I dropped poor little Louie off at the vet early this morning for his bladder stone removal surgery, and I felt just terrible about it. Lou is a dog that we have completely ruined; he is such a little pansy. Lou came to us at only six weeks old and has slept with us in our bed every single night since then. He is a spoiled little beastie and he has always been extremely sensitive to pain. When we had him neutered as a pup, he came home that afternoon and wouldn't sit down at all. Most dogs are not really bothered by being neutered, but Louie acted as though it was killing him. That night he was so tired that he laid his front paws down and put his head down on them but kept his butt in the air. It was so pitiful, yet hysterical. He has bad knees and sometimes the knee caps dislocate and he would scream bloody murder. We took him to the vet for it and while he was examining him, one of the knees popped out of place and Lou started wailing. The vet just looked at us and said that it really wasn't as bad as he's was making it seem. He said he would get dogs in there all the time with both kneecaps popped out of place that were completely calm and rather unconcerned. Lou is just hypersensitive to pain.

So I left him there early this morning, and I was surprised when they called me less than an hour later and said that the stones had been removed. They wanted to know if I wanted his teeth cleaned while he was knocked out still and I went for it. Might as well. Later in the day they called and said that they were sending the stones out for analysis to determine what they were composed of and they took down a list of what food and treats Lou eats. It was a really short list because I give the dogs the same food all the time, Science Diet, and only a couple of different types of treats. Once the stones are analyzed they will be able to recommend changes in his diet to prevent them from reoccurring. That would be good, because besides traumatizing poor Lou, this little episode is costing us almost five hundred dollars.

I have to take Louie back in to the vet again first thing in the morning for them to check him over. I am sure he will be thrilled. I guess once I find out what type of dietary changes we need to make I will have to do some research and consider the options, including home cooking the meals for all of the dogs. It is becoming increasingly popular for people to cook food for their dogs and then package it in small bags and freeze the portions until they are needed. I am not above doing that if it will keep my dogs from suffering the ills of bladder stones and other maladies. We'll have to see what the recommendations are. At the very least I am sure we will have to switch to a different kind of food. Do you cook for any of your pets? What do you cook for them and why? Would you cook for them if it made a huge difference in their health?

Historically, I have always been an impatient person, wanting always to have instant gratification. Over the last few years, I have almost reversed that completely and now I am quite patient after suffering through a year to have a pool built, almost a year and a half of work and we still haven't even broken ground for our new house, and any number of other things I have had to wait for lately. It seems like everything is a wait anymore, and I have dealt with it by having so many irons in the fire that I haven't had time to worry about waiting for any one of them.

My newfound patience has come in handy for other things as well, such as dealing with our animals. When we first got Holly, our adopted Eleanora cockatoo over six weeks ago, she didn't like me. I think that she is the first animal that I have met that didn't like me right off the bat and I was almost a little offended. Still I was determined that she would come around eventually, and I just persisted in interacting with her in whatever ways she would tolerate. She wouldn't let me touch her- she'd run to the other side of the cage if my hand came near her, so I would play a game with her where I would hand her a toy, and she would take it in her beak and fling it on to the bottom of the cage. This would be repeated over and over and over again. I would talk to her all the time and give her treats from my fingers once she finally got close enough to take them from me. Finally, this weekend, she decided that I am not so bad, and now she wants me to pet her and rub her head all the time. This is a complete change of heart for her and I am so happy that she finally trusts me. But it took a lot of patience to get there.

Ramona has also been a bit of an exercise in patience and perseverance. I took her to her puppy kindergarten class tonight and by now, her sixth week, she is like a completely different dog. She is easy-going, plays with the other dogs, doesn't lash out at anyone and is one of the best dogs in the class as far as obeying commands and walking on a leash. The instructors can hardly beleive the difference in her and wish they had video of her from the first class through until now because it has been such a dramatic change. I am so glad that I took her to the class in the first place as it will really make a difference in her life to have gotten over her fears. I think she will be ready to graduate in a couple of weeks and then I am going to enroll her in a basic obedience course to build on her skills and make sure she doesn't have any regression of her socialization.

