The Monday That Never Ends.

I am dragging a bit today - I did track down that patient yesterday, the phone number I had was a relative's and the first thing they said was, "oh, was that you calling all day yesterday?" - since I left multiple numbers I have no idea why they didn't call back. They were kind enough to give me the correct number AND the correct address which helped a bit.So I went out to get him done and then after that ended up going to Clarksburg (100 miles round trip) and did a wound dressing that took close to 2 hours. So I was bit wiped when I got home and then of course that lovely paperwork again. Hopefully the other nurse will be back today, she didn't come in Friday either so I didn't get to take my personal time which EVERYONE in the office knows by the way. I'm supposedly going to be able to take it today so we shall see. On the upside however, since I never call in sick the entire time I'm out will be covered AND since I did so many visits this weekend I will get an extra bucketful of money which will go towards Yarn and Stuff. I'm busy stressing a bit about my surgery, I am not a good patient and will never be so I was up off and on last night creating all sorts of dire situations - it's amazing how creative you can get at 1 am. Then of course the 2 am Girl showed up to get in on the action..... I'm sure it will go fine. (I hope).  

The Weekend Rolls On

It's been a busy weekend I have to say - I did 3 admissions yesterday right in a row - I was out from early til the afternoon and then sat down and did a ton of paperwork. I have to go hunt down another one at some point today - the phone number is in one state and the address is in another - insert a sigh here. Other than that it's been a lazy weekend - Jackson is making plans for the prom and his graduation, I can't believe that coming up so fast! We've heard from Adam a few times, he's doing very well and is enjoying the navy this time around - I think maybe it was a good thing for him to leave for a little while. When I worked at Stonybrook I did the same thing - in fact when the DON found out I was leaving she told me to go ahead - she said I wouldn't know how good I had it until I left. And she was right. And I think that's a good reason for us not to leave WV right away, things are really good right now and I am so looking foward to the summer!(David has repeatedly told me to stop peeking in the pool, it's not time yet!) - I feel like we're really getting what we deserve, a break after all this paddling upstream. My surgery is on Tuesday - I am getting a bit nervous about it, but they moved the time up to 11 am so I won't be starving all day. I'm trying to get a few things done around the house, Ray gave us his old vacuum and David wanted to see if the  power head would fit our vacuum. He put it on and it did - then he turned it on a few times and it didn't work. So we're both standing there wondering why it won't work and that would be when he noticed I had the plug in my hand - once a moron always a moron I suppose. But it gave us quite a laugh!

Back To The Real World

I had all sorts of things I was going to get done this week - I was going to root through my yarn stash ruthlessly, I was going to clean, yada yada yada. I peeked at the yarn - looked ok to me! The rest of the plots and plans got tossed to wayside as it interferred with my Watching TV and Eating Easter Candy activites, not to mention knitting. The blanket is coming along quite nicely, thank you for asking, the second time you do something of course goes much easier as you figured out all the directions the first go around. David and Jackson are alledgedly returning to WV today in the late afternoon, David's been recieving calls so I have to hunt down all the little notes I've written on whatever scrap of paper was handy near the phone. Work also interferred with my plans - the other nurse called in until Friday!! and we're not too hopeful even that's going to happen. All of my patients got given away and I had to take hers which is very stressful as I'm completely unfamilar with any of them so I've had the Deer In The Headlights look going at least twice a day. I've been not too good about it either even though I'm trying - I'm not sure if it's the stress of everything going on around me or - I'm burning out. I'm feeling very put upon lately, it gets hard when you see people taking as many days off as they feel like or showing up late and no one says anything to them - Interim has this policy that if you don't use your personal time or sick time they just take it. I've never worked anywhere that you actually get punished for being a good worker - in my past 3 years I've taken 2 1/2 sick days and ended up losing an entire week and no, they don't pay you for it. I've lost personal time, vacation time, a FULL WEEK of sick time and I am starting to resent it. I wanted to take my last 3 hours of personal time (I'll lose it if I dont' take it by Friday) and was told I would have to just lose it - and I said no. So we'll see what happens.

