Merry Christmas, everyone!

I hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas and were able to spend time with your families. We spent the day hanging out at home, with Andy working on fix-it projects around the house while I assembled 183 cuccis. Can you imagine how much work it is to roll out, fill, and cut slits in 183 cookies? If you can't, I can tell you with assurance it is an extremely labor intensive undertaking, but I wanted to have a bunch of them to take with me on Thursday when I go to see my grandma. I am going down to South Florida for the day Thursday to visit my grandma and my mom and dad will be there at the same time so I will get to see them too. I will be a welcome visitor when I come bearing cuccis. Well actually, they would welcome me regardless, but it never hurts to bring cuccis anyway.

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.

I wish I had something interesting to report, but sadly I do not. it has been a normal regular weekend of no consequence, but that is fine with me. I went to dog training class with Annabel on Saturday and she won both of the two contests that were held. There was a fastest sit contest, and since Anna is used to sitting to get a treat with all of the competition of our other poodles, she is pretty good at it. I just raise my hand and she sits with no words. So there were eleven dogs in the group and each time the slowest dog to sit was eliminated. Annabel won that one easily. Then, towards the end of class we did another fastest sit contest, but this time we were walking with the dogs on leash when the sit command came. Some dogs have a much harder time interpreting the command when they are already moving. Not Anna; she was awesome. She won again. I swear having poodles to train is like cheating, though. They are so smart that we hardly have to work with them at all. They pick up everything so quickly. There is a huge Great Dane in the class named Elvis that still does not sit reliably. I guess he knows no one can make him sit.

The rest of the weekend was also spent doting on our animals. Andy had to work overtime this morning, so I spent many hours doing a very thorough cleaning of the bird cages. I soaked all of the perches and toys, sprayed off and scrubbed the grates, and wiped down all of the cage bars. It doesn't sound like much, but to really clean the two bird cages well takes about four hours. It is no small task.

After the cages were clean, I cleaned the birds. Charley took a nice bath on his bathtub perch, but Holly still wants nothing to do with it. I struggled with her for nearly half an hour before I could get her into the tub and let the water from the shower head spray fall down on her like rain. She is very suspicious of everything and refused to get in the tub. She was so very dusty though, as cockatoos are known to be, that I just had to get her clean. I had her watch Cjarley bathe first, hoping that it would entice her, but she didn't seem to care. Finally I managed to trick her and get her into the bottom of the tub, and then she climbed up on the bath perch where I was able to rinse her down well. Hopefully next time she won't be so apprehensive and will just go on the bath perch and save me some time. She is doing better every day, so I expect that she will improve with bathing as well.

Andy got home around 12:30 and after we had lunch he set about cleaning Virgil the tortoise's habitat for me. He scooped out all of the old dirt, hosed the whole enclosure out and mixed up new "turtle dirt" for him. Turtle dirt is a mix of topsoil and playsand, about 60% topsoil to 40% playsand. We even have a bucket of it labeled "turtle dirt." I think that has to be one of the most fun things to say ever. Try saying "turtle dirt" three times in a row and you'll see what I mean. Either that or I am just crazy, which is entirely possible.

So anyway, we didn't do that much this weekend. We did grocery shop for the week, and we went to the Mega Bird Store for some interesting bulk food mixes to supplement the birds' diets. I got my hair trimmed and colored and we swam a little late this afternoon. Oh, and I plucked the hair out of the dogs' ears- fascinating, huh? I think that this means that we are officially boring. But I would rather be boring than most of the alternatives, I think. What about you? Did you have an exciting weekend?

I have discussed this before- I am definitely not at all superstitious, and I probably never will be. That being said, I had the kind of day today that if I was superstitious I would very much attribute to it being Friday the 13th.

I had to be at work this morning at three, so I got up at around one thirty, which is really pretty much the middle of the night. I had prepared everything I could last night so that it wouldn't take me very long to get ready, and I backed out of the garage to head to work at about 2:25 am.

I had only backed out of the garage and into the driveway when I noticed that it seemed impossibly stuffy in my Jeep. I flipped the knobs around for th a/c and nothing happened. I repeat, nothing happened. This was beyond just the air conditioning not working, the fan didn't work at all, so the only movement of air was what came in the window.

I was fairly horrified, but tied my hair up quickly, rolled the window down and set off for work. At that time of night/morning, the heat and humidity wasn't too bad, but it wasn't exactly pleasant either. At work I got a meter and check the fuses going to the blower for the a/c. They were all still good. I could hear the a/c go on when I selected it with the knob, it just didn't do any good because the blower would not blow any air out. At least that meant the repair probably wouldn't cost as much as if it had been the condenser or evepaorator.

I made it through the rest of a very annoying day where I was forced to work through lunch, and at the end of the twelve hour day I was ready to be out of there. The Jeep had been baking out in the sun for hours, so it was a total sweatbox when I set out for home. I had rolled up the back window out of the way to get more air circulation but even the air blowing in was pretty damn hot. It was in the nineties with super high humidity and just felt awful. And then I could see up ahead that it was pouring rain. I quickly pulled into a gas station under the overhang to unroll my back window so the Jeep wouldn't get all wet inside. I was forced to roll the side windows up almost all the way because it was raining so hard. It was suffocating in there. Yuck. Of course I had jeans and hiking type shoes and a shirt with three quarter length sleeves, so my hot clothes didn't help any, but I was wearing what is required at work to go into hazardous processing areas. It just straight up sucked all around.

