First Annual Dog Picnic

The setting: a mid-sized suburban backyard, belonging to J's Aunt.

The event: a family/dog picnic.

The cast: 15 various people of all ages, and:

Louie: a hyper, young Shih-Tzu.

Buddy: a young, hyper Golden Lab.

Montana: an older Retriever.

RJ: a young Black Lab mix.

Indie: a young, very spoiled Shih-Tzu puppy, wearing a shirt and a hair ribbon with a skull and crossbones on it.

Sadie: an older, very spoiled Yorshire Terrier, wearing a shirt and a hair ribbon.

Stella: an older, very spoiled Pug.

Bernie: my super calm, relaxed Bernese Mountain Dog Mix.

McDuff: J's super sweet, totally adorable West Highland White Terrier.

Rosebud: J's older, not wanting to put up with any young dog antics (this means you, Louie) Basset Hound.

It was fun, it was crazy, and I wished that the backyard had been fenced in, so that I could have let Bernie loose to play with one of the Labs. But it wasn't, and there so many animals there that I just kept him on the leash for safety sake. We had chips and barbecue sandwiches and frosted brownies and the dogs had cupcakes and chips and more ass smelling than they could stand in one day. I didn't take my camera (I forgot it, then remembered it partway down the road but didn't want to go back for it - someone else will send us pictures, I'm sure), so you'll have to imagine the chaos.

Oh, and there were party favors! The small dogs got stuffed toys, and the bigger dogs got tennis balls and frisbees. And they all got a first place ribbon - Bernie's was for being the most placid, Rosebud's was for having the best nose (she sniffed that barbecue out right away) and McDuff's was for being most independent - he wasn't on a leash and behaved himself very well.

Willow couldn't go, because she doesn't like other dogs, so taking her would have been asking for trouble. Instead she stayed home and enjoyed not being around the other three dogs for the afternoon. She did get to play with one of the toys today, though.

She isn't interested in fetching it, and she doesn't quite get how to catch it, but she is very intrigued by it.

And she doesn't want anyone else to have it. :)

The Toy Monster and Bath Time

So, apparently J created a monster when he taught Willow to play with toys. Also, she didn't quite get the idea of toys - instead of playing and having fun with them, she obsessively holds them and growls at anyone who comes close. My silly Will. He bought her this green toy last week when we got groceries. So far it hasn't gotten chewed up.

She likes the green toy, but she loves the blue one, which is just like the yellow one she tore up before. We're keeping it for the little dogs, but she keeps stealing it. Hee. My little Will. She isn't quite right, but she sure is adorable.

J and I are taking three of the dogs to a dog party at his Aunt's house on Sunday, and in preparation, I gave Rosebud and Duff a bath tonight. I love watching dogs after they get a bath - they run around all energetic and act like loons. Isn't Duff cute all fluffy and wet, though?

Rosebud looks very pretty, too. And she doesn't stink anymore!

And if I missed any spots on her, Duff will take care of them for me. He's such a cutie. I'm going to give Willow and Bernie a bath tomorrow morning before I take a shower - they get me soaked, so I won't bathe them unless I'm going to shower immediately after, so tomorrow morning makes sense. Of course, I'm bathing them to take them to a dog party, where they'll probably get all dirty again, but at least they'll smell pretty when they get there.

Willow isn't going to the party, though. She doesn't like other dogs much, so it wouldn't be safe to take her there. J's dogs and Bernie should be great, though. I'm going to take my camera, so if I get any good shots, I'll share them.

Oh, and guess what? I'm on vacation! Woo! :)

Vacation mode begins...now!

I got this promotional white board from the company who makes our name tags here at work. I hung it above my desk today, and it is announcing my imminent vacation joy. Woo! I can't wait for this week to be over, so that I can be off for a whole week. Vacations rock.

So, I think it's been a week since I updated, hasn't it? Oops, that's very bad of me. Things are going well, though. We're having orientation at the college where I work - today was day number two of four. Yesterday was horrible - it had to be 90 degrees in the gym where I was sitting for half the day, and there was a steady stream of students through from 8:00 until 11:00. I was exhausted by the end of the day - and dehydrated (and stinky) from sweating so much. Sigh. Orientation sucks. Today was better, because it was slightly cooler in the gym (probably in the high 70s or so) and there were way fewer students, which was nice, too. I was out of there and back in my office by 10:45 or thereabouts.

Anyway, so I'm in vacation mode already, and I still have two days to work. I'm planning on doing the bare minimum this week, but even the things I want to do are killing me. I just want to go home and be on vacation! Ugh. I'll still get everything done, though.

J and I are actually going to be pretty busy during vacation, considering we're not going on a trip. We're going to be water sealing the porch, painting the back wall of the porch and the picture window frame in the front of the house, moving J's stuff from his house to ours, going to an outlet mall for a day, having lunch with J's parents, going to my brother-in-law's 50th birthday party - busy, busy, busy. And of course we're celebrating my birthday one week from today. Woo! I love birthdays. They rock the most.

And okay, I'm out of stuff to ramble about, so I guess I'm going to end this and call it an update. Oh, and Sarah? I REALLY miss you at orientation. I mean, I'm sitting and working with Debbie, so it's good, but I wished you were there to chat with and play online scrabble with. Sigh.

Independence Day 2007

Happy 4th of July, Americans!


I celebrated my 4th the normal way - shopping on the green this morning and then sitting on a blanket on a curb in the rain to watch the parade go by with my sister and her family. It was fun. The rain was just over a sprinkle during the parade, so it wasn't too bad, plus we had umbrellas, so we didn't get soaked. And the parade was fun. Of course, I wish J could have been there with me, but he had to work from 6:00 last night to 6:00 this morning, and then he had to be back in from 7:00 tonight until 3:00 tomorrow morning. So, as you can imagine, he was home sleeping while I was out celebrating the 4th. I hope he gets to go next year.


After the parade we went back to Donna's and had a cookout, but of course we sat inside because of the rain. And I hung out with the family for a little while and then came home. It was a pretty good day. And I'm not going to the fireworks tonight, so my celebrating is officially over for this year.


And then after I got home tonight, the most exciting thing happened! My dog, Willow, has been intrigued with the idea of playing ever since I adopted her from the SPCA, but she didn't seem to know how. We'd try to play with her, and she would just not know how to respond, and she didn't know what in the world she was supposed to do with toys. But J has been working with her, trying to get her to play with some toys that are here for his dogs, and tonight she finally did! It's an Independence Day miracle. (Yes, that was corny.) Here, for your enjoyment, is photographic documentation of the first time Willow has ever played with a toy in the almost two years that I've had her in my life.

This is when she first started picking the toy up and playing with it. She didn't throw it around or anything - she just held it and growled at anyone who came too close to her so that they'd know they couldn't steal it.


And here's the aftermath of her taking the toy into her crate. She tore the leg right off that poor little animal! J and I were very happy to see her finally start to play, and told her she was a good girl. Aww, my adult dog is finally learning how to play with toys! How great is that?

Because I was bored (and had the work camera in my hands)

Leftover breakfast:

Cheshire Cat grin:
Me and Mom, circa 1987:
Spiderman wants you to celebrate my birthday this month:
Hawaii on the wall:
Bulletin board butterfly:

Souvenir from Sarah:
My phone says this entry is done, so:

Monday, Schmonday, I hate Mondays!

These weekends of mine have to stop going by so fast. How is it Monday already? Sigh.

It was a pretty good weekend, though, for all that it went quickly. J and I got to hang out a bit on Saturday, which is always a good thing. He worked on painting his room upstairs to get it done. We had water pump problems again, but they fixed themselves (temporarily) again, so we weren't without water all weekend. And that afternoon we went to see Live Free or Die Hard, which I really enjoyed a lot. I give Bruce Willis credit, given that he must be in his 50s by now - he still rocked the action movie stuff. There were a LOT of special effects, some of which really made me work hard to suspend disbelief, but over all it was a great "escaping reality for a couple of hours" kind of movie, which is just what it needed to be. I recommend it.