So I guess I am a lot better at waiting for things than I used to be. The key for me is distraction; if I have a bunch of other stuff going on then I will forget what I am waiting for. What about you? Do you have the patience of Job, or are you one of those "are we there yet? are we there yet?" types? What kind of things really try your patience or have had you waiting for the longest time?

I think this year is going to go down in our little family's history as the most expensive ever, dogwise. The hits just keep coming. Our poor Louie has started a disturbing new behavior recently; he has been "marking:" or lifting his leg and peeing a little on things in the house and on the back porch, such as the corner of the grill, the flowerpots on the porch, the corner of our bed, the wall, the drapes, etc. Marking can be considered normal behavior for intact male dogs and even some neutered ones if they were neutered after they had already developed the habit of marking. Neither is the case with Louie. He was neutered as a puppy before he developed the marking behavior, which is hormone driven and he has always been very reliable with his house training.

Until lately. Like I said he has been whizzing everywhere and we got concerned because a trained dog doesn't just become untrained. I knew he needed to see the vet, so I made an appointment this afternoon. I have been through a vet visit or two in my time and I had a pretty good idea that he would want a urine sample from Lou, so I collected one over the weekend and refrigerated it. It is much better to have a fresh sample, but the vet said at least he would be able to look for blood in the urine. He found it and then he palpated Lou's bladder and thought he felt stones. He took an X-ray, and Poor Louie has a couple of larger than pea-sized bladder stones and now needs surgery. He said with male dogs if they aren't removed and we just tried to break them up with a prescription diet, it might take a very long time, and if the stones tried to pass, he would get completely plugged up, so he said surgery was the best option and of course I said we would go ahead.

Lou is scheduled for surgery on Thursday morning. The vet is very overloaded with cases for tomorrow, but he said that Lou should be okay until Thursday. I will worry about him immensely as usual. My poor baby. But at least he'll stop peeing in the house!

Andy and I will spend a lot of money on certain things, but we are both notoriously cheap on others, namely clothing. And he is much more of a skinflint that I am- he says he feels like he is wasting money when he buys clothes for himself. I have pointed out many times that it is not wasting money as he cannot go around naked or in rags, but he challenges the rags thing sometimes and wears his old clothes until they disintegrate into dryer lint.

Now myself, I love a bargain. And I'll buy plenty of clothes as long as the deal is so good I feel like I have to race out of the store lest they change their minds on the prices, like I am nearly stealing them. This morning I had a printable coupon I got online for one of my favorite stores for bargains, Macy's, so I had to check it out. I got four designer brand shirts, a pair of pants and a pair of shorts for $40.37 after tax. One of the shirts was $2.90, and the pants were only $4.90! Macy's prints out on the receipt how much you saved off the retail price, and I saved over $176 on my $40 purchase. I cannot believe that I can buy a brand name shirt for less than one gallon of gas! And forget Ross or TJ Maxx; Macy's clearance prices cannot be beat. If they were any cheaper they'd be paying me to take the clothes.

I dragged Andy out to find some clothes for him in hopes of replacing someof the tattered stuff he sports, but all he found was one shirt for $2.99. He's a difficult one when it comes to clothes. He said that he didn't see much that fit his "style" which he describes as "dull." At least he's honest. I think I am just going to have to start buying stuff for him and bringing it home for him to yay or nay. Otherwise he'll still be wearing the same holey clothes for the next ten years.

If you have commented here before, you have probabaly gotten an email from me at one time or another. I do make an effort to respond to a lot of the comments that I get and I appreciate them all. I am really going to make a concerted effort to respond to even more of them, and I have copycatted what Stacy at Jurgen Nation is doing by responding in the same box as each individual comment. It makes it way easier to keep track of that way. You will see my response at the bottom of the comment in bold type if you come back to see if I had anything to say. Thanks Stacy, great idea!

Andy found the small metal pin pictured above during the course of normal household activities today. The tape measure is included for scale. It has been missing for quite a while and was mentioned in at least two blog posts on this site at one time. Can you tell me where this pin came from or what it was for? The answer can be found somewhere on this blog. Anyone care to guess? I can post a hint if it is too difficult.

