New Toys

I was actually going to have David buy me this knitting bag for Christmas, but I wasn't sure he would order it and I couldn't wait, so it's here. It's green suede and is just so cool - if you like that sort of thing of course. The cotton sweater is finally going well after multiple attempts - but now that I have the pattern down it's going great guns. David is currently tearing the kitchen apart, there will be pictures tomorrow. He's repainted the cabinets antique white, replaced the counters and will also be redoing the floor in the dining room and kitchen. Oh, and he tore down the wall between the two also. He's finishing up that project he's been working on for clients  this week, we've had a bit of rain so it's been hit or miss all week which is really frustrating for him - he only has a day and a half to do and it's been tough trying to get it finished. Yesterday morning it was raining again and by the time it cleared up he was too deep into the kitchen to stop so he'll be going to the job today. The On Call Wars continue at work, the nurse from Bridgeport has handed in her resignation which is totally stupid - I mean you have to figure if this woman has been working for Interim for almost a YEAR and didn't realize we were oncall during the week, that kind of speaks to how often you get called out during the week....it's all baby crap if you ask me. I just do my job and don't get into it, I'll protest if it gets too unfair but for most part it's not a bad job at times. My boss has been suspiously nice to me for two weeks running - I have no clue and don't care to. I spend as little time in the office as possible and do most of my paperwork at home, thereby staying firmly under the radar.

All The Animals In The Zoo

Jackson will be 18 this year right after Christmas, can you believe that? Mr. Lee will also be 18 this year and it's starting to show. Her latest is jumping - and missing, but not entirely missing - just enough to hang on with her claws and drag herself the rest of the way up. This is a problem as her claws tend to embed themselves in your leg and last night after the 3rd time I was tired of it and yelled at her. I've also had to hide my ONE plant as she loves to bury herself in it and bat it around. David worried it might be poisonous but I pointed out she'd eaten about a 1/3 of it with no ill effects so I wasn't worried. Pearl has been a whining pest, she doesn't quite get the season is over and yesterday brought me her little hunting vest and dropped it on the floor next to me. You have to be a bit desparate if you're asking the vegetarian to take you hunting. Work has been funny - since the 4rth nurse broke her leg it changed the oncall schedule and all hell has been breaking loose ever since. I ended up oncall Christmas week - the other nurse had invited her whole family down and she would've been oncall, but that would have put me on call for Jackson's 18th birthday - so I figured switching would benefit everyone. The 3rd nurse thought the other office had switched it out and she was mad so she told the boss we were BOTH mad which I thought was hilarious ( I was like "Really? did I stomp around and break things? Would you like me to?") - but then they switched it around again and I made them put it back. That made the 3rd nurse on call for New Years (she'd already been oncall for Thanksgiving) and made nurse #2 on call for NO holidays so the boss tried to make 2 &3 oncall for half a week. Since #2 was happy being on call for no holidays she took another tact claiming she thought we were on call for only weekends and not the entire week and if that was true she wasn't getting paid enough.......At this point I took some Excedrin out of Susan's desk and left the state feeling I would be better off in Pennsylvania for the afternoon. And I was since no one in Pennsylvania was concerned with the oncall schedule.

End Of The Season

David took the pictures I have posted today - that's the preserve that they've been hunting on all season. Yesterday was the end of pheasant season - and they got skunked. But they had such a good time no one was complaining. Poor Pearl is all beat up from the heavy brush and cover but she has the rest of the year to recover. Yesterday was quiet for me, no phone calls so I pretty much cleaned the house and then parked myself on the couch and knit for most of the day while watching BBC America. I have a morbid fascination with How Clean Is Your House and You Are What You Eat and then of course Dr. Who and Torchwood were on last night. I finally got that cotton sweater started for real, there are few little spots I might need to eventually fix but they'll be on the bottom so it's no big deal - I absolutely will NOT frog it again. And then I worked on the afgan for awhile, that's at the boring and endless part of the border - when projects get to that huge and repetative part of the program it's hard not to get distracted. I see I got a call from my job last night but I can call this morning so I guess I'll be working this morning. I really can't complain though, the last time I was on call I didn't get one and this time I only got one, so not so bad. I am on call the weekend before Christmas and for the entire holiday which most likely will be bad, but I was off for the entire holiday last year so I guess it's only fair.

Baby It's Cold Outside!

