Pet Scare

We’ve had quite the two weeks with doctors around here. Adam had his whole carpal tunnel thing, finally getting the cast off last Friday and being able to shower by himself (and sans garbage bag.) He has another follow-up in late December but since he’s healed so well thus far (well, aside from splitting the cut open while chopping wood this weekend over at Chris and Katie’s house. Whoops.) the doctor doesn’t anticipate any problems. Then last week we had the brilliant idea of going to get a few cactuses (cacti?) to scatter around the house in places we wanted the cats to quit jumping around on. Like the kitchen counter. And by the TV. And on the table. So we went to Stein’s and picked up two larger and two smaller specimens and set them in the proper places.

The next day I was home from work (stupid cold…) and although I slept for probably 70% of the day, during the 30% that I was up and out in the living room I didn’t see JC at all. When he finally emerged around feeding time I noticed he was limping, looked rumpled, and complained more than usual. I figured he had probably played with a cactus and got something stuck in his foot (one of the cactuses by the TV had mysteriously ended up on the floor…) I brought this to Adam’s attention but by the time he got home from work it was too late to do much about it. I called the Fox Valley Referral Clinic and asked the lady there what she would do. We followed her advice, trying to see if we could remove whatever was causing him pain using tape. We found nothing and decided to wait overnight to see if it improved. In the morning we found him under the bed in the guest room rather than on our bed where he usual installs himself. We figured this was not normal so we packed him into his pet taxi and Adam took him up to the Fox Valley Cat Clinic before work.

The vet examined him, couldn’t find anything on his foot, but was concerned about his breathing. She decided to keep him there all day for some tests and observation. I stopped by after work to pick him up and see what they found. She was afraid it might be FIP, a nearly always fatal cat infliction. But his X-rays looked normal, he ate when they fed him, he slept like a normal kitten, and the next day both his blood and stool samples came back normal. She told us to keep an eye on him and baby him a little. So we pampered him, fed him apart from the other two, and hoped for the best. He limped a bit still for the next couple days but we noticed that he started limping on the other foot at some point. Hmm…

During the weekend he was pretty much back to his normal self. He clawed at the cat tree, chased Ted and Conner, meowed loudly for attention, and attacked our feet in bed. He slept in our bed, next to me, on top of me, on top of Adam, anywhere inconvenient and when he jumped around in the bathtub this morning we figured he would probably make it.



Who knows what was going on? Maybe he just needed a rest. Or maybe he wanted attention. Or maybe something did hurt his foot and he just needed to work it out. The vet remains cautious about giving him a clean bill of health since she’s had 6 cases of FIP from the same shelter we got JC. We’re still supposed to keep an eye on him but since I never saw him breathing heavily/shallowly, I don’t know what I should worry about. He seems normal to me.



If he stays normal we should be able to get him fixed and front-paw declawed by the end of the year. We’ve been going back and forth about whether or not to declaw him as we don’t plan to do either of the other two since they’re older and have had quite enough trauma living through the hurricane and all. JC uses his claws a lot, but never really in a malicious or destructive way. I just think he doesn’t realize that he can hurt us with them. And if his current proportions are any indication of the future, he’s going to be a big cat. And a big cat with big claws could be dangerous even if he’s good-humored. He’s generally the instigator in confrontations with the other cats so supposedly that’s supposed to make it ok to take away his defensive front claws while we leave the others with them. I don’t know. I guess we still have time to think about it but in all likeliness we’ll bring home a kitten who’s been snipped and has little stitches on his paws.

The other cats continue to be more sociable as time goes by. Conner creeps closer to the couch each day, occasionally sprinting across in front of it to get over by the fireplace. He is fascinated by the TV and will sit in front of it, staring. He really gets into chasing the laser pointer. Ted is still quite a bit more stand-offish. The closest he gets to us is lurking in the hallway or in the corner by the cat tree. I get close to being able to pet them both when I feed them but in normal circumstances they still run away. At least they’re out from under the bed for a longer period of time. All three of them will play together in the evenings and Conner and Ted or Ted and JC regularly tousle around on the floor, biting at each other and throwing each other around. Conner has an absolutely hilarious fight move which I call the “Conner Chop.” He’ll stand over Ted or JC and use his arm and just karate-chop them. It’s very entertaining.