We stopped at the grocery store on the way back home to get some milk and eggs, and J got a couple of dishes of mashed potatoes from their deli/hot foods section. (This is important for later.) Then we went home and watched It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World on DVD, which was really funny, but really long! I wasn't in bed until almost Midnight! Oh, the horror. :) Yes, I am an old person who is usually in bed by 10:00 on weeknights, and not much later on weekends. Hee.

Anyway, so we went to bed at about Midnight, and at just after 3:00 in the morning, I heard J getting sick. He seems to have gotten food poisoning from the mashed potatoes (which had turkey gravy with chunks of turkey). He didn't have a fun night. And then he was pretty much laid up all day on Sunday recovering, so it was a quiet Sunday.

But! My water pump repair guy (who I guess I should just call a plumber, ha!) came out on Sunday morning and took apart my water pump, and removed some rust that was floating around causing our water problems, so we should be good on that front now. I hope. It was good of him to come out on a Sunday like that.

J called me a little while ago, and we're going to meet for lunch, which is always fun, and was a nice surprise. I'm looking forward to that.

Also, the 4th is this Wednesday, which means of course a holiday for those of us in the U.S. I was looking forward to sharing my favorite holiday with J, but now he's going to have to work until 6:00 in the morning, and then he has to be back at 7:00 at night, so there goes that. He'll be sleeping in the middle of the day, so he'll miss it all - the parade, the cookout at my sister's and the fireworks. Sigh. I'm going to be missing him all that day, now.

Anyway. I'll still do the stuff with my sister, and he'll sleep, and we'll both survive. Stupid work, though.

And now, back to the Monday horribleness. Later!

p.s. For those of you who care, I posted chapter ten of my Sims 2 legacy story on Saturday! It's sitting there, waiting for you to read it! :)

Monday Stuff

I just finished up a bout of Tuesday morning productivity at work, so it's time for a break. You just can't keep that stuff up non-stop. :)

Yesterday was a pretty quiet one. J worked early, and was home before me, but he had to be in at 3 in the morning today, so I was pretty much alone anyway, because as soon as the Simpsons got over at 7:00, he went to bed. I tried to Sim, but just couldn't get into it (I know! Shocking!), so I watched a movie on the Netflix site. If any of you belong to Netflix and didn't know about this, it's great. You can go online and watch anything that they have available to watch (it's not as much as what they have on DVD - not even close - but I assume the number of titles will grow), and it's included in your monthly cost! You can watch an hour for every dollar you pay per month, so you can figure that out for yourself. I'm loving this new feature, because it makes me feel less like I'm wasting my money if the DVDs sit on my desk for weeks at a time, which they have a tendency to do lately, especially if it's something J and I both want to watch. It's pretty hard to coordinate our time for DVD watching, especially when we're spending a bit of our precious joint free time organizing the house to make room for his stuff.

So I watched a movie, and I downloaded ceiling tiles from ModtheSims2, so now my Sims have ceilings! Which is a big thing if you're taking pictures to include in stories, and you don't want sky showing above the living room, or whatever. I installed them in the family college house last night, and I already love them.

And that was my exciting Monday. Neat, huh? Tonight promises to be more of the same, only I'm going to try to write up chapter 10, so I might not be watching a movie - it's kind of hard to concentrate on a movie and on writing at the same time. I do have a few more scenes to shoot for chapter 10, but I'm hoping to have enough time to do it all tonight. We'll see.

I need to find a name for this other than weekend recap

I had a very good weekend. Friday after work the washer repair man came out and fixed my washer for me. Woo! I can now wash clothes again! Which is fantastic. And he was a very interesting old guy, from the area where I live, and he knew the history of my house back to the 1920s, if not earlier. I knew who lived there before me, of course, because I bought the house from him, but this guy knew the person who lived there before them, and even who lived there before them! The original person (that he knew - probably not the original owner of the house, though) was a doctor, who used to run his office out of the house. In fact, he delivered the repair man's father! I thought that was pretty cool. I found myself trying to imagine what the house looked like when this doctor lived there in the 1920s. Where was his practice? How much of the house was there then? I know parts of it were added on in the 60s, so I imagine it was just the main two story part that was there then. I loved the idea of knowing a little, tiny bit of the history of my 100+ year old house.

Anyway, so he fixed the washer and I was able to do laundry this weekend, exciting! Or necessary, anyway.

Saturday J had to work, so I was at home alone, but the day went really quickly. I mowed the lawn, washed and hung out clothes, and of course played the Sims most of the day. I have enough played now to write chapter ten, except for one part that I need to work on first. But it'll be out sometime this week, I imagine. Maybe Tuesday night, because J has to work again.

Yesterday J and I were planning on relaxing and just watching TV and DVDs all day, but somehow we ended up cleaning and organizing the bathroom cabinet. I had given that cabinet up because of a couple of really large spiders that I had seen (and killed) in it, so I hadn't used it in years. Well, now we've reclaimed it, which feels nice. And I'm sure I'll eventually stop obsessively looking for spiders on my towels (shudder). Then we went upstairs and I helped him move his entertainment center to a different spot in his music room, and while he was fixing that up and reconnecting all of the wires, I went down and cleaned out the desk that he's been using. There were papers in that thing from the early 90s. I've never been a real organized person. But, J seems to be instilling it into me a bit, because I am much happier with the house with all of these steps that we're doing to fix things up. And now I want to clean out the desk that I use. It won't be so bad, but only because I've only had it for a few years. Hee.

And that's pretty much all the organizing we did yesterday. After that was all done, we went to Pizza Hut and got dinner, and then we relaxed. He watched the NASCAR race, while flipping back and forth from other things, and I played the Sims some more. It was nice.

And now it's Monday, and we're both back to work, and it kind of sucks. But, I can hang in there, because July 4th is next week! And my vacation is only two weeks after that. I can't wait.

Story of a very bad, no good Tuesday night

My Internet addiction is being tested, and I am NOT having fun. Plus, Tuesday night kind of sucked. :)

We had thunderstorms roll through Tuesday afternoon, starting just about the time I was leaving work. I got soaked going out to my car, but water dries, so no biggy. J was at work late that night, so I went home, took care of the dogs, and started writing chapter nine of my Sims legacy. And in the middle I also put in a load of clothes to wash, and was so paranoid about the water after the whole water pump problem of the weekend that I kept getting up and listening to it while the water was running into it. Yes, I am paranoid that the water is going to stop working again.

Anyway, so just as the washer was finishing, I opened it up to look inside, and the little switch that the lid pushes down to make it run fell out. Freaking great! I tried to get it back in, but the part it connects to is way under the side of the lid where it's impossible to see it, so I couldn't. And then when I took the clothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer, I saw a necklace that J must have had in his pocket on the bottom of the washer tub. I went to take it out, and the clasp was stuck in one of the holes of the tub - I broke the necklace two times trying to get it out. Wonderful! I put the rings of the necklace back together with pliers and hoped it would be okay.

Then I finished writing my story and got it uploaded to the Sims 2 website. Woo! And then I moved the Internet connection from my desktop to my laptop, so that I could post the link to the forums I frequent, and the Internet was down. It was taken down from the thunderstorms, and as of this morning, it was still down. Worse yet, we didn't have the Internet at work until after 3:00 yesterday, by which time I was going into serious e-mail withdrawal. Yes, I am addicted to the Internet. The addiction isn't as strong as the one I have for the Sims or chocolate, but it's there. I'm not proud, but I'll admit it.

Anyway, after all of that, I gave up and just watched TV until J got home. Luckily, the necklace was one he was going to throw out anyway, so he didn't care that I had broken it. And a washer repairman is going to come out this afternoon to get it working again. (And you better believe I'll be running home this afternoon and cleaning all the lint and dirt out from behind the washer, too.) And if my Internet is still out this afternoon, I'll call them and find out what's going on, and hopefully it'll be back soon.