I have to be at work at three am again in the morning to work another twelve hours of overtime, and then I am scheduled for eight more hours on Sunday. I am taking Andy'd truck tomorrow so that he can try to fix the blower on my Jeep while I am gone. I hope that you have better weekend plans than I do!

Mondays are sucky. Ugh. Andy had to get up at one o'clock in the morning to be at work by two am for the third day in a row, poor thing. I had to get up extra early too, because I had to get all ready for work and do all of the morning feeding and caretaking chores for our pack/flock before I left at just after six am. Normally Andy does at least half of the morning chores. The kids require quite a lot of care.

Just as I was getting finished up and got my lunch packed, I put on my glasses which I generally wear all week at work, but not on the weekends. I discovered a horrible series of scratches on one lens, right in the middle of my straight ahead view. Like they were dragged across the concrete. I tried cleaning them, but to no avail. I am not even sure how it happened. I was running around like crazy at work on Friday, and it must have been then, but I don't recall a specific incident that could have screwed up my lens so badly. What a bummer. Now I have to spend $62.50 to get a new lens and my frames are scratched in a couple of spots. Bummer. I have already learned to love hiding behind my glasses so I feel "exposed" without them. And I need them to be taken seriously. I look smarter with them and somehow command more respect with my glasses, so I need to get them fixed. They are my crutch now, even though they don't change my vision that much.

We are just getting into a big push at work, at least at the facility where I am. We are having to redo work that we have already redone once and it is through no fault of our own, just material fatigue or something- it is still under analysis- and it really stinks. I hate the feeling of spinning my wheels and that is what this feels like. But it has to get done or it will affect the launch schedule so we are expected to jump through our asses to get there, and jump we will.

I hope your Monday was better than mine.

For having a day off in the middle of it, this has been one long damn week. I am so happy to have made it to Friday, woo hoo! Poor Andy. He has gone to bed already because he has to work tomorrow. You'll never guess what time he has to go in to work. Two in the morning! Yes, that is right, he has to get up a little before one AM to get ready so that he can leave here at one thirty and be at work at two. If that's not insanity, I don't know what is.

Anyway, I'll be busy taking care of all of the regular household shit while he is working. That and playing with all of the furry and feathered babies. They need lots of love. I need to haul the bird cages outside and really scrub them down this weekend if it isn't too nasty out. There is just an endless amount of things that need to be done around the house, but I'll try to save a little time for fun and/or relaxation this week. The next two to three weeks look like they will be pretty hectic for me at work, so I am bracing myself. we had a big setback in our progress- through no fault of our own this week and will spend the next few weeks getting back on track. All I can say is that the properties of metals and how they react to hypergols are apparently not completely understood. I'll try my best to keep up with things and to keep posting-please stop by and check in with me.

The fourth of July was rainy and ugly here, but it was a nice reprieve from the chaos of work. Not like we really relaxed that much, but it is more relaxing just being at home. I got the new clippers and blades that I had ordered and I set to work on dog grooming. I got three of them done, and they came out very nice. I cut Denny's hair first because he is such a big doofus that trusts me so much that he will actually lay down and almost fall asleep while I am trimming him. I also groomed Ramona and Annabel. Anna had a lot of tiny little mats in her fur- her fur is just like that, it mats super easily- so she took some extra time, but overall everything went well.

Today we were back to work again full speed, and it rained all day. Ick. And I was very busy beating my head against a wall, but that goes with the territory. I ought to write a book someday- you'd never believe the shit if I told you.

So anyway, I finally got caught up on my responses to all of your comments. Sorry I got so behind on those. I do read all of your comments every day. Now I am off to check out your blogs, and I hope that you have more interesting things going on than I do, because I don't have much that I can write about today.

Okay, I swear, I am not a total slacker, I have not dropped of the face of the earth, and I don't think I have been kidnapped by gypsies- the jury is still out on that one. I am still here, just as always, but just busier than all hell this week, both at home and at work. So, therefore I blog slack. I know, I know, I need to get my priorities straight and realize that blogging is way more important than things like work, hygiene, taking care of my furry, feathered, and shelled kids, sleep, sustenance, and such, but I haven't manged to get there just yet.

I am hoping to be able to cathch up with life here in the near future, and then I can go back to my carefree days of reading blogs regularly and trying to make somewhat intelligible comments. I might even be able to post something that someone might want to read. Wouldn't that be nice? So, I am sorry that i suck so bad, but rest assured that I am alive and well and missing blogging and catching up on all of your lives as well.

I am an overpreparer. You might say I am a geek or a nerd, but whenever there is any issue in question that I am involved in, I gather tons of documentation, evidence, and whatnot, organize it all to a disturbing level and study it until I could defend my position with my eyes closed. This is just the researcher aspect of me, it is bornin and I can't help it. I have a need to know.

Through several different issues I have worked recently, both personal and professional, I have discovered that my large notebooks seem to intimidate people. Generally I will take all of my documentation related to the particular subject at hand and put it in one big binder. I use nice sheet protectors, highlight the pertinent info and put tabs on the very important stuff so I can flip to it quickly. I like to have all of my documentation handy like that for easy reference when questions come up.