Waiting

Pearl is not liking this everyone being away thing we have going. Her latest thing is that in order to Guard The House efficiently she sits directly on top of me while I'm trying to sleep and barks randomly. This was NOT fun at 1 am the other night not to mention as I pointed out to her, that if someone was in the house she would've have given away our location. Then it would've been up to Pearl The Guard Dog to protect me and cats and quite frankly I  don't think she's up for it. David and Jackson will be along some time during this week - so far David has called and told me they will be home Sunday, Friday, Wednesday and Thursday, sigh. Since I like to know ahead of time EXACTLY when things will occur this is driving me crazy which he knows but apparently doesn't care. I heard from Adam, he is up in Chicago (he was spirited away by the navy on Monday) and will be up there for at least a month before heading off to classes. Work has been a bit better, hopefully the other nurse will be coming back in today. I didn't get too much done this week, by the time I get home at night it's dinner time and I end up taking Pearl out while the sun's still up since she's trapped in the house all day. I'm oncall this weekend, eww is all I have to say.

Easter-itis

Today was a bit of a runaway train - those of us not smart enough to call in sick got caught holding the proverbial bag - I drove my socks off. The nurse that called in had a full day - all in Preston county so we divided them up - I had two(in addition to my own) -  the second one the directions were so awful I ended up in WRONG TOWN for crying out loud! When I called the patient she laughed and said that address was where her mailbox was, she was currently living with family....I was surprised I didn't snap my phone in half.  I was just totally stressed and the additional side trip didn't help. And the nurse in question has already called in again for tomorrow - sigh, it must be nice. But the per diem LPN Ron was able to help and Jonathan the Bridgeport RN picked up some slack so everyone that needed seen got seen. Anyhoo, Easter was fun, I drove over to Susan and Roger's and played with thier golden retriever Buddy - I ended up covered with hair as it's that time of the year again. There were ten of us and the buffet was really nice, I sat between Susan and her mom and across from Marybeth and Ronnie Lee. Susan's niece Mycalah was there and as we were leaving she tugged Susan's sleeve and demanded to know why she hadn't brought Buddy - Susan leaned down and said "Because we decided to bring Julia instead!"

Happy Easter, Snow And All

Yes it did snow yesterday - and in case you're wondering the Channel 12 News Team did predict it - two days ago. Better late than never I suppose. Pearl is of course enjoying it, she was out this morning racing and spinning around in it getting the most out of her 1/4 of an inch of the white stuff. Things are pretty quiet here with it being me and the zoo - the bed is full at night,even Vincent has been snuggling up. I don't think they know what to make of it and Vincent is more upset about the whole business than even Pearl is! I've gotten a few things done but for the most part have been parked on the sofa - my plantar fascitis has been acting up big time - it's starting to get a bit less painful but not much so it's a bit restrictive. I've been knitting away on the blanket - the reason it takes so long is the needle size is a 3 which is VERY tiny so there are thousands upon thousands of stitches when I'm done. On the other hand it looks very impressive. David's having a good time at Ray's and I'm assuming the boys are enjoying themselves. I cleaned Jackson's bathroom the other day - Yucko is all I have to say about that. David and I have put off sellling the house until next year as we realized with everything going on this year and still not having made a decison about where we want to live it would have been too much, but being here alone for a few days I think the two of us are going to rattle around in here. If we moved down into Jackson's room we could shut off the entire upper floor! I am fretting a bit as I think the entire summer will be devoted to the pool and yardwork  since it's going to be just the two of us most of the time.