All the other fellows in this zoo of ours are doing fine as well. Mo is definitely overdue for a haircut. Einstein seems more skittish than usual but I’m going to try and cuddle with him soon. Howie, Barry, and Gus just kind of mind their own business. We were at Petsmart the other day picking up mass quantities of cat food (see previous post) and I just had to peek in at their small animals. It’s amazing how tiny the baby hamsters and guinea pigs are compared to the colossal beasts we have at home. Although I suppose they all grow. I mean look at how small and cute Mo was when we got him.


And look at him now!



Anyway, everyone is fine and hopefully will continue to be as such for the foreseeable future.

And the Holiday Season Begins...

This week is a busy one for me. Tonight is hand bells, of course. Tomorrow night is my monthly IMA meeting. This month is the federal tax update meeting so I’m hoping the presenter is a good one so I don’t fall asleep. Sometimes I wish I could just leave after dinner but I can’t since it’s part of my job to pay the bill at the end of the evening. Luckily the meeting this month is at the Darboy Club, a venue we’ve been to many times before and one that I’m familiar with. It’s great that as an organization we’ve been trying to branch out and try new venues. But as the Director of Meetings it makes my job a little more difficult when I try to figure out how the place handles their invoicing. I can generally depend on finding a bartender who can point me to the right person. But last month the entire staff seemed to disappear after dinner was cleaned up. I couldn’t find anyone and the office lights were on, but no one was home. It took me almost ten minutes to track someone down (and I had to sneak into an “employees only” area.) Ugh. Anywho, attendance thus far doesn’t seem too affected by the Thanksgiving holidays or hunting. Wednesday will be a pretty boring day and I’m afraid probably one of the longest days at work this year. Thursday I’m attempting to do the whole turkey thing for the first time. I’ve got a 12-pounder and I bought a roasting pan and rack (on sale! with a rebate! and a coupon!) so I should be good. I’ve also got some other good things on the menu (squash, potatoes, stuffing) although as of now I’m not sure if it’ll be more than just Adam and me. Yay for leftovers. Friday should be pretty low-key. I’ll need a haircut but I’m not sure if I want to brave Black Friday shoppers to get it. Saturday we’ll be putting up our Christmas tree. We’ve changed our mind two or three times as to where we want to put it but hopefully we’ll be decided on that before we get everything up. Sunday the bells play at the 11AM mass and then we’ll be heading to Sheboygan for my dad’s anniversary shindig. All in all a busier week than most but it will keep me out of trouble.

At the Paalman Thanksgiving dinner last Friday we drew names for the annual Secret Santa we do. I got the same person I had last year and Adam’s gotten the same person three years in a row now. Oh well. Now we just need to figure out what to get them all. Outside of that I don’t have a lot of shopping to worry about. I’ve already gotten the stuff for the little boy we “adopted” through my job and we’re waiting for the tree to go up at Convergys to pick someone from there. I’ve got Adam to think about and I hope to get some pictures out in time for the holidays. Although we haven’t even gotten around to getting a wedding picture up at our house so you can tell I’m kind of procrastinating a little. We don’t plan on doing the annual letter/card thing this year since most everyone should already know what went on. I suppose I’ll still send cards to immediate family and anyone else who sends one to us but I don’t think a mass production is necessary this year. We’ve bugged everyone via USPS enough for one year. :)

The Christmas season doesn’t look to be shaping up to be a particularly busy one. There’s the hand bell concert on December 9th (at 4pm! At St. Mary! Come to it!), Milprint’s holiday dinner on the 13th, the IMA Christmas party on the 18th, the Van Rooy Christmas party up in De Pere on the 22nd, hand bells playing at the (ten o’clock) midnight mass on Christmas Eve, and the Paalman Christmas sometime in the afternoon on Christmas Day. That’s about all I’m aware of right now (although I’ve been bad about responding to email about the Dodds Christmas…Sorry!) And this year Adam won’t be Santa at all. Since he doesn’t work at Walmart he doesn’t have to deal with that and this year his grandmother says all the grandkids are old enough that Santa doesn’t need to visit during the Christmas party. The end of an era I guess. I’m sure he’ll keep the suit around just in case he needs to pull it out again some day.