Recently I have noticed another benefit to my 'big books' of information. They scare the hell out of people on the other side of my arguement or issue. They look at my book and wonder what the hell I could possibly have in there and if it is something that is going to make them look dumb. Usually the answer is yes, it is something that is going to make them look stupid.

Sometime I should test my book theory and just fill it with blank pages to see if it has the same effect. But of course my over preparer personality would freak out if I had anything less than 846 pages of crap supporting my position, so that will probably never happen. Oh well. Feel sorry for those who argue against me. They'll need it.

Well, I am way behind on all things internet, but I am catching up. I finally replied to all of my recent comments, and I need to catch up on all of your blogs where I have slacked. I still need to research my options as far as moving my blog to a different blogging software. What a pain.

Life has been pretty busy lately, and it looks like it will stay busy for a while to come. I am going in to work at five in the morning tomorrow, as in I have to be there at five, so I will be getting up at 3:30. Andy is going to be working ten hour days this entire week, so he will be starting work at six each morning. I have a big meeting to present a bunch of stuff I have been researching at work tomorrow, and then after work I have a conference call scheduled with our attorney to discuss strategy before we take our property issue to the board of County Commisioners for the final time.

So now I am just trying to get all caught up on everything for the week ahead. I did a lot of household chores this weekend, but I also spent a large amount of time cooling off in the pool. The pool is damn nice this time of year. I coated myself well in sunscreen and overall it worked well, but I did experience some failures in a few places. My knees are sunburned, despite the fact that I paid extra attention to them when applying sunscreen. Go figure.

Ramona has decided that she is a water dog. She just loves to wade and splash and play in the shallow beach area of the pool, even more so than Louie. She will even lay down in the water and just relax in it. She's a riot, that one.

Speaking of dogs, I have decided that I am going to try grooming them myself again. I used to do it years ago, and I didn't do a very good job, but I had very crummy clippers and tools then. I can get all the tools I need- high quality ones- for about what it would cost to have all of the dogs groomed once. Then everything after that would be a savings. It costs almost $200 everytime they need to be groomed, so I think it would be a smart thing for me to get proficient at. If we ever get the new house built it will be even better because we are planning to build an elevated dog wash, a sort of modified shower type thing, right into the mud room and we could have our grooming table back there.

I have to order my dog clippers now and get all of my notes and documentation together for the presentation tomorrow. I am such a nerd when it comes to that sort of thing. Okay, I am probably a nerd when it comes to lots of things, but there is nothing I can do about it, so I just roll with it. I hope you all had a great weekend, and Melanie, I hope your horrendous sunburn is a little better.

Although we probably should have done something more productive today, I got the idea that we should go to the zoo this morning. Andy and I have a memebership to our local zoo and can go for no extra charge any time we like. We have been so busy lately that we haven't been in quite a while.

One of the things we saw today was a fantastic sand sculpture showcasing some of the animals that are found at the zoo. I wish I could sculpt sand like this. How cool!

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.

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**

When I stop and take a look at my life lately, it seems as though there is always something I am fighting for- whether it be a safety issue at work, finding answers to my health anomalies, or challenging the county ordinances that are standing in my way in building a new house on my property. It seems like there is always some sort of battle being waged. And it makes me think, what does that say about me? Does it mean that I am just an antagonistic type of person that likes to fight things or is it more that I stand up for what I believe in and am passionate about making positive changes in the world? I like to think it is the latter, but I really wish that life could just be easy and that I wouldn't have to fight for everything I believe in.

A great deal of my time has been taken up lately with these things. I have fallen behind in my blogging, reading, posting and commenting. I hope you guys understand and will still stick around for when I actually have something interesting to say again. I think it will be soon. Does everyone struggle with issues like this and find that their time gets eaten up supporting their causes at times?

I apologize wholeheartedly, but I am incredibly boring right now. My brain has turned to mush. I have some interesting developments going on right now but I hesitate to post about them until I know what the outcome is going to be, hence bo-ring blogging. It is probably the product of me trying to post about anything other than what is primarily occupying my mind and it just falls flat. You know the whole "elephant in the room" thing? Have I piqued your curiosity at all? Then please keep coming back- I promise the borings will go away soon.

I have been driving a Jeep for quite a while now. I have always liked Jeeps and back in 2000, when Andy and I first moved to this area I finally bought one. My Jeep Sahara is a very girly one with a/c and a cd player and everything and it really does not go offroad too much.

Andy was super sweet and washed it for me yesterday, or washed him, as my Jeep is named Jimmie. Today we were inspecting the wonderful job he had done when he mentioned that some water had gotten inside while he was washing it. We saw some areas over the driver's side door where the stitching is coming undone, and one small area where you can kind of see through to the inside. I suppose I could have it resewn, but then we were looking at the velcro around the rear side windows, and at the edges where they have been exposed to the sunlight, the velcro has started to dry rot. You can take your fingernail and just scrape off the little velcro nubs in that area. The top still looks pretty good even from a fairly close distance, but it is starting to fail, so I ordered a new one today. I don't want it to rain on me in there.

I am so excited! A new top for Jimmie is going to make him look like new again, plus I got an upgraded sailcloth replacement top that is supposed to cut down on wind noise by fifty percent, so I am anxious to see what a difference it makes. Maybe I will actually be able to hear myself think while I am driving on the highway now. What an interesting concept!

