Andy had to work today- he had to be at work at three am, but that was actually a good thing, because he had been scheduled to go in to work at one am! And he is on day shift! I think a lot of people would think it is ungodly to have to be at work as early as six am, but truly that pales in comparison to having to come in at three am or even two or one. Yuck. It has been a while since I have had to be in at three, but poor Andy has to go in at two am twice in a row last week, and work 12 and a half hour shifts.

Anyway, he snapped these shots this morning as the shuttle stack left the Vehicle Assembly Building and headed toward the launch pad.

This afternoon as I was sitting around 'putering I got some email notifications from eBay. Stuff about an anonymous account being registered using the same credit card as the one I have on file, which is actually my debit card. And then I got another identical message, that another account had been registered. Always the skeptic, I logged into my eBay account using a new window and checked the message section to make sure the messages actually came from eBay and not a phisher or spoofer. The messages were real. I chatted with an eBay rep online and she told me how to report it, but I have to wait 24- 48 hours for a response to find out what happened.

In the meantime I called the bank that issued the card and found that there were three fraudulent charges, one for Yahoo Wallet at less than $1.00, and then two charges from eBay for just over two dollars each. I think that whoever is using my card is trying to set up these accounts and the small amounts of money on the card are the way of verifiying that the person opening the Yahoo and eBay accounts has access to the bank account, like when you set up a PayPal account and they send a few cents to your account and have you check your account and type in what the amount was.

I put a stop on the debit card. No screwing around, just nix it. I do not want to sit idly by while someone empties my bank account. So, for the next five to seven days, I'll have to do without my precious debit card. Damn fraudsters. I could have had a new card by Tuesday for $16, but I'll be damned if I will pay extra money because some asshat tried to use my account. It is kind of cool that I was tipped off to the fraud so quickly by eBay, because the charges hadn't even posted yet- yeah it was only about $3, but it could have been worse- and the charges could have started piling up rapidly. Hopefully eBay wasn't where the con got my card number in the first place, but I suppose it is likely. Hmm. I'll find out more tomorrow when I hear back from eBay's fraud department.

Through the course of keeping this blog, which I started over three years ago, I am continually amazed at how it has changed my life. I have been able to meet and make friends with people I never would have encountered, have new opportunities posed to me, and reconnect with people I lost touch with and thought I would never see or hear from again. About every few months I will get an email from an old friend from somewhere in my past that happened to find me here. I have heard from a friend Andy and I worked with in Wichita when we first met on the job, a friend I knew in St. Thomas for the year plus I spent in the Virgin Islands, and lately a friend from summer camp. It is so great to be able to communicate with these friends again after so many years.

These people have all found me basically at random, by stumbling across my blog, possibly by searching for terms that happened to be included in posts I wrote since I wrote about my past. I think that maybe I could help accelerate finding old friends by listing who I am looking for here, and maybe at some point they, or their friends or families, will search for their names and find me. It is worth a shot, right?

So, if you find your way here, I am looking forward to getting back in touch with:

Kathleen Otonicar of Marietta, Georgia, who shares my birthday of November 4th
Lisa Norred, formerly of Lee Avenue in Tally
Ellen Ogle, who attended Auburn University
Amy Deyo, Obie's little sis, was an exchange student in France in 1992- I think she is now Amy Harter
Hilary Whitener, stepsister of Cali Garner
Cal Sutton of Phoenix, Arizona- USAir RJ Pilot
Beverly Kalloo- of St. Thomas (A.H. Riise) and Ohio, was with Jay Eisenzimmer in 1995
Kathy Coursey of Florida State University, took photography classes in 1996-97

There are others, but I'll start with these few as an experiment to see if I find any of them. In the meantime, one of my friends here locally, who I met through dog training classes, has decided to start her own blog and needs some readers and comments to get her going. Please go visit her over at Swurl and say "Hi." *whisper* Ask her to post photos of Leta, who is the most wonderful Golden Retriever in the entire world!

