You might remember my horrifying discovery several weeks ago, when I found that there was a terrible toilet leak that had wicked up the drywall and been infested by mold.

The whole thing turned out for the best actually, because we had a beautiful white vanity waiting for us in the garage. We found the vanity on clearance at Lowes because it was bashed in a little on the right side, but in our house that side was up against the wall so it didn't matter. We paid twenty-five dollars for the vanity that was worth at least two hundred. At the same time we found a nice white bathroom sink on clearance for a mere five dollars. The items had sat and waited for us to install them for quite a while, because we never could find a countertop that would fit. The original vanity was custom to the house and therefore was not a standard size, it had three inches added on one side. Andy was able to build up the vanity on the side it needed it with extra laminate from a shelf inside the vanity, but the countertop was our big challenge. That is the reason the vanity and sink sat in the garage for so long. Anyway, I finally found a great deal on a countertop on eBay, of all places. I found someone to fabricate the countertop out of Corian to our exact dimensions and for the bargain price of only $109, shipped. We saved over four hundred dollars from what it would have cost through the normal retailers. And the countertop is beautiful. We recieved it by Fed Ex and it fits perfectly. The whole thing was made from a drawing I scanned and sent to the seller. I think we ended up saving about six to seven hundred dollars on the whole deal and ended up with a much richer looking bathroom. Here are some photos of the whole rigamarole:

Here is the carnage- a moldy disgusting mess.

This is my drawing that I sent to the countertop fabricator. The countertop fit perfectly.

And here is the fabulous result. I am extremely pleased at how it all came out, and even more pleased that it was so inexpensive.

And if you want to see something REALLY SCARY, here is a picture of the very same bathroom before we moved in. It was country-fied to high HELL.

Well, Denny made it through his surgery quite well yesterday. The metatarsals of his back right foot are pinned in place with a pin that goes up to his knee. The whole contraption is splinted so that he doesn't mess up the alignment, and it will stay that way for at least ten days when we take him back in for assessment. He will probably wear the splint for at least three weeks total. He was pretty out of it last night but is getting around just fine. He hobbles around the house following me making a little clop clop sound due to his splint hitting the floor when he walks.

Denny, our new foster poodle saw the vet today with the volunteer he was staying with, and the vet said that all of the toes in his foot were broken, but he thinks he can fix the foot. Yay! Andy and I finally met Denny this afternoon when we picked him up and brought him home so that we could get to know him before he went in to surgery tomorrow. I will take him in to go under the knife first thing tomorrow morning and then pick him up after work. He will be getting neutered and microchipped as well as having his foot fixed, so he is in for a bit of a rough day.

We have had him at home for a few hours now, and he is the most love starved dog I have ever seen. He wants to be with someone all of the time. When he sits with you on the couch, you have to have your hand on his head or back or he will push his little nose under your hand to force you to pet him. He seems very sweet and clingy. He would make a perfect lap dog as he would be happy to sit in a lap all day. I have a feeling that he is going to have some separation anxiety issues due to the fact that he was lost and picked up as a stray. We will have to really work with him.

The dog that is going to be our foster child is Denny. His transporter that kept him the first night named him Dennis Hopper because of the way he hops around due to his broken foot. So sad. He was picked up in an animal shelter where he ended up after being found as a stray. He looks like he is full blooded poodle, and according to another volunteer I spoke to today, he is as sweet as can be. He bonds easily and wants to be petted and held all of the time, probably as a result of being lost. The picture above is of Denny when he was first taken in, and the next picture is of him after being shaved down by the groomer. The fellow volunteer I spoke to today said that the groomer was aghast when they brought him in becuase he was terribly dirty, matted and full of sand spurs.

It looks like we will probably get Denny tomorrow afternoon. He is going to see the vet tomorrow morning and possibly be scheduled for surgery on Friday- either his foot, or to be neutered, or both. If he does not undergo surgery on Friday, then we will get him on Friday afternoon. They want me to take him a day earlier if he is to go under the knife on Friday so that when he comes out of surgery and is in pain, he will know who I am and maybe be more relaxed. I can understand that; it would be scary to come out of surgery and be taken by someone you've never met.