Things I've Seen Lately

Having seen The Queen, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Venus in the last few weeks my Oscar list from last year now stands at 83% completion. Just six more left to see, none of which I’m particularly excited about. They are all in line in our queue at Blockbuster.com so I’ll have to see which one comes next.

The Queen was a very watchable movie. It didn’t drag although most of the film took place over only two or three days. The subject matter was relatable since I remember when all of this occurred and I was actually in Paris less than a year afterward and saw the memorials by the tunnel still being replenished daily by mourners.



(not spectacular pictures, I know. Don't blame me. It was crappy weather and digital photography hadn't been invented back in 1998...) It was an interesting peek into the life of the royal family although I don’t know how much was speculation. Other than that there isn’t really much else to say about this one.

I couldn’t get the subtitles to work on Pan’s Labyrinth and I fell asleep for probably half the movie so I can almost guarantee I probably missed something. I saw the beginning and was decently creeped out by the CGI bug that followed the girl around. I fell asleep right after she met the monster dude in the Labyrinth (Pan, I presume?) and woke back up somewhere around when people started getting sliced up and dying. I’m not quite sure what the point of the film was. It didn’t have a particularly happy ending. Perhaps I should attempt to watch it with subtitles and without falling asleep and I’d have a better clue? I liked the music but the whole magical, mystical creature thing kind of put me off.

After starting Venus months ago and never managing to be able to watch it all the way through before Blockbuster started calling and threatening us if we didn’t return it I was finally able to get it from our Blockbuster Total Access list and watched it this past weekend. It’s an interesting movie. Kind of creepy how the old man interacts with the barely legal girl though. Her horrible “ghetto English” accent bugged me for most of the movie, although I loved when she informed Maurice that she was interesting in modeling and he thought she said “yodeling.” The ending was kind of sweet and I loved the slip from reality to the painting. All in all, a good movie that I’m glad I finally got to watch all the way through.

With Ocean’s Thirteen completely wiped out from the shelves when I went to swap out our movie yesterday I picked up Are We Done Yet? instead. This had looked like a funny film but I couldn’t bring myself to spend the money to go see it in the theater. It turned out to be pretty decent. The best part of the whole thing is John C. McGinley (Dr. Cox from "Scrubs") as many different “characters”, all of which he plays quite well. The plot itself is kind of cliché and sappy but there are plenty of jokes and terrible puns throughout the film to keep it from being too much to handle.

Conner, our "Intense" Cat

Which is more cuddly?

We're becoming one of those crazy cat couples

Noooooo!!!

(In case you can't tell, that's SNOW!)

It's the cats' fault

Ok, first I get to be an obnoxious pet parent and bombard you with cute pictures of our furry children:

All three cats (from left: JC, Ted, Conner)


JC


Conner


Ted


Conner in the window


Ted looking annoyed


JC doing what he loves best


Ok, with that out of the way here's a quick summary of the goings on of the last week or so:

I am slowly getting out from under the never-ending cold cloud. Right now it's mainly a nose thing. So I still snore horribly, but what can you do?

We went to see "The Merchant of Venice" a week ago Thursday as our first show of the season of our Season Ticket package at the PAC. They were no where near capacity and we actually got moved from the third floor box seats to the second floor box seats on the other side of the theater. I'm not sure if the seats were better or worse. But it was a good production and it's nice to have some culture every once in a while. The next show I think we have tickets for is a Scottish Guard something or other. Either that or "Swan Lake". I was surprised when Adam said he wanted to see a ballet, but I guess once I took him to an opera it was only the next logical step.

The weather has been typically fall, if a little on the warm side still. We try to avoid putting the heat on by having fires going in the fireplace most nights and keeping the thermostat low. So far so good. I did what I hope to be the last raking of the season this weekend. Adam just happened to be incapacitated (more on that in a minute) so it was all up to me this time. It was just the front and side since the trees in the back were pretty much done last time raked. His dad came over yesterday with a ladder and cleaned out the gutters.

So that thing about Adam... he had his carpal tunnel surgery this past Tuesday. Took 4 hours in the hospital for a 15 minute surgery but things seem to have gone well. He's got a cast on and has a follow up to get his stitches out this coming Friday.



