Vacation and this week in review

We got back from vacation on the 20th very early in the morning. We had a blast in Sacramento visiting with family and friends. The only things that I didn't like about vacation was the flights, not being able to breathe, and the fact that it went way way to fast. I will post some pictures from vacation in a day or two.

My right big toe after 2 months of being very sore and very pissed off is now slowly on the mend. Sunday after we came home and slept then woke up and after searching for a new dinning room table since ours broke the night before we left, I went to the doctor to see what was up with my toe. Two months ago I ripped off part of the nail after trying to push the cat with my foot, he moved and my toe hit the TV stand and ripped off. Well after the doctor numbed my toe to the best of her ability, she wasn't able to numb it all the way cause the corner of my toe had a hole in it so the meds just shot right threw it, she proceeded to pull chunks of toenail out that were not connected to anything. They were just under the skin irritating it. she then told me to keep it covered with a band-aid and to take meds for it. It still hurts but not nearly as bad is it did before hand.

I have also finished all the classes that I was supposed to take. My last two were Monday and Tuesday right after we got back from our trip. Wednesday I had a meeting at DVR where we discussed what my next step was. I now am gearing up to work with another lady on a workplace assesment. This lady will help me right a resume and put me in a job to see how l like it and if I can handle it. So I am that much closer to getting a job. DVR is also going to pay for me to get the new Microsoft office suit so I can keep up with every thing that I have learned and not forget it or get rusty. SO that's nice.

Christmas was great Richard and I went to his parents place in the morning and my mom's house in the afternoon. We have decided that next year we will go to his parents place on Christmas Eve and mom's house on Christmas day cause doing to houses in one day takes a lot out of you. Brian also came over to hang out on christmas for a few hours.

thats what I have been up to this week. I will update more later.

3 DAYS LEFT!!!!!!!!!! WOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!

Snow and vacation

It's snowing! Been snowing all morning which is fine cause I love the snow but my mom on the other hand hates when it snows. Mostly cause she is the only one to shovel the snow at her house. So she doesn't want to drive anywhere till it stops snowing so she can shovel her driveway. I swear she is a perfectionist when it comes to shoveling the driveway, yeah I understand that it is easier to shovel the snow when no one has made tracks in it but I'm bored and home alone cause Richard had to work black Friday like he does every year. Oh well She said if it didn't stop by noon she would come get me. so I have an hour to kill.

Only 6 more days till I go on vacation, I am really looking forward to it. It will be my first real vacation since 2002. So it is long over due. Plus I will be going to warmer weather for 17 days so it will be a nice break from winter. We leave on the night of the 3rd morning of the 4th and come back home the night of the 19th morning of the 20th. Then I have my last two classes on the 21st &22nd, then on the 23rd I have a meeting at DVR to see where we go from here. So I will be busy when we get back to town. Poor Kramer prob won't like us not being here for 17 days then when we get back I go to all day class for the next 2 days, I guess we will see how he handles it. I think he will be really happy to see us when we come home then snub us the rest of the day then beg for my attention on the days that I will be gone to class.

Anyways off to go finish folding the laundry that I did on Monday and wait for noon to roll around. Hope you all had a great Turkey day yesterday.

Where oh where is my husband, oh yeah on deliveries

I love this picture of Richard sitting on the forklift. Our friend Marya took it this summer while he was helping her in outside lawn and garden.

He has been working a lot of hours at Lowe's these past 2 weeks which means a nice paycheck but not a lot of seeing him. They are short delivery drivers and he is the ONLY backup delivery driver they have so he keeps getting dragged away from his PSA job there at Lowe's to go and deliver appliances and stuff that customers order, so when he gets home he is exhausted and doesn't want to do anything but sleep. Which he can't do cause if he does it throws off his regular sleep schedule so we have to find ways to keep him awake. That all boils down to him playing video games, till it's time for bed.

On the bright side he finally got his yearly review and did really well with it. He now makes like 13.87 an hour so that nice. I keep telling myself his paycheck is going to be really good next week.

I swear Lowe's will fall apart with out him while we are on vacation. He does so much for that store, it's unreal. But he loves working there and I love him working there i just don't like when he works so much there that I hardly see him.