Anyway, more photos and stories to follow, for sure. Everyone please pray for Denny that his foot can be saved. There may be nothing that the vet can do for it, and then it will have to be amputated. Poor Denny. I think he needs his little foot as it will help him to find a permanent home more easily. So pray hard, if that is your inclination, he needs some help here.

I got an e-mail today that Andy and I are desperately needed. We had been planning to be foster parents to a poodle in need of rescue, in the near future but the time came early. By Friday, we should have our new foster child, a miniature poodle about one year old with a broken foot. The poor baby. He was picked up in an animal shelter in south Florida today, and is being transported by a volunteer tomorrow. Another volunteer will take him to the groomer to be shaved down because he is terribly matted, and then he will be seen by the vet. He may require surgery on his foot, and then we are supposed to get him Thurday or Friday, if everything goes according to schedule. I'll keep you posted.

The picture above is of a Cuban treefrog comfortably nestled in the top of one of our carved tikis out by the pool. The damn things are everywhere. This weekend while we were volunteering, I was chatting with Jean, one of the other volunteers. There was a snake exhibit just across the way from us, and we started talking about snakes, and then progressed to frogs. We were discussing the onslaught of the Cuban treefrogs in the area. I have written about them before, and how they have spread to our area and have outcompeted or eaten all of the native treefrogs.

Jean said that we need to get rid of them before they take over completely. She said that a herpetologist (scientist that studies reptiles and amphibians) had told her to place them in a plastic ziplock bag with Oragel, the stuff you put on sore gums and place them in the freezer. She said you didn't have to use the Oragel, you could just pop them in the freezer plain in the plasic bag, if you wanted. I am not sure what benefit there is to using the Oragel, but anyway, the frogs in the freezer get really cold, go to sleep, and then die. I told her that I didn't think I could do it, and even though she said that these Cuban frogs are killing all of our native frogs, deep down I like all frogs and it is really hard for me to kill a living thing (other than a mosquito or roach). She volunteered to come over and freeze all of our frogs for us, but I think it may have been an idle promise. We will have to see.

I have seen the phenomenon that is MySpace, and I have to say I don't understand its cult-like appeal. The layouts of the pages are difficult to read and it seems like most of the pages have some annoying blinking things all over them making them even harder on the eyes. What is wrong with just a nice, readable blog? I guess I am just out of the loop on this one, but it seems like there isn't much of any interest to read on MySpace pages, just really vague stuff, so I lose interest with it quickly. I have noticed that MySpace users are the most likely to steal photos from my site and even steal my bandwidth in order to use them, and I am not sure why that is. Ignorance maybe?

If you can explain to me why MySpace is so popular, please do, because I really don't get it.

You wouldn't believe what I had to do first thing this morning. The things we do for our pets, I swear. My poor little eighteen year old dog, Ollie, had some yucky looking pus around his well, nasty bits. I took him in to the vet this morning and they said he had a little infection. Now I have to apply this twice a day:

After the wonderful adventure of watching the vet tech "flush" the sheath out with saline and the vet apply the medication to his "unit" and then massage it in, I had to rush home because Andy and I were volunteering at another event for the poodle rescue group. We took Annabel with us as a "spokespoodle" for the group and went to work at our tent at the Kennedy Space Center All American Picnic. We talked to people all day about adopting and fostering poodles, and the highlight of the day was when we got our picture taken with astronaut Mike Good.

Here I am with Miss Annabel and the other volunteers in our tent.

And here is Jake, a sweet two year old poodle that was adopted by the other volunteers that were working with us today. He was so tired that he put his little head down right on the cooler.

