Ready for mid April

Dale and I went to the VCU game two Sundays ago and watched them lose to ODU in OT. It was hard to watch them lose as I'm really not used to watching them lose. We had a good time though. We upgraded our seats again and sat in the lower bowl by the pep band again. /basketball season
Work has picked up due to the nice weather, people going outside to do yard work and then call to complain about their lawn/shrubs or wonder why we haven't been out since we normally come out in February. Apparently people don't remember the foot of snow on the ground in February and must think that they are the only customer that we have. Plus we're under-staffed and can't keep appointments. And my hours changed again to 10-7. Come on mid-April! /rant

Last week I started getting a sinus infection (due to the nice weather mentioned above). I decided to try a neti pot for the first time. As gross as it is, it worked. My sinus infection/pressure was lessened and it never moved into my chest, so I didn't have a week's worth of coughing like I did last time. So by Thursday of this week, I could taste my food again and breathe without constantly blowing my nose. /nasty

Last weekend since I was sick we didn't do much of anything. I even asked B to accompany me for grocery shopping. He did and we got home in time to watch the Blackhawks/Caps game on NBC. Since there was no NASCAR, I fell asleep watching hockey with the Caps in a 3 point deficit and woke up in OT and a minute later the Caps won the game. /Nap Time PerfectionThis weekend we dropped off B's truck at the new Firestone near my house for a state inspection. The Durango needed 3 new tires and new wiper blades. We bought 4 tires and the blades and almost $700 later we picked up the truck. There went the rest of B's OT money. And I'm pretty sure that we're going to end up owing both the feds and state taxes. *sigh* /money woes.

I'm almost done with the hallway wall. The damn wall that I've been fighting since August 09. This morning it looked like this:

This evening it looks like this:

I am SO very excited about this. At first the contact paper had us stumped. Then we thought we had its number, but it showed us. Then my cousin came over and gave a suggestion that worked quite well and even let us borrow his power sander to make it happen. Tomorrow night that wall will finally match the kitchen and the rest of the hallway. /giddiness
5.5 months until Buffett! Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

The week plus some

Dale and I went to the CAA basketball tournament today. We watched ODU crush Towson and then watched VCU vs GMU. VCU won! Good times. We upgraded our seats for the 2nd half for the VCU game. The lady behind us for the 1st half was so negative. I think she was for VCU, but I couldn't tell from the way she was bad-mouthing everyone. It must be horrible to watch a game like that. We moved and sat in a VCU section downstairs where even when one of the guys fouled out of the game the girls behind me were "It's ok we still love you". THAT's the type of fan I am too...I felt more at home downstairs. We were closer to the Pep Band too, which is always nice :-) After the game I met my hubby, Mom and K at Grandpa Eddie's for dinner. It better than Brock's or Sibley's IMHO. I got the brisket which was good, but I didn't care for their BBQ sauce. Their peanut butter pie was really yummy though.
This past Wednesday the Region VP, Division Commercial Mgr and Division VP came to visit work. That went well to the best of my knowledge. The DVP is a really nice personable guy and wouldn't mind seeing him again. I didn't really talk to the DCM and we see the RVP on a semi-regular basis already. The branch is about 90% rebranded due to the DVP visit. The customer calls will start heading to the call center in Mid April (silent Hooray!) and we'll be getting the hand held devices for the specialists within the month.
I went to DMV this morning to renew my baby truck's registration. I spent a total 15mins in DMV. That was awesome :) I get my old plates back. Hooray!! I can't stand my current plates because I misspelled something (backwards) so I took my old plates with me and they let me keep those and I'll be getting my new sparkley (correctly spelled) plates within the month. In related news, on the way to the VCU game there was a checkpoint on Hopkins Rd. That was not even 3 hours after being at DMV. So. Happy.
6 months to Buffett! Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