But there, for your enjoyment, is the story of my very bad, no good Tuesday night.

Weekend wrap-up: water problems, Father's Day, etc.

I wanted to write an entry yesterday, but I was so tired all day that it was all I could do to keep my eyes open. I certainly didn't have the brain power to write anything. But, I got more sleep last night, and today I feel good, so here I am.

I had a pretty good weekend. J was off all weekend, so it was automatically better than it could have been. But we had water problems again. I seem to have problems every spring with my water pump, where it sucks up a stone or something and it makes the pump not able to shut off and basically I live without water until someone comes out to fix it. This time it started acting up on Saturday, so J and I went to his house on Sunday to shower and to do laundry. Then we came home Sunday night and turned it back on so that we could fill the dogs' water dishes, and it miraculously was working again. Ooookay. I talked to my plumber last night, and he said shutting it off caused it to backwash, which washed out whatever was in there blocking it. So, cool! I was afraid I was having problems with the well, because it's been so dry here, weather wise, but he said the well should be fine. So I'm officially relieved. I love when problems fix themselves! I'm still kind of holding my breath whenever I have to run water, but so far so good.

Other than water issues, we seemed to do quite a lot this weekend. Saturday we went to the dump with all of our recyclables and then we went to Denny's for breakfast (waffle, yum) and to Walmart to get groceries, and then home. We went to Lowe's last week when we borrowed my brother-in-law's truck and J got a couple of sheets of wallboard, so he got that cut and hung up on Saturday (he's recreating a closet that I tore out a few years ago). Sunday we went shopping and I got a new shirt for work (which I wore yesterday and promptly dropped chocolate on, but luckily it washed right out, whew) and I bought the most recent stuff packs for the Sims 2. Yay! I love Sims stuff.

We also went to J's sister's house for a Father's Day celebration, with his whole family. We hung out there for about five hours, and it was pretty fun. His family likes me. :) I like them, too. I was happy to get home, though. At the end of a long day, it's just nice to put on my PJs and relax. And I loaded my stuff packs onto my Sims computer, although it was too late to play the game.

Oh, and speaking of the Sims, I posted chapter 8 on Friday night, for the reading pleasure of any of you who might be interested. :) I'm hoping to have chapter 9 up tonight or tomorrow night, so that I can start playing again. Writing is fun, but playing is better.

And then I didn't get enough sleep on Sunday night, and I was horribly tired all day yesterday, and now we're right back to where we started in this entry. So I guess it's time to wrap it up. I hope you all had great weekends, and are having good weeks.

Reality sets in, and I like it

Yesterday when I got out of work, I drove home and J and I started a moving extravaganza that lasted for the next five hours. Fun! But actually, it was. I drove home and picked him up, and then we went to my sister's house and borrowed my brother-in-law's truck, so that we could haul stuff that wouldn't fit in our cars. We picked up some drywall and took it home and dumped it off in the garage, and we drove to his house and picked up his futon to put in his entertainment room upstairs. It was all basic, boring stuff that you have to do when you're fixing up rooms and moving someone in, but since I was with J, it was fun anyway. He's a fun guy to hang out with.

And something interesting happened for me. He's been moving stuff in one carload at a time for a while now, and I've been at our shared house to see it come in usually. But somehow the reality of it didn't hit me until I was at his house last night, seeing the empty spots where his stuff used to be. And then it hit me - he's really making the commitment of moving out of his house to be with me! That's such a huge thing. And it made me incredibly happy.

I'm so happy to be sharing my (our) house with him. I can't wait to see the upstairs rooms all done and decorated, and I can't wait to see all of his stuff living harmoniously with my stuff. I thought I would live alone forever, and was afraid I might have lived alone so long that I wouldn't be able to live with anyone ever again. I'm so glad I was wrong on both counts.

Kitty Nature Show

I noticed Sable was very interested in the back window this morning. Here's why:


Such a mean chipmunk, to torture my indoor kitty that way. :)

Duff and weekend and oh, brother

I took this picture of McDuff Saturday afternoon. He's so stinking adorable that I almost can't stand it.

My weekend was pretty good. J had to work all day Saturday, so I was at home by myself, playing the Sims and cleaning a little bit. It was nice, but quiet. Well, as quiet as a house with four dogs in it can be.

Sunday J was off, thank goodness, and we had a good day. We hung out, we cleaned up most of the stuff in the other side of his room, so that he can finally take possession of it, paint it and start moving his stuff in. We watched some TV. It was very low key, but it was just really nice to be together, just spending time. We live together, and yet we don't get nearly enough time to just hang out and be together. It's nice when we get it, though.

I also had a little bit of a worry this weekend. Well, not a worry, just a general dread. My sister called me Friday afternoon while J and I were out getting dinner and groceries. My brother - the one with a drinking problem who has made himself such a problem to his family that none of us really want him around anymore - called her at ten minutes to six that morning (what the heck he was thinking, I have no clue - why would he call that early?) to let her know that he was moving back to New York. He had broken up with his girlfriend again, and he had to get away from her. So apparently he has to go a few states away. I stopped trying to figure him out a long time ago. Anyway, she called to warn me that he might show up on my doorstep. Historically, I've always been the one that he comes to for a place to stay or for sympathy. So I kept watch all day Saturday, but he didn't show up. And we didn't see him Sunday morning, either. And then that afternoon, the phone rang. I didn't pick it up, just in case it was him, and it was. He had "something to ask me." So naturally I assumed that he was going to ask to stay with me, but thankfully I was wrong. I waited a half an hour or so to gather up my courage to say no, and then I called him back. He told me the same thing about his ex, and that he was coming back north. And he wanted to ask me...and I started to get all stressed at having to say no, you can't stay with me...if he could store his TV, toolbox and a couple of boxes here.

Um, what? That's it? Yup. Apparently, he's going back into rehab, because he had been sober for three years, but since the problems with his ex, he started drinking again. Personally, I think that this is all an excuse to live on the government's dime for a while until he finds someone else to take care of him, but who knows. So he's going to drive north after he gets his last paycheck. He's going to bring his stuff to my house and store it in my basement, where it won't be in my and J's way. He'll hang out and visit for a little while, and then he's going to go stay in a motel until the next morning, when he's going to drive himself back to rehab.

And of course I'm like, um, sure you can store your stuff, I guess. As long as it's his stuff and not him, I'm okay with that. I'm just glad I didn't let myself get too stressed about it. Stupid brothers. I always told Mom that she should only have had me and my sister. Boys are just trouble.

And okay, I guess that's all for now. I need to go clean out a filing cabinet now.

Portrait of a Thursday Night

I walked into the bathroom to get ready for bed. While not late, I am of the wussy variety and need at least eight hours of sleep per night, so it was late enough. I went to the sink and washed my hands, and then, when I was reaching for the toothbrush, I looked up, and horror of horrors! A semi-large, extremely creepy black spider, crawling on the ceiling. “Eww, fuck,” I said, and then walked out of the bathroom and into the bedroom.

“Baby,” I said softly, “are you awake?”

“Yeah, what’s wrong?”

“There’s a spider on the bathroom ceiling, and it’s big.” And he gets up, out of the warm bed, to be my spider killer.

“Where is it?” He asks when he gets into the bathroom.

“On the ceiling, over the sink.”

He didn’t see the creepy crawler at first, because it had moved down onto the light fixture, but then he saw it, and it was soon dead.

“Thank you, sweetie.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, as he starts to walk away. I go back into the bathroom to brush my teeth, and look up. “Fuck! J? Are you still right there?”

He comes back in.

“There’s another one just like that one, hanging from the ceiling next to the medicine cabinet.”

And for the second time in about as many minutes, he kills a spider for me.