The tempeture has remained low, in the 20's - since it rained the other day the grass is frozen and feels wierd to walk on. The other morning I noticed that where I stepped it left a very definate footprint - so with nothing else to do while Pearl did her rounds, I very cheerfully wrote my name out in the grass, very big. When I came home yesterday afternoon my name was still there - I guess since the grass was so frozen I must've broken the blades and it looks rather permanent - oops. David has not noticed as of yet and it should be gone by this spring so I'll try not to lose any sleep over it. Today is the last day of hunting season so they'll be heading off this morning to get thier last licks in. David has taken Jackson every day this week since he's off and they've been having a grand time. I'm on call for the weekend so I can't go too far, I'll just be doing the grocery shopping and pottering around the house this weekend. Tonight they'll be having the Thanksgiving leftovers, we don't have too much though so it won't be an endless march of reheated mashed potatoes and dry turkey. And of course there's Christmas on the horizon, I think we'll be doing gift certificates again this year as mailing becomes rather nightmarish when you're doing in en mass. David will be working on the house after the holidays and we're tentatively planning on him taking about 6 weeks to complete most of the inside work - there's just no other way around it.

A Pretty Quiet Thanksgiving

David and Jackson went hunting this morning as they had planned - Pearl was along to point out various and sundry things, which she did quite well I understand. There are only two more days and then that is It. This left me to man the turkey -actually the turkey breast as there are only three of us and only two will eat it. We made the traditional Too Much Meal and ate until we neared explosion. For the rest of the day we just hung about which is always on my list of things to do. I'm finishing up the afgan and have started the next project, a sleeveless cotton sweater that I've started a total of three times so far due to the fact that some of us cannot follow directions. Luckily I'm smart enough to throw in the towel before it gets too far and I alternate working on the afgan when I start to get too frustrated. It poured like crazy first thing this morning, then it was warm and then the temp dropped so it feels like fall again. My neighbor has been setting up his Christmas decorations since a week before Thanksgiving, that's pretty big here. I find it a bit unsettling at times as a lot of people haven't taken down thier fall and halloween decorations - it's disconcerting to be driving down a road surrounded by witches, tombstones, elves, santas, turkeys, sleighs and  haybales. I had problems making it through Mannington the other day as NO ONE seems to be able to agree on what season they're celebrating.  I'm hoping it will all be straight by New Years.

Is It Dark In Here - Or Is It Just Me?

Daylight savings time takes a great deal of getting used to, doesn't it? Since we're up at 4 am we tend to be in bed early too so it take awhile  to stop waking up at 3 am. I'll let you know when it happens, sigh. And you have to be VERY careful to stay perfectly still as Pearl will detect the slightest bit of movement which means Let's Get Up And Start Racing Around to her. I had an easier day today, not too much drama (or driving) and even managed to get all of my paperwork in. I got done a tad early and headed off to Jiffy Lube to get my oil changed as I'm about a thousand miles past due. I called David from there to let him know I'd be home soon and asked what they were doing. He informed me he was just getting ready to put the turkey in. Hmm. I told him that would be impressive if it was Thanksgiving and he was like Well! That explains all the strange looks he got today when he told everyone he had to be home to start the turkey - thank goodness I called or we would've been celebrating twice.  The guy at Jiffy Lube saw I had a CRV which his girlfriend has and that lead to the Picnic Table discussion which everyone with that model has when they meet another owner. My car has the most useless feature in the universe - if you pull up the rug in the way back there's a square cut out looking thing - it's a removable picnic table with expandable legs - no kidding. The reason it's so useless is A) there are no secret chairs to sit on, B) it's under the rug in the back so I would have to dig through a ton of medical supplies to get it out and C) how many people would pull off the side of road, haul out a picnic table and have lunch?? But it's so bizarre everyone that has one likes to talk about it and show it off. It's even better than the billion secret compartments and doors secreted all over (Jackson and Adam used to joke I could be a drug runner in that car). I do admit I love my car. I'm off tomorrow,back on Friday and then on call for a week. Oh well, it had to happen sometime.