He's been showering with a garbage bag on his hand and I've had to help him out some with that whole thing. And he sleeps with pillows under his arm.

Work has been busy, hand bells played for the first time last weekend, IMA is coming up again. Life goes on. Even when I don't post here for more than a week...

Maybe we should change our last name to "Doolittle"

So, in old news I'm still sick. Coughing, blowing massive amounts of phlegm out of my nose, and feeling generally crappy. I bounce back and forth between the bedroom and the guest room depending on how much complaining Adam does about the noise.

In new news, last weekend we stopped by a Saving Paws foster home and took a look at a couple younger, more sociable cats thinking if we got one who actually acknowledged our existence perhaps it could lure the other two cats out from their hiding spots. So we chose John, a 5 month-old ball of energy. We modified his name a bit since I wasn't altogether comfortable having a cat named John. (Ahem.) So his official name is Jean Claude (or clawed, if you prefer the obvious pun) but we generally call him "JC", "Squeaky", or "hey you, quit attacking my feet." He is as much a normal kitten as Ted and Conner are not.



He runs around with abandon, attacking everything that moves and even some things that don't. He meows pathetically and begs for your undivided attention. He jumps into bed with us and purrs with enthusiam when his tummy is rubbed. He loves jumping everywhere he's not supposed to be. We now have to shut our bedroom door at night to keep him from attacking us when we're sleeping and if you forget to close the bathroom door he'll waltz in and try to jump up onto your lap or play in the sink.

So far Ted and Conner seem to be warming up to him. At first I was afraid perhaps they'd be offended by the addition of another cat. I think JC scares them a bit sometimes but they're starting to interact with him and they're definitely out and about more often. Maybe one of these days they'll let us pet them.

A Relaxing Saturday Afternoon at Home

(note the Tazmanian Devil slippers...)

Emerging from the Black Hole of Lapsed Blogging

It’s been a rough couple of weeks. And it’s not over yet either. I’ve been fighting a cold for a long time now. It keeps traveling up and down from my head to the chest and back again. Right now it’s back in my nose. I’ve not been sleeping and Adam’s not been sleeping so we’re generally crabby most of the time. Makes for great heart-warming times when we clash on the weekend. Anyway, I hope eventually I’ll recover from this super-sized bug and get back to normal. It’s no fun walking around in a DayQuil fog all the time.

Adam made me go to the doctor last Thursday and other than getting a prescription for a curiously strong cough suppressant (a narcotic (woo!), which didn’t work) so we could sleep, he pretty much said, “You have a cold.” *sigh* Of course with the coughing comes a runny nose, headaches, unexplained hot flashes and sweating, and a general dislike of everyone and everything. Argh. But I survive.

In any case, luckily not much of importance went on over the last two weeks so I haven’t missed much. I was able to come home and collapse most evenings and the weekends were pretty low key with some light yard work and a shopping trip thrown in. I was pestered by internal auditors all last week and the guy assigned to inventory insisted on getting up uncomfortably close to me even though I told them all I was probably contagious. This week was a calm before the storm kind of week since next week is month-end and we’ve got external auditors coming too. Fun stuff. I plan to start doing some baking on weekends soon. There were a bunch of good recipes in the Taste of Home magazine I picked up and I also want to make tiramisu again.

I don’t know that I mentioned this before but Adam put a flagpole up a few weeks ago. He also got a fireplace cleaning log and lit that so we’re good with our homeowner’s insurance. He’s had a few fires over the past two weeks with the colder weather and is definitely enjoying the fireplace.

Name change is almost complete. All the important things are done: banks, credit cards, ID, insurance, etc. I’ve just got my library cards, a few other cards I rarely use, a few utilities, and, oh yeah, the house. I need to get on that last one. I also need to investigate changing my passport. I don’t know that we’ll be taking any trips in the near future that will require me to have one, but I might as well do it now when I’m thinking about it. Unfortunately since I got my passport back in 2003 I’ll have to pay the $97 to renew it rather than sneak in the name change for free. Oh well. I also ordered a new nameplate and business cards at work so I should be able to stop confusing people relatively soon.