Good Bye To You

It was the usual mayhem - everyone knew what they were doing, but no one else did. I had taken off today thinking they would leave around 11 or so - but then David informs me they are leaving around 6 or so - he thought I knew that. I would've liked to have had a little extra time with Adam, but as David has pointed out, we'll see him again before he gets shipped off as he'll be in this country. And yesterday we had a really nice day together. They couldn't do my car so we did end up heading out to AC Moore's in Clarksburg - just for the record I did offer Adam some yarn but he declined. I got a book there - I had a coupon for 50%. David said just because you have a coupon doesn't mean you have to use it, but if you don't use it what's the point of living? Honestly, there would be no reason for my very existence now would  there? Well, except for yarn. Then we went to the mall in Meadowbrook where Adam got a haircut and I got some GREAT italian yarn on clearance - and no, the Yarn Hater was not impressed in case you're wondering. Then we went home and David got Jackson from school and we went out to  Ruby Tuesday for our anniversary. Then the bookstore where I bought two non-knitting related books and back home we went. Since they were getting an early start everyone was up and running around - the animals were all bouncing as they found the whole thing very Daring and Exciting of course - Pearl found it distressing but she finds everything distressing so we just ignored her. After a flurry of activity out they went. David was his usual self, he travels about as well as a souffle so every phone we have had messages on them. He called Ray - no one was there, he called me - I called Ray who didn't call David because he didn't leave a number. Sigh here. However, everyone is at thier final destination tonight and I'm busy seeing how much easter candy I can eat before I start spontaneously vomiting- Happy Holidays!!

26 Years Today

That's right - we have been married for 26 years now, it just doesn't seem possible does it? I've actually been married most of my life now - we're not doing too much, we'll take the boys out to dinner which will be nice. It's so rare for us all to be together nowadays. And we have a lot to do - my car has to go to the shop to be looked at, they have to pack, Jackson's off to school and of course Pearl needs all the attention she can get. I'm off for the next two days which I'm really looking foward to - I haven't been off in ages and it seems like when I am I'm doing something or going somewhere and I end up more exausted than I started out. We might take Adam to Clarksburg today depending on how much time we have but since they have so much traveling to do tomorrow it's just going to be pretty low key

The 80% Rule

Jackson finally got his ATM card yesterday - the first time around the bank sent all the paperwork and no card, so it was all redone and the card was sent to the bank so there was no mixup. I took him afterschool and it was the usual for him - the bank person was no where around, then we found her and then she couldn't find the card. She found the card and then Jackson couldn't remember his PIN number, so he had to try to acess it 3 times and then he had to go back in and get it reset..... as we were driving over to the supermarket(we had to wait 10 minutes) he started with the Why Me Lord Why Me ranting - which is when I pointed out that things tend to go right about 80% of the time but we only notice the 20%. And it is true if you think about it, I probably get along with about 80% of my relatives but it's that annoying 20% that tends to hold my attention so well. My day goes well most of the time but at the end it's the bloodwork that got lost or the patient that needs seen now that I concentrate on - not the patient I finally managed to get an aide for after weeks of arguing with the government or the child that waits for me eagerly now instead of fearing another new face in thier life. When life is rolling along just fine we don't seem to appreciate or even notice it, but when things start heading south we put our all into it, don't we? The debit card thing turned out well - while we were shopping I got announcements from the Card Deprived Party every two minutes and it worked on the first try so Jackson is now an Official Card Carrying Member - but that 20% will haunt him, I guarentee it!

10,000 BC

Yes, we did go to see the movie 10,000 BC - we had seen the previews and it was supposed to be a riveting drama taking place in the aforementioned time. I have to say it was riveting except when Adam and Jackson both had to leave the theater due to uncontrollable laughter. I don't think I've ever laughed so hard, but I was able to do it quietly - I'm glad we went during the afternoon because if we'd gone at night I have no doubt we would've been kicked out of the place. Here are some historic events you didn't know:

1) Cavemen understood that tigers, mammoths, etc were animals. However if they saw anyone riding a horse they were immediately labeled " 4 legged demons." 

2) Egyptians were able to build the pyramids by kidnapping cavemen

3) They also trussed up the wooly mammoths like oxen and they too built pyramids.