I went to a hoity-toity fancy awards event with Andy tonight. so I don't have too much to write about. I am taking the day off from work tomorrow to meet a blog friend in person that I have known online for two years now. I am taking her and her boyfriend on the Kennedy Space Center tour and hopefully out to eat some good seafood and maybe to the beach for a bit. It should be a blast- I'll let you know!

Andy's best friend from the Army called this morning, and he and his wife and kids are moving back here in the next couple of months. Andy's friend is also named Andy and the two of them were sent all of the same places during their time in the military, which is actually rather unusual. Andy -the friend- is actually a big part of the reason we are here geographically today. He grew up in this area, and after the Army, he went to work at the space center. He and my Andy kept in touch, and the other Andy encouraged mine to apply for a job there. After Andy got his job there, and we moved to the area, he got me to apply and the rest is history. But Andy -the friend- and his wife moved to Pennsylvania for his job nearly five years ago, and sadly we have only seen them a couple of times since then.

When he called this morning, Andy's friend said that they are moving back, as both of their families are here in Florida and I think they might be tired of the cold as well. They plan to be back down here in a new house by April. I know my Andy is ecstatic. It is going to be nice to have them back here locally. And we are keeping our eyes open for a job for the other Andy back out at the space center, which shouldn't be too hard to find, since he has worked there before. It is amazing how few people our age live here locally, especially since he cost of living has skyrocketed, so having friends move back to the area is a big deal. I hope they find a house nearby.

The holidays have been wonderful; we have had time to decompress and complete projects around the house. Even though we made a real effort to get up early every morning and get things done, there is still a lot of projects that we didn't quite fit in. It is not like we slacked off or anything, it is just that there is so much that needed to be done. We had plans to paint the front and back porchrailings and columns, but the weather did not cooperate very well, so none of that was done. I also wanted to go through our filing cabinet and our closet and purge old stuff, but we never quite got around to those either. Oh well.

We did accomplish a fair amount of things, though. It gets frustrating trying to organize the house completely because there simply is not enough storage space and there is only so much I can do. That is one thing that I am really looking forward to with the new house- tons of storage and a place for everything. I crave the order that a setup like that would bring.

It is always kind of sad on the last day of vacation- I am never ready to go back, but I am sure I will be glad once I get there. The new year will bring all kinds of new challenges at work; I hope I am ready to meet them. I wish you all a happy and organized New Year!

It is interesting to go back to my archives from this time of year last year and see what I was up to then. It was around this time last year when we found our property where we are trying to build a new house, and we have spent the entire year in environmental and road permitting. We have learned so very much since then, and are learning more all the time about the way things work within the various government agencies that have jurisdiction over land development.

It was funny, because it was a trip driving around the island looking at Christmas lights that started the whole thing. We were driving around and noticing the area at the same time and decided to go back the next day to see the area in the daylight. It was on New Year's Day last year that I found the property for sale that we eventually bought. We were going to drive around and look at Christmas lights again this year and I mentioned to Andy that I wondered how it might change our lives this time, and he hesitated, saying that maybe we shouldn't go. We never got around to it.

As far as resolutions go, I have never been much for them. And, as crazy as it may sound, I feel like I am living my life the way I want to, without any vices, so there is not too much to resolve to. For my hopes and dreams for 2007, of course my biggest wish is to be able to complete the construction of our new home and move in, hopefully by Christmas. I can't wait to see where I'll be this time next year!

Andy left around 2:00 this afternoon to work a Sunday shift in preparation for the next space shuttle launch. He had just had a bunch of maintenance done to his truck yesterday so all was good. Right. On the way to work, he had some problems with his truck, had to call Triple A and get towed back to the place the work was done. It ended up that when they changed his timing belt yesterday, the new tensioner that was put in was faulty, and the belt slipped off, stranding him. So this afternoon, I drove up to the shop to pick him up and get everything settled.

I was in the middle of doing some heavy house cleaning and had just finished doing a major cleaning of the bird cage. This is something that only gets done once in a while because it is so time consuming and messy. I normally spot clean it, but sometimes it needs to be cleaned more thoroughly. The cage is as tall as I am and huge. I roll the whole thing outside into the backyard and spray it down with the hose and scrub it. I take all of the perches and toys out and soak them in hot, soapy water in the kitchen sink while I am cleaning the cage. Charley has a smaller travel cage that he stays in while all of this is going on. There are two boards that rest at the bottom of the cage, inside the metal seed catcher area, that we have placed there simply to block a small gap below the bottom grate at the bottom of the cage where the dogs like to reach their little paws in and grab hold of the newspaper lining the bottom of the tray. They have been known to pull out big sheets of newspaper with bird food and poop all over them and make a big mess, so the boards keep them out of there.

I had washed the boards outside with the hose and set them out to dry leaning against the house. I went off to pick up Andy at the shop and when I came back I was getting the boards to bring them back inside when one of them fell over and landed on my poor big toe. Ouch! The damn thing still hurts. I think it is going to leave a mark. Flip flops don't offer much protection, unfortunately. So now Andy is home, his truck is still at the shop, and my damn toe hurts. Things went to shit in a hurry! Oh well, tomorrow is another day. Too bad it is Monday, though.