Employee retention is a really hot topic for those in charge at work. They are very concerned about keeping the best and brightest workers around for the long haul. There was a huge study done by a corporation that specializes in advising companies on things such as employee retention. In the study, they surveyed regular "worker bees" and managers. They asked the workers to rank certain items in order of importance. Things such as monetary compensation, benefits, job satisfaction, and so on. They asked managers to rank the same items, but to rank them in the order of importance that they thought the workers would choose. According to the results of the study, the number one most important thing to the workers was getting credit for the work they have accomplished. This was way down around number eight for what the managers thought their employees would say. The managers thought that salary would be the number one item, but it actually ended up about fifth in importance to workers.

Due to these trends, a new level of importance has been placed on our awards program. I have been involved heavily with the awards program at work for about five years, almost as long as I have been there. I serve on several boards, some that narrow down the nominees and one that chooses the winners. The awards we determine are competitive and require a very well thought out nomination in order to win.

I have been helping management in my group for the past couple of years to get their award nominations up to snuff. I know what I and the rest of the board members that make the final determinations are looking for so it is not that difficult for me. I wrote a whole dissertation with lots of tips and examples for the managers in my department to show them what was needed in a nomination to make it a winner. After all, it helps me out when the quality of nominations coming in is high- that way there is that much less research and rework I need to complete for each one to get it approved and chosen as a winner.

The department that runs the entire awards program recently decided to provide training to managers on how to write award nominations. They asked for the board members input on this and I sent them all of my documents with tips and explanations of how to write a successful award nomination. I assumed all of the other board members did the same. Apparently they did not contribute much, as the preliminary looks at the course material show me that it is primarily my words that were adopted in the training program. I am fine with that- I am glad they thought what I wrote was good enough to use. I am a bit surprised that no one else contributed, though.

Anyway back to the point- what do you think about the whole employee retention thing? What is most likely to make you stay with a company? Is good pay the most important thing? Benefits? Flexible hours? Recognition for the things you have contributed? Something else entirely?

I'm sure you've heard it before- "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." Recently at work I have identified to upper management something that is very important and absolutely needs to be addressed. Unfortunately it also presents an enormous challenge, one that is particularly daunting. I have done tons of research and offered all kinds of solutions, but I find that I still meet lots of hesitation. This issue isn't something that we have a choice about dealing with- it MUST be addressed. The scope of the work that must be done is frightening people off, and they look at it and say that they need to "chew on it for a while."

All of this is fine, but when there is some large project to be done, I see that most people that want to stand around and look at the elephant and say, "That's a really big elephant" and try to figure out if they like the taste of elephant meat. Nobody wants to dive in and tackle anything. I am the opposite. When presented with a challenge I want to quickly formulate a plan and then find a place to start. Just standing around staring at the elephant doesn't achieve anything. So I will go ahead and give the people in the positions to make changes and get things rolling everything they could possibly need to get started, to propel them forward in hopes that once they get moving the momentum will carry them onward. I end up preparing a plate of elephant for them, metaphorically, and cutting it all into teeny tiny pieces that they can handle. I can feed them the elephant steak, but I can't chew it for them.

What I want to know is why are people so reluctant about everything? If I were in charge I would be a "doer." I would do things and change things, where it could be beneficial, so fast it would make people's heads spin. Maybe I am not cut out for this kind of work. Maybe they don't want people who challenge the status quo. I am bound and determined to find out, though. I'll let you know how it goes, at least in the long term, elephants be damned.

No offense to the elephants, of course.

Yesterday I took few minutes between doing loads of laundry and cleaning an straightening up around the house to go through the pile of mail that had collected. I sorted all of the bills from the junk mail and set out the items that needed some type of action.

One of the "action" items was a set of replacement credit cards that needed to be activated. Whever I have activated new cards in the past, I have just called the number on the sticker, no had to talk to anyone and had a computer ativate my new cards. I figured I would just be calling in to an automated system to activate the cards as before.

Well, guess what? Credit card companies now take the opportunity while they have you on the phone activating your new card to try to "sell" you on services/products. The guy I spoke to was in India, I think- I could hardly understand him. He asked first if he could transfer any balances for me. I told him, no, I don't have any balances to transfer and that I am not interested. Next he tried to offer to send me checks with the "same low interest rate as the card" to which I also told him I was not interested. I was getting pretty irritated at this point because I just wanted to activate our replacement credit cards which we keep only for emergencies. Finally, he offered to sell me a plan to protect my finances in case I lost my job. I was really tired of listening to his spiel by then and hung up on him. Why do these companies have to hassle people all of the time to take their lousy credit offers?