4) There was  bird that existed that looked like a cross between the dodo and an ostrich that could run a gazillion miles and hour and chewed up people for no reason.

The movie was so bad we laughed all the way home - the indiscriminate whipping(nothing would be happening and then just WHAP WHAP WHAP for no reason), the tribes were killing us, especially the ones that had masks that looked like the end of a radiator - Adam had to leave for that one. The arch enemy The Almighty looked like a walking shower curtain and I cannot even describe the rest. After we went home and collected David and then went out for the chinese buffet which I LOVE and everyone else was so so about. So we're back to Monday, Adam is going to work with David and they can catch up there, I am going to work by myself and Jackson is off to school. But we had such a good time yesterday.

State Of Grace

No pictures of Adam yet - he just got here yesterday so I have all week to take them. His flight arrived on time, it was just David and I to pick him up - I did get Jackson up, but he took so long we finally left without him. There's only so many times you can scream up the stairs before wanting to commit murder and it was his loss, not ours. The most galling thing is I doubt this will happen in the service, sigh. Anyhoo, Pearl is giving it her all with her hostessing duties, she's been a busy girl. David had someone out from Ohio the other day swapping guns and he brought his wife so Pearl was hostessing those visitors (quite sucessfully I might add, they offered to take her with them...). She spent the evening parked on Adam so he could pet her as she's generous that way.However much to her dismay Adam was smart enough to know to bolt his door when he went to bed which forced Pearl to lurk about all morning until he got up. We had pizza for dinner last night and we're going out tonight, I've decided to give myself a grace period off my diet. I know you can pick diet stuff when you go out and eat sensible portions of pizza, but what fun is that?? Besides when I saw the doctor he sort of hinted it would maybe be ok if I weighed a little bit more so I suppose I shouldn't worry so much about it. I'm currently knitting my little heart out, I used the new printer to scan the patterns - they print them so tiny that you have to constantly recount rows and stitches so I usually scan and enlarge them. I'm doing another House Blanket but in white this time, I may have some inbetween projects if it gets too tedious. I do have to start using up some of my yarn though, it's starting to sneak out of the closets and the Yarn Hater will eventually notice which will lead to another lecture about Mental Problems.

Farewell Dear Friend

Yes, it finally happened - we had sort of expected it, all this limping along, sometimes we weren't even sure it was still awake. Then last week it made a ghastly sound, shuddered and that was it. Our printer died. We would have been more accepting of it had it chosen to die before we ordered (and paid for!) a whole bunch of NONRETURNABLE ink cartridges. We called Dell and aside from informing us they would not like thier ink back they also informed us they no longer made that printer that the ink went to. Bastards. So we are now the proud owners of a new printer and the not so proud owners of not-usable ink. If anyone out there owns a Dell AIO that uses series #2 ink(7Y743) - let me know. Dell sent us a cheery letter with the new printer saying they would be happy to recycle the printer and the ink but I'd rather eat them - I pay for this stuff and they'll take it back for FREE - what a bunch of weasels. Speaking of such things, the House Monkey is due here tomorrow in the AM and we're rather excited about that, arent we! We will be picking up his monkey butt in Pittsburgh ( he will be a flying house monkey!) and he'll be here for the entire week. He'll have to amuse himself from Monday to Wednesday but I'm off for the weekend and also took Thursday and Friday off at the end of the week. Speaking of Thursday, David and I will be celebrating our 26th anniversary this year, can you believe that! Considering the fact we only knew each other for 6 months before we got engaged and then got married 6 months after that, that's pretty good. And we still like each other!