This is the whole crew here; from left to right is Louie, Cody, Ramona, Annabel, Denny, and Michaela. It is really difficult to work with individual dogs on their training because every time I get a treat out this is the scene. Or rather more like the next picture where someone is jumping up trying to reach whatever goodie I have. So I take each one out on a leash individually and we go walking around the neighborhood practicing the commands.

And as requested by Melanie and Heather, here are a couple of pics of little Ramona, who is getting quite big now. She is getting her new teeth in and has adjusted really well to living with us.

I attended another training class today called Powerful Communication Skills for Women. I found it very interesting and informative although it merely reinforced a lot of tactics that I have figured out for myself and currently use.

The class dealt with asserting yourself without being a mega-bitch, getting your point across in an organized succinct way, and how to deal with certain difficult people you are likely to encounter in the workplace. We also worked on some presentation skills, which I definitely can use. The best part of the class to me was a particular example the instructor used of a woman she knows who is also a motivational speaker. She told us the fascinating story of a woman named Jackie Pflug who was a young teacher that was on the Egypt Air flight that was hijacked in 1985 and forced to land in Malta. She was shot in the back of the head execution style by terrorists, fell many feet from the cabin of the aircraft to the tarmac and was left for dead for five hours, but amazingly managed to survive the entire ordeal. I don't know why this story resonated so much with me, maybe just because it is an amazing story, but I was intrigued and now I want to read Jackie's book about her ordeal called Miles to go before I sleep. I can't even imagine living through something like that.

Anyway one of the exercises in the class was to write down a recent situation where we wished we had asserted ourselves better. I had a hard time thinking of anything. I used to be more of a shrinking violet, but in my old age I have starting really standing up for myself a lot more. I didn't even realize it until that exercise. I don't let people walk all over me anymore. My biggest problem now is that I have to be the one to do everything. I have a hard time trusting others to do as good of a job on things as I would, so I stay very, very busy because I try to take on too much. I guess I just need to get over myself and realize that even if something isn't done exactly the way I would have done it that it can still be effective and that the only way other people will learn the stuff is if I let them do it. What are your challenges at work?

Life has been jam packed for me lately. Yesterday I had to get up at 3:15 am in order to set out early on the drive to Gainesville for my liver appointment at Shands. It is about a two and a half hour drive and my appointment was early so I left the house at around 4:30 and got on the road.

I hate highway driving, especially in my Jeep; it is like driving a box into the wind. The particular route took was completely mobbed with semis too, so I was white knuckling it almost the whole way there. Semis scare me to death sometimes. Truck drivers drive like maniacs sometimes. But the appointment was pretty good. The doctors at Shands seemed to know a whole lot more about what they were looking at than my local docs had. For instance, they were able to tell me with almost complete certainty that my elevated liver enzymes were not caused by an exposure to something in my environment. This was because when the AST and ALT were high, my alkaline phophate and bilirubin levels stayed the same.

The doctors at Shands did not believe that my local doctors had effectively ruled out everything either. They said that it was basically down to things such as Alpha 1 Antitrypsin deficiency or Auto-immune hepatitis or even Celiac disease- Can you believe that Stacy?-, though I don't have most of the symptoms for Celiac, but it is still possible. So they are going to go over the slides from my liver biopsy with their pathologists and they sent me for more tests. They did tell me that there are a certain number of patients that they never do figure out what is causing their liver problems. Fortunately for me, my liver enzymes have finally gone down after seven months of being high to the normal range. They have dipped down briefly before, only to bounce back up the next month, so I still have to make sure that thhere isn't some cause that I need to know about.

When I got back from my trip, Andy and i had to head down to Melbourne, which is about 45 minutes to the south to meet with a lawyer about our property. We had been referred to him by some people at the county that were trying to help us so that we can build on our property. The next action to take is to have the attorney ask the board of commissioners for an adminstrative waiver for our building permit under the "regulatory takings" section of the local building code. We have the attorney now on retainer and hopefully the fees will not hurt too badly. I have noticed that when we are continually paying out large sums of money that it gets easier to write a big check without flinching. You just say to yourself, what's another couple of thousand anyway? It is just money, right? Well at least as it pertains to our house project- it still pisses me off to no end to be paying over three dollars a gallon for gas, but I won't bother to rant about that injustice because I am sure we are all feeling the pain of that.