Just a week

This week was just a week. Nothing real special. Monday-Friday I worked. On Friday they changed the desks around in the office, so now I sit in the back corner of the room behind Crystal. I also was told that I will be doing more dispatcher responsibilities and my hours will change to 8am-5pm. Normal hours! Whoohoo! We also found out that Sharon's not coming back to work. This was her decision, not my company's. She has a daughter that is very sick with cancer and a bacterial infection. She's bedridden, any visitors must suit up in order to visit due to the bacterial infection and has lost so much weight that the only weighs 80lbs. Sharon just can't leave her right now and sacrificed her job. Any thoughts, prayers or vibes that you can send to Sharon, her daughter and family is greatly appreciated.
Friday night, Crystal and I went to the FunnyBone and saw Gary Owen. He was alright. Definitely not the worse I've seen, but not the best either.
Saturday, I went to my brother and sister-in-law's house to help train their dog. He's a lab/pitbull mix and weighs about 60lbs (twice as much as my Lilly) and is a cutie. He's pretty smart and caught on to what we wanted him to do and was even taking voice commands by the end of the session. After that I went and picked up Crystal and we headed to Norfolk. The Lindt store is going out of business and is selling chocolate from 30-70% off. We each bought about $30 worth of chocolate that easily would have been worth $80-90. We walked around the mall, shopped and window shopped. We ate at California Pizza Kitchen (her first time) and we split the best dessert that I've had a while, White chocolate strawberry cheesecake. Yum! I drove back and we sang songs from my iPod the whole way home. Good day.
Today I ran some errands and then went to my mom's house to set up her two computers to her new wireless printer. That only took 2 hours...one hour per computer. So much fun, but at least I was able to get-er-done :) Now, it's Chinese delivery for dinner and watching the NFC Championship game. (Go Saints!) Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

What a weekend!

Well, I didn't get done everything I wanted to do and lots of stuff I hadn't planned on doing. I did get to Ace, Home Depot and WalMart on Saturday morning, but didn't get home until 12noon. I needed to switch out our satellite receiver. I did that but it's no good either, so I'm still DVR-less. *sigh* The only thing I got done in the hallway was taping the doors, doorbell and a/c register.
There was no branch meeting on Friday. It's been rescheduled, but no one knows when. I got a call on Saturday morning that told me that my hours are being changed to 9-6 starting Tuesday. The sales crew is the reason I work so late and management changed their hours, so that means my hours change too. Hooray! I'm working "normal hours" again. Hopefully, this will last for the rest of the year. I'm only working 3 days this week. I took off Thursday/Friday because Thursday is B's and mine 4 year anniversary and sometimes we'll go do things around that date and want to make sure that's possible. But, this year I'm just off to head to take Lilly for her yearly shots/checkup and do my painting that I didn't get done this weekend.
We went to Norfolk for some hockey last night. It was good to see live hockey even if I didn't care about the teams either way. I did notice that Manchester had a guy named Hickey on their team, so that who I started to root for and of course they lost. We'll be going again in December for my birthday with again I team I don't care about, but then in January we'll go and see a team where I can root against Norfolk (as usual).
Today, Crystal came over and we cleared out the flower beds of dead/dying plants & ground cover. Byron replaced the rusted out mailbox and B & I replaced the doorbell button and cleaned out a closet that needed it and took most of that to the dump. We're finally doing stuff with the house that should have been taken care of when we moved in 4 years ago.
Only 20 days to my Outer Banks vacation :)
Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

Zombies!!!

We went to see Zombieland today. It was pretty funny. I'm not one for horror movies at ALL, but I did enjoy Shaun of the Dead and read a review last night that said it was very much the same type of movie. I will not spoil the best cameo in a movie in a long time, but it was awesome.
After the movie we went to TGIFridays because I was one of Woody's first 500,000 fans and got a coupon for a free Jack Daniel's burger. I'm not a big JD fan, so I gave that to Byron and I had something else. For the second weekend in a row, B did not like the burger he ordered. I feel like I'm on the quest for burger that B will enjoy. I guess we'll have to go to Five Guys next weekend. They never disappoint.
We also discovered that when flooring was bought for the kitchen that not enough was bought. I don't know if we gave the chick at Home Depot the wrong measurements, they were right and she figured them wrong or we got less boxes than recommended or a combination of any of the above, but we're about 5 boxes short. So now more flooring has to be bought. First, we need to paint the ceiling, prime and paint the hallway and paint one piece in the kitchen and the outlet/switchplates. Then we can lay the flooring. I'm hoping to be done by the second weekend in November.
Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