Tooling Along

Today I have to sit down with the other nurse and get our patients traded off - in the course of the past few weeks for some reason I've been getting all the patients that live near her and she's been getting the ones in my neck of the woods. I mentioned this last week because I actually drove past Deb's house last week going from one of mine to the other so hopefully we can do a bit of trading today and cut back on our driving time. We're off for Thanksgiving which I love - major reason NOT to work in a hospital - I mean even if you're oncall you can at least spend part of the day enjoying the holiday.  I spent years working the night shift and even when I was off (which was rare) I usually worked the night before and got home around 8 am. I would sit around rather bleary eyed while the kids opened thier presents, found thier baskets, etc, etc and then totter off to bed in order to get up in time to sit down to the various holiday meals. Most of the holidays with the kids is a bit of a blur. It'll just be the three of us for Thanksgiving again, Adam has to work so he was unable to come but hopefully we can spend Christmas with him.

Day Of Rest

They went hunting for so long yesterday that I called them as I suspected they might have lost the dog and were afraid to come home. But they were actually having a really good time, David, Jackson and Pearl - they didn't get home until late afternoon with everyone covered in burrs and swampy stuff. Pearl was actually a bit pooped out - for about 20 minutes and ate two dinners, it's a bit hard to keep weight on her at this point so we just stuff her full every chance we get. There's no hunting on Sunday unless you wish to shoot a coyote and a few other odd animals that the state seems to think doesn't need a day off - I have no idea why there's no hunting on Sunday in the first place, it's not like the animals are attending church....I finished making a Christmas tree hat and am currently working on the border of the afgan I started in the spring and got bored with. You can't work on an afgan in the summer anyhow - it's too hot so I'll have it done before the end of the month at any rate. I've got some paperwork to finish up and patients to call which I hate doing on the weekend, when I'm off I want to be OFF and anything work related feels like an intrusion. I've been sort of gliding along at work lately, I have to say if we weren't selling the house in the spring I would be looking for a job somewhere else long before now. I'm so tired of my boss's errant behaviors and getting glared at sporadically because of some reason she doesn't feel she needs to share. I've been told this is what she does - if things are going badly for her she likes to take it out on the staff  and it's not just me, it's a blanket effect, but still! The only good thing is I no longer feel I owe any loyalty to the job so when I get ready to go, it will be with no regrets or guilt on my part. But that's down the road so for now I do my job. And that's it.

Hanging Out In The Yard

I have no idea what fuels my never ending fascination with graveyards - the more gothic the better of course. This one is in Fairmont and of course - the view is incredible from the top. I didn't get any pictures that high as it was raining that day, that's what the little blurry spots are on some of the pictures - raindrops. I'll be going back next week of course to finish trolloping about, it started to rain harder when I was there and we all know how delightful West Virginia Mud is!! Jackson has the entire week off for Thanksgiving which we were not aware of (I dont' think he was either) so he and Dad will be hunting thier tiny hearts out as next week is the last week of pheasant season. They will be toting Pearl The Magnificent with them to point out what is obvious to her, her new thing is quail - I wonder how she tells the scent of those birds from the others. I've been having quite a week with driving, the patient population has picked up a bit - finally! - but they're spread all over the map lately. I've been wearing out my Crash Test Dummies CDs and cannot find the These Ghosts That Haunt Me one despite my looking high and low. I know if I break and buy a new one the old one will suddenly appear somewhere. Since I'm ordering from Knitpicks this morning I have to at least appear conservative with my money. I'm buying a super knitting bag and some more of the yarn I made the shawl out of as I have enough left over to almost make something but not quite. Yarn never comes out even no matter how hard you try - you either fall short or end up with enough to not quite make another something.

The Shawl is DONE

This weekend I was determined to finish that shawl - as I've gotten closer to the end it's been dragging, the last 5 rows were neverending. So yesterday when they went off hunting I parked myself on the couch and just finished up the last row and the binding off part - it actually called for a crochet border but I couldn't figure it out and at that point the idea of going around AGAIN was not half as attractive as it would've been a month ago so I just finished it off. Then I soaked it and blocked it out on the bed in the gun room where the cats can't get to it - I'm sure Mr. Lee would dearly love to either prickle her claws all over it or secretly puke on it or something - she's a cat and then tend to do those things. In hunting news Pearl the Girl scored big again this weekend, she put up over half a dozen pheasants and they got three. David is working today so he can take Jackson tomorrow as he has the day off from school. The season ends on the 24th for pheasant so David's trying to get in as much as possible, but the good thing is they'll be able to go hunting Thanksgiving morning, he hasn't done that in 5 years so I know he'll be looking foward to it. I had a nice weekend, pretty quiet and all - I have to finish up some paperwork this afternoon and plot out my patients. I also started working on a Christmas hat as an inbetween project until I figure out what my next one is.