The lawyer liked the giant "book" I had, which is really a leather binder stuffed to the absolute limit with every pertinent document, photo, aerial diagram, letter and so on that has anything to do with our property and what has been tried so far and said that he needs all of that information, preferrably in that book type of format. Most of the stuff in the big binder I have is the only copy we have of those documents, so I went to the local office supply store last night and made copies of everything, even color copies of some of the stuff and then bought a big binder and tons of page protectors and index tabs so I could make a nice organized, cohesive collection of our paperwork just like my big book to send to the law office. I spent a few hours and about fifty bucks compiling it, and then I mailed it priority down to the their office today. It was a lot of work, but the easier I make it for the lawyer to research our case, the less he will have to bill us for at his rate of $225 an hour, so I feel that it was well worth it to make that stuff as easy to flip through as possible. So that is why I had no time for blogging last night.

Anyway, things are going well, I am terribly busy at work, and all of the animals are doing fine. Hopefully I will have to time to slow down and breathe a little here pretty soon. You know how it is- everything always happens all at the same time and then you have to try to keep up. I hope you are all doing well too.

It has been SUCH a busy day and I have a bunch to write about, but I have got to get to bed. More later!

Gotta love it that the one time I have to take a road trip that gas prices are at record highs. I have to drive to Gainesville Monday morning for an appointment at Shands about my liver. I doubt any good will come of it, but I have to at least see. Everytime Andy asks me how much something costs lately, my response is "two tanks of gas" or "five tanks of gas" instead of dollar amounts. It is really pissing me off that gas is so outrageously priced, especially because if we had been able to build our new house already we would be saving a lot of money in gas as it is so much closer to work. Piss.

Anyway, Andy had to be in at work at 3:00 this morning, so he didn't get much sleep. When he got there, the operation he went in early to support had been canceled, but no one had called, so he stayed and worked a twelve hour shift. I took Denny to the last class of his basic obedience training. His regular instructor was not there; a different trainer was substituing, which is a good way to test the dogs on their final class anyway. Denny did well on most things, but he was very nervous and unsure of the new instructor. He was doing okay until we got to the part where she was supposed to examine his ears and teeth and feet. When she picked up one of his feet he snapped at her. Bad, bad Denny. She thought that maybe there was something painful about that foot, but I picked it up and handled it and he didn't even flinch. He was okay with the instructor after she gave him some treats, but it is clear that he needs some work with strangers.

Unfortunately, I think I bring out the worst in him, as I think he is trying to protect me when he lashes out at others. I think we are going to put him back through the class with Andy as his trainer. He loves Andy, but is not so closely bonded with him as he is with me, so he will probably obey better. I want to put him in the Monday night class next time too, because there are more people and dogs in that class than the Saturday class. I am considering having Andy bring little Ramona to her puppy class this week too, as I think her lashing out at other dogs might be from her trying to keep them away from me as well. What can I say; I guess I am just popular with dogs.

Now that Andy is back on first shift for the first time in over a year, it takes a little shuffling in the morning for both of us to get ready. I have a vanity table in the bedroom so I can be out of his way when I sit and do my hair and all, so that helps. We have a small bathroom with only one sink, and if the sink is running when the shower is, the temperature is affected- you know, freezing or burning.

This morning I was waiting for Andy to get finished with the sink so that I could take a shower. He said, "Go ahead, I am mostly done with the sink; I am just brushing my teeth." I replied that I couldn't because I hadn't brushed my teeth yet. He was all like what the hell does that have to do with anything? I explained that I have to brush my teeth first, while I am still in my pajamas, because I might get toothpaste on my clothes if I was already dressed. He thinks I am very odd.