Open enrollment started for me on Monday and Adam’s begins next week. We get to pour through health care premiums and coverage to decide if we want to go with a family plan offered by either of our employers or if we want to stick with the separate coverage we have now. I have no attachment to my doctor so it will really come down to cost and benefits. It will be interesting to see what our best option will be. I’m not sure if Adam has a FSA option but I think I can have that here without being on the medical insurance plan. I’m pretty sure they are two separate options.

And with that I might fall into a black hole again for a while. We'll see how it goes.

Cat Update

The cats are crazy. Over the past week or so they’ve made an appearance more and more during the day and in the evenings when we’re up and about, even sleeping on our bed when we happen to leave it unmade and especially kitty-friendly. But it always seems to be in a creepy “kitty stalker” kind of way. Or maybe I’m just paranoid. When I’m making dinner I’ll look up and there will be a cat sitting in the hallway, staring at me. When I sit on the couch in the living room watching tv I’ll look up and there will be a cat sitting by the dining room table, staring at me. When I’m in the bathroom a cat will sit outside the door, staring at me. When I’m on the computer, a cat will sit on the other side of the bed by the door and stare at me. You get the idea. It’s not that they want attention. The minute I stand up and move toward them they jump up and run away.

I almost had a heart attack the other day. I was in the bathroom, smartly closing the door behind me having learned that I’d have an audience if I didn’t. I was going about my business when there was a loud thud against the door. Then a paw shot in underneath it. Apparently Ted had gotten a hold of one of my earplugs and was batting it around. It got away from him and went under the bathroom door. He obviously failed to notice the door was closed and ran right into it. He then stuck his paw under it to get the earplug back. Scared the crap out of me. (I’d say “literally” here, but that’s kind of gross and TMI.)

Speaking of bathrooms, for some reason both Ted and Conner just love the bathroom. Ted is particularly fond of the shower stall in mine. Right after I’ve taken a shower. I thought cats didn’t like water but apparently I was mistaken. He sneaks into the bathroom before I’m even completely dressed and prances around in the wet tub. Then he scampers back out onto the carpet with his wet paws. Grrr. I even caught him in the kitchen sink a few nights ago. Conner prefers sitting on the toilet or the rug in front of the shower. That’s much more appropriate cat behavior. Although the one time Ted tried to jump up onto Adam’s toilet was the one time Adam had forgotten to put the seat down so the cat got a little wet. Somehow I don’t think he minded too much given his other forays into the water but he was probably a little surprised.

The past few nights I’ve been sleeping in the computer room in an effort to allow both Adam and I to get a decent nights sleep. With the never-ending cold I’ve had for the past three weeks it’s hard for me to breathe and I apparently snore quite loudly and disturbingly. The first night this confused the cats a little since they were used to having the run of the house after the lights went out. I only got jumped on once and I think both the cat and I were equally startled. Last night was better and they got comfortable enough we me being in the room that they even sat in the window and ate while I was there.

We were in litterbox limbo of sorts last week. We got tired of the mid-night poop fests the cats enjoyed sharing with us (they’d take a frighteningly huge dump and then not bury it so it stunk the entire house up at about 2 am) so we decided to try an automatic litter box to see if that might eliminate the smell a bit. Unfortunately we got one litter box for two cats and apparently one of them wasn’t able to figure that concept out. We had a couple “presents” dropped in the corner of the living room before putting one of the old litter boxes back up. I guess male cats don’t like to share. And ultimately I think the one cat that did use it used it more as a big toy. He'd jump around in it to set off the sensors and then sit and wait and watch the rake move back and forth. So we scrapped that idea and returned the fancy electronic litterbox for these Omega Roll 'n Clean ones. They are enclosed litter boxes that you tip over and the poo drops into a removable drawer thing. It's pretty neat and so far seems to be working quite well.

We continue to slowly make progress. Adam is still bummed that we don’t have cuddly lap cats yet but I’m hoping eventually they’ll be a bit more personable.

Here's Ted. Conner wasn't feeling photogenic this afternoon... (ok. so he was hiding under the bed. That's almost the same thing.)

Movie Reviews

I’m sucking over at Rotten Tomatoes and maybe I’ll start up again there eventually. But for now I’ll just post a couple more movies I saw recently.