I came home to a real mess after work today. The dogs must have been busy. As soon as I walked in the door, I saw a little poop nugget on the floor, courtesy of Ollie, my eighteen year old dog. He can't help it, really, so no big deal. I looked in the laundry room and there was more poop, so I was cleaning it up and carrying it to the toilet to flush, and I passed the dining room where Charley the parrot's cage is. I was horrified to see the mess there at the base of his cage. His giant cage goes all the way down to the ground, almost. It is on wheels to make it easier to move and there is a tray at the bottom underneath the bottom grate. He loves to throw out perfectly good food- take it from his bowl and throw it down on the bottom of the cage. It drives the dogs nuts, and Louie, the black dog, will actually use his front legs like they are arms and stand up on the seed catcher part of the cage and reach way in to try to drag the newspapers with the fruit, pasta, cheese or whatever Charley has dropped on them. The other dogs gather round to share in the spoils. Usually he is not very successful at this endeavor, but today while we were at work he managed to drag an entire sheet of newspaper out of the cage and onto the floor. That would be bad enough, but then Ollie must have come by and peed on the paper, so there were little bits of torn newspaper practically cemented to the tile floor and little crumbs of food EVERYWHERE. I spent the next forty-five minutes cleaning out the bird cage and putting new papers down, wiping and vacuuming up all of the mess and then steam cleaning all of the tile floors with my Eureka Envirosteamer. Dogs will be dogs, I guess. One of these days I am going to get a new birdcage that is raised up off the ground more so they can't get to it.

Okay, lately I have been pretty boring. I know that and i am okay with it. Sometimes life just isn't as exciting, and actually that can be a good thing, because boring is better than constant chaos and strife. Anyway, I thought I would clue you in to one of the things I have been up to lately, and that is aquiring artwork. I am a big fan of original art, especially since I am an artist myself, and have found that there is a treasure trove of original paintings available for downright reasonable prices on eBay every day. I vow that in my new house, when it is completed, there will be nothing on the walls but original art.

This painting is one I bought from fellow blogger, TJ from Zazzafooky. Isn't it great? I just love the fact that I can get great original paintings for affordable prices. I am surrounded by bunches of paintings from various artists that I have found and they are all so colorful and inspiring. It makes me so happy to surround myself with such beautiful artwork. It also makes me long to have a place where I can paint some creations of my own, though it doesn't look like I will have a good place for painting until the new house is done.

I swear, I just try to do one darned thing, and everything falls to shit. I got up during a commercial to get a drink, and I noticed that the dogs' water bowl was very low. It is one of those one gallon dispenser deals, so I scrubbed it thoroghly and refilled it, then wiped down the tray it sits on. While I was doing that, one of the dogs was digging away at the base of the bird cage, trying to steal food that Charley had thrown on the bottom of his cage. So I decided that the bird cage needed cleaning. I dragged out the dustbuster and the trashcan to change his cage papers and of course while I had his tray out to re-paper it, he pooped on the floor. So then I reach for the paper towels and spray cleaner, and there was only one paper towel left on the roll and no cleaner. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!! So, I leave the poop, go to fill the cleaner and manage to knock the large package of extra paper towels off the top of the cabinets where it was precariously balanced. I filled the bottle, got more paper towels for the roll, realized that the garbage was full, took the garbage out, put a new bag in the can, now wait- where the hell was I? Oh yeah, there is still poop on the floor!

We are starting to consider some other house plans other than the first one we picked out. We still love the first plan, but the estimates we got were so extraordinarily high that we are re-thinking the plan and finding some other options. A top contender I found is in the photo above, and it is a great house, but a little smaller than the first one, and with a few changes that will make it far less expensive. We're flexible. I just want a new house with no crappy neighbors. That is all.

I am getting increasingly frustrated with phone calls. Not the useful ones that I want, it is the junk calls that are getting to me. What in the heck is the point of having a national do not call list, when all of the charities and financial institutions can still call?

Now don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of charities, but I believe I should be able to choose which ones I want to donate to without being badgered in my own home on a daily basis. I am strongly committed to the charities I support and a big advocate of groups that go out and have events and fundraisers rather than just calling and begging people for donations.

I am not talking about a couple of phone calls here either. I am talking about a couple of phone calls PER DAY. I know, I know, we should screen our calls. Well, with all of the house stuff we are working on, it is nearly impossible to get some people on the phone, and if they call, I want to be able to answer it instead of remaining in perpetual phone tag hell. A lot of times you can't tell by the caller ID if it is a legitimate call or not.