Movie and lunch

Two posts in two days! I might try for NaBloPoMo in November.
We went and saw The Informant! yesterday. That was interesting, kinda slow but amusing as well. LOTS of stand-up comedians: Paul F. Thompkins, Tom F Wilson, Allan Havey, Joel McHale, Tom Papa, Bob Zany, Patton Oswalt, Tom AND Dick Smothers (!) to name a few. Some you may know by name, most you'd know if you watch a lot of Comedy Central and HBO One Night Stands like me.
After the movie we went across the street to Spinnakers Restaurant for lunch. That was okay. Byron was disappointed with his cheeseburger, but the club wrap that I was good. We had their Caribbean Cream Pie for dessert and I'm going to try and remake that for dessert sometime next week. Graham cracker crust, vanilla pudding, bananas and pineapple topped with toasted coconut and walnuts. I'm going to substitute macadamia nuts for walnuts when I make it. Yum!
After that we went to Michael's, but their Christmas stuff was lacking...too early yet. But I was just getting ideas for kids activities for the Open House. We went to Barnes & Noble and picked up the first book in the series that inspired the show on FOX, Bones. Byron's reading that while I finish the recent Sookie Stackhouse book. After that we went to Game Stop and I got Batman Lego for the Wii. That's a pretty fun game. We have the Star Wars Lego for Gamecube (for the Wii), but I enjoy playing Batman more.
Today is sports day in the house. Football and NASCAR...and naps :) I'm off to enjoy my last day of my 4 days of freedom. Tomorrow's back to work...blah! Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

Good Bye June. Hello July.

I check some blogs every day or so (others, not as often), hoping to see a glimpse into what's going on my friend's, relatives or complete stranger's lives. Yet, I barely update my own. Like my friend, Carolyn said this past week on her blog, "I guess I love reading about everyone else's lives but I am less likely to share mine."
In June, we had a co-worker quit in a pretty irresponsible way. She called out on a Friday and didn't bother to show up on Monday, but had her girlfriend call in and say that she wasn't coming back to work. She had told Crystal that she had gotten another job. What a shitty way to quit a job! So, since she was the night-time CSR, that left us with no one to answer the phones at night. Enter me. I'm now working 11am-8pm. It totally sucks, but I'm trying to stay grateful that I even have a job.
I got back in touch with an old best friend from High School (and beyond) last month. She contacted me via Facebook. We mended our past and are speaking to each other again. And eventually our schedules with align and we'll be able to go out and do something together and catch up things.
June means my stepmom's birthday and Father's Day. We had my stepmom and Dad over to the house for both occasions and fixed lunch both times. Both times, they enjoyed food and some T.V. before heading back home. Having company over keeps my house clean and I've been trying to keep it that way. So far, so good.
B and I had a "stay-at-home and watch movies most of the weekend" in June. We watched Tropic Thunder, Pineapple Express, Run Fat Boy Run and Bully. PE and Bully were the worst two movies of the weekend. TT and RFBR were the best of the group.
On the amount of recent Hollywood deaths: Enough Already! I've officially heard enough about MJ and I haven't heard that much at all about it. I was really sad when I heard Billy Mays passed. I recently had begun to watch Pitchmen on Discovery and gotten to know the man and even some of his family. His son worked for/with him helping with commercials and they showed his current wife and little girl in a recent episode. He was certainly more than just some sleazy salesmen.
This weekend is Independence Weekend. B and I had off on Friday and boy was Friday busy for me. I got up early because Ukrop's was having a sale and I wanted to beat the stupid people there. I boiled 13 eggs before I left for my Dad's potlock dinner that night. I got to Ukrop's around 9am and there were no carts to be found! Luckily, I wasn't going to do my weekly shopping and was able to use one of their half-carts. I did $40 of shopping and only spent $14. With that $14 we got bread (2), soda (5), cheese (3), hot dogs (2), beans (4) and ice cream sandwiches (2). B's mom went also and got us soda (6). I think we're set on Pepsi products for a while. I went home and dropped off that load and went to WalMart for grocery shopping and to get some clothes for my nephew's 1st birthday. Came back and unloaded those and left to see My Sister's Keeper with Crystal. Nothing like a good cry to release some stress. I came back to fix the eggs, but had forgotten to put them in the fridge and they all went bad. I had to boil another 13 eggs. Luckily it was still a few hours before Dad's potluck and they had plenty of time to chill after making them into deviled eggs...or divine eggs as they were called that night. The potluck went well. Lots of good food and laughter.
Saturday, I cleaned up around the kitchen a little and cleaned Madison's box. Then we went to my nephew's 1st birthday party. My brother and SIL did a nice job. It was jungle themed party. They had a kiddie pool shaped like a gator, a sprinkler shaped like an elephant and a giraffe who's neck made a semi-circle for the kids to walk/crawl under to get wet and they had an inflatable monkey and parrot in the trees as decorations. I have pictures, but haven't downloaded them to the computer because my dad has my camera bag which has my USB cable. We had to leave the party early to go feed the girls before heading to B's mom's house for dinner. After spending some time with her and gathering up the sodas and other stuff she bought us we headed home. My mom and K were coming over to watch the Chesterfield County fireworks from our back deck. We made space on the back porch for everyone to sit and watch. And I just want to say that I have the most amazing dog. She sat in B's lap and watched the fireworks with her ears perked. She only barked once and that while we were inside and everyone was moving outside because he had heard the first boom. The other dogs around us were barking up a storm and Lilly was the perfect lady. The fireworks were pretty even though we could barely see some of them because our trees have grown over the past two years. All and all a very busy two days. Now I'm off to start my more peaceful Sunday. Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