The rain we have been getting this year is nuts. It seems like almost every day it will rain at least enough to wet everything down outside.

My wonderful little Denny dog is crazy when it comes to having people on the other side of the fence. When he can hear people over there, he runs out to the fence and runs back and forth at the edge of the yard like a little obsessed nutcase. He has worn the grass all away in that area, so now it is nothing but dirt. Frequently within the past couple of weeks, Denny has run back into the house after a marathon barking session wearing "mud boots." This is when his little feet have gotten wet and dirty from him running around out there by the fence and it looks like he is wearing little brown boots. Sometimes he'll even get Ramona to go out and put on some mud boots of her own. Just yesterday I had to rinse both of their feet at least twice. The night before last Denny came in the house at bedtime and was up to his chest in mud boots. He's been getting lots of baths lately.

Time to buy some more sod!

Today we attended an event called "Woof it Up!- Responsible Dog Ownership Day". We were there with the Poodle Rescue, but the event is put on by the dog training club we are members of so we were there to help them out as well. The more of these kind of events we go to and places we volunteer, the more people we recognize at them. There were a lot of familiar faces at the park today.

We brought Ramona with us, but she was a bit of a pill. Her behavior around other dogs has been very good lately, but the only time she has been around other dogs is at the training center. I think she is so comfortable at the training center that it is non-threatening to her and she doesn't have the fear response we were seeing today. She kept wanting to lash out at dogs that got too close to her. I'll have to talk to the training director about her because I am not sure how to remedy that kind of situation.

One of the other volunteers with our rescue group had picked up a new rescue from a shelter in a town just south of where we live. The poor little thing was in a crate and was terrified when she got to the event. She brought the dog to the event because the lady who is going to foster her was volunteering there as well. Andy got the furbaby out of her crate and got a leash on her. She had been making all kinds of horrible noises in the crate but once she was out on a leash she was much happier and seemed to be okay. She had some irritation around her eyes, so someone got another volunteer who is a vet tech at our vets office to take a look at her. She thought that the skin around her eyes was just irritated, not anything contagious.

Andy took charge of the poor little thing during the event, walking her and playing with her. The next table over from the poodle rescue was a table set up displaying some really nice dog collars and leashes. The people at that table were so kind as to donate a lovely new collar to the poor little waif to replace the ratty, frayed one she had on. If you are in the market for a new dog collar or leash, check out If it Wags for some great options. They are very nice people and they just moved to our area.

Anyway, Andy had fun with his new little friend, even though she looked a mess. The shelter had called the rescue saying that she was a poodle of about eleven years of age. In reality, we think she is mostly, if not all, Yorkshire Terrier, and that she is only about four or five years old based on her teeth which are nice and pearly white. She was in desperate need of a bath and a good haircut, but she's in good hands now. In any case her luck has certainly changed for the better.

At the park I also got to meet up with a friend of mine from the very first dog training class I took, the one Denny was in. Her dog is just awesome; she's a seven-year-old Golden Retriever with such a passion for life it is infectious. She is such a fun dog, and super high energy even at seven. At the event they had lure coursing; I knew that my friend's dog would love it and she did. Here is my horrible video- I am no cinematographer- of her racing around chasing the lure. It looks like fun to me!

Today was the first day in quite a few that we haven't been soaked by rain. There was a tropical system just off the coast or something and the rain was just ridiculous. For several days my hair looked like shit, my glasses had little droplets all over them all the time and there were little muddy dog prints all over the house for days. All to be expected.

The thing that surprises me is that in spite of the near blinding rains, I see so many cars on the road- nearly a third of the vehicles out there- cruising along with no lights on. Andy and I were almost hit by one of them this past weekend because we couldn't see it. I know, people are idiots. They think "I don't need my lights on; I can see fine." Well dumbass, I can't see your car in these whiteout type rains when your lights aren't on. Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought it was like a law or something that you are supposed to turn your lights on when driving in rain. One day someone will connect the lights to the windshield wipers. That way whenever the car's wipers are on the lights will come on automatically. I think that is the only way to overcome the stupidity. That is pretty sad. Is this phenomenon just here or is the idiocy widespread?