“That one never saw it coming,” he says, and then he goes back to bed.

I walk back into the bathroom and brush my teeth and hair, watching the ceiling and walls in paranoia the whole time.

Stupid fucking spiders. Why do they love to torment me? And why the hell are they drawn to my bathroom? Yuck.

I shut off all the lights and walk into the bedroom, with Bernie ambling along beside me. I get into bed, set my alarm, and lay down to sleep. And to avoid nightmares about big, black spiders all over me, I start to think of the Sims. Imagine how cool it would be if I could be a Sim - spiders don't exist in the Sims. I could walk through the Finch brothers' house, and go home to the house I share with Sim J, and he would never have to kill spiders for me. I like that house, with its nice big kitchen, and living room, and....

And I sleep. And I don't dream about spiders at all. Thank goodness.

Trip and weekend and Willow

I had to go to Albany for work on Thursday and Friday of last week. They did a focus group with students from the SUNY school there, and it was actually interesting to hear what they thought about the services on campus. They hate dining services, but love the customer service they get there -but the food sucks. And the campus store is overpriced and no one goes there. Interesting information if you have to market those things, but the most fun was just watching the students (I just typed "kids" and had to change it, because what am I, 60? Geez). They got free junk food and a $50 gift card and played games to win more prizes. They were all there solely for the $50, as you can imagine. The time when the students were there was fun - the rest of the time I was just wishing for it to be time to go home, already. I hate meetings.

The dinner Thursday night was kind of fun, though. The coordinator made reservations at a French restaurant, which everyone loved except me. I'm such a picky, plain eater. I'm happy with burgers, with Italian, with Chinese, but a French restaurant has nothing for me. I ended up getting a Caesar salad that cost me over $11. Sigh. The conversation was pretty interesting. It turns out that if you get a drink or two into marketing people who are in their 40s and 50s, they'll talk about all kinds of things - religion, sex, you name it. It was enlightening, to say the least.

So, it was an interesting trip, but I was glad to get home. I missed J, I missed the dogs, and I missed my house.

We had a fairly quiet weekend after my trip. J had to work on Saturday, so I was at home by myself, playing the Sims. (God, how I love that game.) When he came home, I went and got Chinese food for dinner - I sure do love me some sweet and sour chicken. We watched a lot of Buffy. We did a lot of yard work (the lawn looks great now). We went to Walmart a couple of times. I repotted some African violets and put them in my living room windowsill. Now I'm just waiting for the cats to knock them down and make me want to kill them. Quiet, like I said.

And now I'm back at work on Monday, and I'm counting the days until July 4th and my birthday week vacation (four weeks to work before the 4th, six more to work until I'm on vacation). I like my job, but I love getting away from it for a while.

And now I'll leave you with this:


Willow: "Please, no more pictures. Doesn't a dog deserve her privacy?"

Pictures and Other Stuff

As promised, here are some pictures J took of the tractor fire in the field across from the house. Exciting, huh? The tractor is sitting off the edge of the field now, all burned out and sad looking.

So, how was your Memorial Day weekend? Or just your weekend if you're not in the US? :) Mine was good. J had to work Saturday, and due to some problems he ended up being there in the middle of the night too, so he didn't get home until Sunday morning. So in his absence, I mowed the lawn, cut and pulled a bunch of those horrible grape vines away from the pool area - you can now see the entire privacy fence on the side of the pool - and of course played the Sims. Quiet but productive, which is just how I like my Saturdays to be.

Sunday my brother-in-law came over and changed my oil for me, in preparation for me having to go to Albany for work later this week. That was nice of him. Of course, I'd much rather not go to Albany for work, but I don't really have a choice in the matter. Sigh.

On Monday, J and I went to the movies to see the new Pirates movie, along with Jamie, Sarah and her husband Jeff. We got there and were going to go to the dollar store to get our sodas and junk food (so much cheaper than the theater), but instead I locked my keys in my car and we spent the time before the movie trying to break in. Unsuccessfully. Sigh again. I still can't believe I did that. But Jamie was nice enough to drive us back to the house, so I could pick up my spare key, and then he drove me back so that I could finally drive my poor little red car home. At least the movie was fun. Long as hell, but fun.

And that's the exciting tale of my weekend! Fun, huh? :) Yeah, sorry, I'm not quite awake yet, so I can't be more interesting than that.

For those of you who are interested, I got chapter seven, part one of my Sims 2 legacy story online last night. Part two may be up tonight, or this weekend if I don't get the time to do it tonight.

And okay, I need to go wake up now. It's 9:04 a.m. and I've been at work for an hour and a half. I think it's time to actually be conscious. Although I don't have a soda with me, so I'm not sure how to get that way. Hmm. I'll figure something out. Happy Wednesday!

Happy Birthday, J!

He's sweet, generous, handsome, funny, loving, dog loving, cat tolerating, amazing, great company and he got up this morning and had birthday cake for breakfast. He loves his family and his country and he loves me. He is a Navy veteran. He loves hounds, particularly his basset hound Rosebud, and wants her to live forever, and he's already planning his next dog - a bloodhound to be named Bumpus. He loves Star Wars, and the Simpsons, and he loves silly movies that he and his brother can quote to each other. He inherited most of his build from his Dad, but his nose from his Mom. He has beautiful blue eyes. He's going to be seriously embarrassed when he reads this.

He has filled a large void in my life. I spent 37 years alone, and the last ten or so thinking I would never be lucky enough to find someone to love me the way I yearned to be loved. And then he came along, when I wasn't looking at all. I fought loving him, but in the end I had to give in - how could I push away someone who thinks I'm beautiful and special? With him I have all that I ever dreamed love could bring - a partner, a willing audience, an ear when I need one, a shoulder to cry on if I need it, someone to take care of me when I'm sick and someone to share silly times with. We love to be around each other, and I am very happy to have him in my life.

J, I love you, with all of my heart, and I love that we're in each other's lives now. I can't wait to hear you upstairs playing the bass in your music room. I can't wait to sit on the futon with you in your new room and watch movies on your DVD player. I can't wait to go on trips with you, and to go to family events with you, and to have our friends and family over when we're in the mood to be social. But most of all, I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you. I love you.

Happy birthday!

Lunch and birthdays and tractor fires, oh my!

J had today and yesterday off, so he came into town and met me for lunch both days. It's so nice to be able to hang out with him in the middle of the day! I enjoy that a lot. Yesterday we went to lunch at the local restaurant that is owned by the place where I work, and had their yummy chicken sandwiches and fries (and Saranac root beer bottles at $2.50 each - ouch!), and today we went to the local pizzeria and had slices and cheese sticks. While we were at lunch, I gave him one of his gifts (his birthday is tomorrow) - a book by Alice Cooper. J's a big fan of his.

After lunch, we came back and got ice cream cones from work, and then he met some people who I work with, including Jamie! Jamie and Sarah both have been telling me that I was making J up, but now I have proof! Jamie's seen him and spoken to him, so now he knows he's real. Of course, Sarah's Mom saw him when we happened to be at the movies at the same time, but apparently that didn't count. But now he's been officially introduced, and just in time, because I think we're all going to go to the movies on Monday to see the new Pirates movie.

Anyway, after he met my bosses and coworkers, J went back home, and I went back to work. I have to say, it was kind of nice introducing him to everyone. I liked showing him off. :)

Apparently there was some excitement near my house this morning. J was there working on the room upstairs that is going to become his music room, and he started smelling something burning. He looked around the house and didn't see anything, and then when he let the dogs out, he saw that the tractor that has been plowing the field across the street was on fire! It was fully engulfed in flames, so he watched it get put out. Cool! Well, not cool for the farmer - I hope they had insurance on it. But still. I missed the whole thing, what with being at work, but J took some pictures. If they come out well, I'll post them here, too.

