The Countdown Has Begun

We picked up Le Boy from the airport Sunday - I must admit I've grown quite fond of this flying thing. The airport is only 70 miles from here as opposed to the halfway point which is about 150 miles, most of which is through the mountains. Jackson came home very chatty - we heard all about the mall, Aunt Janet and Aunt Diane's friends who have a baby, Amy and her baby Alex who apparently still has more hair than anyone we know, Adam, the Lesters, etc... He also helped Diane rearrange her pantry which he informed us he knew how to do since he watches The Home and Garden channel a lot. He actually does as he's a bit on the strange side in his viewing habits. The night he came home I subjected to TWO hours of watching grown men hunting around for TWO years to get a picture of a giant squid on the discovery channel. He refused to let me change it even though there was a Graham Norton marathon on the BBC channel. They did get one blurry picture and we got to see various squid leftovers including a 20 foot tentacle that bore an alarming resemblance to an intestine as they are on the menu for sperm whales who have amazingly big teeth weighing up to 2 lbs each. These teeth apparently are just perfect for Squid Nipping. Vincent was glad to see Jackson and has not been far from him since he got home. School starts in a couple of weeks, that came up pretty fast - we're going shopping for clothes this weekend. There will be no more Hot Topic pants- he can't believe I even mentioned that, he would look ridiculous! (even though he was wearing them 3 months ago.....) so I guess that age has passed. We'll take him school shopping this weekend as I am not oncall - they also hired another full time nurse over in the other office so now oncall is only every 5 weeks -instead of every two.

What I Did Yesterday....

...Pretty much just goofed around .You have to do that once in awhile. I did get a few things done, but have still not addressed the giant zucchini on my counter. Lately we've been getting overwhelmed with vegetables - I don't mind the normal sized ones, but why on earth do people have to grow things like zucchini the size of baseball bats? What' the point - you can't possibly eat something that large and since it's just me eating it, eek! And then after people grow these freakish things they lurk around trying to palm them off on unsuspecting victims by asking if you want some zucchini, tomatoes etc without mentioning that carrying it into the house will give you a hernia. Then it's up to you to either eat it til it's gone or find another home for it. David and I went out for lunch yesterday to Bob Evans - we usually end up having pancakes or french toast - it was way too filling but lots of fun. I got my hair cut again yesterday too, so it now looks like I wanted it to in the first place. This hair dresser had no problem cutting it short after I explained what it was that I wanted. The weather was very nice yesterday, Pearl and I went swimming (of course!) and then walked the property. David has let the lower two acres go back to woods and just mows a path through it - with all the rain we've had this summer he's  had no break from mowing. Some of the nettles which I hate (they're huge spiky plants) have bloomed and now I'm glad we have them. First off, if you let them be they get really pretty purple spiky flowers on the end - and they attract butterflies! I was out trying to get a picture of them but it's not as easy as it looks to take a good one. I finished watching the entire Lord of The Rings trilogy last night, Jackson and I had tried to watch it all in one shot a couple of years ago and after 6 or 7 hours (we have the extended version) it stops making sense. So I've been watching one disc a night and last night I watched the last one. Jackson will be coming home today, I'll be glad to see him. And so will Vincent The Troublemaker.

Varmits Abound

We have two deer that keep sneaking into our yard lately, I'm sure thier mother is around somewhere since they both look very healthy but they're proabably weaned at this point and are starting to forage on thier own. They were out in side yard last night so I got my camera. The one closest started stomping it's foot and huffing at me - that's a Deer Threat - but I wasn't deterred at all. It was actually pretty cute as they're only a few months past being fawns. The bad thing is they drive Pearl crazy, she's comsumed by Deer Hate and would like to give them a run for thier money so she had to stay in the house and hate them from the french doors. I was glad Vincent didn't see them as he is VERY bad with the deer and enjoys annoying them - they would dearly love to step on him. He's been fairly bad anyhow since his roommate has been lounging around Aunt Janet and Aunt Diane's for the past two weeks - he has no one to play with so we've been subjected to Random Attacks and Sneaking About. He comes flying out of nowhere and then proceeds to bounce around the bed until you throw him off. He can repeat this process until he either tires of it or drives you deep into a dangerous psychosis and he's forced to go bother Claw. Work has been busy - and of course the weather hasn't been co-operating . The one thing I love is some of my patients don't have phones and they tend to live deep in the country. This means I have to use my cell phone and have found myself on occasion  on a rickity back porch in the corner, standing on a box, in the rain - and when they ask if they can put me on hold -that gets a resounding NO (I have one doctor's office that they just immediately put me through since they know they have about 3 minutes before I lose the signal). I still do enjoy the driving the back roads, now that I'm management it's much reduced but I do enjoy the fact that I get to play both sides of the fence. Not much planned today, I might get my haircut again, I hate the one I have now and David says he doesn't want to hear another word about it.

The Weekend Is On It's Way

The weather has taken a decidedly icky turn - it's already hot and muggy. The dampness this time of year makes everything feel limp and soggy - the air went on and will remain on until this is over. Yesterday when I was cleaning out the pool I found we had a rather unhappy visitor clinging to the side - a bat! It took me a second to figure out what it was as it was completely drenched and hanging onto the lip of the pool. I took it out with the scooper and it just laid on it's back gasping. Bats in real life are not like Disney Movies. It was not grateful at all, it didn't look at me with dewy eyes or break into song, it didn't even have the common decency to be quiet. Instead it hissed and snapped it's little mouth at me, flapping it's soaked wings which made things difficult on my end. First of Pearl The Pest seemed to feel she should have first dibs on the new toy so I was yelling at her since I knew someone was going to get nailed if she didn't stop. Then I had to try and get the bat off the edge of the pool with the scooper without it falling in again - it was a bit trying to say the least. I managed to roll it off and then rolled it under the edge of the pool so the cats wouldn't see it. When I came back later it was gone so I assume it dried out enough to leave. And no I didn't get a picture - I didn't even think of it til I went out back to see how it was doing. You would think that bat's having that super sonar it would've seen thirty thousand gallons of water, wouldn't you? I doubt we'll be seeing again though!!