Alone Again, Naturally

Did you know I'll be all alone for Easter this year? Just me, the cats and of course Pearl the SuperDog. I will not actually be alone, I'll be having Easter dinner with the Powells which will be fine with me. Then I will come home to an easter basket and eat candy until I explode since there will be no one here to stop me. I'm busy making up Adam's room, I stripped the bed this morning as the cats consider it thiers and I'm busy shuffling out the flotsom that tends to shuffle in over the winter when no wants to come visit us for some mysterious reason. Hmm. Work has been fun lately, I have enough to keep busy but not so much I stay that way. The patients have been getting closer in so it leaves me time to do paperwork and a little shopping here and there. But not at Michael's as the Yarn Hater has been very peevish lately about the amount of yarn and accessories we have - he didn't even care that I had a FORTY PERCENT OFF COUPON. So I had to sneak over there and use it and then work the new thing into my collection in a nonchalant way so the Yarn Hater would not start yammering again. I wish he would stop as he just upsets himself and annoys others. Especially others with a 40% off coupon to burn. Jackson is at a DEP meeting that he has to attend every month for the navy until he goes in, he was a bit peevish about that - after all he did sign up, what more did they want? He's probably going to have a good time and the recruiter told him that if he's in NY over the summer he can just attend a meeting there. The weather got nicer today, when I got home Pearl and I went out for an hour and she just raced around the yard nonstop, she's such a weasel.

Show Me The Chicken

Mr. Lee continues to thrive, she doesn't look 18, does she? One thing she's always done - and it's always driven Jackson crazy - is demand her part of whatever chicken you happen to have. The second they sit down with it she makes a beeline and then preceeds to be the most obnoxious pest you've ever met. If the party hoarding the chicken continues to ignore her, she's been known to get right up there and help herself. Jackson did finally give in and let her have some, but he was NOT happy about it. Mr. Lee didn't care, as long as you hand over the food you make all the noise you like. Anyhoo, I took my car to Jiffy Lube yesterday and they seem to think I might have an oil leak so I have to make an appointment for next week when I'm off. The only good thing if it needs repair I'll be off for a couple of weeks with my surgery coming up, that would be the only good thing. In the meantime I'll just be keeping an eye on it. Do you like the school bus pictures - the busses around here are amazing the way they drive. The students are very spread out so they have to travel a lot and quickly but sometimes it's disconcerting how fast they go, especially on these mountain roads. I took that on Grafton Road which if you drive it a lot it's fun, if you don't you spend a great deal of time pulling over to let the Nascar crowd go by. My favorite part is when you get near town the road snakes down hill and it's sort of like skiing in your car (if the roads ice up then it's EXACTLY like skiiing in your car). This bus though was really flying, I was going 70 and lagging, but the driver never missed a beat, I'm sure it's a daily route and if you drive the road enough you know when you can speed up and when you have to slow down. The weather is finally getting better and the Crack Weather Team is continuing with thier new form of weather predicting which is to simply predict EVERYTHING, change the forecast frequently and you have at least a 45% chance of being vaguely correct. Today's forecast throughout the week has been: in the 30's, the 50's, the 40's, sun, clouds, rain, snow, a winter mix with a possibility of pretty much everything. I need that job.

Enough Already!

It snowed AGAIN yesterday and last night, this is getting quite tiresome - even I have to admit it. They've changed the weather report so many times in the past week I don't they even they can keep up with it - Saturday alone had 5 different predictions throughout the week and they managed to predict snow at the last minute making them right on a technicality I suppose. I'm oncall this weekend and had two visits and an open but managed to get them done before the roads got bad. Pearl of course thinks the snow is Wonderful and happily patters all over the yard with the Yucky Rubber Frog in tow. She got herself in trouble yesterday when I went to take her out. I bent down to get one of my boots and she managed to jump up on the church pew at exactly the same time - she hit me like a brick between the eyes, Wow Whee. I'm alright - a bit shocked that my nose isn't broken (I hope), it's a little swollen and more than a little sore, but thank goodness not too bad. David called Cathy last night too - she's the dog breeder who will be providing the stud the next time around - she was telling him that her crew got ahold of a copperhead a few weeks ago and all of them managed to get bitten (she has 7 Vizslas), so they've been giving her a run for her money too - she didn't even want to talk about the vet bill! All survived. Speaking of survival, I'm trying to survive Girl Scout Cookie Season, I think not one more box will cross my doorstep or I won't be able to squeeze past it! Girl Scout cookies are insane - there aren't many in a box, they cost too much  money but they're the  best, aren't they? David ate a box of the peanut butter ones, Jackson cleaned out two boxes of Somoas on his own and last night he and I powered through the last box of Thin Mints while we watched our regular Saturday night shows. I haven't been able to get on the treadmill - my leg is still bothering me from that fall last week. It's just a pulled thigh muscle but I have to stay off the exercise equipment until it stops hurting as I just keep re-injuring it - however, this would be a VERY good time to stay away from the Thin Mints I think.