Okay, I haven't updated in what, a week? Wow. You'd think I'd have more to say, but apparently you'd be wrong. ;-) We had a quiet weekend. J had to work both days, which officially sucks, as does his boss for making him do that. So I played the Sims a lot, and watched TV and lots of non-productive stuff like that.

Oh, and on Saturday I had lunch with a friend who I used to work with at SU. We hadn't seen each other since the weekend before my first date with J, so it had been a while. It was really nice to see her and catch up again. After lunch, I went shopping to get some new jeans, and ended up getting one new pair of work pants, three new work shirts, and no jeans. Sigh. I dont' know what is up with the retailers. Why do they think women only want to buy capri length jeans in the spring? Stupid people. There was a whole wall of regular Levi's for men, and a similar wall for boys, but nothing for women. Stores suck. So I haven't gotten any new jeans yet, but at least I got some work stuff.

So, tomorrow is J's birthday, like I said, but he has to work (I mentioned his boss sucks, right?), so we're celebrating tonight. We're going to have barbecue and mashed potatoes (that's what he wanted for his birthday, and the barbecue is Dinosaur, for anyone familiar with this area) for dinner, and cake for dessert, and he's getting two more gifts! I can't wait to see him open them. I've been hanging on to them for three weeks, and it's been torture. I love giving gifts.

Anyway. Suddenly I'm out of things to say, so I'll wrap this entry up by saying bye! I hope you all are having great weeks, and may your tractors not catch on fire. :)

I love sleep, and junk food is the devil

It's amazing what a difference it can make to my world view when I get a good night's sleep. I hadn't gotten a full night's sleep all week, and was feeling very grumpy - yesterday in particular was just not good. I ran late in the morning, I got stuck behind some jerk who only wanted to do 35-45 in a 55 mph zone (grr) and got to work six minutes late. I was in a semi-bad mood all day, and was so happy to see the day end. Nothing really horrible happened, but the day sucked all the same.

Then I got a good night's sleep. I woke up feeling refreshed this morning, and suddenly the skies are blue again (well, metaphorically, anyway - it's raining here, so in reality they're kind of gray at the moment - much more fitting to my mood yesterday instead of today). I got up on time, I got to work seven minutes early, I'm getting stuff done at work and am just having a good day. I love sleep.

I did get some game play done in the Sims last night, though. I got everything done for my next chapter, so now all I have to do is put the pictures together and write it up. Of course, I say "all I have to do," but that process will take somewhere in the neighborhood of four hours, so it's not really all that easy. It's rewarding, though. I am loving this legacy a lot, and I'm having a lot of fun playing and writing it. My second generation will be handing the reins over to her daughter in this upcoming chapter, which makes me very sad. I love her as much as it's possible to love a simulated person. She's cool. I hope any of you who are reading are enjoying it. And look for the next chapter to be up by the weekend.

I've made the decision to start eating better again. I've been very bad for the last few months, and have gotten right back into the habit of eating junk all the time, and eating because I'm bored, which is the absolute worst reason I can think of for eating. So I'm trying to start turning myself around again. I want to feel good again, and I don't right now. Here's hoping I can keep it up forever this time, instead of just for a few months. Sigh. Junk food is the devil.

And now I must go read an e-mail from my J, who I love and miss very much, because he stayed at his house last night instead of coming home to ours, so I haven't seen him since yesterday morning. Bye for now!

Busy Weekend

What a busy weekend! J had to work Saturday, so I was on my own until he got home at somewhere around 5:00. I would love to say that I spent the whole day sitting on my butt playing the Sims, but spring is here, and with it seems to have come the ambition to get things done. I did play the Sims a little bit, and I got a lot accomplished toward my next story chapter. But I also did the following: did all the laundry, vacuumed the whole downstairs, stripped the bed, washed the dishes, bagged up all of the recycling that had been cluttering up the kitchen, cleaned the bathroom, made two batches of dog biscuits with which to tempt the dogs, rinsed out and bagged all the soda bottles that were laying around, and I tried to start mowing the lawn, but the garage door wouldn't open, so I decided that I was off the hook for that for the day. :) It was a good, busy day.

When J got home we went after groceries and went to Jreck's Subs for dinner. It was nice. I love spending time with J.

I bought new summer sheets for my bed when we were at Walmart on Saturday, and I love them. I use flannel sheets in the winter and regular sheets in the summer, and I didn't have any regular ones left. I washed them when we got home and put them on the bed as soon as they were dry, and it felt like sleeping in an all new bed. I loved it. New sheets are always great.

Yesterday was Mother's Day, and J was off work. Since my Mom died seven years ago, I haven't actually celebrated a Mother's Day since 1999. But J's Mom is still here, and they were having a family get together to celebrate it. It felt nice to be able to celebrate with my future Mom-in-law. I cut some lilacs that were just starting to bloom, and three tulips that were still closed up enough to cut, and I took them to her. She loved them.

Anyway. Before we went to the family thing, though, I mowed the lawn in the morning, and J cleaned out the filter between the well and my water pump, because it had gotten clogged up with little stones that come in from the well. Then we got ready to go, and he took me shopping! He spoiled me, he really did. I made a comment one morning last week that I was running out of summer shirts, and the next thing I know he's offering to take me shopping to buy me some new summer shirts for work. He's so good to me. I only found one shirt that I liked (I'm wearing it now, and I love it), but I also ended up bringing home a pair of Skechers sneakers to go walking in with him, a Trix is for kids t-shirt (love), two undershirts, a flag shirt from Old Navy and a long sleeved orange SU basketball shirt. It was really nice to be spoiled. I don't expect it to happen all the time, and in fact I didn't expect it to happen this time, but I loved it. Thanks, J.

And now somehow it's Monday morning again, and I'm wishing I were still home in bed (on my new sheets), and yet I'm at work. Sigh. I really need to start playing the lottery.

New Porch Pictures

As promised, I'm back with pictures of the porch! First up, here is a shot of the porch before.

Ugly, isn't it?
Here it is now. It needs paint on the top by the roof, and the porch itself will need some water seal, but that has to wait at least a month. Pretty, though isn't it?

Here is the side of the old porch.

And the side of the new one.

The inside of the porch, looking at it from the end. Notice how far the front is leaning in.

And the side of the new porch, complete with the neighbor's dog, Hank, who has decided he likes our house better than his own, probably because there are four dogs here for him to play with.

And here is where I'll be spending a lot of time this spring/summer/fall. In my rocking chair, on the porch, watching the world go by. Because apparently I'm old like that. :)

So what do you think? Do you love the new porch? I sure do!

The letter B

Clare posted a list in her blog of her favorite things starting with the letter T, and offered to give letters to anyone who commented. I did, and got the letter B. So, here we go - ten things I love that start with the letter B (and it's kind of disturbing how many of them are food. Hmm).

1. Boyfriend :)
2. Bernie (my dog, of course)
3. Brownies
4. Birthdays
5. Bracelets
6. Buttercups (the flower)
7. Birthday Cake
8. Bob Seger
9. Bread - home baked, white, warm from the oven, yum
10. Blogs

If you want a letter from me so that you can post ten things that you love, post a comment and I'll reply with one for you.

So in other news, good things are happening with my porch and roof! The roof is done now, and the porch is all done except for the handrail for the steps. He'll finish that today, so I'll take some pictures when I get home and post the before and after, so you can marvel at how much nicer my house looks now. I am in love with this porch (if my list was of words starting with p, that would have been first on the list). I put my wooden rocking chair out there on Saturday, and I have sat out there a little bit already, even though the contractor's tools are still all over. I don't care - the porch is just so nice that I can't help but want to be out there. It's great.

