas lights outside yesterday so we can participate a bit in the nightly lightshow. We cannot compete with our neighbor who at this point has an entire snow people family, full size nativity (with a 5 foot cross), reindeer, sleigh, santas, and has outlined his entire house and yard in lights. It's fun to look at but I'm glad I'm not the one who will be taking that all down. David and I are going shopping today and will hopefully get everything off by this weekend. I haven't heard from Adam whether he'll be coming home or not for sure which is driving me crazy as I do NOT want to take the rest of my vacation in the beginning of January if he's not coming home, that would suck. David has still not been paid by that woman - he's sent her a couple of bills by registered mail so he has gone to plan B. He called a lawyer he'd done work for and asked if he could write a letter to Maureen (someone had told him they do that for a nominal fee). The lawyer replied he would be more than happy to - he had a few small jobs around his house and if David would do them he would not only write the letter, but go to court with David and get his money. It's a pretty good trade - David is kind of between a rock and a hard place because if he takes her to small claims court she can drag this out and he can end up losing more money. So he's happy with bartering services. Charger has been improving weekly with his medications, he can now get up on the bed in the morning and sit with everyone which he hasn't done for months and go outside for hours with David while he clears the lot and not suffer for it later. We are very happy about that! It's amazing what pain relief can do, isn't it?

Damage Control

I have first of all removed the christmas CD from my car that contains the song "Percy The Christmas Poinsetta" as the second I hear it, it gets stuck in my head for weeks. It contains  poetic verses such as "even a plant with no uncle or aunt shouldn't spend Christmas Eve by himself". I have no clue as to how that song exists or the fact that anyone would owe up to writing it. I'm showing the pictures I sent to the adjuster the other day of the "damage" to my car - the only thing that happened as far as I can see is I'm missing a deer whistle. How anyone could sustain injury is beyond me and I've come to the conclusion that my car is sort of like one that people refer to as a "chick magnet". Except mine is an "Asshole magnet" and as you can see, I am still wracked about it. We've been having a quiet weekend, I was watching tv with Jackson last night which I find intriguing as  his viewing choices are sort of erratic. First we watched Histories Mysteries! and learned all sorts of ancient mummy facts. Then we saw an hour of the Exhibits Of The Smithsonian including a history of the benefactor. This was followed by the highbrow movie "Conan The Barbarian" featuring Arnold in his heyday. I wanted to see "Mean Girls" and Jackson quickly claimed he'd seen it already - I said Really? YOU sat and watched Mean Girls? That would be when I discovered Jackson will claim to have seen something in order not to - pretty slick.

Still In The Woods

I got a call from the insurance company today - sigh. I figured since I hadn't  heard anything for the past week  and there was no damage to either car I was out of the woods but alas, that is not so. They just hadn't gotten the paperwork yet. She hasn't talked to the two women in the car I bumped but said when she called one she got the husband who said he'd give her the message when she got "back from therapy"  and had a laundry list so the adjuster said her gut reaction is they will be making claims. I am just disgusted with these people, I really didn't bump them that hard, but I guess a free hand out is a free hand out. It's upsetting that every little accident around here ends like this - David and I have never claimed for something that didn't happen so I guess we expect the rest of the world to be honest. On the upside my wrist is finally feeling better and I'm leaving the splint off for  now. Maybe I should sue Pearl. We still haven't gotten the house decorated, maybe this weekend. The temps are back up in the 50's but are expected to drop down and then possible snow for the weekend. We're having the usual shinanigans going on in the office, I could use a break from that too.

The Deep Freeze

The weather around here is killing me - we broke the record on the weekend with a high of 74 degrees. Then that cold wind blew in and we are stuck in the 20's. I went walking early yesterday and will need to dress better - the trail on the river is very cold. This morning the wind is howling so there will be no walking this morning. I do have a treadmill but have been unable to convince David to install SOMETHING - he doesn't seem to get it's a bit boring to walk on a treadmill in a dark corner of the basement facing the sump pump. Gold's Gym it is NOT. My wrist continues to hurt but is less swollen. I had them give me a velcro splint so I could get it on and off easily for my work but the movement I have to do for infusions is aggrevating it. Yesterday after starting the infusion I borrowed the ice pack from the medication which made the patient laugh as she felt the nurse was in worse shape than she was. I've shown my wrist to Pearl The Ungrateful who doesn't feel she should be made to feel guilty about it. Jackson has been home for the past two days - he's got the flu so he wont be back in school until tomorrow at the earliest. Vincent the cat has been taking great advantage of the situation and not getting out of bed all day - he is such a rat. 

Down On The Farm

Yesterday we finally went out and saw Susan and Roger's farm - it's pretty far (over an hour away) and it's way WAY in the backwoods. The view is spectacular and they have about 150 acres all told, including outbuildings and a pond. They had a couple of benches and the old oak flooring from the funeral home in Mannington they're giving away. David took one bench and is going to measure the back room(the former hot tub room) he's currently working on for the flooring. The whole farm is beautiful, they have a log cabin on it that they're currently rehabbing slowly and at the present, it's used for hunting. We should've brought Pearl, but didn't but they had Buddy with them who was having a grand time bouncing around the place. David will be going back to help them put in a couple of windows upstairs and will get the flooring then. In other news I might have to seek medical attention and Pearl will most likely be doing some time in obedience school. She is still leaping at people when we go walking and yesterday I had the leash wrapped around my wrist and she decided to put a little extra "umph" into her leaping routine. Ouch. Work has been getting increasingly hairier but Susan will be back on Monday and things will go a bit smoother then!

An Update: I did go to the doctor's today and got a nifty black brace for my sprained wrist and a prescripton of naprosyn - I am unable to knit so I'm considering just perhaps lying down and passing away gently into the night. However, since I have to work tomorrow that will not be possible. Damn.

Pearl As An Artform

David must've read my blog and the decorations are down from the attic. Of course the tempeture has gone up again so it will most likely be yet another balmy day. This does not do too much for the Christmas spirit, does it? I finally took the CD out and replaced it - it's hard to get into Jingle Bells when you're wearing sunglasses and the windows are rolled down. Work has gotten quite busy, I'm starting to transistion into the office but am currently wearing two hats which makes things a bit difficult. Today I don't have to start until 11 so Pearl and I will be down by the river being our usual menacing selves. I'm not oncall this weekend and am planning on doing not too much beside cleaning out my car and swamping out the bathrooms. Charger is doing very well these days, since we started him on the rimydyl he's been pretty much painfree - he hasn't yipped or done that awful screaming in a couple of weeks and we've noticed he gets up much easier. I've got to get started on holiday shopping, I think everyone will be getting gift certficates this year - as I get older I think I prefer them myself because you can get twice as much in after holiday shopping sales.