Other people have pointed out some strange little things like that that I do. When I think about it, there are quite a few little "quirks" like that about me. Like I insist on going the same direction down the aisles at the grocery store every trip. I just get used to where all the stuff is on the shelves when I am walking the aisles in a particular direction, so if I skip an aisle and end up going the direction from what I am used to it screws me up and I forget things. And I hate to just make one big mess when I am working on something. I like to try to clean as I go. When I get a small pile of trash, I'll dispose of it rather than save it all up and get rid of a huge pile at the end. This stuff doesn't sound that weird to me because I have rational reasons for all of it, but I guess the rest of the world thinks I am a little nutty.

At work today a few of us were sitting around the break room at lunch sort of half watching TV. The Pepto-Bismol Max Monsters commercial below came on and one of the guys brought up an interesting point.

He said, "Ew, the 50-foot woman with diarrhea, that is not something I even want to think about" and then he made a little retching noise for effect. He said "I mean I am down with the whole 50-foot woman thing, but giant diarrhea, ick." I don't think that was the reaction that advertising execs had in mind. Ooops.

We had a meeting with our district's county commissioner yesterday, and a whole other cast of characters and it seems that we now know what we have to do to get the building permit for our house. I posted about it on my other blog so stop over there to see what the outcome was if you are interested.

I went out poking arouns at a store today and tried on a few things, but the selection was icky. There are certain trends in fashion that I just love, things like boot-cut jeans that are so slimming. But it seems that there are a lot more supposedly fashionable things that I don't like and will just never understand. So I am giving you a little list.

1. Low-rise jeans. Ultra low-rise jeans can look fabulous on some people. Trouble is, most of them are twelve. Women with an average build generally look horrible in these things, and they are quite prevalent in the stores. I tried on a pair of them today and it felt so stupid to zip up a little bitty two inch fly. Sometimes it is a struggle to find non-low-rise jeans. The other trend I truly dislike in women's jeans is stretch. I know that a lot of women like them- they must- stretch jeans are everywhere, but I can't stand them. I hate the way they feel and I have never tried on a pair that didn't make me look ridiculous. Also take a pair of stretch jeans and add low-rise to them and you have a recipe for a muffin top. Ew.

2. Pointy toed shoes. I imagine there might be some backlash at me here, because I know they are very popular, but I really loathe pointy toed shoes. Why would I want my feet to look like they belong to an elf or a witch? It is just unnatural and I cannot get used to them. Maybe you see it differently?

3. Tissue weight fabric. There seems to be a movement toward using very lightweight almost sheer fabrics for things tee shirts and other knit shirts. It just feels like the manufacturers are "cheaping out." The shirts are so damn thin a mosquito bite would be a visible lump under them. And bra lines will stand out blaringly.

What current fashions are you not enamored with, if any? Are there any trends that look terrible on you even if you do like them?

One of the things about having a decent amount of energy again is that I have been able to spend more time on activities I have wanted to pursue which means less time on the computer and less posting here. Also, Andy went back to first shift this week which means we are on the same schedule for the first time in over a year.

Ramona is actually doing much better in puppy class now- she has had some breakthroughs in this week's class. She even wagged her tail and play bowed at one of the other dogs this past session, and she is perfect at the puppy commands we have been teaching her. She does sit, down, and stand with only hand signals even, I don't have to say them to her. I think with puppies that they are like little sponges that just soak up information.

I took Denny to his dog obedience class today and it was our second to last class of the session. We practiced all of the items that are on the canine good citizen test and Denny did very well on most of the items, but he definitely would have failed the test for the last item which is the supervised separation. In that segment of the test, the tester takes the dog's leash and the owner leaves the dog's sight. In this case, I walked out of the door and waited for thirty seconds. In the real test it is for three minutes. The dog is supposed to be relaxed and not freak out, cry, pull at the leash or any of that nonsense. Denny cried the whole time. I guess it is part of his whole coming from a bad situation thing. It is something for us to work on, to say the least. There were a couple of times when I had to loop Denny's leash around a bracket on the wall and go inside the "ring" to act as part of the crowd for the purposes of testing another dog. He was so funny in that he would jump up into the nearest chair to where he was tied off so that he would be high up enough that he could see me. What a cutie.