How would you like a weekend recap? If you said you'd love one, then you're in luck, because I'm about to give you one! Saturday I had a short list of things that I wanted to do, which included mowing the lawn (done), doing laundry (done), vacuuming (partly done), cleaning the bathroom (not done), doing the dishes and cleaning off the kitchen counters (not done), playing the Sims (did some) and writing chapter five of my legacy story (not done). Yeah, I didn't do everything I wanted to do. But! I did clean and slightly rearrange the living room. And I sat on the porch with the dogs for a while. :) So it was still a productive day. It felt especially good to get the lawn mowed for the first time this year - it always looks so nice when it's first cut.

After J got out of work on Saturday, we went to Pizza Hut and got pizza and breadsticks for dinner (yum), then we came back and watched TV or something - I don't know, it's been a couple of days, so I don't remember anymore. My memory is crappy.

Sunday J had off, so we hung around the house and watched TV in the morning, then we got ready to go to the movies, because we were seeing Spiderman 3! My sister was supposed to go with us, but she crapped out on us, so it was just the two of us. We got some candy and soda from the dollar store to sneak in with us, got our tickets and some popcorn, and went in to watch the movie. I really enjoyed it - it was a fun way to spend a couple of hours. Although my butt was killing me by the time it was over - movie seats just aren't as comfortable as they used to be.

And that's pretty much the extent of my weekend. It was a good one, even though J did have to work on Saturday.

Remember to check back later - I'll take pictures of the porch when I get home (assuming he finishes today) and post the before and after pictures.

Good Day

I'm having a really good day today. Despite an inauspicious start (Duff peed on the floor last night, which J found when he got up, and Willow is having anal glad problems again, which means she is acting freaky about her poop, which lead to her pooping on the floor in the house this morning - now I get to express her anal glands, oh joy!), this day has turned out great!

You all know that I am quite a bit obsessed about my Sims, and you know that I've been writing a new legacy story, which is where you start with one Sim and follow their family through ten generations (or 27, depending on which type you're doing), following certain rules along the way. And if you've ever looked at the link bar to the right there, you see that I link to a site called boolprop.com, which is a Sims 2 forum centered around legacies. Well, I spend a lot of time there. Anytime that I'm online and bored, I'm on the boolprop site, finding new stories to read, reading updates to my favorite stories, and of course I post my own story there, too.

Well, one of the authors of one of my favorite legacies is going to do a bachelor challenge, which is where you take one Sim from your game and you do a bachelor thing with them - like the TV show. You place them in a house with seven other Sims, and the seven compete to win the heart of the bachelor (or bachelorette). He's using Sims from other legacies for his challenge, and he asked me if he could have my two second generation girls for his challenge!

Now, to any of you who aren't me, you're probably less than enthused. But I was so happy! I was mentally squealing and jumping around (and only not doing those things in reality because I was at work). I of course said yes, because I would love to see how Amelia and Addie fare in the challenge. I'm going to work on uploading them tonight. So exciting!

And then my boss came out of her office a little bit ago, and was just gushing about how great her staff is, myself included, and how lucky she feels to have us all working for her. She's very sweet.

Plus, our new porch is coming along great - it's going to be very pretty. I can't wait until it's finished, so that I can show you how pretty it is. And I can't wait to sit out on it with J and act like a couple of old farts, reading books or talking as we watch the world go by. (He'll be on big time spider killing duty, though, because my porch usually gets a lot of them. Yuck.)

Also, J is, at the very least, going to be renting out his house, which will save him a bunch of money, and he actually had someone talk to him yesterday about buying it. Either way, he'll be in better financial shape, and he'll be moving all of his household stuff into my (our) house, so he'll officially be living with me. Even though he's been living with me for a while now, but his stuff hasn't, and now it will be moving in, too. And I can't wait. It took me 37 years to find him, and now that I have him, I want him there every day, with all of his stuff, too. I want to get the rooms upstairs made over for him, and I want to sit up there and listen as he plays his bass (which I haven't heard yet). Life is being very good to me lately.

And I bought J's birthday presents yesterday. :) He doesn't know what they are, and he reads this, so I can't say, but I can't WAIT to give them to him. And his birthday is still three weeks away. Sigh. I love birthdays.

Okay, that's all I have to say, I guess. I just needed to come gush about my life, much like my boss was just gushing about her staff. Bye!

Pictures and Weekend Recap

Happy Monday morning! I didn't come through with pictures over the weekend. Sorry, I suck. But! I have them now, and better late than never, right? I thought so.

First up is our adorable, newly shorn McDuff (AKA Dufferdoodle, AKA Dufferoo).


Isn't he cute? I heart him. Also, please ignore the hideous 1970s brown linoleum floor. It's on the list of future home improvements, but it's way down below the important stuff, like windows and roof and porch. And probably it's below a lot of other interior stuff, too. I don't spend too much time looking at the floor, after all. Anyway, Duff is adorable, and I LOVE his new haircut.

Next is my darling Lucy cat, who was sleeping on the back of the living room recliner (cat chair), with her head tucked into her paws.

I know, you could just die from the cuteness. I love that cat.

Here's a picture that J took of his two dogs at the top of the stairs, looking down at him. There is a bit of a red eye (yellow eye) problem, but it's cute nonetheless, don't you think?

And the last cute picture I have for the day - I have a picture window in my dining room, which looks out over the pool and the backyard. I have a dining room chair placed in front of the window because the cats love to look out that window, and Saturday when I was going out to cook dinner, I saw why. There were two birds on the ground, and this little guy was in the pine tree on the left side of the window:

Of course, he had gotten out of the tree by the time I got my camera, so the picture isn't the greatest, but it's a little chipmunk! That window is like National Geographic for cats. Also, please note the horrible grape vines. This is only a very small section of them. Sigh. If anyone in the area wants to help cut and pull them out, we're accepting volunteers! They're kind of choking out any potential use of the pool (if we get it opened - that's not a sure thing, what with the porch/roof repairs, and my current lack of any additional income and the large amount of bills that I have right now). Stupid grape vines. :)

Anyway, so that's my picture sharing for the day. I took some before pictures of the porch, to show the truly horrible state it is currently in, but I think I'll wait and share those when the porch is done, so you can see the hopefully truly remarkable difference. The person we hired to do the roof/porch is supposed to start working today, so soon we'll have a new porch and a new roof and new soffits/fascias and the house will look a whole lot better. One more repair/update done, only about a bazillion to go. I've got to start playing the lottery.

So, I had a pretty quiet weekend. J had to work all day Saturday (like, until Midnight), so I was alone all that day, and he had pulled a muscle in his side on Friday, so he laid down most of Sunday, so it was very quiet. I posted a new chapter to my Sims legacy Friday night. There are four chapters up now - here is a link to my story upload page, in case you're interested in reading. I know two of you are reading, so thanks for that, and I hope you continue to like them.

Anyway, so I pretty much played the Sims and watched TV all weekend. And J and I went to get groceries yesterday and we went to Denny's for lunch (for me, breakfast for him), which was fun.

I hope you all had good weekends! Now I'm off to eat pizza in celebration of a staff member who is leaving for a different job. Later!

Friday Rambling

Hello!

My week has been going pretty well. I've written about the fact that we're getting the roof replaced over the living room extension and the front porch, and that we're replacing the porch itself. Well, the work is set to being Monday! I'm very excited. I can't wait to have a nice looking front porch. My current porch is really sad looking. I took some before pictures of it yesterday, so when it's done, I'll show you the difference.

I also took an adorable picture of my cat, Lucy, sleeping with her nose tucked down in her paw, but I forgot to bring my camera with me, so I'll have to share it another time. :( Sorry.

Oh! And I have to post a picture of our little McDuff dog, too. He got a haircut yesterday, and he's so adorable now that I can't even stand it. Of course, he was adorable before, too, but somehow, although it seemed impossible, he's even cuter now. I heart that little dog.

Tonight I'll be finishing up chapter four of my Sims legacy story, because J has to work until 6:00, and then he's going to his sister's house for her dog's second birthday party. The dog is having a Tonka truck themed party. Hee. J's sister is even more of an animal nut than I am, and I seriously thought that was impossible. But then, I've never thrown a birthday party for my dogs, so it seems to be true.