Last night in the middle of the night we had a huge downpour of rain. The reason I know this is that the noise of it woke me up a little bit. I turned over in bed and wiggled around a little and that was enough that little Michaela knew I was awake, and she jumped off the bed.

Michaela gets up every night whenever I get up to pee and waits for me so I can walk downstairs with her and watch her go outside and go pee. She has a tiny bladder and she has to go in the middle of the night pretty much every night. While there is a dog door downstairs leading to the backyard, there is no light on out there and left to her own devices she would sooner pee on the floor upstairs than go out by herself in the dark.

Knowing that, I knew when I heard her get up that I was going to have to take her out. I got up and started heading downstairs, and Annabel jumped off the bed and followed. She was another little pisser that had to go. We got to the back door and went onto the porch and it was absolutely like monsoon type of pouring rain streaming off the roof of the porch all around us. The two girls looked at me like "there's no way in hell we are going out in THAT" and I stood there and looked back at them quietly pleading with them just to go to the edge of the porch and pee. There was no way I could take two "fully loaded" dogs back upstairs. Then Denny and Ramona came downstairs too and they needed to pee as well. Crap. All four of them stood there with me on the porch and looked at me as I watched the rain. At two am. In my pajamas. I was so tired, and I was starting to think that if I just walked out into the drippiness of it that maybe I could coax them to come out and take a quick piss. I could dry off after that, right? You would stand out in torrential rains in your pajamas at two am to try to talk your dogs into coming out for a pee, wouldn't you? Or had I completely lost it?

I think about fifteen to twenty minutes passed and the rain finally started to let up a little. The dogs slowly started to ease out into the yard to pee and then run back under the porch where I dried them with a beach towel from the pool towel cabinet. Then we all staggered back upstairs. I hope that those little boogers appreciate it!

Sticky Mickie is what I call our little bitty Michaela for fun. She's such a tiny wisp of a thing at only seven to eight pounds. Mickie is also the last one of the dogs to be cycled through canine obedience classes and her first class was this past Saturday.

When we got there and I took her up to meet the teacher, she was shaking like a leaf. She looked like she would shake apart out of fear. Her teacher, who was also the teacher of Denny's class, said that since Mickie was so terrified that I should hold her for a while and just have her observe class until she got more comfortable. She also suggested some tranqulizers for next week's class.

Poor little Mickie was overwhelmed by all the dogs barking in class but eventually she managed to settle down some. She felt a little more comfortable towards the end of class and was able to show off the commands she already knows when I got her away from the rest of the group. She is advanced as far as the rest of the dogs in class go, as she knows sit and down already, but she has to get over her little fear thing. We'll see how it goes!

Some readers lately have been having problems with the feeds from this site since I upgraded to the latest version of the software I am using.

I do know that the following two feeds work fine, so please try these:

feed://www.for-the-birds.net/rss.xml

feed://www.for-the-birds.net/atom.xml

Thanks, and please continue to report any problems because I can't fix them if I don't know they are there!

It is September, but it is still damn hot here. Really damn hot. I got the opportunity to discover just how hot this morning when Andy and I went out to our property where the new house will be built to do a little work. It was hot but also there is so much moisture there in that area that the humidity is a killer. We had to wear jeans and hiking type shoes because of the conditions, and gloves as well. I had a hat on at first to keep the sun off but it became cloudy and the hat was just holding all of the heat in.

Andy was really suffering from the heat as he was having to do most of the work- I am a girl, after all and do not have the arm strength to swing the machete, but I did what I could. Despite being covered in insect repellant, the mosquitoes found me anyway and bit me all over my face and arms. I can't wait until winter!

While we were in the back part of the property re-staking points, I came upon poor little Ollie's grave site. It has been over a year now since we buried him there and I am so glad that we will be living close by him soon. I stopped and had a "moment" at his little mound marked with a cross even though I was covered with dirt and sweat. It has been a long time since I have been out there to visit him and I miss him a lot still.