Chelonians are turtle and tortoises, in case you are wondering. Today we took a drive over to a reptile show over in Orlando. It was what I wanted to do for my birthday so we left this morning and got there right when it opened. I was completely awestruk; right in the front there were tons of chameleons, big beautiful ones with eyes that move around independant of each other and those fabulous feet that look like two big toes spread in a "V." I am nuts about chameleons and I got to actually hold a couple of them and it was incredible. I swear I am going to own a chameleon one day. That day was almost today, but Andy thinks I am nuts and that I should wait until we get into the new house to get a chameleon. I should have taken pictures, darn it, but I didn't. Sorry.

Anyway, I did manage to work on Andy enough to get a new addition to the family, a teeny tiny tortoise called a Hermann's Tortoise. They are one of the smallest tortoises in the world and never grow beyond 5-10 inches. I walked up to the tank where he was and he looked me in the eye. He looked so intelligent and so wonderful that I was hooked. Andy liked him too, but I had to do a lot of convincing to be able to bring him home. You know, play that "but it's my birthday" card and all. Here's the little cutie:

Isn't he great? Those yellow things next to him are kernels of corn, so you can see how very tiny he is. And I say "he" but we don't really know if it is a he or a she. It is too young to tell. And I am not sure about a name for it. I am leaning toward male names and just making the assumption he is a male until I find out otherwise, I guess. I have thought of the name the name Shawn for him, what do you think? I suppose it could be Shawna later on if he turns out to be female, right? Or do you have a better name for him? I am sort of open to suggestions, but it has to be a people name. I always name my animals people names.

So, it is my birthday. And it is a perfect, beautiful day here: sunny, breezy, and temperatures in the mid seventies. Mom and Dad got me an eBay gift certificate, which is my favorite- endless possibilities there. Thanks, Mom and Dad! The dogs and bird all signed a card for me, with Andy's help of course, and I got another one from Andy. He says he'll get me whatever I want for my birthday, but I am not sure yet what that is going to be.

Right now it looks like what I want for my birthday is to go to a huge reptile show in Orlando. It is going on today and tomorrow at the Orange County Convention Center and I want to go to look at turtles and lizards, mainly. I think we might plan to make the trip tomorrow. Andy is feeling a lot better today after having his wisdom teeth out yesterday, but I think he needs another day of taking it easy before we go out to something like that. I just love animals.

Isn't it weird how when you are a kid it seems like a lifetime waiting for your birthday and you anticipate it for at least the six months prior, but when you get older, it sneaks up on you? I swear it just comes out of nowhere, all of sudden my birthday is Saturday. This coming Saturday. I really don't want anything for my birthday this year or anyone to acknowledge it even because it just makes me feel like I am getting old. Thirty damn two already. Sheesh.

I have been up and going since 3:45 this morning with hardly a break to stop and collect myself, and I am getting up at the same time in the morning tomorrow, so I'll make this short. I am playing catch up on a lot of my work extra curriculars and I am having to get up super early to fit in the time to do it. Going in early is the only option for getting work done uninterrupted, so that's what I have to do.

I had a dentist appointment this afternoon. I got my teeth cleaned and got an estimate for having my mercury fillings replaced. It turns out that it will only be about $300 to have them replaced with the composite ones, so I am going to do it- see my post on the dangers of mercury amalgams. Andy is scheduled for getting his wisdom teeth ot next Friday so that will be interesting. I have to take off work of rhtat so I can drive him to his appointment and take care of him.

I made an appointment today with a GI after being referred by my doctor for my elevated liver enzymes. I called the first doctor that was recommended and they were booked solid until late January. I told the receptionist that my liver might be rotted out by January. Fortunately the other one that was recommended had an opening this Thursday afternoon, so maybe I will get some answers- or more tests done to find out what is wrong with my liver.

And now I am going to bed so that I can struggle through the next few days and get to the other side of all the crap I am trying to catch up on. If I can just make it through to Thursday I will be in good shape.

Wow, I didn't post on here for two whole days; that doesn't happen very often. We are just starting to get into a very busy time of year and this weekend was definitely a reflection of that. Saturday we volunteered. We got up very early and set up a tent at a craft show to advertise the poodle rescue. As the other members of the poodle rescue have gotten busier after the summer has come to an end many of them don't seem to have time to volunteer at these events for charity, so it left just me and Andy. I couldn't believe how hot it was there this late in the year- it was ninety degrees and just miserable and it zapped all of our energy. But we were able to meet and talk to some prospective poodle adopters, so it was for a good cause.

Today we did some work around the house. Andy has been working on the windows lately, chipping out all the old caulking and resealing and painting them. He worked on the ones upstairs today, because I have a rule that he isn't allowed to do the upstairs windows unless I am home. I just don't want him falling off a ladder when I am not there to call 911. Safety, you know. And he took out all the screens so that we can take them to be rescreened this week just in time for the cool weather that is approaching. The heat wave we have been experiencing is supposed to come to an end starting tomorrow, and I am ready for it. The fall weather in Florida is the best. Fall and winter are the reasons I love living here.

I auctioned off a bunch of old Roman coins on eBay this week and the auctions came to an end yesterday. They all did fairly well, but apparently coin collecting is a lot more popular in Europe. I have packages to send out to winners in France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands as well as a couple in the US. Gotta love eBay.