Also, I want to let you know that spring is finally here for sure! The crocuses came up and bloomed once the snow was gone - they were a little crushed from the heavy snow, but they still managed to put on a show. And now the daffodils are blossoming, so I cut some and brought them in last night. I love daffodils. And the lilacs are starting to get their leaves, and the huge spider is back in the outside of my bathroom window (shudder), so winter is officially over at last. Woo! I love that.

I don't love that spider, though, so J has already been put on the case to kill it. And J, if you're reading this - don't be afraid to leave spider guts on my window. I want it dead, not just evicted. Yuck. I truly hate spiders.

And that seems to be enough of an entry for today, I guess. Check back this weekend, because I just may shock you by posting some pictures!

Have a great Friday, and an even better weekend!

Weekend recap, plus warm!

In a complete turnaround from last week, today is sunny and warm - it's supposed to get into the high 70s, low 80s today. And last week we had snow. Crazy! I'm glad to be on the warm end of the spectrum today, though. My toes are making their debut appearance for the year today - I'm wearing flip-flops. And I'm very happy about it, too.

So, I had a great weekend with J. Saturday marked the six month anniversary of our first date. I called it our six month first date-iversary. Cuz I'm clever like that. Or weird like that, take your pick. We were going to go out to dinner and a movie to celebrate, but there weren't any movies out that we wanted to see, and I was really just in the mood for Chinese food, so we went out and picked that up Saturday night. Sesame chicken for me, Hunan beef for him, and all was good. I love Chinese food. I could eat it every week and not get sick of it. And in place of the movie we were going to go out and see, we stayed in and watched Casino Royale. I had never seen a Bond movie before, so I was a total newbie. I liked it. I had to suspend one particular bit of belief, though. This was supposed to be a prequel to all the others, right? So it seems like it should have taken place in the 60s, because that's when the movies started. So when the first cell phone showed up, I was a little thrown. But then I accepted that it was current day, prequel or not, and it was all fine. The movie was pretty good. I like action movies, and the story was good, but overall I didn't like it as much as J did. I guess I'm just not a spy movie type of person. I might watch some more with him, though, especially the old Sean Connery ones.

It was a busy weekend for us in more ways than just our first date-iversary, though. Saturday morning I took Bernie to get his rabies shot at a clinic that was being held close by, and he was such a good boy! There were quite a few people there with their dogs, and he was so nice to everyone - dog and person alike. He really is a big sweetheart. I love him.

Then we went and got groceries, and we checked out the local Aldi's for the first time. It is a lot cheaper on the stuff that they have, so that was nice. It's always good to save money where you can, especially when you're as broke as I am. When we got done getting groceries, J started cleaning out the garage while I stayed inside and did laundry/played the Sims/watched TV. I have it so rough. :) He's going to claim the garage as his, as all men should. So he started gathering up all the crap I had thrown out there over the years and piling it up, so that we can take it to the dump when we can borrow my brother-in-law's truck to do so. Eventually he's going to have the garage all cleaned out (and de-spiderfied) so that we can park out there and walk in and out the back door, as all good country folk should. He's also claiming the two empty rooms upstairs, which makes me very happy. I love having him live with me, and I want him to have his stuff spread around, and I want him to have the rooms upstairs so that he can go there and do his music stuff (he's a bass player) and his sports stuff and be comfortable and feel at home. We're going to be sharing our lives together, which means sharing the house too, and I'm glad that he's going to finally take some of it as his.

Anyway. On Sunday we mostly just hung out and veged in front of the TV and computer. He did start clearing out the vegetation around the pool, in hopes of getting it opened this summer. I haven't been able to afford to get it open, and I'm afraid that because of that, I've just ignored the growth back there, and it's been taken over by these horrible grape vines. They're everywhere, and they're tangled around everything, and they're nasty. I hate them. He's going to bring a pair of work gloves for me to wear, and we're going to go out there together and hack the shit out of those grape vines. I love cutting stuff up like that - it gives me great satisfaction. And hopefully with both of us working on it, we can get it cleared fairly quickly. Then the next hurdle will be getting enough money to buy the chemicals to shock the heck out of that nasty, dirty pool water. A pool that hasn't been opened for a few years is not a pretty sight, let me tell you. Yuck.

So, that was our weekend, for the most part. How was yours?

On Snow, and Writing

We're still surrounded by snow here in Central New York, but the temperature right now is 54 degrees, and it's only going to get warmer, so that stuff has a very limited life span. This is such an unusual spring for us. I keep thinking back to when I first moved to New York from Virginia, 13 years ago next week. When I got here, the daffodils were up and blooming all pretty. Right now the daffodils that had started to come up before this nor'easter are buried in heavy, wet snow. I hope they still bloom once this stuff is gone.

Since I first mentioned the Sim story that I was writing on here, I've posted two more chapters, and I'm very happy to say that they are being very well received. I'm getting a lot of great comments on them, which makes me very happy. I hope they will continue to gain an audience as I write more chapters. I'm having fun with this whole thing, both with playing the game with the idea of writing it out in mind and in doing the actual writing. It's a very satisfying process, creatively.

I used to want to be a writer. It's the only thing I can ever remember wanting to do when I was a kid. I wrote short stories all the time, and remember making my friends laugh when I read the stories to them. Even when I got out of school and started my adult life, I still used to start (and not finish) story after story. Somehow in the time since then I've lost that sort of focused creative drive. I spend my time now watching TV or playing the Sims or watching movies or hanging out with J or my friends. I'm not sure why that drive went away. The odds of me ever writing anything now and getting it published are extremely low, but then, I guess that's why I'm writing in here, and now why I'm writing the Sims stories. These two mediums provide me with a way to do some writing, and get feedback from the people who stop in to read.

It's a very satisfying thing.

April Snow brings...what?

The pictures above were taken from the windows in my living room, this morning. Yes, it is April 16th, and we're in the middle of a freaking nor'easter. Lovely. There is a lot of heavy, wet snow, plus wind, and I am SO ready for this crap to be over for the year. Sigh. I just keep thinking about how it's going to be in the 50s this weekend. It's my ray of hope.

Anyway, check out the geese! They've been hanging out around the house lately, visiting with the Canadian geese who are in the area now. This morning, though, instead of spending time with their wild cousins, they were huddled up in the snow on the side of the road. I was a little worried that they would get hit by a car, but there isn't much traffic today, and they moved on after I took the picture, so I guess they're okay. Cold, but okay.

So, for the second Monday in a row, I am home today. Last week I was sick, this week I just didn't feel like risking my life driving on nasty roads to get to work. And I have time coming, so I stayed home. I went out and shoveled the driveway in front of my car earlier, and now I'm huddled up in the living room, with the kerosene heater running, trying not to get too cold. Brr.

Okay, I hope you all are having a great day - and except for the people who live around here who read this, because I know you are getting snowed on just like I am, I hope the weather where you are is sunshiny and beautiful!

Snow and other news

There is just something completely wrong with looking out the window on April 10th and seeing snow. I don't live in Alaska, people! Give me some spring here! Gah.

So I got some really great comments on boolprop about my Sim story yesterday. They love me, they really love me! :) Or at least they didn't hate it, and that made me very happy. I did, however, slip up and post it without letting J read it first. Oops. Sorry, babe. You'll be the first reader of every chapter from here on out, 'kay? Promise.

I discovered one good thing about being at home all day when it's this cold and I'm out of fuel oil - running the space heaters and kerosene heater all day long makes it actually comfortable in the house! It was up to 63 at one point yesterday evening. I haven't felt temperatures that toasty in my house in a week, at least! It was amazing.