Christmas gifts for my Brother

Mario's hat ^

Luigi's Hat ^

Waluigi's Hat^

Wario's Hat


I thought it would be a cool idea to make the hats that Mario, Luigi, Waluigi and Wario wear out of modeling clay that you can bake in the oven to harden and give them to my brother for Christmas. they are of course the pictures above. I figured it was a good gift for him because he loves video games and no one else would have them because they are one of a kind. I ran my idea past both Richard and my mom and they both thougt it was great idea and that Josh would really like them.

Yesterday I went to Micheal's with my mom and we got the clay that I would need for each one of the hats. I decided that since Richard was playing video games that today would be a good day to make them, so I got the wax paper and my xacto knife set and went to work. It wasn't too hard for me to make them because I had done some research on them and printed a lot of different views of the hats off of the internet. I think they turned out rather well. I have now baked Mario's and Luigi's hats, as I type this Wario's hat is in the oven and once he is done Waluigie will go in.

For those of you who don't know, Mario and Luigi are the good guys in the Super Mario games and Wario and Waluigi are the bad guys in some of the games. And since Mario is so Iconic I thought it best to do those hats then anything else, plus Josh already has the mushrooms from the game cause they are tins that hold candy. I just hope he likes the hats.

favorite time of year, and Mentally Gone on vacation

It's coming up to my favorite time of year, snow will be on the ground hopefully any day now, Turkeys will be bought and cooked and Christmas will be upon us once again. Christmas has always been my favorite holiday I think a lot of it has to do with my dad when I was younger, he would go all out decorating the house inside and out with lights. He just made it so magical for me that I fell in love with it. The smell of the Christmas tree, the lights, the gifts all of it. I love decorating for Christmas, love buying gifts for people and wrapping them in bright colorful paper. I am a Christmas Junkie! There is no hope for me and you know what I'm ok with that. Bring on Christmas!

I have also pretty much been mentally on vacation for the last week. I so badly want to to be December so I can go and have fun and relax with Richard away from his work. Poor guy has been doing deliveries at Lowe's and is coming home just tired as can be, he claims he has been mentally on vacation for over a month! I keep thinking about all the fun we will have once we get down there, and how I won't have a cat in the bathroom with me every time I go in there. I still need to find something to wear for the Christmas party for both Richard and I, get a chain for my necklace and make a list of things to pack so we don't forget anything. I have already made a list for mom to help her out while watching Kramer and the apartment and our plants. That way she won't forget something. I have also started to keep myself away from sick people more, if they are sick they are not allowed to come over and hang out, or I won't go see them. I don't want to get sick before I go on my vacation cause that would be no fun at all.

16 years comes to an end

Monday was sadly the end of a 16 year friendship. That friendship will be somewhat missed in the future but as of right now, I am still pissed off at that person and will be for a very long time.

My friend (I will call her "ML" from this point on) and I were talking on Yahoo and the conversation started out great, we were talking about our days and what happened during the weekend. Then ML asked when she could come over again to hang out. I informed her that I had classes today and tomorrow but she could come over on Wednesday for a couple of hours during the day to hang out. I then told her that Richard didn't want anyone spending the night for awhile cause both of us are having problems sleeping through the night. Sounds reasonable right? She then asked about next week when I then told her again that Richard doesn't want people spending the night for a while and I don't know how long its going to be.

ML responds to this by saying that she needs serious Stephanie time and how I would beg for her company for months at a time (which I never did) then something like my life would come up and wouldn't see her for a month and it wasn't fair cause she got use to seeing me once a week and needed her Stephanie fix. I told her that sometimes you got to take what your dealt and work with it. That if she chose not to come over to hang out with me during the hours I had available for her so be it. She signed out of yahoo after she read what I sent her.

That was the last straw for me, I have to put my relationship with Richard first I am after all married to the man. She was so possessive of me and hated when I would want to spend time with Richard or any other of my friends. ML, would also if I wasn't online for a day text me to see where I was and why I wasn't online. I felt like I had a stalker. She also made me feel bad cause I would do family birthday dinners for my birthday and she would get upset and would say she didn't understand why she wasn't invited or thought of as family.