Anyway, to read more about what we accomplished at the property, go over to Tortoise Hollow. The posts at "The Hollow" should start really picking up here in the near future as things are moving along more quickly.

This afternoon, after thinking about it for quite some time now, I actually applied to go back to school. It has been about eight years since I have been in school and it has been just over ten years since I was in college last- I was in technical school after college. I found an online degree program where I can get a bachelor's degree in Occupational Safety and Health and I put in my application. I have to fax some supporting documents monday after I get them out of my desk at work, but then that is it- I just have to wait for an evaluation. I hope to be able to start classes sometime this winter.

I am lucky in that I have already completed all of the basic stuff- I have 94 credit hours from Florida State University, so I won't have to take the regular english, math, history and so on that Andy is suffering through right now. I get to move right in to the classes for the major, which is what interests me. I have been looking at the class decriptions, and a lot of the topics are extremely familiar to me from my work. They have classes on interactions of hazardous materials, OSHA standards, toxicology, risk management, etc. These are all things that I am very comfortable with and have received lots of training on at work already, so I have a good foundation of knowledge to build on and I should do well. This should be fun- I love to learn new things.

My model for today's post is Holly, the cockatoo. She is such a little weirdo- but lots of fun now that she is comfortable with us. She comes out to play every night and spends time on an open perch flying back and forth from there to the top of my head. Poor thing has little pointy pin feathers poking out all over her where she is growing in new ones. She's over there on her perch now just flapping her wings like crazy, trying to get the dogs to pay attention to her, but they've seen it all before and are not impressed. Hehe. I think she is disappointed that she can't get them riled up. Birds are strange.

Do you ever feel as though you are surrounded by idiots? I do frequently. It never ceases to amaze me the depths of stupidity around me. I was thinking today, I wish I could work around more people who had IQs above room temperature, but I don't know where that would be. I think that most people would assume that where I work everyone would be terribly smart with it being basically rocket science, and all. I know that before I got out there I pictured a bunch of smart people running around in white lab coats, but that is not even close to the reality of it. For the most part, the people that actually get things done are of average to high intelligence. But we are frequently having to fight against ridiculous rules and policies because of the dumbass "policy makers." Woo hoo; they've got some real doozies there. I have been involved in some working groups lately with some of them, and it just floors me how these people could have made it as far as they have knowing as little as they do about the fields they have specialized in.

The other thing I have noticed is that you can't tell a damn thing by a person's credentials or work history. I have dealt with some of these fucktards, and then I have seen their "bios" listed on an internal website with their so-called credentials. On paper they sound phenomenal, but in person it takes only a few minutes to discern that they are blithering idiots who are completely unaware of the world around them.

I am one of those people that is always doing anything and everything I can to improve working conditions, safety, efficiency, etc. Lately I have been shut down on my ideas and efforts by morons for no legitimate reasons and I am starting to get frustrated. I am starting to fear that I'll give up eventually and just stop caring. I am a big fighter when it comes to things I believe in, so I do not want to let these dimwits "break" me. I just wish that everything didn't have to be a fight. UGH.

Ramona says "Hi." Isn't she a cute little beast? Well, crap, things haven't gotten any slower at all; I am up to my neck in projects and stuff. I am trying like hell to find time to write here but it hasn't been working out too well.

On a good note, there have been a couple of positive things that have happened in the past couple of days. One was that we got a new "assessment" in the mail for our seven and a half acre property here in Florida, and our taxes have gone down by over $800. This is all due to the fact that we dedicated some of the wetlands as a conservation easement in order to be able to build our house. Now our taxes are only based on the buildable part of the land rather than the entire parcel. I knew we were eligible for a tax reduction, but I really thought I would have to take all of the information to the property appraiser's office and fight for it, so I was shocked that it happened automatically without us doing anything.

I hope everyone is doing well and that I can catch up with all of your blogs soon. Life has apparently gotten in the way for me right now.

Goodness! I can't believe how very busy I have been lately. I am trying my best to keep up with everything, but certain things like work and house planning and dog training have taken precedence, leaving little time for blogging. But I am making an effort at least.