I didn't recognize him right away, sitting on the couch outside of my office. I actually thought he was someone else, but then it hit me full force who that was and even more important, what it meant. I will be skirting the edge so bear with me. When I sat down the first thing I asked of course is where she was. He just grinned and said she's inside - they'd been hoping to see me. I was freaking - because she was orientating, wasn't she? Sometimes you get to see people get well, other times you're just in the middle part - and you don't get to see what happens. I thought about her off and on, how was she doing, was she alright? Sometimes at other people's houses they would mention her name and say, oh well you don't know her I'm sure and I would get a tiny glimpse as they gossiped a bit. But here she was - and looking as amazingly healthy - I actually started laughing and telling her to stop talking before I started crying - she was ok! Sometimes life gets to be too much doesn't it?, the job isn't going well, everything is up in the air, grind after grind. And then something or someone crosses your path and gives you that sense of pure amazement and joy - something that can't possibly be is right there in front of you, being. And that is when your feet find the path again and you know there is an end, despite the static around you. You go sister.

What Goes In, Must Go Out

I have to say I have sucessfully avoided vomiting in the past two days by simply not eating anything returnable. But then there is the flip side of the coin, sigh, sigh sigh. I had ONE stinkin' bowl of Cheerios with a VERY SMALL banana and woke up 3-ish with a rather desparate urge to run to the bathroom - Diarrhira anyone? It was good I got started early as my first visit was before 8 am. And no, I haven't been able to call in sick as there have been patients that only I can do so I've just had to suck it up and keep going. Last night I had a melt down on the phone - I had a full day with a LOT of driving and got a call around 4 pm asking if I could do an open - I just lost it. All I've wanted to do is crawl in the linen closet and pull the door shut behind me but I've gotten up, dressed and out the door for the past two days and just when I thought my day would be somewhat managable - I get this. So I didn't yell, but I voiced my opinion while apologizing and assuring the person I was not mad -  and when I stopped in today to make phone calls Susan informed me they'd found someone else to do it. I could have wept a tiny bit with relief - I'm just tired and achy with a constant bit of nausea thrown in. I did eat yet another bowl of Cheerios - my stomach is rolling like a wave already, yipee. Where is Friday afternoon when you need it??

We Are Not Adjusting

It's bad enough to be stuck waking up at 4 am for the rest of my life - Pearl has not quite gotten the Daylights Saving Time thing so she starts in around 3 am since in her world it is Time To Go Out. So now we spend the hour between 3 am and 4 am repeating "Be Quiet!" - Pearl has responded to this by whining softly under her breath. Since she generally has herself parked inbetween us it's a bit hard to ignore. I'm not feeling well today, but am on the fence as to how I'll be proceeding. I feel tired, dizzy, slight nausea - however that could go either way so I'm not quite sure what my plan of action will be. They're predicting snow this week already, not sure if I believe that or not. David is taking Miss Pants hunting this morning, with the daylight savings thing he now has plenty of time to do a bit of hunting and then truddle off to work. I've got to get my coats drycleaned, I generally like to put it off until I actually need them so that way it's really inconvienient.

Sunday

So far, so good - but I won't say anything as I don't want to jinx this weekend. Jackson said there is no such thing as a Jinx but he's still young yet. My Hit Counter broke the other day (no, I don't know why, they just do) so I had to get a new one. Of course since this one lasted longer than any of the other ones I couldn't remember how to do it and now I have Simply Enormous One. It will have to stay for now and it is rather spanky at any rate, isn't it? Anyhoo - David took the crew hunting out on Saturday, he's found a spot that isn't well frequented as it's a bit more of a hike and they did VERY well. David said Jackson and Pearl were having a ball hiking through wheat fields and up hill - they got a total of 3 birds all flushed by Pearl the Big Favorite. I have to say out of all the Vizslas we've had she's one of the best. Jackson shot his first (and second) pheasant which is the limit in Pennsylvania. They were out most of the day, today there's no hunting so Pearl has the day off. She could use it, the brush is pretty hard on the dogs and she's all scratched up, her poor little face was all pink yesterday. After the 24rth is grouse season but David said he had his eye out and didn't even see one. I've been doing stuff around the house here and there, we went to the book store and Sam's Club this morning, nothing out of the ordinary. In the Never Ending Shawl Dept I have about FIVE more rows to go which is the good news, the bad news is the rows now have 1,320 stitches per row. Hmm. And it needs an edge and then there will be the Great Experiment in Blocking. I've been having fun this weekend, I am off my diet for a few days to give it a break and have been subsiding on cake, candy, and coffee my 3 favorite food groups. David and I had our usual fight about moving, I generally refuse to discuss it which leads to all sorts of Lectures and Disgruntled Commentary. A lot of it has to do with the fact that until we are actually ACTIVELY involved in selling the house and so forth it just feels like a useless conversation. As far as I'm concerned it will happen when it happens and until that time there's no point in discussing it.