And as far as the birds go, Charley is entering his difficult 'teenage' stage and has been a bit of a pill lately and then there is Holly, our recent adoptee. She is warming up nicely to Andy but still is unsure of me. I am giving her the space she needs and the time she needs to feel comfortable, but I would like to be able to handle her as well. I was at the bird store today buying food for the two of them when the resident expert of the store said that she would be giving a bird behavior class at the beginning of June. I signed myself and Andy up for it knowing that we can use any help or wisdom we can get with the birds. That should be an insightful class.

Because we have so very many dogs, there has always been a fair amount of poop. The dogs are small and their poop is small and generally the yard never got very poopy, so I didn't worry about it much. The grass grows fast and every week when Andy mows it the poop would get chopped up back into essentially dirt and no big deal.

In the last few weeks since Ramona came to live with us, I have become more conscious of poop because I have spent much time out in the back yard with her standing there waiting for her to poop and pee. And she loves to roll around and play iun the grass, so I decided that I would start picking up the poop everyday and keep the yard clean. It only takes a few minutes each afternoon and is not that bad.

Through poop collection I noticed something strange. I always thought that all dog poop was created equally, but I was wrong. Most of the dog poop is very similar in nature, just like the dog poop that everyone knows and loves. Some of the dog poop was "different" though. It would appear as little firm balls or egg shapes always found in the grass in almost a cluster. One of my dogs had a colon like a melon baller, but which one? It took some watching but after a while I figured out that Cody is the Easter Bunny, the dog that has been hopping around laying little clutches of Cadbury Creme Eggs in the yard. I suppose it makes sense as he is fed a different diet from the rest due to his diabetes. He gets a Prescription Diet formula and maybe that is what makes the little chocolate eggs.

So when Cody goes out to poop now, I say he is laying poop. Andy thinks I am not quite right, but we all knew that already, didn't we? If you can't laugh over poop, what can you laugh about?

We showed up in the County Commission room just before nine this morning, when the meeting was scheduled to begin. Neither of us had ever been to one of these things before, but it isn't too hard to figure out. We filled out "speaker cards" so that we would be allowed to speak when our agenda item came up for discussion. And then the meeting, which is televised, began.

I was struck by how much time was spent/wasted with the first couple of sections on the agenda. These were resolutions recognizing different people or organizations, presenting certificates and taking pictures. It was all a big warm fuzzy-fest, where everyone was patting everyone else on the back. It took up a lot of time, and it seemed rather pointless to me. But okay, whatever.

Next they quickly went through and named all of the agenda items that they were going to pass without discussion and fairly quickly appproved all of them in one swoop. Our builder showed up to support us at the meeting and filled out a speaker card in case there was opportunity for him to answer any questions. He is a civil engineer as well and a really smart person and we could use all of the help we could get. Then we got into the "meat" of the meeting and ran down the list of items that needed discussion. We sat through two other items before ours, and after not much talk they "tabled" one issue and I think they denied the other. Then before we knew it, we were up.

I went up to the podium and addressed the commissioners shakily. I gave a very brief synopsis of what we were asking for and then they asked me to be seated. They asked the county Land Development director what other options there were for us in order to build. he stated that we could participate in the county's unpaved road program or have the right-of-way vacated. Now he knows full well that we had set out to build the road through the county's unpaved road program and that it could not be approved- he and the county engineers would not approve it, so I don't know why he even brought that up as an option as it was one we had already exhausted. And that is exactly what I said when I got up to speak again. And then I went on to tell them that we could not petition the vacating of the road as we are not the owners of the land the right-of-way is platted with, and that is the county's rule. And I told them that the people that could petition the right-of-way to be vacated had brought that to the commission in 2004 and it was denied for reasons that still exist today- there is no way to work out the access issues for the other properties. Andy tried to get up to speak as well, but they weren't hearing us. Our builder never got a chance either. Judgement was swift.

I didn't do a great job as a speaker, but I got the point across and it didn't matter anyway as they had already decided that they were going to deny the waiver before the meeting even started. They didn't even let us rebut some of the issues that they brought up, they just denied it. I think the whole process is a sham as we had to pay $500 to be heard on the issue at the meeting and to be able to put our documentation into the advanced agenda for all of the commissioners to read beforehand. We spent a lot of time getting all of our documentation just right and included very clear aerial photos superimposed with property lines and descriptions to illustrate the problems we were up against. When I began speaking it was fairly evident that most of them had not read our documentation and didn't understand our point of view at all. So they didn't bother to read up on it and most of them refused to make time to speak with us beforehand about it, saying they were too busy and then they denied the waiver without letting us give our arguments. I find myself wondering what the hell we paid the $500 for after all. They spent longer to recognize Child Care Provider Appreciation Day than they did to listen to us explain our position which we had paid to speak about. After they denied us, the lead commissioner said that we should meet with our commissioner to see what other options there were. I responded that there weren't any more and that this was it for us. She called a recess, and we left the room.

Outside the commission room, our district's commissioner and his assisstant approached us, and we brought up some of the arguments we would have used if we had been given the chance to plead our case. They think that there might be some solution they can come up with, but if that is the case, why did they wait until now to do so? We met with them a few weeks ago and they took the issue to their staff at that point and came back with nothing, what could possibly be different now? We are very skeptical. They want us to meet with them, the county attorney and the land development staff, probably on Monday to go over this stuff once more. Sometimes I feel that they think they are dealing with idiots, rather than people who know this stuff inside and out like Andy and I do. We are not morons. The assisstant to our commissioner said "Well the road rules were in place already before you bought this property, maybe you should have researched that before you bought." My response to her was that yes, we had researched and we were aware of the road issues and the unpaved road process, but there was no possible way that anyone could have known that the road that they would require would not fit in the right-of-way. Their own engineers didn't know that until the second round of reviewing the engineering drawings many months into the process of getting the road approved, after it was brought up by the engineers at the St. Johns River Water Management District. Even if we had wanted to we could not have submitted that road plan for review and/or approval before we owned the property as only the owner of the property can apply through the unpaved road agreement and must submit a copy of the property deed as proof. How could we possibly have planned for that? She must think we are stupid or something.

Anyway, I don't feel anything right now. We will wait and meet with them again next week and see if they come up with anything revolutionary, and then it will be time to move to plan C or D or whatever we are on now. This plan is going to be top secret as it requires a little underhandedness, but they will have forced us to pursue it at that point. Email me or comment if you are curious and maybe I can clue you in on it.

Tomorrow is the big day. Andy and I are going to speak before the county commission to try to get a waiver so that we can build our new house. I have been sort of saving my brain power over the weekend and haven't reeally blogged much because that is about all I can think about right now.

We hoped to have some sort of inkling of how things would go tomorrow by talking to the commissioner from our district who will be taking the lead on the situtation. Andy spoke to him today in order to find out which way he was leaning, but he was very non-committal, aggravatingly so. It was like he didn't want to even make any kind of decision or have any opinion on his own, but rather to wait and see how the other commissioners felt and then he would follow their lead. That is pretty fucking ball-less if you ask me. What do the taxpayers pay him for if he can't even have an opinion on things?

You may or may not know this about me based on whether or not you know me in real life, but I am a neat freak. Like nearly a full blown OCD type neat freak. For the past four or five years I have been suffering from extreme fatigue, even while medicated, and a lot of my natural OCD tendencies were squelched just because I didn't have the energy to be quite as anal as I would have liked.

Lately, I have finally arrived at an adequate dose of medication to offset the fatigue. I still get very tired, but it is more because I have been so busy DOING THINGS that I get worn out rather than just feeling overwhelmingly exhausted all of the time for no reason.

So anyway, with being back to a point where I have energy again, I have launched into many projects at home and work, cleaning things up and making things better as much as possible. If you didn't know me five years ago, you would think that I have changed quite a bit, because I am so driven to take care of details in my general work area. Actually, I haven't changed at all, I just have the wherewithall to get up out of my chair and take care of business now in the same way I would have before if I hadn't been crippled by fatigue. People are finally seeing the real me. It feels good, too!

