ɯoɔ˙ɹǝƃƃolquǝʞoʇ

I’ve not felt much like blogging lately.  I can come up with excuses, besides just feeling plain lazy, but we all know I’ve got much better ones than that.

I think about blogging, I’m just not blogging.

I think more about my book projects.  And I prepare more for them.

I think about my son coming home and hope we all get along 99% of the time and that 1% when we are not, that it is not devastatingly not.  I do want him here and in college, but he has to have a job to make his car payment (which we can’t afford to do for him) and have pocket money.  And he has to take his dog out and for walks properly.  We’ll house him and feed him, but he has to take care of those things on his own or this will not work at all.  He’s 24, not 7.

Emma was sick the past two days.  At first I just thought it was gas, but soon realized it was a pancreas attack.  And sooner realized it was my fault. 

To make certain Emma knew her place is first over the Minniekins I feed her first.  Easy enough, heh?  But then I’ve also been giving her the first and last bites of what I’m eating.  Minniekins gets smaller bites and that one or two less than Emma.  They’re both so in my face about getting their share, so that added up to the in-between-bites, too. The problem with this is that Emma has been getting too much of a bad thing for her.   It made her sick and I did it to her.  Dammit.

So now they’ll both have to do without from me.  It’s best.  For them, me, and especially my EmmaPuppyWhippetDog.

The Minniekins has made her way through all the cloth squeakit toys.  I’ve got little clouds of fluff all about the house to take care of today.  We’ll not be getting anymore cloth toys until it appears she has outgrown this fierce need to gut them.

Kongs to the rescue (for now)!

And then sometimes I think I wish I had the other surgery instead.  I’d prolly have lost all the excess weight by now.  I know I’m doing it the healthier way having chosen the band.  I know I’ll never have issues with malabsorption, etc.  It’s just I’m working so hard to be of a normal weight, and it is going so slowly, and I get envious.  Ah ha ha.  Bariatric Envy.

I tell myself I’ve come very far with the weight lost and the much smaller sizes in clothes, but then I see myself in the mirror.  I’m still a bit startled to see my fat self in the mirror.  I just don’t picture myself as fat (regarding my appearence) in my head.  And with my working out so regularly, I feel so strong and think that I move about with such ease.  I feel like I expect pholks of a normal weight feel — lean and strong.  And then I see my reflection in a mirror or a door glass.

*sigh*

I am riding my bike to work tomorrow — unless it’s raining. 

Minnie is a lapdog for the most part.  I’ve never had a lapdog, nor have I ever had a dog this small.  It’s like having a perpetual puppy in some ways.  Which is kinda good and kinda bad.  The bad part being that Minnie wants to be held or carried about — unless Minnie is doing something she wants to do.  I think I’ve solved the "hold me while you’re at the computer desk."

Yup.  Minnie now has a bed ON THE COMPUTER DESK.

*Sigh.*

Beside the additions of Minnie and Harold to our home other stuff has been happening, too:

• Our Darling Son is returning home once again.  This time we have time to prepare the house and his room in advance.  The office will be moving to the front entry room.  It’s a smaller space, but should work out okay.  E is going to store our front entry room furniture up on her attic for us (Thanks, E!).  Darling Son should be back in residence by August.  And he is starting college (finally).  He is dead set on becoming a Pharmacist.

• So we’ll not be persuing adoption anytime soon.  Our little house in the ‘hood doesn’t have enough extra rooms yet.

• I finally finished my Dallas vacation letter to my Dad.  So here it is for you, if you’re interested…

• Dissertation Lady’s son had his first Tee Ball game and we attended.  I love watching these little ones (three and four year olds) play ball.  When the ball is hit all of them run to get it.  None seem to have any fear of being hit by same ball.  And some of them, once they hit the ball off the tee, want to run to third base instead of first.

• Dissertation Lady and I had lunch at, you guessed it, Alfalfa’s.  The following weekend Hubby and I  assisted Dissertation Lady in the production of data via her reseach experiment study.  Which was even kinda fun.  Yeah, we’ll be calling her "DOC" soon.

• I made a die to be cast for the Community Metal Pour at LASC.  The pour is actually on May 17th, so if you wanna (and you should) come by!

• I lost another pound and a half!  Because every little bit does count.

• Minnie and I went to the Bluegrass Animal Welfare League’s Pet Jamboree, but only because the group I adopted Minnie from was going to have a booth — and I won a haircut from Macy’s!

• Hubby and I went to the LASC Live Reptile Night because they advertised there was going to be a 60 lb tortoise.  And there was — click on Spud’s picture to see his video!

Well, I guess this post gets us all caught up for now.

Yesterday at work I’m sitting at my computer and I start getting this odd glare.  I can’t figure out where it’s coming from, and it keeps getting in the way of what I’m trying to see.

And finally it hits me.  It’s not glare.  It’s something in my eyes.  I’m seeing these weird feathering bevels in front of everything.  I try blinking and rubbing my eyes, but I can’t get rid of them.  And then they get larger and become more like prisms with little rainbows and evruh thang.

So I begin to panic. 

See, back in the early nineties I was told (by my then optometrist) that I have the early signs of macular degeneration and that I will probably be legally blind in 20 years. 

So whenever something weird happens with my eyesight I think this is it.

I get an instant message from my hubby and I message him back what is happening to me and he messages for me to come to the clinic.   Lucky for me my hubby is the IT person in the department of ophthalmology and he can get me in just like that.