Weekend Update

New Year's Day I went to Dad's house for dinner and watch football. Friday at work the computers were brought down for the year end process at noon and that takes 6-8 hours. I was supposed to be there until 6pm, but my boss let me leaves at 5:30. We watched the movie "Be Kind Rewind". I wasn't impressed, which is sad cause I like Jack Black. Oh well. Saturday we didn't get up until after 10am and decided on Moe's for lunch. After Moe's we went to Target to use my gift card. I need a new purse probably about a year ago, but a couple a months ago the shoulder strap broke and couldn't be repaired. I found one that was on clearance that was still pretty small but would hold my meds, iPod, wallet and still have room. B found a 09 calendar in the "Dollar Spot" so I can be reminded of Lilly's heartworm meds. We then looked at the bed linens getting ideas for the guest bedroom when we put that together. It's gonna be my "purple room" as hubby calls it. We went to PetCo and bought the girls toys that we weren't able to buy during the Christmas season. We got home and took down Christmas decorations, had dinner and went to the Renegades game. I went to my season seat and there were people in my and hubby's seats as well as some surrounding. Had it just been two people I would have asked them to move myself, but there was eight of them. I had the security lady go down with my ticket and move them for me. Funny thing about that was I knew 3 of the people in the group as I went to high school with them. I was in JROTC with one of them. I'm pretty sure they didn't recognize me. I contacted the JROTC one via facebook and confirmed that he didn't recognize me right away. The game was good. By 12 seconds into the game there had been four fights. After that, they settled down and was up 2-0 halfway through the first. They ended up winning in a shootout. We came home and crashed. Sunday I got up and headed to WalMart and grocery shopped. I got there around 10am and it was a bit more crowded than last time and there was one crying kid. I had a gift card from my aunt, so I was able to buy a little less frugal than I have been and got some of those blue "hideous" reuseable bags. I'm tired of those damn plastic bags in my house and forgetting to take them back to be recycled. Hopefully I can remember to take them with me. I came home, had lunch and cleaned up the house a little...still a long way to go. We went to the afternoon hockey game...that was a really bad game. Everything about the team was off yesterday. They lost 7-3. We wouldn't have stayed till the end of the game if I hadn't been playing Monopoly on my iPod. We came home and watched TV the rest of the night. I start working 12noon-9pm today through at least the end of January. I'm missing my day hours already. Hopefully the night time girl will be brought back from layoff sooner than later and this won't go past January. Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