Little Children came in the mailbox thanks to our Blockbuster Total Access subscription. This is a movie from the Oscar list that I actually wanted to see so I was excited. It was a pretty good movie. I liked most of the main actors and the plot was interesting. It reminded me of a lot of other films while I was watching it though. Like when Patrick Wilson’s character was in the truck with the crazed ex-cop and he said something about castrating the released sex offender all I could think of was Hard Candy. (If you haven’t see that movie, I’d recommend it, but with a warning that it’s pretty messed up and disturbing.) Anywho, an enjoyable movie with a not-too-complex plot. And Kate Winslet gets naked again. Just saying…

Second movie for the weekend was The Last Time. I had run into this while browsing the New Release Wall on Hollywoodvideo.com. It looked interested and I liked the people in it. It was nothing like I had expected. But it was still a good movie. Reminded me of a combination of Derailed, In Good Company, and a John Irving novel. Michael Keaton is a top sales person for some generic tech company, despised by everyone. When Brendan Fraser’s character arrives, fresh and naïve from Ohio, Michael is pegged to teach him the ropes. Things get messy when Brendan’s fiancée takes up an affair with Michael. But there’s a twist and it’s like many other movies wherein after it’s over you want to go back and watch it all again because nothing is what you thought it was. Good movie, and unexpectedly dark.

Fall has definitely arrived. It went from 80 one day to 53 the next. Wisconsin weather is harsh. Anyway, Tuesday evening Adam went out and raked our backyard. Partly to get rid of some aggression, partly because there were a lot of leaves there and the city comes around to suck them up with their big vacuum trucks on Wednesdays. After dinner I joined him with a tarp and we hauled the leaves to the curb. It was incredibly windy but we still managed to get most of them in the pile.



Impressive, eh? And that’s just the first installment. We’ve still got most of the leaves on the big tree directly above the deck to deal with. They’re still on the tree though, so we have to wait.

In pet news, the cats are slowly (and I mean VERY slowly) warming up to the idea of coexisting with “the humans.” They have nightly stampedes back and forth from the computer room (their room) to the living room. It’s amazing how noisy two eight-pound furry things can be when they run. We got a cat playhouse contraption from one of Adam’s co-workers and they seem to enjoy it. Ted regularly hangs out in the teepee and Conner lounges one level above that. They both have started to venture further out from underneath the bed when Adam and I are home. We haven’t gotten to the point that they’ll let us touch them, but hopefully that will come soon. They’re letting us get closer and closer to them before they turn and run. Ted has taken to sleeping on our bed during the day, usually on my side. It’s cute, and as long as he doesn’t pee on it, I’m fine with him making himself comfortable there. We were warned when we adopted them that the other Katrina kitties had taken about two months to adjust to their new homes. We’re almost to the two month mark so we’ll have to determine what we want to do from there. Of course, we don’t want to take them back to the shelter. But we also don’t want cats who hide from us.

The guys of rodent persuasion are all doing fine. Although Mo seems to have a guinea pig version of PMS (yes, I realize Mo is male, but work with me here...) A while back he stopped eating and I got worried about him. Then he went back to normal. Now he’s not eating again. Grrr. I think it might be a ploy for attention. We have to keep the door to their room closed so I think he’s feeling deserted. I try to say hi every morning and before I go to bed and I cuddle with both Mo and Einstein a few times a week. I don’t know. I worry about him, but there’s not a good solution to the door issue. Einstein isn’t bothered by it. And Howie, Gus, and Barry seem to be more annoyed by my presence than pleased by it. Hopefully it works itself out again like it did last time.

Work has been pretty busy this month so far. I just finished September and can concentrate on getting as much normal October stuff taken care of before the internal auditors show up for two weeks. After they leave we’ll have PWC auditors here right during month-end. Nice timing guys. Gah. Not looking forward to that, but really, when does anyone look forward to meeting with the auditors?

Not much else is going on. I have an eye doctor appointment bright and early on Saturday morning. Then we plan to go down to Middleton to do some clothes shopping at Marshall’s. That’s pretty much our weekend plans.

A Weekend in a Fog

It was a strange weekend all around. The weather was definitely strange: Humid, hot, in the 80s all weekend. And I did yard work. That’s pretty strange too.