In other news, I found out Friday that my liver tests that had shown very elevated enzyme levels were correct. I had hoped the test was faulty but when I was retested the levels had dropped some, but were still way above the normal range. If you are familiar with liver function tests, my AST was 138 on the first test then dropped to 94. It was supposed to be in the 5 to 35 range. My ALT was 298 at the beginning but dropped to 214. It was supposed to be in the range between 5 and 40. And to make things even more strange, the levels were perfectly normal when I had routine bloodwork done in July of this year. My doctor referred me to a GI for further testing, possibly a liver biopsy, and I am not looking forward to it. I am sure eveything is fine. I'll keep you posted.

I found a cool little HP photo printer that prints borderless 4 x 6 inch prints for a steal today at Target, so I am quite pleased. I have wanted one of those things for a long time. Digital cameras are great, but there are times that I just need to make prints, like for my scrapbook and such. I always like to send a cute photo in a birthday or Christmas card, too, and I am too much of a home body to want to go out to the store every time I want to make good quality digital prints.

Which brings me to this. My friend at work teases me about being a hermit in training. He says that one day I am going to be the "Crazy Poodle Lady" that all the kids in the neighborhood whisper about. I don' think that will ever happen, but I do find that I really enjoy my time at home, and the more stupid people I encounter the less time I want to spend out and about among them. But I think that is probably true of anyone. It is not my fault that there are not that many cool people arouns here to meet, that is just the way it is. I mean, after all, I have met all of you guys through this blog and I think you are all great, just too far away. Does that make me a hermit?

I feel sorry for the pizza delivery people, especially if they have to deliver to people like our across the street neighbor. The delivery people are always on a pretty tight schedule, and the people across the street will order a pizza and then not come to the door for almost ten minutes. Now, when you call to order pizza, aren't you kind of on the lookout for it? They sure aren't. i have seen the pizza guy give up and leave a few times. I know they must get extremely annoyed.

My purse drives me crazy. It is like a small bucket tote bag thing and it is very roll-y. I sit it on the passenger seat of my Jeep and every time I drive around a good corner it tips over and spills half the contents between the seat and the door. It is starting to be a pain in the ass.

We are hoping to get little Cody's stitches out tomorrow. He is tired of wearing the cone collar and his whole head stinks like smelly ears. He is getting a bath ASAP.

Andy has finally gotten on MySpace and found all two of his classmates from rural BFE Ohio that are on there. He is all into it and trying to learn the html to fix up his page. I have been trying to get him to learn that kind of stuff forever, and now he has pulled out my html books and everything. Nerd.

So after a day at work watching NASA waffle back and forth about what to do with Ernesto approaching, I was happy to head home. You may have seen it in the news: They started rolling the shuttle back to the safety of the Vehicle Assembly Building to ride out the storm, then changed their minds mid way and started rolling back to the launch pad, after they had alreeady undone a lot of the good work towards the launch that Andy and the other Pad workers had been working their asses off doing.

On the way home, the drawbridge was open for what seemed like an eternity while I was stuck on thhe wrong side of it. I think everyone and their brother was trying to move their boats to a safer location for he impending tropical storm and it just happened to co-incide with shift change at Kennedy Space Center making for a big traffic backup.

The in-laws were here at the house when I got home, but everything was okay. We cooked and ate dinner and hung out a little bit but they left at around eight tonight and they are setting out for home in the morning, since it is going to be all yucky here, weatherwise. They don't want to be stuck driving in the windy and rainy conditions and I don't blame them. The visit wasn't as bad as I thought, I always anticipate the worst, but it was all fine. I still don't relate to his mom at all, really. Whenever I tell her almost anything that has happened, she says "weren't you scared?" Like I showed her the beautiful photo I took of the waterspout last month, and that was her response. I am glad I don't live in constant fear like that.

My new iMac came Friday and I have been setting things up on it all weekend between cooking and cleaning and hanging out with Andy. It is pretty sweet; the screen is HUGE and the mouse and keyboard are wireless. It has a built in iSight camera so Denny and I posed and took our picture.

In other dog news, little Cody just got me in trouble. We were sitting here in my "office" and Denny heard something and barked. Cody vaulted off the couch that is right next to me where I was supervising him. He has to be watched carefully as the regular non-diabetic dog food is down for the other dogs to eat. Cody had already had his carefully measured portion of his prescription diet and I have to watch him like a hawk to make sure he doesn't get into the other dogs' food as it makes his blood sugar go haywire. Anyway he ran off toward the food bowl, using the commotion as a distraction so that he could get away with it, but I was right on his heels. He darted into the dining room to try to throw me off course, but I dove after him. And that is when my shoulder hit a shelf on the wall that holds a wooden helicopter model of Andy's. It was total loss, and I had to call Andy at work and tell him what we had done; that we had smashed his poor helicopter to bits. Bad Cody!

Andy has been working some insane hours lately in order to get ready for the upcoming launch of Atlantis scheduled for August 27th. Last week he worked 72 hours but when you count all the time commuting and everything, I am sure the total would be well over 80 hours. Of course it sucks for me too, not having him here; thankfully I have the dogs and bird to keep me company. He generally rolls in at about 3:30 to 4:00 in the morning, takes a shower gets in bed, and then my alarm clock goes off at 4:30 for me to get up for work.