And then when I answer, I have a hard time hanging up on people because I am just not rude like that. But EVERY ONE of these people has the VERY SADDEST story in the world about DYING CHILDREN, or POOR FIREFIGHTERS, or STARVING VETERANS and they are always SO DESERVING. I was so worn out by one of them one day I told her that exactly. I said "Yes, I know that yours is the most important cause ever, and kitty cats and small children will die without my help, but you people are killing me with this crap every day- I will freaking lose my house if I give money to you all, please stop calling me."

Of course the next day there were more calls. Last night one of them called after nine and I was already half asleep. Andy yelled at them for calling so late. They don't abide by the laws at all. I just fail to see what good it does to have a do not call list, when it doesn't keep this from happening. Maybe it should be a national call list, and if you want people calling and harrassing you for money in your own home you can put your number on that list. I'm sure it would be very popular.

Life has been very busy, lately, but I find myself without much to write about. I have already posted about my adventures in public speaking, and they are pretty much concluded now. After spending Sunday volunteering, I had to rush to put together the final mailing to the neighborhood, my last letter as secretary/treasurer (and Andy's last as the president) of the homeowners association. This letter was to announce the annual meeting next month when the new officers will be chosen. I was careful to state in the letter that we would be stepping down because we are leaving the neighborhood, so that people would realize that they couldn't just badger us into staying in office like they have for the past two years. The letter also serves as a collection notice for our annual dues. I included a pre-addressed envelope for homeowners to mail their payments to the HOA's Post Office box, and I wrote in the letter a statement saying for people to please be respectful of the officers and not come to their homes to pay the dues, instead to pay their dues at the meeting or mail them. I can almost guarantee that at least two of these people will show up on our doorstep while I am already in my pajamas wanting to pay their dues. I refuse to even answer the door this year.

Anyway, I am going to be really happy to be rid of the whole Association thing because it actually takes up a lot of my time that I would rather spend on other things like volunteering wiith the poodle rescue group. We have already signed up to volunteer at the next event, which is the annual Kennedy Space Center All-American Picnic in a couple of weeks. The poodle group asked us specifically to help at this event because we work at the space center and will know people there, so people will come up to our tent and talk to us, and hopefully meet some of the poodles.

I haven't posted much about our huge project, and that is because things are moving quite slowly at this point. We are still waiting for all of the paperwork to come through for us to be able to apply for an unpaved road agreement in order to fix the road, and our wetland permit is in work with probably a few more months left to go on it.

We have worked with a couple of builders, and have basically figured out that the estimates to build the house are coming in close to one hundred thousand dollars too high for us. Our solution is that we are probably going to use one of Andy's friends at work for our General Contractor. He just got his license, and has built his own home, but no others. It should save us that hundred thousand dollars to do so, plus we may be able to save even more by buying all of our own materials and doing some of the work ourselves. I say "ourselves" but I mostly mean Andy, because while I will pick things out and search for the best prices, he will be the one out there doing drywall and installing fixtures. I will help whereever I can, but someone has to be home to hold down the fort.

This is what we are currently working towards, so I will update as things change. Not much else to report on this project yet.

Today Andy and I spent the day volunteering to help the poodles. Coastal Poodle Recue, which is where we got our latest poodle, Annabel, had a fundraiser and we took Cody and went to help out. We sold raffle tickets, and we judged the pet parade, which was a lot of fun. Andy also took some poodles that were up for adoption and showed them around to people in an effort to find them homes. The pet parade was crazy. People dressed up their dogs and paraded them around in an effort to win prizes. It was incredibly funny, the costumes were great, and I am surprised that so many of them put up with it.

Here are some pictures. This first little dog was all ready in her Sunday best.

This next one was dressed in polka dots and happy to be there despite the outfit.

This one's name was Bogey, and he was the first place winner.

The newest fashion accessory, the dog purse. It is a real dog hanging over her arm, too.

Here is the same dog with it's sister? I assume they are girls because of the hats.