I am deeply absorbed in some self-initiated projects at work that involve a lot of research. I have discovered that I have a real love of learning or natural curiosity and I can spend hours reading and researching topics in order to understand a concept. I have found a bachelor's degree program that is online and that focuses in the area that very closely deals with my work- Occupational Safety and Health- and I am looking into completing my degree in that area. I already spend an inordinate amount of time researching and studying in this field so why not get a degree?

I would describe my little pursuits to you in greater detail but I fear that it would bore you into a coma-like state, if not death. I think most people are bored nearly to death by the things that interest me. Oh well.

On another note, Ramona has completely vanished just now under the bed. Andy came up to go to bed carrying a blanket that Michaela likes to sleep on that he had washed. He was flipping the blanket around and snapping it and he managed to scare the hell out of little suspicious Ramona. She went straight under the bed growling and he couldn't convince her to come out for a while. Finally she came out when he was giving treats to Annabel for sitting, and standing and such. She's such a little poop sometimes. I don't know what gets into her.

So lately we have been working to get some quotes on the kitchen cabinets and such that we have had our eyes on for a while for the new house. I find that the prices listed in the major home improvement stores for these particular cabinets are extrmemly misleading, as we nearly fell over from the sticker shock when we got the first quote for our kitchen cabinets alone. The price was nearly as high as what Andy's parents paid for the house they are living in on an acre of land.

I have found another possibility, though. There is an outlet that sells overstock and returns of the brand of cabinets we want in another state for dirt cheap. They have 95% brand new cabinets and have a huge variety of sizes and styles. I think we are going to hire a "cabinet shoppr" to purchase what we need and then have everything shipped here for a fraction of the price we would have to pay here. It is a little more of a hassle, but we are talking SERIOUS savings, like 75% or more. Worth looking into, at least. I figure it is going to take some creativity like this to come in under budget on this project while still getting what we want. Do you have any money saving tips for house building?

No really, I know I have been a slacker, but I am still here. Things have been busy as ever. There was another big push at work to get our pod done ahead of schedule and we did, but it makes for some busy days. My stubborness has caused me to go off on some other tangents at work that have required a lot of extensive research as well, but I am actually getting somewhere with it, so all is good.

And now for the funny part. In Annabel's dog training class, we learned some tricks a week or two ago. We were supposed to practice so that the dogs could show off their skills in class. Annabel's trick was "spin." I would say spin and she would turn in a little circle; really a cute little trick for a dainty little dog like her. We practiced it a lot, and even Ramona learned it so I would say "spin" and both of them would pirouette. The very last class of the session was this morning, and each dog was put through the normal paces of the things they have learned, like sit, stay, down, come, and so on. Each dog had to go through a little "course" that was set up where they had to walk nicely on a leash and then stop at certain points and follow commands.

Everything went well and Anna did a great job until we got to the sit stay sequence. She was all excited about being on display anyway, and desperately wanted to get a treat, so when I told her to stay she started just turning in circles. I told her to stay again and she spun some more. I couldn't stop laughing and by then our instructor was laughing and pointed it out to the whole class. Annabel is such a cutie that everyone had to giggle at her turning circles out there. the basic training class is very low key so we could all get a good chuckle out of it. She still graduated with the rest of her class, even though she was in auto-rotate mode. What a silly girl.

Both Ramona and Louie graduated from basic obedience class tonight, though we may have Louie repeat it at some time because the socialization is good for him. I want to take Ramona on to the next level of dog training to see how she does since she is such a smarty pants. The next class for her will be Intro to Rally, and I don't really know what to expect, but it sounds like fun. There isn't another class starting for about six weeks so she will have some time off.

Annabel is set to graduate on Saturday and we have been working on a little trick, the "spin" command. She is so cute when she spins in a little circle. A week from Saturday the next session of the Saturday basic obedience class will start and Michaela is up next. That is going to be an interesting experience as Michaela or Mickie for short has never been leash trained. Coming from the bad circumstances she came from, I think she was mostly crated and since she is so tiny she was just picked up and carried rather than ever walk on a leash. She bites at the leash really badly whether it is attached to a regular collar, a harness, or a training collar. I am thinking about trying one of those head collar thingies with her. Like I said, it is going to be interesting. I know she can do it, though.