ML even started bringing some of her stuff over for when she would come and visit and always and I mean always spend the night. She never asked if it was ok for her to spend the night and if I told her I was meeting up with a friend the next day would get all pouty and either not come over at all or come over and leave right before I was to meet up with the friend. I mean this girl had no boundries and I did feel bad for her cause she didn't have that many friends cause she is a handful but I just couldn't take it no more.

So after she childishly signed out of yahoo I made it so I was permanetly invisible to her on there,then went and blocked her from my facebook page and my myspace page. I don't need her drama in my life or the stress of her in my life either. I feel bad cause it ended but at the same time I feel free. I feel like I don't have to hide the fact that I have other friends besides her.

Richard supports my decision on this because for the last few weeks he has seen how much she has been annoying me when we would talk on yahoo. She would always bring me into her relationships with guys asking me all these questions that I didn't have an asnwer too cause all relationships are different.

ML also got mad at the fact that I was taking a trip in December and wanted to make sure that I called her or text her while on vacation. EXCUSE ME!!!! It's my vacation if I don't want to talk to you I wont you can't make me do that! So as October ends So does a friendship, that probualy should of never been rekindled after so many years apart from one another.

Thank you for reading this if you made it this far, and I hope you all think I did the right thing. So 16 years are gone and under the bridge never to probually be remebered again.

Brain Pinging

It's 12:45 and my brain has pinged numourus times in the last couple of hours from learning a lot of stuff about outlook that I never knew. These classes are great and you learn a lot of cool things but I am so tired by the end of the day that all I want to do is sit in front of the TV when I get home and let my brain turn into mush. Today is the last day for outlook, then Monday and Tuesday its Powerpoint, then in December is word. so I at least get a month of not having to learn anything new. My brain is going to be fried by Tuesday I just know it. I am on lunch from class which is going to restart at 1pm and go till prob 3:15 like it did yesterday.

In other news, I am banned from mom's house till my brother gets over his cold. I actually think he got it from me but I don't want to take my chances cause I just got off of meds, and quite frankly I don't want to go back on them yet. My goal is to stay healthy till after my trip to California. I even wore a mask over my nose and mouth today while in the car with mom so I couldn't pick up Josh's germs off of her. Today or this weekend I will be going to the store to get some Danactive and some vitemens so I can hopefully boost my immune system long enought that I can make it to the vacation and back. It would totally suck to not be able to hear while away from home. I have done it a few times before and it's not fun at all!

My wounds from Kramer are healing up nicely, still slighty bruised but it is now tinged yellow instead of purple. Stupid cat!

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

As all of you know, October is Breast Cancer awareness month, I try and support breast cancer research as much as I can by buying things that some of the money goes to research to find a cure. Most of you though don't know why I do this so I figured since it's October I would fill you in on why I support it.

When I was a sophomore in high school my math teacher from the year before who I had become friends with was diagnosed with breast cancer. She told me and the group of kids that hung out in her classroom for lunch at well lunch. I remember that I didn't show any emotion when she told us and when lunch was over just went to my next class. I had heard her and processed the news when she told us, she was worried about me and pulled me out of my class to make sure I was ok. I assured her I was fine and that I was sorry I made her worry about me, and that she had breast cancer. Little did we know how bad it actually was. A few weeks later I found out that she had stage 4 breast cancer which is well the worse stage to be diagnosed in cause it means that well you most likely won't beat the cancer.

Diane (my teacher) moved to California to pursue cancer treatment that wasn't offered up here and moved in with her brother who helped take care of her and got her to all her appointments. Diane and I talked through email and our friendship grew and grew, to the point where everyday there would be an email from her in my inbox when I checked my mail answering the one I had wrote to her. She came back up to Alaska to visit only a few times and I saw her each time she came up.

Enter my Senior year, Diane is still holding her own and fighting against the cancer that is slowly spreading, we still talked on a regular basis and she decided that she was going to bu me a plane ticket over winter vacation for me to fly down to California and visit with her for a few days. I flew down with another lady who was going to see her and had a blast see and hanging out with Diane again cause it had been a year or so since I had last seen her.