Saturday morning we did some shopping, mostly for pet stuff and our weekly grocery run. I spent a good deal of the afternoon napping, trying to trick my cold into getting better rather than worse. As usually happens when I’m feeling crappy, Adam got into a “must clean the house right now” mood and vacuumed and mopped the whole place. Well, excluding our bedroom, which he was kind enough to leave for later. There was football, a movie rented, pork grilled. I don’t know. It gets kind of fuzzy in my DayQuil enhanced state.

Sunday morning Adam went up to Menards to get some yard care equipment. And then, on the hottest October day ever, we proceeded to stand outside at high noon in the sun and humidity and trim back some bushes and trees that annoy him when he cuts the lawn. I’d take pictures, but even I can’t tell that we did anything so what’s the point? I managed to have a tree branch fall on my face but escaped with just a (relatively) small gash under my eye. My glasses were actually thrown off, but luckily they didn’t break and Adam didn’t step on them. Whew. Although I’m about six months overdue on a new pair so perhaps that would have gotten me off my butt to make the appointment. Ergh. We dropped the brush off in Greenville (shh… don’t tell anyone!) and went back home for lunch. We were both pretty beat after the physical activities of the morning so we ended up taking a nap for a few hours before the evening Packer game. I made a few snacks for dinner (see the cooking blog for more on that) and I managed to make it to about 10pm before I retreated to the bedroom. I think I dozed off for a bit (I missed Chicago’s last touchdown) but I was awake enough to know the Packers lost. Oh well. And it started off so well.

Messed with Template...

What do you think? Totally obnoxious?

Can't Blog, Am Tired

Now that I've caught up on some of the pictures I've taken and things I've cooked I can move on to more important things. Like what? I'm not sure, but there has to be more to my life than an IKEA catalog and Rachael Ray recipes.

My new month-end responsibilies have me slammed for about a week at the end/beginning of each month. Tomorrow will be the first day I might be able to actually see the surface of my desk. The shipping clerk who brings me paperwork each day has just shaken her head and laughed at me every day since last Friday. It's an organized chaos. Really. I just need a bigger desk. The fact that this is also quarter-end and the knowledge that I have a visit from the PWC guys (them be auditors people) at the end of this month hanging over my head doesn't help any. Oh well. Keeps me busy and time flies by.

Outside of work I haven't really done much in the last week and a half. IMA had our first ever lunch meeting and while I suppose it wasn't a roaring success (we had 13 people attend) I had fun since two of the ladies I used to work with when I interned at Presto came. We got to chat a little and catch up during the meal. Apparently I'm quite the legend over there. They tell me that people still talk about me and I was "the best intern ever." Wow... I feel bad for everyone who got the position after me. I guess I'm a hard act to follow. But it never feels bad to have unsolicited praise heaped on you.

Last Friday was quite possible The Worst Day Ever in quite a while. It was the last business day of the month so that meant it was Inventory Day. One of my newly acquired responsibilities is to coordinate and oversee the entire physical count each month. I also get to stop and get the donuts. I left the house at 6:30 so I could stop at Festival (way out of my way, but it's what the people like) and get to work a little early to do some last minute clean-up before the 7:45 blast off time. I got to work at 7:45. Something about a semi overturned on the highway. I saw no semi, but I was stuck on 41 for 45 minutes. By the time I finally got to work I was so frustrated that I was glad I could just walk around the plant by myself for an hour and a half to blow off some steam. Luckily the rest of the day went better but since day one is always hyper busy after work I was totally ready to go to a bar and drink beer and play darts. And that's what we did.

This week has been more of the same. Handbells and I'm not quite sure where the rest of the days went. I'm getting a cold (from either Adam or all the hacking ladies at work) so I'm hoping it's a low key weekend so it goes away fast. With Adam being home every night I've been hard core on the menu planning so if I can keep up with the recipe posting the other blog might be more interesting soon.

That's about it.

It's a Good Read

But so tempting...

It's Definitely Fall

Grr. I can't get it to rotate. Stupid internet...

Pretty New Fireplace Doors

If you recall our "kitties in the fireplace problem", we decided to get the glass doors for the fireplace ordered and on sooner rather than later. With just a little, "oops, I broke another drill bit", Adam and his dad got the doors on and secured.

Before:


After: