Everyone Needs A Hobby

 Vincent's  big hobby is sleeping which he does quite well and anywhere. The pool continues to leak, but remains fairly clear so I think we can hang in there a few more days. David thinks it will go down another 4 or 5 inches and then stop there. When we moved in it was low, but not empty so we can hope! All of the frogs are pretty much gone (during the day at least) but we have one very stubborn frog that I've been evicting daily and back he comes. Yesterday after the 4rth eviction I confess to a tiny bit of Frog Abuse and  did indeed shake him like a Polaroid Picture, but just a little. As you can see from the picture no frogs were harmed. Sigh. I posted the latest pictures of the house, when David finishes it's going to be really nice - the style fits the house much better than the green,red and white I think. Of course that would be true of anything green, red and white. With the exception of the italian flag. Jackson's finger was less swollen yesterday, he went to Becky's and she no longer kicks him, now she slaps him. It's her turn to come over here today and then I think Marcus will be visiting on the weekend. My job hunting continues, I won't hear about the doctor's office until 2 weeks from now so I have that on the back burner, next week I'll hear about the agency job, I have an interview on friday at Fairmont and hopefully the paperwork for the travel job will be in the mail. We had a huge thunderstorm last night, We had a lightening strike in the yard which made everything like daylight, Copper was having a fit and tailing everyone around the house. The last picture is the singlewide down the road who's front yard is right on route 100. All of the trailers on this road are kept neat beyond belief - a lot of yard competion going on. That trailers' front yard has a shed, pool, trampoline and driveway all in about 75 yards of space! I heard from David this morning, he's busy at Ray's and they're having a good time. He was going to try to get back to LI this weekend but remembered it was 4rth of July so has decided not to. The traffic will be horrific to put it mildly especially with the 4rth landing on the weekend. He's going to get our stuff in Pa and then will be home Monday or Tuesday.

The Way Out

David left for NJ this morning dragging his feet all the way out to the truck. He's made so many trips back and forth I think the idea of driving the 400 miles to Rays' just wears him out thinking about it. He'll be stopping in Pa to get the rest of our stuff and also talk to the RE. The house hasn't sold yet so I think we're going to have to look into renting it for the year and then put it back on the market next spring. The pool continues to leak, we're down about 6 inches from Sunday - we havent' been able to run the pump but the chemicals are keeping the water for now so I'll leave it be. Still no word from the home care agency, I'm beginning to feel like I have the plague. I did finally hear from Mon Gen - they declined to interview me further because of my frequent moves from hospital to hospital. Great. I have an interview for a doctor's office this morning and I'm getting paperwork from the travel nurse agency. You don't have to really travel if you dont' want to and the pay is spectacular - with benefits - so it's worth checking it out. Becky was over yesterday and there were no further incidents, Jackson continues to torment her of course. When we got in the car to drive her home he told her to put on her seat belt - just in case of an ACCIDENT..... His finger is swollen of course and hurts, but not too bad. This morning turn of events was we are being infested by milipedes of all things. It's just in one part of the house and honestly, they aren't overly creepy looking so I'll just vacuum them up and see if there isn't anything I can put down. The problem here with insecticides is the zoo which seems to be drawn to an posionous substance I put down and no matter how carefully I hide it, they seem to be able to sniff it out. Of course on the other hand if one of them DOES manage to eat the poison that will be one less mouth to feed so it could be a win win situation.

PS!! Just got off the phone with MHS - Jackson was approved and will be attending Morgantown High School in the fall!

No, that is not a gang sign............

It's what your finger looks like if Becky is over and your parents have gone out for ONLY HALF AN HOUR and you're horsing around and Becky lands a perfect kick on your hand. This is what we came home to - David and I just ran down the road after dropping Becky off to buy him some t shirts and they were supposed to be swimming. So David drove Becky home and I took Jackson to the ER. After the XRay determined it wasn't broken the MD relocated it - no painkillers as she said the digital blocker actually hurts more to get than the relocation procedure which took about 30 seconds. He's got to wear the splint for a few days but other than that, he's fine. He came home and called Becky to let her know the doctor could do nothing for him and he was given 3 months to live. Then he told her they amputated. She's coming back over today since they're visit was cut short and hopefully everyone will keep thier feet to themselves. As far as the pool is concerned we ran it for a long time yesterday and now we're letting it  leak to see where we need to patch. The way things have been going lately, I'm sure it's on the bottom. David heads off for NJ for the week tomorrow and I have massive amounts of phone calling and so forth to do this week. I'm supposed to hear about the visit nurse job today, keep your fingers crossed for me. Church was good yesterday, they're considering the minister who spoke a couple of weeks ago but seemed to feel she mentioned god too much in her topic so everyone is up in the air about her. I've been meeting people there, there's one woman in particular that I have alot in common with  - it would be nice to have someone to hang around with.I think I might start volunteering once I get this job thing settled. The church does a lot of community services and has a big habitat for humanity project coming up and they also help run the soup kitchen.

The Hot Spot

It's amazing that the signs for this place are bigger than the actual establishment - "The Hot Spot" is a single wide trailer with an Open sign by the door. David and I have not gone in there yet. The Hot Spot is some sort of franchise around here, you see them all over the place in a variety of building so apparently anyone can have one. The businesses on rt 19 and100 are interesting to say the least. David has been hacking at the trees again, they're way overgrown and were blocking a lot of the sun to the house. I think he got a bit overenthused with the one in the middle which I didn't photogragh as he'll end in Tree Jail for assault. We packed Jackson in the car after that and took route 19 all the way to Fairmont - we've been taking the road less travelled lately as you see all sorts of interesting things that way. We stopped at a home based nursery and lucked out on a last day 75% off sale and got a bunch of plants for the backyard- $18 filled the whole back of my car. The pictures of the bridge I took in Fairmont, people were launching boats and swimming in the river. We did Sam's club and then came home. The pool water is still a tiny bit cloudy but  much better - I convinced Jackson to come in which he argued with me at first and then came in with me and David. And just for the record, he was the last one out of the pool. David and I decided we're going to let the pool leak for today and tomorrow so we can figure out where it is - we wanted to give it a few days for the chemicals to work and not have to deal with the green stuff. The next rehab is the slide which desparately needs to be refinished. Jackson did try it and skidded down and stopped dead at the bottom - OUCH.

How Do You Make A Frog Float?

sigh. The frogs appreciate the float Janet gave David for his birthday this year. We've discovered at night there appears to be a large amount of frog shinanigans going on in the pool. But if they're out by morning I guess it's not hurting anything. We're still leaking a bit, about 1/2 an inch at night, but it's slowed down a lot. We know the liner was damaged by the water just sitting in it for a few years but we hope to get at least this season out of it. We'll call the pool guys at some point to see if they can find it, but we can just replenish it at night until the end of the season. We finally fired up the pool yesterday, David had quite a time with it, the 3rd picture is what shot out of the jets, is that not disgusting or what? And since we hadn't been able to run it up til now the pool had already started sliming up, but we scrubbed down the sides and flung Shock in and within two hours it was all gone. I spent the rest of the afternoon paddling around the pool with David. He wanted to go paint but after all the effort he's put in I convinced to enjoy it for a few minutes.I interviewed for the visit nurse position on Thursday and will hear from them on Monday - after I went in and interviewed I really want this job. It's alot of driving, but the pay is the same as the hospitals AND no weekends or holidays. So if I'm not hired there, maybe that will be my new direction - I also have an interview for a doctor's office. David's heading off for NJ this week to do Ray's house and to collect the last load of stuff from Pa. He's also got to talk with our RE agent, the house still has not sold - we've lowered the price on it, but we might also be looking into renting it for a year and waiting until next summer to put it back on the market. We really didn't want to do that but right now the PA house is sucking wind and also sucking out our bank account. We wouldn't be making a profit but it would pay for itself. David continues to work on the house, he and Jackson took down the silly deck in the back and will eventually move it near the pool. They'd put a deck on the back (one of the "improvements") but there was no access to it. To get to it you have to walk all the way around the house(it's not near any doors or walkways), so it wasn't really usable for BBQs and it was tucked  where the house jogs in so you got a lovely view of the shed. David and I are planning on going to a few yard sales today, but I'm not sure why. We can't find any place for our stuff, why we wouldwant to add someone else's is a mystery to us all.

Who Let The Cows Out

When coming home yesterday the cows on rt 100 were out again, they seem to spend more time outside the pen than in. We're still in the midst of "stuff" that is never ending. I've got two interviews today, one for Fairmont and one for homecare, leaning more toward the homecare. The school thing with Jackson drags on. I spoke to University High and she said there was no point in enrolling him if I was going to transfer the next day so she called them and then me. Next week I call MHS and if he's accepted there then I can skip UHS - sounds good to me. I called his old high school and he passed everything and they'll be sending his grades along. Then he had to have a TB test because he left the state and came back so we went up to the walk in clinic and had that done. The pool thing is quickly turning into a mess, we have it almost filled and left the water off last night so it didn't get overfilled and found it about two inches lower this morning, we have a leak and about 25,000 gallons to go. So we will be forced to call Those That Like Our Checkbook. I found the number of the company  the former owners had used and the first thing they wanted to know was where they were since there was an extremely large bill with thier name on it. Seems Mr. Minister skipped out on the bill they'd been trying to collect on for the past 2 or 3 years. The company had gotten out of the pool service gig a year ago so we have to find someone else, but hopefully we can at least get a year out of this liner before we have to get a new one.

I Owe My Soul To The Company Store

Did I say we live near the coal mines? We do! I took pictures of one, not sure what the equipment is, at least not all of it. It's along the river, Jackson and I saw them loading the huge barges one day. At night you can hear the hum of equipement all the way to our house. You can't go in the mines though - there's all sorts of silly DANGER, NO TRESSPASSING, etc signs so it's not possible to go frolicking about in the shafts. Yesterday I took Jackson to the mall in Bridgeport to Hot Topic where we purchased one pair of shorts. $48 shorts I might add. They're worth every penny though - they have metal rings and chains and loops - and go down to his shins. He was thrilled. We did lunch and came home to a Grumpy Person in the living room who was wrestling with the fax machine and the Morgantown High School people. Turned out we had to get Jackson's transfer paperwork in TODAY. So we got back in the car and down to the central building where we filled it out and handed it back in. Then I was told I have to enroll Jackson pronto to University since you can't transfer out of a school that you're not in. That would be today's project. David continues to paint the house, he just needs to reside one more greeny section to make it look really decent. It's pouring this morning so the greeny section will have to wait. The pool is almost filled, we have another inch to go and then we'll be firing it up, cross your fingers the equipement still works. I can't wait to dump chemicals in it as we're still fending off the frogs.I let Vincent out for a few minutes yesterday but then brought him back in. The big problem is the baby birds in the breezeway, they're starting to flutter in a delicious way so the cats might have to wait on any adventures they have.