Catching up again

I did not want to go this long without blogging, but I just haven't felt like it recently. Since my last post I've gone to a Jimmy Buffett concert and a NASCAR race, B's had three jobs and we have a mouse in our house.
Jimmy Buffett concert:
The Buffett concert was at the Nissan Pavilion in Bristow, VA (no I'm not spelling Bristol wrong. Bristow is near Manassas, VA). We got up there around 12noon and it said that general parking didn't start until 2:30pm, but there was a line forming already, so we jumped in line. A little after noon they line started moving. I thought it was because traffic was already backing up, but as we got closer I realized that it was the V.I.P. parking and that costs $30. We didn't have the cash, so we turned around and drove back about 30 miles to a shopping center and had lunch and walked around Target until general (free) parking opened. I was not a happy camper about the VIP parking thing and it took lunch and most of the walking around Target to calm down. We got into the parking lot around 3pm and set up the pavilion and realized that our setup was rather meager. The people on one side of us had two pavilions, AstroTurf under their big long table, two blow up palm trees, a Parrothead parking sign and lots of food and alcohol. On the other side the set up wasn't as elaborate, just four chairs and their food on a table. Here's what was on our table:

The tailgaters with no decorations were very cool. We had several conversations and they shared their post-concert wings with us and we shared cookies with them. One of the ladies was my potty buddy as we braved the lines and the porta potties before dinner. I hadn't been in a porta potty in years and that was in VA Beach. These were actually cleaner. I'm sure they weren't that way after the concert though.
The concert was awesome. The set was great, the crowd was into it and Jimmy and the band rocked it...hard. The pictures from the concert are here.
NASCAR Race:
The race is usually held on Saturday nights, but Tropical Storm Hanna had other ideas and on Friday NASCAR postponed the race until Sunday 1pm. Because it was on a Sunday, my mom and stepdad were unable to go and we got their tickets. I tried to sell our seats, but no one wanted them...not even as a buy two get one free. We got to the track around 7:30am, parked about 5 rows back from the front and set up the pavilion and ate breakfast. I then climbed in the truck and dozed off for about an hour. B saw people walking around with what he thought was travel mugs and found out where they were getting them. We walked to the merchandise area and walk the wrong way at first (bad directions) and then backtracked and found where they were handing them out and got in line. We received what we found out were mini iced tea pitchers and went back to the truck. We sat around and people watched for a while, then it was lunch time and time to pack up to head into the race. We headed inside, up to the seats, watched driver intros, the invocation, said the Pledge of Allegiance and sang the National Anthem. The flyover was amazing as usual. They were some sort of stealth jets. Then it was racin' time. We stayed for the whole race. As we were walking back to the truck, a golf cart passes us and inside is Ryan Newman...my favorite driver! I just stood there and let the cart pass us as I became a blithering idiot. It took me a minute to gather my senses and we continued on to the truck. We got in the truck and braved traffic and got from RIR to 64E in about 30mins, which is almost amazing. Photos from NASCAR are here.
Rest of the post:
Since my last post B was released from the sales position, took a part time job in Ashland and then took a full time job in Glen Allen with a temp agency. Right now, he's still at the temp job and while it's not making much, we should be able to pay our bills. My job has become more stressful as it usually does this time of year. I'm scheduling anywhere to 2-3 days worth of work for two sets of crews (regular apps and aeration/seeding) along with some data entry and answering the phones.
We were cleaning the house for my mom and stepdad to come over on Saturday for dinner and I found mouse droppings on the kitchen counter. After taking a second to be totally grossed out, I called Byron to confirm my findings and we proceed to clean the counter off and check the cabinets for remains. We find nothing in the cabinets and no sign that it was getting into the boxes or bags of food. The dog food is in a plastic container to keep her out of it and that showed no signs of mouse entrance. Our friend is an exterminator and he's showed up while I was typing about the mouse. He's outside checking and will hopefully get rid of the damned thing.
Speaking of damned things...Madison's not using her box completely again. She'll use the box sometimes and use the bathroom floor or hallway carpet others. Very frustrating.
Our laptop's power source died on Sunday, so we were without the laptop for a few days. That wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. There was some new TV on Sunday and Monday and I worked late on Tuesday.
This week there was Twitter drama, but I'm not going into it because I'm over it. I did stay up late talking on the phone with someone from Twitter last night. I haven't done that in ages. It was a good conversation and helped me understand the drama a little better. I hope we're able to talk again.
Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