Yesterday he actually had the day off to sit and do nothing. Little Michaela, the latest dog that we adopted, and I went to the Mall to volunteer our time to help the other poodles in the rescue. Macy's is having a nationwide Charity event on September 16th and is allowing our poodle rescue to sell tickets/coupons to the event where people can save an extra 20% off almost everything in the store. The five dollars they pay for a "ticket" is all donated to our group. So Michaela and I had a little table at the mall entrance to Macy's and she managed to sell 31 tickets in a little less than three hours, and we got another $35 or so in just straight donations. I say that Michaela sold the tickets, because really she did. I mean, I collected the money and all, but it was her sweet endearing little dog personality that made people want to contribute. She was kissing babies and everything. I brought with me the "before" picture of Micheala from when her former owner surrendered her to the rescue when she was in horrible shape. You might remember those pictures; I posted them here as well back at the end of May.

Anyway, when people saw the positive changes in her, it really made them want to donate. And it should. Her whole life was turned around by being rescued and getting good veterinary care and TLC. She was requested back on the day of the sale to sell more tickets since she did such a good job, so we will go back on the 16th for a two hour shift.

Andy and I went out to eat last night at Carrabas, which has great Italian food and we talked about our poor Ollie at dinner. I think I am going to think of it like Wendy, one of the ladies that works at our vet's office, said. She said she thinks that sometimes pets try to spare us having to make a difficult choice for them; that they know that things are going to get worse and that their time has come. I don't know about Ollie knowing that, but I think fundamentally she was right, that maybe it was God's way. God knew that we wouldn't be able to go through with having to put him to sleep after how difficult it was for us with Daisy four years ago. And I am thankful that God made it happen while Andy was there, who was better equipped to deal with the situation than I was. Maybe that is why the alarm on his collar didn't go off that time, it was his time, and God's way. At least that is how I choose to think of it.

So, I haven't posted much this weekend. At all really. I had a great time participating in the Blog Tour of Homes Friday, and spent a lot of time visiting all the other blogs that partcipated. Then yesterday I went to volunteer with the poodle rescue at an event at the mall where we took some dogs and had a display table set up. There were all kinds of dog rescue groups there, out introducing dogs up for adoption and talking to the public. They had some agility demonstrations and other things going on there too. I met acouple of people who seemed like good prospects for adopting poodles, so that was good.

Saturday morning, I had four inches chopped off my hair. My head feels so light now, but it is strange. My hair is still long, just not two feet long like it was.

And then yesterday was Blogathon. I sponsored Melanie at Plaid Toaster and TJ at Zazzafooky. They both did a great job and made it through the 24 hours of blogging every half hour. Congrats to them both for raising lots of money for their charities. Remember you can still choose to sponsor them for 48 hours after the Blogathon.

Today we spent the day hanging out around the house, cleaning and swimming. Most of the dogs went in the pool with us or on my raft to float around, and needed baths, so Andy and I split up the duties this afternoon and we each washed three. You can really see how very many dogs there are when you have to wash them all. I hope everyone had a great weekend; it is back to work now for me.

I saw this little guy walking around near one of our buildings at work today; isn't he cute? Well, I say "little guy" but actually he is an endangered Gopher Tortoise and is quite large at around fourteen inches long. I love working in an area surrounded by so much wildlife!

Last week Andy discovered that we had a resident rat in the garage and spent the whole day while I was off volunteering for the poodles emptying the garage trying to find him. he cleaned out all the rat turds and removed the bag of bird seed that the rat had been munching on. During the week I heard the rat once, early in the morning when I got in my Jeep, somewhere in the garage chewing on something. He was still there. Friday afternoon I saw where he had nearly chewed the lid off a large plastic paint bucket we keep wild birdseed in. By the next morning, he had chewed a rat sized hole in the lid. We had to do something, so Andy set out a trap and got him the first night it was out. I felt really terrible about it, but the rat was tearing everything up. I couldn't look at it.

As for the other part of my Rats! story, Andy put my new stereo in my Jeep along with the iPod adapter, and it is great. It works beautifully. But alas, now my iPod is on the fritz. It keeps locking up, freezing, skipping, etc. The bright side of this is that I purchased a three year extended warranty from Target where I got it, but I have to send it in for them to test to make sure it is really defective, and then they will give me a Target gift card for the full purchase price. I don't know how long that will take, but I can't complain too much, as it will all be covered, and if I get the full purchase price I will be able to upgrade to a video iPod. So Rats! for having an iPod that isn't working just when I finally get the equipment to play it properly in my Jeep, but hooray for warranties!

Just a couple of updates today- UPS found the package with my stereo after doing a trace today, and actually got it to me this evening. I am amazed as I thought it was lost forever.

And finally due to lack of interest I will not be participating in Blogathon this year. My time can be better utilized volunteering for the poodles here locally at an event. I will definitely plan to try it next year and thanks to all three of you who were interested in sponsoring me. You guys are the best!