And in addition to enjoying the warmth in my house, what else did I do all day? Well, I took care of the animals, and I cleaned the toilet, but other than that? I didn't do anything constructive at all. I played the Sims, I wrote and posted my Sim story, I responded to comments about said story online, I read the end of one of the books that I had borrowed from Sarah and I watched all of the General Hospital episodes that I had built up on my DVR. It was a GREAT sick day. :)

And today I'm back to work, which is less great, but after a day like yesterday, I almost don't even mind. A sick day that doubles as a mental health day is a good thing indeed. And now I better get back to work. Later, gators!

(p.s. - if you want a taste of central NY weather - it was snowing when I started writing this update, and now it's not. Our weather is very fickle.)

Easter Update

Happy Easter! Err, Happy Day after Easter? Above you see the Easter basket that I got from J yesterday. Isn't he sweet? He put all the right stuff in it, including that adorable little dog. I love it! And I love that he used the Easter basket that my Mom used for me when I was a kid. Yes, people, that basket is about 35 years old. If not older - she may have used it for some of the older kids at some point for all I know.

We had a lovely Easter. We went to J's Aunt's house and had brunch, and saw his family, who are all great. The only down part was that my sinus thing had gotten worse - the congestion moved down to my chest. But we came home, and I took some generic Dayquil and we laid down and watched To Kill a Mockingbird (which was fabulous), so we still had a nice evening.

This morning when I got up, I was still feeling all congested and tight in my chest, so I stayed home. I've felt better as the day has gone on, so I'll be back to work tomorrow, and as for today? I've enjoyed it. It was the perfect sick day - I was sick enough to stay home legitimately, but not sick enough to have to be in bed feeling miserable all day, so I still got to watch TV and play the Sims. Which is, of course, my dream day. :)

Speaking of, I posted my Sim story on the Sims website for all to read. I don't know if that link will work for anyone who doesn't have an account on the site, and I don't know if any of you would be interested in reading anything like that anyway, but just in case, there you go.

So, To Kill a Mockingbird was a great movie. I just love the classics, you know? I don't know that I've ever seen Gregory Peck in anything before, but he was perfect as Atticus Finch. It's worth watching, if you haven't seen it.

And now I am feeling the need to relax and watch some more General Hospital, so I'm going to sign off. I hope you all had great Easter weekends!

Cold and sinuses and Easter! Also, boring

Brr, it's cold at my house. It was 46 degrees when I came home from work yesterday, up to 56 before I went to bed, but right back down to 40 when I got up this morning. Sigh. Where is our nice warm spring weather? Also, thank goodness for J's kerosene heater, which is the sole reason it was up to 56 before I went to bed last night. I love that thing.

So, I started to get a bit of a sore throat yesterday while I was at work, and I found out why this morning. My sinuses are going berserk, draining into my throat and making it sore, and clogging up my nose. Stupid sinuses. I don't know what made them go all wonky, but I hope they go back to normal soon. Please?

This weekend is Easter! Which means nothing much to me, since I'm not religious, but it does mean the possibility of chocolate, and any holiday that has the tradition of giving chocolate is all right by me. :) Oh, and Happy Easter to all of you who are religious, as well as to all of you who are only in it for the chocolate, like me!

We are going to go to J's Aunt's house for Easter brunch. His family is Polish, and they serve some weird things, but he promises that there will be ham and stuff I will eat, so it'll be fine, I'm sure. I would usually be going to my sister's house for Easter dinner, but she is having her meal on Saturday night this year, and I may not go. I don't know.

In other news, these updates are becoming awfully boring, aren't they? I want to update more regularly, but I don't want them to be this boring. Sigh. Next time I'll at least add a nice picture for you or something. :)

Happy Easter weekend!

Happy B-day, Wayne!

(There is another entry below, so go read if you haven't already. Oh, and there's one from yesterday, too.)

Today is my step-father's birthday. He would be 71 if he were still alive. Happy birthday Wayne! I love you and miss you every day.

Ramble, Ramble, Rambling

It's 10:00 a.m., I've been at work for two hours, and I feel like I'm just now waking up. I got to sleep plenty early enough last night, so I don't know what my problem is, but man - I could have slept at least another hour this morning. Also, I was having some weird, frustrating dream this morning, too. I'll spare you the details, because other people's dreams are never interesting, but I'll just say that it made me wake up very frustrated and grumpy. Sigh. I'm just not a morning person.

So, I feel like I've been ignoring this blog too much lately, so I'm going to attempt to update more regularly - I'm not promising everyday, but I'm shooting for at least three weekdays out of five. I figure I either need to start updating more often or I need to stop writing in here at all, and I don't want to do the latter, so I need to do the former. If that wasn't too convoluted of a sentence.

All right, so that being said, what's going on in my life to write about? Well, J got us tickets to go see George Thorogood in concert this summer, which should be really fun. I have only been to a few concerts in my life - ZZ Top when I was in high school, Billy Joel/Elton John at the Dome a few years ago and Cyndi Lauper with Jamie a year and a half ago. J is a big music afficionado, so I have a feeling that number is going to rise dramatically now that he's in my life. Which I'm happy about. We like the same music, for the most part, so whatever he picks I'll enjoy seeing.

We had someone come out to look at the porch/roof last weekend, and he's supposed to be calling us with a quote for fixing it up, but he hasn't yet, which kind of scares me. Well, the idea of how much it's going to cost scares me anyway, but it especially does when it takes him this long to get us a quote. Just how large is that number? Eek.

You know that I read legacy stories online (Sims 2 stuff, for those not in the know). Well, I've decided to start writing one of my own, so my Sims obsession is back in full force. Not that it ever really went away, but it's focused more closely on one family now. I'm playing them through to a point where I can write the first chapter and get it online. Man, I hope people read it. I'm okay with only having a handful of people read this blog - I know I'm never going to become the next famous blogger - but I really want people to read and like the legacy stories I write. I think the difference is that it's more of a creative type of writing, whereas here it's all just what's on my mind or what's happening in my life. The creative stuff makes me feel more vulnerable. I'll post the link here once I get the story up, for any of you who might be interested. I know at least a couple of you play the Sims, so maybe one or two of you will read. :)

J brought his kerosene heater to my house the other day, and yesterday it was cold enough that I turned it on when I got home, and I love it! It was 51 degrees in my house when I got home (I ran out of fuel oil a couple weeks ago), and by the time I went to bed, it was 62 or so. Love! It felt so nice to sit in my house and not be freezing. Oh kerosene heater, where have you been all my life?

This is Sarah's last week at her job here where I work. :( I'm very sad to be losing her, even though I'm happy that she's gotten a job that utilizes at least a few of her mad computer skills. We're having cake for her today, which is fun, but I'm going to be sad when she leaves. Work just won't be as fun anymore.

Anyway, I guess that's all I have for today. Check back often for those more recent updates, won't you? Thanks!

Obsessions

From Bitchypoo:

List five things you are obsessed with, then tag five people to do the same.

1. J. :)

2. The Sims 2. Seriously, it's on my mind all the freaking time.

3. Reading legacy stories online, mostly ones found through boolprop. Great fun.

4. How much it's going to cost to do the roof/porch.

5. How long it's going to take me to pay off the bills that have sprung up in the last couple of months - taxes and labwork. Also, how and when I'm going to squeeze out enough to take Bernie to the vet to get his shots, so that I can renew his (overdue) license.

I'm not tagging anyone else, but if you read this and want to do it, go for it. I'd love to see your answers. (Robyn also did a survey type thing that I'm thinking about doing on here, but it's so long! I'll think about it.)

And, because she's cute and you need to see her picture, here is my newest shot of Willow. :) Who, by the way, is on my LAST nerve lately. She will NOT stop growling at Rosebud, and I can't take much more of it. She needs her growler removed. The funny thing is, she's completely accepted McDuff now, because he is afraid of her. But Rosebud gives the attitude right back to her, so they hate each other. Sigh. Stupid dogs. It's a good thing they're so cute.