Clean Weekend

Well, last weekend I was to have gone to a Tweetup at Legend's, then that got switched to Triple and then it was figured out that we didn't have the money to go no matter where it was held. So instead we just had Crystal over for a spaghetti and meatball dinner and her and I played Lego Star Wars on the Wii for the rest of the night. Peach ice cream and strawberry margaritas were consumed and fun was had by all.
Sunday we went to the Carytown Watermelon Festival. What a hot mess that was! Years and years ago the last time I went there were plenty of people, but there was plenty of room to walk. Now they have the stands in the middle of the street and people stop to look at the items for sale and block the flow of traffic. We took Lilly and it was just too hot for her and too many people. We found out that she doesn't like watermelon. She took it in her mouth, but then spit it back. However she does love peaches.
Last week at work was mostly uneventful. They took away 98% of my internet. Pretty much the only sites I can use are Google Maps, weather.com and the website where we get our paycheck info. That made for a very boring Thursday and Friday. And will make for a very boring rest of my time there. I did have an interview with a company this week, but nothing will come of it. B's got two interviews this week, hopefully one of them will pan out...we will need the money. He didn't work at all this week.
We've been watching the Olympics most of the week. Phelps is amazing and I'm glad he was able to reach 8 gold medals. B's not that into the games and has been in the bedroom most of the weekend watching Smallville while I watch random games like badminton, water polo, weight lifting, table tennis and handball. What I really want to watch is beach volleyball, but what's on now is indoor volleyball.
Yesterday after not getting out of bed (other than to feed the furry ones) until almost 11am, we were eating breakfast when my mom called and wanted to borrow my truck and husband to move their old entertainment center to Goodwill. So after loading that into the back of the truck, we took her SUV to Petsmart and bought Lilly's anti-flea/tick/mosquito medicine and some styptic powder. We came home and I made some salsa for Sunday's dinner and then watched some Tv until we went back to Mom's for dinner and movie and more Olympics. We had steak, potatoes and corn on the cob and watched National Treasure 2. Dinner was good and the movie was ok, nice action but very Indiana Jones but not as cool. We came home and he watched more Smallville while I watched Phelps win gold #8, an interview with Phelps and then to bed at midnight.
I didn't get up until 8:30 this morning and by then poor Lilly's bladder was ready to explode and Madison thought she was going to waste away without breakfast. We sat around watching DVR'd TV for a while and watched some water polo. Lilly really needed a bath, so I brushed her and washed her bedding while she got a shower. She did well this time and smells so much better. I normally take her to Petsmart grooming for a nail trim and ear clean afterward, but that's just not in the budget right now. Her ears were clean so I just put some drying gel in there in case some water got in there during her bath and then proceeded to clip her nails for the first time. She did really well and so did I since I didn't cut the quick. Here are the before and after pictures:
Before:

After:

She just laid in my lap and let me cut them. The back paws were a little tougher, but I didn't have to cut as much off of them. She even let me file all her nails smooth. And she's not mad at or scared of me...she's laying on the floor next to me, sleeping, as I type this. Well, I guess that's it for now.
14 days til Buffett Concert 08 and 21 days till Richmond NASCAR. Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