Early last month I did something nice for myself. Both Andy and I drive vehicles that are completely paid for, and we plan to keep driving them for quite a while. I drive a six year old Jeep Wrangler Sahara, and while I still absolutely love it, the sound system leaves a lot to be desired. Even when I first got the Jeep the speakers in the front always crackled really badly and I took it back to the dealer to have them replaced, but the new ones were just as bad. The stereo has no inputs that will allow an iPod to be hooked up to it, so I have been using a little cheapo windsheid mount to hold the iPod, and an iTrip FM transmitter to play it through my stereo. The results leave a lot to be desired. There is a lot fo crackling and static and it is an inconvenient set up because it iis a Jeep and can't be locked up due to the soft top, so every time I stop somewhere, I have to take the iPod out of the mount and lock it in the center console.

Anyway, back to the nice for myself part. I ordered nice new speakers for my Jeep along with a new Pioneer stereo and a Pioneer iPod adapter that will allow me to connect the iPod and leave it locked in the glove box while I control it through the stereo. I am pretty excited about getting the new setup, but these Pioneer iPod adapters are pretty popular, and I had to wait almost five weeks for my order to ship because they were on back order. My shipment was supposed to arrive via UPS today, but sadly the package is missing in action. It disappeared somewhere between Washington and here, so it could be anywhere. The last tracking info on it was when it departed Redmond, Washington six days ago, so chances are slim that it will be found. I have already talked to UPS and the company that shipped my order, and they are handling tracing the package and claims and everything, but the iPod adapter is still on backorder- they are getting them in periodically in small batches, and if my original package is not found, it seems my order could be delayed for a long time again. Pooh.

Yesterday Andy and I took Denny to the annual Poodle Rescue Picnic. Everyone gets together and eats and plays with dogs and there is a meeting where important things such as finances are discussed. Can you believe that in the last year, vet bills for the group have amounted to $54,000? And that is at a 50% discount, so the amount of work that has been done on the rescued poodles is really $108,000! At the picnic, we saw Annabel's former foster mom who is also the one that picked up Denny from the Animal shelter down south. She lives about two hours away, so we hadn't seen her since we picked up Annabel. We brought Denny up to her, and we had to re-introduce him to her since he looks so much different and better now that she didn't recognize him. She didn't believe it was him until she looked into his big brown eyes and remembered them. Anyway, the picnic was fun, and surprisingly, Denny was one of the best behaved dogs there. Not that he normally has any problems, but you never know when you bring a dog around that many other dogs and strange people. I love these events because we get to meet a lot of people that we instantly have so much in common with, and it is so much fun to play with all the dogs.

After the picnic, Andy and I went out and did something we haven't done in a very long time. We actually went out to a bar at the port (Port Canaveral) because one of my friends from work is in a band that was playing there. We only stayed for a couple of hours because we had to get back and give Cody his insulin shot, but we saw most of the people I work with there getting a little bit crazy and it was kind of fun. The band was playing at the bar that was the last stop of a "poker run" that was organized by one of my other co-workers to benefit Hospice, so it was for a good cause. It was something different- but my tolerance for a smoky bar has gone down a lot since my younger days. How was your weekend?

How long has it been since you've sat down and actually wrote a letter? I mean a real letter, not just a quick card or an email. For me it has been years, close to ten, I suspect. But I wrote one today, and it was fun. You see, one of my internet friends who lives on the other side of the world had a thought that she would like to start writing to each other by snail mail, and I was game so we've started. I got my first letter from her today, and it was neat. I used to write letters like you wouldn't believe when I was a kid, mostly to friends I only saw at summer camp. I also wrote to a couple of my friends in high school who went away to Australia and France as exchange students and to my friends at home when I went to live in the Virgin Islands. I have boxes of letters I got back from my friends and it is so nice to be able to read back through them and remember what was going on at that time in my life, almost like a journal. We were extremely creative with our letters, too- they were extravagantly decorated and full of small drawings and other items. I really treasure the letters and think it was a great idea to start writing again.

So, as of last night, Andy and I are no longer officers of our stupid Homeowners Association, thank God. There was very poor turnout at the meeting last night, but Andy and I were prepared to make everyone sit there until someone volunteered, if we had to sit there all night. Fortunately we got three volunteers for the positions of president, vice-president, and secretary/treasurer, so we are out! I don't even care who took over our positions or what they do, just that we don't have to do it anymore.

Denny, our foster dog, is doing just fine but seems to be suffering a bt from separation anxiety when we leave to go to work. He does okay, but he cries and it breaks my heart to hear him cry when I leave. I think he will get better about it as days go by and he sees that we always come back when we leave. Poor darling. He is so cuddly at night, too- he is great to sleep next to because he is warm and fuzzy, and doesn't get fussy at night.

At work today we had two astronauts visit and talk to us. One of them was Barbara Morgan, who was selected as NASA's back up candidate for the "Teacher in Space" program in 1985 behind Christa McAuliffe. She is looking forward to her first mission in around a year on STS-118. She and the other astronaut toured our facility, talked to us and answered questions, and we all took a group picture. I think it is nice when they find the time to visit the people who hold their lives in their hands when on a mission. You would think they would do so more often, really.

Remember the ordeal with our house building project, where we have to improve the road in order to get a building permit? Remember that a crazy neighbor had filed a lawsuit to try to claim the right of way and how the lawsuit was found to be unfounded and the guy's lawyer was going to have it dropped or he would be fined by the county? Well, here we are nearly six weeks later, and the suit has not yet been dropped. Apparently the crazy guy had a heart attack, but his lawyer will not return our calls or the county lawyers calls. We are probably going to have to nail him with some hefty fines. What a pain in the ass.