This cute little girl came up to pet Cody, who was sitting in my lap as I sold raffle tickets. Too bad Cody wasn't one of the poodles needing rescuing, because I could have given him away twenty times. Everyone wanted Cody, but he already has a good home with us.

Isn't it crazy how much people got into this? I couldn't believe the great lengths some people went to on their dog costumes; some even used fresh flowers to adorn their dogs' hats. It was all for a good cause, though and I hope we ended up raising a lot of money for the poodles.

Ass whipped is a good description of how I feel this week. I have a series of meetings starting tomorrow where I have to speak in front of groups of high level managers at work, and I am a terrible public speaker. I have prepared as much as possible, but still I am a nervous wreck because I know I will sound like a moron. I will be presiding over these horrible meetings for four days, holding several of them a day in order to talk to all of the managers in my directorate. It is definitely not something I am looking forward to. Hopefully I will survive.

To top it all off, last week I had that one annual doctor's appointment that all women dread. Ladies, you know what I am talking about. But at least I got it over with for one more year, and I didn't have to worry about it again for many months. Until today when there was a message on the machine for me to call the doctor's office. I know why they want me to call. The only reason that they would call is if my "test" was abnormal. So by the time I heard the message, the office was closed, but I know what is coming. Fucking great.

The house next door to us has been empty for almost six months now. Our favorite neighbors moved away to another part of Florida, and sold the house to a nice couple that lives in Maryland. They had plans to move down right away, but their college age son didn't want to move (I know, I would tell him too bad as well), so they decided to stay where they were for another year. They had a realtor try to rent the house out for them for the year, but several months went by with no renters, and they must have decided that they wouldn't be able to offer the house for a full year and took it off the rental market.

It amazes me the liberties some of our neighbors take with this property. The people on the other side of this house regularly use the driveway for overflow parking, and that is only the beginning. Unbeknownst to the owners, these people park their vehicles and do all kinds of auto maintenance in their driveway without permission. Today when I went on my walk, one of the neighbors was jacking his car up on to jack stands in these people's driveway. On my way back home I noticed that he had the car up on the stands, had two wheels off the car, an assortment of tools and cleaners strewed about and his beer sitting there in the driveway, as if it was his own.

If the owners of the house knew about this, I am sure that they would be upset. If nothing else, just for the liability of it all. If the guy was to hurt himself while working on his car in their driveway, or if a large tree limb should fall down and damage his car, I am sure he would be the first to sue these people, even though he has no permission to be there. Some people and the things they do with other people's property just fucking kill me.

I should have written about this when it happened, back in the fall, but I think I was too traumatized to relive it at that point. It was back when Andy was still on second shift, and I had come home from work and gone for a run around the neighborhood. I decided that I should do a little pool maintenance while I was all sweaty, so I went out to hose off the pool filter. It is a paper filter and you take it out of the housing and use the spray nozzle on the hose to remove all of the gook from it. Yes, gook is a very technical term.

Anyway, the sprayer we have is a brass twisty nozzle type thing and when I turned it on, no water came out. I thought that it was really strange, because the design of the thing is very simple and there isn't much that could go wrong. I ended up unscrewing the outer nozzle completely to see what was blocking it, and I saw something well, fleshy. I thought maybe a slug had crawled up in there and I took a stick and tried to poke it out of there. It wasn't coming out. I couldn't even find an opening large enough to get it out, and I figured it was dead in there, so I continued jabbing at it with the stick and almost gagging while little bits of it came out of the holes. At one point, I think I saw a tiny foot, which leads me to believe it was a frog that had crawled up in there. It was revolting, let me tell you. Finally I decided that the only was to get the dead frog out of the hose was to blast it out with water. I didn't want to see the chunks of it flying out, so I wound the hose in and out of some of the pool plumbing to hold it in place while I turned the water on full blast. What I saw from where I stood was a big balloon of frog skin inflate out one of the holes and then rupture. It was gross and I truly feel bad for the little frog. I never wanted to hurt him, but he made his home in a very unfortunate place.

I related the awful story to Andy on the phone that night and he laughed his ass of at me, of course, while I cursed him for not being there to help me. I think his work buddies had a good laugh about it too. Oh well.