The Dark Peach

Hello all two of you that read this dribble :)
I got to see The Dark Knight :) If it were 20mins shorter, I would've given in 5* but I'll give it 4.5* still an awesome movie though. Heath Ledger was great, Bale was great, Eckhart and Oldman were great...overall best acting for an action movie in the longest time. After we saw TDK we went to Jersey Mike's for the first time in ages and split a giant sub because that's cheaper than buying two regular subs. I know we went home after that but I don't remember doing much. Sunday was another lazy day and I never got out of my pajamas.
This week was ok minus the passing of Jimmy. That obviously made me sad. The rest of the story is that he had stopped eating last weekend and mom noticed this and since he had become very listless as well she took him to the vet. His kidneys had already started to fail. His thyroid problem had speed up the shutdown process that's why he took a downturn so quickly. The vet said they could do things to prolong his life, but he'd eventually pass. Mom knows that giving Jimmy medicine would have been impossible because he'd just go and hide under the bed and never come out again, also his quality of life just wouldn't be the same. So she made that hard decision to have him euthanized. I did well, I just typed everything up without crying. One more story...after I had thought I was done crying and putting up memorials at different sites I cut on Radio Margaritaville through Dish Network and the saddest freaking Jimmy Buffett song was playing (He Went to Paris). So, I wasn't done crying at that point especially the part of the song that goes:
If he likes you he'll smile then he'll say
Jimmy, some of it's magic, some of it's tragic
But I had a good life all the way.
(Great I've teared up again...moving on)
Work has been work. However Byron's work has not. He's temping through an agency and working at Capital One in collections, recovery, hardship and now debt management. The most recent problem was that they have been sending him home early because there isn't enough work. Now, I guess I can be a bit grateful (and still hate CapOne) because Thursday and Friday was the last day for a lot of the people that had stayed in collections after B moved on hardship. They kept 4 people from his group and B and his friend Will made the cut. They're moving them to debt management to try and get them more hours. The better news is that B has a job interview with Va Blood Svcs for an inventory position. No, he wouldn't be counting blood. Think more like needles, bags and things of the like. It involves some traveling to Charlottesville and Harrisonburg, but we'll know more details on Tuesday.
Speaking of Charlottesville, B, Lilly, another couple and I headed to Carter Mountain in C-ville yesterday for some peach and nectarine picking. We all had a good time picking the fruit and then sat down behind the store building for a picnic lunch overlooking the city of C-ville. The pics for that trip are on my Flickr site.
The last night we went to Dad's house for dinner. That was good. We came home and watched the 1953 animated Peter Pan on ABC and some other TV before going to bed. Today we're going to Texas Roadhouse with B's mom, my mom and stepdad for B's bday lunch. His bday's thursday and I have yet to get him anything...I'm bad. I guess I'll be doing that this week during a lunch break. Well, Lilly's clicking around the kitchen and needs to go out, so until next time keep your stick on the ice.

Blogging about blogging

I feel I've been neglecting my regular blog. It's been over a month since my last post. We've done some stuff, but nothing too adventurous.
I've been on Twitter for a while now and that's where a lot of my "what I'm doing" has been going since it's instant. I've got quite a collection of RVA people as followers and some of us have been meeting up ("Tweetups") at various locations around town. Mainly they've been Starbucks in Short Pump or Stony Point.
Most recently a couple of us met up at The Wetlands (down from the pony pasture) on Sunday and let the dogs romp. Pics and video of Lilly and her Twitter buddy, Hussi can be seen here.
I had to give Lilly a bath after her romp in the mud with Hussi. I realized that I didn't have any pics of her post-bath yet pre-dry. I had to take some and this is my favorite pic of Lilly I've ever taken so far:

The weekend before was the 4th of July weekend. B ended up with a three day weekend. My newest nephew was born on July 3rd. Mike and Shannon had their second child (first boy), Joshua Wayne. He was 8lbs 5oz and was 20 1/4in long. Here's a cute pic:

The rest of the set from our July 4th visit with Joshua and Shannon are here.
Friday night we went to his mom's house, ate dinner, watched it rain out there and see on the news where our house is getting pummeled. Mom texts me that she has no power. I call my house and get the answering machine therefore I have power :) About 6:30pm Channel 12 announces that Chesterfield will not be having their fireworks. I was not a happy camper. I can see those fireworks from my back porch. I had to make ice cream for dessert for mom's get together so I couldn't head out to watch them anywhere else. I didn't see any live fireworks this year :( I even forgot to watch the Macy's fireworks on TV. Saturday we went to mom's house and had dinner and watched 3:10 to Yuma and watched the end of the NASCAR race. Christian Bale is one good looking man. I've loved him ever since American Psycho and he plays the newest reboot of Batman. Speaking of, today I bought our tickets to the Sat 9:30AM showing of The Dark Knight. I'm a Batman geek at heart. I may not know everything about the comic series, but there's something about Batman that sucks me in and doesn't let go. Sunday we did a bunch of nothing...I don't remember leaving the house.
The last weekend of June is fuzzy. We went to see The Incredible Hulk on Saturday morning and Commonwealth 20's power was out, so we went to Petsmart and bought dog food and then went to Home Depot to price a new mailbox stand. Ever since B and K took down the holly bushes you can really see how icky our mailbox and stand are. We have a new mailbox as we got one as a gift from my mom...almost 3 years ago. Then we went to Vinny's on Hull St for lunch. They have some of the best pizza from a small chain in the area. I know we went home after that, but don't remember what we did for the rest of the day. Sunday, we actually did manage to go and watch The Incredible Hulk. That was OK, but not as good as Iron Man. We went to Home Depot again after the movie and bought a plumbing snake and some screws so B could secure the flagpole holder to the house again. After that I don't think we did much of anything.
OK I think that's it for a while...hopefully not too long though. If you decide to try Twitter, my username is WyldGade. Until next time, keep your stick on the ice.

Double Weekend Update

Well, we couldn't go to Woofstock as planned. Money just didn't allow it. I did take Lilly to go get her microchip however. That was easy and almost painless for her. We waited around for some Twitter friends and when the got there Lilly and Shasta had a good time playing together. We came home and did nothing the rest of the day.
Last week at work was ok. I'm not complaining since it's a paycheck and that's more than some people have.
This past weekend, I gave Lilly a bath and went grocery shopping while B and K removed the holly bushes that lined our driveway. Since K's chainsaw ran out of battery power during this process, we have three sets of stumps sticking out of the bed. I'm still getting used to being able to see the road when I look in my rear view mirror as I leave the driveway. After they were done, B took a shower and I took Lilly to Petsmart to get her nails trimmed and ears cleaned. We came back and watched TV until it was time to go to my Dad and D's house from D's bday dinner. Dinner was good, I came hungry since the only thing I had eaten all day was a sub sandwich and 5-6 Pringles. We came home and B watched a Netflixed TV series and I watched Hellboy to remember what happened before going to see the 2nd one next month. Sunday while B worked I did a bunch of nothing until the afternoon. I made a strawberry cheesecake for him to take to work tomorrow and started dinner prep. B came home pleased to find that the cheesecake was completed and finished dinner. We sat around and watched TV for the rest of the night including the season premiere of "Ice Road Truckers" on the History Channel. I wish they wouldn't dumb down that show so much, but it's still fun to watch.
Tonight after dinner I did some searching for dog friendly beaches. I found one in a state park that used to be called Seashore SP and is now First Landing SP. We'll probably go there sometime this summer. I did find the most disturbing ending of a sentence I had heard in a long time. It comes from the Cape Hatteras National Seapark's website: "Pets running at large will be apprehended and returned to their owner, if known and located, or deliv­ered to the local animal shelter for disposal in accordance with local proce­dures." Since there is no "no-kill" shelter in OBX, we all know what that means :( Lilly will be on leash/harness at all times in the outdoors while we're in OBX in November. I guess that the microchip comes in handy here as well if she did get away from us.
I'm grateful that our A/C broke a month ago and not now in the middle of this ungodly June heatwave. 100+ heat is no fun. It's like Richmond was moved to the surface of the sun. Oh and my truck's A/C isn't working again. I had it fixed last year and had A/C for the first time in 3-4 years and now it's broke. Nothing like sweating on the way to and from work. Bleck. Well, until next time keep your stick on the ice.