I Hate Being On Call

Being on call is a pain in the butt - even if no one calls there is the potential someone will so you cannot do anything that is far from the house. I keep checking  my cell phone just in case I missed anything and if it goes like it normally does, it will only ring if I'm more than two floors away from it. This will entail me racing up the stairs just in time for it to stop ringing and the office will immediately call the house phone which is conviniently located at the opposite end of the house. Just before I pick that up someone located in the downstairs family room will pick THAT phone up and yell up the stairs it's for me - and the office wonders why I always sound so crabby when I answer the phone!! And to make matters a bit more complicated my cell service is spotty at best at our house, I think we live over the Burmuda Triangle Of Sprint as I can't hear you in the livingroom, my cell service goes to roaming in the hall, I get good reception sitting on my bed but not over the dresser and the dining room is hit or miss. I have no idea -don't ask. David, Jackson and Pearl are going hunting this morning for a bit, I'm not invited as I am a vegetarian and might be forced to take the moral high ground just so PETA won't string me up as an example to all the other Bad Vegetarians out there - I won't mention that it was me that requested someone save the tail feathers - after all the bird isn't using them..... I'm thinking of sorting my yarn while they're out commiting all sorts of infractions against nature, I can't do it in the presence of the Yarn Hater as he gets all worked up and then starts giving speeches on Moderation and perhaps someone need a Little Psychiatric Assistance. Hmm. Bastard. I'm about 10 rows away from finishing the shawl and then have to figure out how to block it, that will be new for me as this is the first thing I've ever made that's real wool. I have the pins all ready I just need to scout out a safe spot, especially away from Mr. Lee and her Kneading Little Claws - she LOVES my knitting.

Back in Time

How quickly I remembered how things used to be - I found David and Pearl in the laundry room yesterday morning. When I inquired as to what they were doing, David replied he was going to work - I asked why if he was going to work what he was doing shoving his pocket full of shotgun shells - was there something I needed to know? Then he admitted there MIGHT be a bit of hunting going on that morning but he was doing it for the dog.... this all ends on the 24rth so I'll just pretend I don't see them sneaking off every 5 minutes. David got Jackson a license too so they'll both be trolloping about on Saturday with Pearl the Hunting Dog in tow. I'm on call this weekend which sucks but what can you do? Yesterday I spent thinking about Annie - she occasionally pops into my mind unannounced, I have no idea why. She was a woman I met when I was about 16 - and she was what I wanted to be when I grew up. She was a fish filleter at Carnisi's where I opened scollops after school - my bench was near the pass through where she was on the other side filleting fish. She was pretty big - at least I thought so at the time, always wore a crew cap and a yellow rain jacket, and could fillet a fish in under 30 seconds. She spent her winters in the keys working the bars, she told me once she could carry two kegs by herself. She drove an old bronco that had about a million miles on it, it seemed to suit her perfectly. I just admired her to pieces, she just did what she wanted to do, made a ton of money and no one ever told her what to do, not even the owner of the shop - she was so good at her job she pretty much ran her own show. I never did get to be a fish filleter - it's one of those jobs it's almost impossible to get into, no one will hire you without experience and you can't get experience without the job. I guess one of the reasons I think about her is you wonder what happens to people like that when they get older - do they eventually marry, find a permenent job, a stable place to live? Or do they spend thier whole lives travelling back and forth with no one, living from temporary apartment to temporary apartment and if they do, is it really that bad of a life? Sometimes I wish I knew what happened to her and I hope she's still as happy as she was when I knew her.