I was sent an email about this- I am sure it is circulating all over, but sadly this is not a rumor or a hoax; the story actually checks out. I found the news clip below about it on You Tube. Here's the horrific tale:

Guadalupe County prosecutors are vowing to throw the book at three boys charged with torturing and killing a puppy that had been given to a neighbor's teenage daughter a few months ago.
"I was sickened, all of us were absolutely sickened," said Guadalupe County Attorney Elizabeth Murray-Kolb. "They found the easiest target, a friendly little dog. They were seen petting it."

Tavera said her daughter "knows one of the boys. She couldn't believe they would do that to a dog."

Source: MySanAntonio.com

If you want to help ensure that these little shits are prosecuted to the fullest extent, please go sign the online petition to get them prosecuted under the new animal cruelty laws in Texas that took effect Sept. 1st. The crime occurred a couple of days prior to that so their lawyers may try to keep the kids protected under the old laws, which will mean little or no punishment. Read/sign petition here.

Personally, I can't see how anyone that is capable of doing such a thing can safely live among us no matter how much evaluation and rehabilitation they have been through. It is horrible to even read about. I hope they rot away in jail forever, and even that is still way too kind for the extent of their crimes.

Okay, not really, I lied. But that is what I say to Andy when I look out the front windows and there are parked cars lined up all across the front of our property. This is pretty much a weekly occurence, so I say it a lot. It is like an inside joke anymore that we're nearly always having a party.

Our weekend has been good, but we didn't do much of anything. Just the usual crap like grocery shopping and laundry that we normally do, plus dog training for Annabel. We did go out and meet with some people at a kitchen design place and they are working on putting together a plan for our kitchen in the new house. We will go in again next Saturday to see what they came up with. And we did meet with our builder briefly out at the property yesterday. We were supposed to meet with the dirt guy and the land clearing guy at the same time, but one was stuck on a broken down boat in the middle of a river somewhere, and the other we don't know. It was storming outside, so we wouldn't have made much progress anyway.

We stopped in at a flooring store and looked at some options. We saw some neat things and started researching on the internet. We had planned to use carbonized bamboo flooring throughout most of the house originally, but after reading some reviews I realized that bamboo is not the right product for us. I researched some other options and I think we have settled on laminate flooring as the most practical for us. We want the same thing throughout the living rooms, bedrooms, kitchen, etc., and even real wood floors we were concerned would show too much wear in the traffic pattern. Laminate seems to be the perfect option; it is very durable and there are so many choices. Andy had a hard time switching gears for the new flooring idea as he generally does- he is less willing to accept change than I am and takes a while to warm up to something new, but he eventually comes around.

This afternoon there was a huge ruckus from the kids, birds and dogs alike, when someone came to the door. It was someone from the neighborhood to tell us that we had been chosen for "Yard of the Month."
Yard of the Month was started a couple of months ago by our successors as officers of the Homeowners association. They chose the first one, and then whoever wins each month has to chooose the winner for the next month, and they get a $25 gift certificate from Home Depot and a yard sign and such. I have joked with Andy since the beginning of the program that he needed to try harder so he could get Yard of the Month. He doesn't care in the least because we are just trying to get out of this neighborhood; our yard actually is one of the nicest ones even without him really trying and just doing the minimum required to keep the yard up to our standards. I guess most of the neighborhood is comfortable living below our minimum standards, though.

Just as a side note, we went out to lunch on Saturday while we had the oil in Andy's truck changed. I don't know if you have an Uno's where you are but if you do and you go there, you must try the buffalo chicken quesadillas. They were so effing good. I got nothing else right now. i hope you had a nice holiday weekend.

I sent in her photo and story a while back, and today Ramona is one of several puppies featured on the website, The Daily Puppy. Go over and vote for your favorite puppy if you like. The website is at dailypuppy.com, click the grid of photos of the puppies or the link at the bottom of the photos and scroll down to see her individual photo and story along with all of the others featured.