A workmate drives me to the clinic and hubby gets me in to see Dr. C.  Immediately she tells me that because the images are appearing in both eyes that it is not a sight problem and is most likely going to become a migraine.

I’ve never seen these images before a migraine.  I usually just have little flares of light, kinda like a lighter flame or a sparkler, and a migraine would come on anytime in the next 24 hours.

Because it’s me, Dr. C goes ahead with a full workup and of course can find nothing organically wrong.  She tells me they’ll prolly disappear in the next hour or so and to take something for the upcoming migraine now!

Hubby and I are walking across one of the pedways and then into an elevator when the nausea hits me and by the time we make arrive at our car in the parking garage I am in misery.

Remnants of the migraine are still with me this morning, but it’s back to work I go.  I have much to do and can’t be hanging out at home — no matter how much this little dog would rather I did:

She worked steadily at this toy until she got the squeaker out.  She’s working her way through all the cloth squeaker toys this way.  We purchased some rubber squeak toys for her, but she has little interest in them yet because she is A DOG ON A MISSION!

We adopted her on Saturday via the Bluegrass Shih Tzu Resuce.  I know, she doesn’t look anything like a Shih Tzu! 

Anyway…

She is 4 years old and considered to be half Jack Russell and half Italian Greyhound.  Initially the group thought she might be half whippet, but her small size (barely 11 lbs) seems to sway more towards the Italian.

Either way, Minnie has been blessd in personality and temperment with the best of both breeds.  She is just an awesome little dog!

Emphasis on little.
 

See da moobie here!

From SpaceWeather.com

MOONDUST AND DUCT TAPE: Going to the Moon? Don’t forget your duct tape. Thirty-six years ago when Apollo 17 astronauts found themselves a quarter million miles from home with a damaged moonbuggy, a roll of "good old fashioned American gray tape" saved the day: full story.

This is Harold, the newest addition to our home.  He was a birthday gift (from me) to my Darling Husband.  Hubby was very surprised and tickled to receive him.

We let him roam about the living room while we prepared his habitat.  He seems to feel very safe in his new home and was not shy at all.

Okay, maybe he was a little shy when Emma and Sophie checked him out.  Emma was a bit startled and would jump when he’d suddenly poke out his head at her.  Sophie sat and watched him sit and do nothing.  Then he walked away from her.   She and Emma followed.  Later, after we’d put him back into his habitat, Sophie just sat and watched his habitat. 

I think she’s confused.

This is Harold in the living room and this is Harold in his habitat.  I filmed him while we had him outstide for a bit, but I seem to have deleted that clip.  *sigh*

This his Harold in his habitat this morning.  Emma’s not so chicken when he’s in the box…

You can read some stuff about Hingeback Harold here and here.

Federal:  Owe $355.00

State:  Refund $400.00

Somehow it just manages to pretty much balance out like that every year. 

Now Turbo Tax did alert us that we should be getting a $1200 rebate check — which will prolly make us owe both next year.

Update: A few minutes after posting this my Hubby asks if should I be posting our tax stuff on the internet. 

And I’m all, "Oh, yeah.  I’m really putting it out there.  People are really gonna hone in on our after tax wealth."

"But it’s a $100.00!"

"No, it’s not, it’s only $45.00; and possibly getting a rebate check only proves how WE DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY."

So he looks again and says, "Yeah, it is only $45 — but that’s a tank of gas!"

"Shit, now I have to update that post," and I log back in.

A few weeks ago Bambi, her pen/house and lead were gone from my neighbor’s back yard.  Turns out her brother actually owned the dog and he got his own place so Bambi went with him.

I don’t miss miss her at all.  In fact her being gone means I now have no fear when I go over to visit these fellas in their pens and give ‘em some cookies!

They eat them much faster than Emma and they are actually very more polite, too.  They never nip my fingers.

In their pens they’re just a couple of babies.  Out (when the owner is with them) they’re kinda shy till you show ‘em the cookies, then they become your very best friend — "and don’t you have any more?  Did you check your other pocket?  Are you sure???  Don’t leave yet!  Keep petting me!  No, me!  ME!"

Yelled my hubby while playing super mario on his nintendo ds.

Woot!

A workmate no longer had room or use for this very comfy patio set:

.

And out here I sit, blogging.

My hubby was out here initially and had him a nice cold beer on the deck, but now I’m alone with that banana and a bloody mary in that better than cheapo (free!) plastic cup.

We moved into our very urban area neighborhood three years ago the end of this month and (with much thanks to my workmate) finally we are able to enjoy our deck and expand our living space.  Yesterday we purchased one of those kiddie gates to keep the whippet up on the deck with us (as we’ve not fenced in our yard either).  She and Sophie seemed content to have me on the deck with them, you know, outside! 

It’s just so lovely outside today.  I can see me working on my writing projects out here.  I can see many morning coffees.  Many after work wind downs.  Soon mosquito season will arrive and I will be drenched in skin-so-soft for the duration.

 I heart this laptop and our wireless router!

Now we’ll also have a nice place to rest during our breaks from building a carport, painting the exterior of our house, and hopefully getting a start on fencing in the back yard.

All projects we have planned for this summer — as long as this tree holds on to the ground for another year.  It’s gonna have to come down.  Please, please wait one more summer for us, please.