Friday.

David has been working on the back room lately, it was too cold to spackle it so he had to let it go for awhile. Vincent loves it as he sits on the ladder that David leaves and spies on the birds. He brought me a rodent yesterday which I think he might have gotten out of the woodpile behind the fence, I see them playing back there once in awhile. He brought it to the front door and then flopped it about so I can see what a nifty gift he has for me. Whoo hoo. In other local news I will be having my hernia operation on April 1st, the same day David is getting his neck whacked by the dermatologist - it was the only time they had available. I was telling the scheduler about David having his appointment the same day and she laughed and said "What are the chances of that?!" - I replied "in my world, 100%". but he has to go in at 9:15 and my surgery isn't until 2pm so it should be workable. Of course I'm not happy about being NPO until 2 o'clock in the afternoon - arrgh I HATE that. I'm suffering just thinking about it. Then I'll be off for about 2 weeks or so, it's not a big hernia and it's located in a not bad spot so it won't be too traumatic (I hope).

Home

The other night David and I were talking - we do a lot of that these days with Adam going back in the service and Jackson getting ready to leave - and we got on the subject of the last season of pheasant hunting. David was remembering how much fun they'd had and how wonderful it was to watch Jackson and Pearl, how he got so much more enjoyment just out of seeing them hunt together - it was like looking at himself so many years ago I think. And then he said when he was done, "that for just a little while, I was home again". And that has been echoing in my head since. I don't think he was talking about going back to LI because those hunting fields are long gone - he hasn't hunted pheasant on LI for 15 years or so - I'm sure the place he was talking about is the place we cannot seem to find no matter how hard we look. When people talk about going home, they don't talk about a street or a house, they talk about things they feel and do. When David shuts his eyes and thinks of home it's wide open hunting fields, his dog and Jackson at his side, the cool weather. The home I have in my head has plenty of open land, country roads for walking and a small town. It is so hard to figure out what you want and what will make you happy, the place where you can wake up and just be glad you're there. Part of the scary part of Jackson leaving is it will be just us and our lives, no one else's. I think we'll eventually find a place we can both be happy in, but it's so scary jumping off that bridge.  

It's a Sailor's Life For Me

The Navy recruiter was here last night to go over the final papers and have Jackson sign off on them so that is that. His tentative date of departure is Sept 2nd but the recruiter is working on having that changed back to August. Jackson will have to attend monthly meetings until he ix-nays out of here and he's totally excited about starting his new life. I offered Pearl - lene as a Navy dog but the recruiter adeptly avoided addressing that subject, Pearl spent most of the evening trying to see how much of her red hair she could get on that dark blue suit. Adam will be ix-naying on the 24th - he's heading to a short stint in bootcamp and then to Mississippi for A school, then back to where ever they decide to send him. As for me and David, we will be enjoying the scenery here for at least another year while we decide what we want to do - it'll be the first time we don't have to consider the school system and that really frees you up a great deal. We're just waiting to get through all of this upcoming stuff going on - it is a lot. Work has been very busy - and of course there's always Office Drama to keep me distracted. Yesterday was one thing after another but since it was Monday that's nothing new. I have to do an injection training today so I brought home the kit to go over it - Jackson was not as interested in self-injecting Humera as you would think, he lost interest after the first 5 minutes. So did I, but I get paid for it and he doesn't it so it sort of behooved me to watch it so I would remember what I would be doing. All of these drug companies come up with fancy injection pens some of which take longer to set up and figure out than to do the actual injection! I started another knitting project but I'm not sure I like it so it might get frogged and I'll start something else in the meantime. I usually end up starting two or three projects before I find one I like.