Just a few minutes ago, I was standing outside in the backyard with the dogs, trying to get Ramona to pee and poop. She was sniffing around and was just about to go when a huge firework cracked in the air right over our neighbors house. I am talking about a giant, 4th of July type firecracker; it was deafening. All of the dogs barked, but Ramona bolted. It scared the living shit out of her, but unfortunately it did not scare the actual shit out of her; she did not poop. She ran into the house and hid upstairs in our bedroom. I went up and got her and tried not to baby her, tried to tell her it was okay, not to be silly and come back outside. I brought her back out with some treats, and then two more huge ass fireworks crashed in the sky. That was it for Ramona; she was done. She went and hid and I could not get her to come out again at all. Fucking people.

Now it is not that I have anything against fireworks, but it is almost nine o'clock on a random Thursday night in May. Not exactly firework-worthy. And they were launched right next to my house, which is stupid, illegal, and asking for trouble. The worst part of it is that we are experiencing major drought right now in this area and are on high alert for fires. And these fucking morons are setting off fireworks. Why is it that I am surrounded by idiots? Sometimes I hate people.

Ramona and I just got back from her second puppy class. She did a lot better this week, but still wanted to attack the other dogs. This week there were two other poodles and one tiny yorkie puppy. She was not very fond of the little dogs either. When we got to the part where all the dogs are taken off leash to mingle, she started to do a lot better, especially as I walked away from her so that she couldn't hide behind me. The class instructors said that she is worse when she is on the leash and with me, because she was a rescue in a not great situation before, and now she is in a loving home she feels threatened in different types of situations and responds by lashing out when another dog approaches me. When we did the part where we passed the puppies around in a big circle, she did beautifully with everyone, but when she was back on leash with me she regained her protective defensive stance a little, though not as much as before. Still, it was much better than last week.

I couldn't believe the change in some of the other dogs since last week. There was one chocolate lab puppy that was very scared and shy last week that has completely gained confidence since then. They learn so quickly at that age. We had a new mini poodle, yorkie, and a St. Bernard in class this week, and everyone else had been there before. I have high hopes for Ramona that she is going to do even better next week. What a funny little girl.

My sorry ass is boring lately. Bo-ring. Why is that? I am super busy, with eighty kajillion things going on, but yet on this blog I am reduced to blah. Too much self-censorship, maybe? I think as my blog gets more exposure on the internet that I start thinking subconsciously about who might be reading and that makes me hold back a lot, unfortunately. Hence bo-ring. And hardly any comments which reinforces exactly how boring I am.

Anyhow, Ramona is due to get her stitches out tomorrow from when she was spayed last week. Just today when I looked the incision appeared a bit puffy and pink. I called this afternoon over to the vet and they said it would be fine until tomorrow when she comes in. There might be a touch of infection. She is a filthy little animal, after all, and has not followed any of her instructions to take it easy or be calm. She has learned her sit stand and down commands really well this week though, and is very eager to please. I think this afternoon it finally "clicked" in her little noggin what I want her to do when I say "go potty." She used to do everything but potty when we were outside sometimes only to pee on the rug as soon as we came in. I have been really working with her and keeping treats in my pocket all the time lately, and now when I tell her "go potty," she sniffs a little, pees, and runs over for her treat. I think she just figured it out today.

Holly the cockatoo is warming up to me. She doesn't jump away when I approach her cage anymore and she will take food from my hand. She still isn't ready for me to pet her yet, but she is getting there. I talk to her and play games with her, like she drops a toy and I pick it up and give it back to her over and over and over again.

Andy and I are gearing up for the county commission meeting next week where we are going to plead our case to be granted a waiver to build our house. We have a really good argument, and all that the county seems to have is "it has never been done before" as their rationale, meaning they have never waived that entire section of the code before. Personally, I don't give a shit if it has ever been done before. I highly doubt that anyone has ever asked them to waive it before, and if they have, their circumstances were completely different than ours so that means nothing to me. Waive it or give me a real reason why not, I say. But who knows what kind of crap they'll pull at the meeting? There is a very devious backup plan though, if we should fail. I'll be really pissed and it will take longer, but we will live out there on the property and we will stick it to them bigger than shit. There won't be anything they can do about it either. **Evil Laugh**