Better Than A Boyfriend!!

I did my first visit fairly early - it was a blood draw so I wanted to get it to the lab fast. I had to use WVU lab and they are not the best, especially on the weekend. They have a habit of lollygagging and then will call you at midnight to report a critical lab value on the blood you drew at 1 in the afternoon. This is wonderful as then you get to wake up the doctor who pitches a fit - for good reason despite the fact it's not your fault. Even more fun is calling the patient who will cheerfully go back to bed no matter what you say and you can't blame them - obviously they've been like this all day so trying to convince them it's an emergency now is so much wasted air. So I rousted the patient and got it in before 10, then off to the Clarksburg area to do my admission. That went well, shockingly and it left me more than enough time to go to my TOTALLY FAVORITE PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE! Even better was the large semi-annual clearance banner, I got two knitting books half price and 10 skeins of yarn for $12 -ha! try and beat that. Now, I don't really need anymore knitting books (or magazines for that matter) and certainly yarn is not an issue, but who can resist? Of course it didn't help that when I got home my package from Knitpicks was sitting on the kitchen table, but the Yarn Hater has been trading guns all month so he hasn't got much to say for himself. His point is he buys and sells guns so he sort of stays "even" while I just buy buy buy. My response to this is Tough Cookies. But I think I might have to slow down as it's even getting to be a bit much, even for me. I didn't get any of the framing stuff as I keep forgetting to measure the picture.I heard from my Mom last night, Grandpa is doing much better, he's been home from the hospital since Thursday and she's hired a 24 hour aide to help him until he gets better. The boys are doing well, they went to the local carnival the other night and are visiting my Dad's side today and then back to Pennsylvania. Jackson will be home sometime next week and I suppose Adam will be starting his life.

All's Quiet On The Western Front

It's interesting here with just David and I, a bit quieter I suppose. Not that Jackson is a noisy boy -not by any stretch of the imagination but with less people in the house there is a stillness that's not normally here. Of course we still Have Pearl The Pest and her Merry Band of Cats to contend with so it's not all that quiet!. Vincent is at a loss without Jackson, we keep his bedroom door open at night so he can go sleep on his bed. But he comes up to our room occasionally during the night to stare at us as if we'll finally confess as to what we've done with his boy. I'm on call this weekend, but starting next week the other two nurses will be in the rotation, what a relief that will be! I'll only be oncall once a month instead of every other week. I have an admit in the Bridgeport/Clarksburg area, but that's ok because I can go shop my heart out at AC Moores - I am boycotting Michael's at the present time due to their sneaky ways. They have a habit of having a yarn clearance bin and it's all $2 a skein except for one or two bins. I found a yarn I liked in the bin and brought it up to the register - it totalled almost $50!. The cashier sent a worker back to look and sure enough it was all $2 EXCEPT that one bin in the middle. I asked where it said that and neither of them were able to tell me so I told them to keep the yarn and left. Since I have enough yarn at this point in my life to knit 24 hours a day, 7 days a week until I either die or expire from Carpel Tunnel, that I have yarn stuffed to the brim in my grandmother's dresser, spilling out of the closet in the guest room and in various drawers and baskets, my Standards Of Yarn have been raised. Slightly. In order for me to buy yarn it either has to be exceptionally good looking or a cheap date. The other reason I need to go to AC Moores (as if yarn is not enough...) is I need a frame for the picture I bought at Bubba's Garage last week when Ray was out. We were poking around the back when I found this picture - the frame is cracked, the backing is warped - but the subject matter is fascinating. It's painted on the glass I believe, not on a canvas - and it's a picture of a woman hanging on the front of a cross facing it, looking skyward. It matches a life sized grave stone in Doll's Run Cemetery so it has to have some sort of significance. When I get a chance I'm going to retake a picture of the gravestone. Ray looked at it and seemed to think I could replace the backing and the frame which I hope I can. David of course LOVES this picture, haha

It Is August.

July just flew by this year, didn't it? I guess it's like that every year, June and July disappear before you know it, then August comes along, slogging and dragging it's feet, never going to end with it's hot relentless days and sweltering nights. Usually, at this time of year everything is starting to turn brown and dry - not this year. We've had quite a bit of rain lately prompting David  to mow the yard once again. I'll do around the edges this weekend I suppose with my little push mower. We're definately going to sell next year, as beautiful as this place is, it's overwhelming between the yard, the pool and the house and when Jackson graduates next year it'll get worse. He and Adam are having a good time at my sister's, David called last night and Jackson said they're going to LI for the weekend. We're still working on getting rid of the Stupid Hot Tub, someone was supposed to come look last night but didn't - I'm getting tired of bailing it out and it just being there. We're giving it away for free, but it's so huge it's going to be a monster to move. The weather has been hot and sunny lately, I've been in the pool every evening after work as has Pearl The Uninvited who now has figured out that by dropping her toy in the deep end and racing around to the steps - she can actually play fetch by herself. She is such a goose.