End Of The Unisock

Yes, the socks are finally done! It took longer than I thought it would, but on the other hand there were two other projects inbetween so it probably didn't take as long as I think it did. I didn't end up going over Susan's yesterday, she was in the office part of the day and I had a bit of a spill in the driveway so I was on the heating pad most of the day. Nothing serious, there were some slick ice patches under the snow and fortunately I landed on my bottom - had I fallen the other way it would've been face first on the railroad tie retaining wall so I'm not complaining. Pearl's version of First Aid was to jump all over me hysterically and stand on my chest, it didn't help half as much as you think it would but it certainly got me back on feet pretty quick. I pulled a muscle in my leg and my back was a bit sore but I'm alright today. It was ok though since it gave me an excuse to finish up the second sock. Dr. Who and Torchwood were both on last night (two episodes each) so Jackson and I were parked on our respective couches quite enthralled for the evening - those shows just keep getting better and better. Jackson is rather full of himself these days since he's an official E1 and is the Ranking Person in the house since David, I, Pearl and the cats don't hold any rank at all. We've reminded the E1 however since he's living in a civilian house he still needs to clean his room and change his sheets - he can just do it in a professional way now. He's very excited about the whole thing and reads us various bits out of his DEP handbook and we worry about saluting and stuff now. Vincent wasn't overly impessed I might add and I might ship HIM off to the navy - we are still fighting the Litter Box Wars and he's winning. I cannot make him go to the bathroom outside - this morning he was particularly obnoxious by coming in, using BOTH the litter boxes and then wanting out. David just laughs and thinks it's a losing battle - Vicent can hold out much longer than I can.

All This Excitement!

Jackson got dropped off by the navy last night around 5pm - he had been too nervous and excited to sleep so he was a bit wound. Despite all the dire-ness of it all he passed everything and is Officially Recruited. He'd hoped to go in at the end of July but they moved it to September which he was a bit disappointed about, but given our past experience that may be subject to change. We got to hear every tiny detail and were shown all the freebies of course - he got a leather backpack, tee-shirts, etc so the only thing wrong according to Jackson is it isn't happening fast enough. I'm letting him have the car on Sunday so he's making all sorts of plots and plans - I'm going over Susan's today for a little while. I was thinking of sneaking over to Michael's but I don't really need anything and I did get all the clearance yarn that I wanted last week - it's soy yarn and usually goes $4 a skein, I got it for $1 - whoo hoo is all I have to say. But as I added it to my stash I came to the sad realization the Yarn Hater might be right - if I gave up eating, sleeping, working, etc and just knit I might be able to get through it all before I died of old age. But then I realized I don't give a crap - yarn on clearance is a wonderful thing and if you don't get it, someone else will and I do indeed still have a lot of closet space..... I did take time off from the Ugly Sock and knit a Bunny doll with a pacifer. I forgot to take a picture of it though before it went sailing out the door, but I plan on making another one at some point (I actually have to as the yarn I bought for that I still have 3 more skeins due to the fact it also happened to be on clearance..) Pearl is still in heat which stinks since we won't be breeding her until the next round, David can call Cathy today and find out the  when and where of it all so we'll be prepared the next time. Apparently there's some sort of rigamarole you need to go through before you get to the puppy part of the program. I would have loved to have done it now as since we're not selling the house for awhile it would've been the perfect time, but I guess with the fact  I have to have surgery, Jackson, etc.. maybe we do need to wait.