Now it's one year later, Diane isn't doing very well and her cancer has spread to her kidneys, I remember getting that email in I believe November of 2003. I knew I had to get back down to California one last time to see her. I went looking through old emails to find her mom's phone number and gave her a call asking if it would be ok if I came down to see Diane. Her mom thought it would be a great idea and I decided that I would surprise her by not telling her I was coming for a visit, the only people who knew where her mom and brother and me and my mom. My mom bought my ticket after I offered up half my airline miles to get me there and her mom put me up in a hotel and gave me money to spend while I was there. I remember emailing Diane and having to watch what I said as to not give my upcoming trip in december away.

December came and the day I left to fly down to see Diane I sent her my usual email about what had happened the day before. I also let her know that I was better from having the flu the week before and had been better for a good couple of days. Her mom met me at the airport and told me not to be hurt if Diane didn't react to me being there as a surpise, no one had ever been able to suprise her. We arrive at Larry's (her brother) house knock and walk in. Larry points me in the right direction not saying one word to me of where she is. I walked into the room she was in kinda knocked on the door frame and said Knock knock. She turns around stands up and starts crying saying my girl is here my girl is here. I was the only one who was ever able to surpise her.

A month to the day I went down to see her Diane lost her fight with cancer she battled it for 4 years which is longer than most people thought she would last. Over 5 years later I still miss her like crazy and miss getting emails from her. She was such a caring and giving person, she would do random acts of kindness. If going through a drive thru she would sometimes pay for the people's food that was in the car behind her. The world lost a great person the day she died.

I still keep in contact with her mom and brother, in fact we are trying to figure out a way to get together while I'm in California this December, I hope it happens cause I would love to introduce them to Richard and to just see them again. I need to get a new chain for the necklace Diane gave to me back in my senior year when I visited her for the first time, so I can wear it again. I never took it off till the chain broke and want to start wearing it again before I go down to California so I can show them that I still have it. I also grew my hair out for Diane but she was never able to see me with long hair so I have refused to cut it till her brother and mom can see me with it.

This Story is why I support breast cancer research, I hope one day we will find a cure so no one will loose a mother, sister, aunt or friend to breast cancer ever again!

Meds, trips and classes oh my!

I am now on meds for my ear and to help get rid of the rest of my cold that I had. 14 days of shoving horse pills down my throat. These pills are freaking big, not as big as I have had to take in the past but pretty dang close to it. On top of those pills and my OTC allergy meds I am also on Nasonex to help my ear. For some reason my Eustachian tube in my left ear isn't working quite right so I am on the nasel spray for a while along with my other allergy meds. This only started hapening this summer so I don't know whats up with that.

On the bright side of things, I was able to buy my tickets to California a few days ago. Richard and I will be there from December 4th -19th. We will be there to visit his grandparents who live in Sacramento and go to their Christmas Party that they throw ever year. While down there we will also visit my my Aunt Dixie, who is my mom's sister and My friends Larry and Judy are thinking of flying up from Long Beach Ca for a day to visit with me and meet Richard. Larry and Judy are the brother and Mother of my friend Diane who died 5 years ago from breast cancer, I haven't seen them since they were up here for her memorial service so its been about 5 years.

I am so looking forward to this vactation, mostly cause it will be the first real vacation Richard and I take as a couple. We went to Oregon for a weekend a year after we were married to go to my cousins wedding resception with my mom but I don't really count that as a vacation that was a quick trip. It's been 4 years since I have left state so it has been well overdue for me to go. I love to travel and have missed doing so. I will be bringing my camera with me so I will have lots of pictures to share when I return.

I have a couple more classes to take in October I have Microsoft outlook levels 1&2 on the 14th and 15th then Powerpoint levels 1&2 on the 19th and 20th. I am then done with classes till December 20th and 21st when I will be taking Microsoft Word 2007 levels 1&2 then I will be officialy done with classes. and that much closer to getting a job in the up coming year.

Plumbing problems and Colds

Richard plugged the toilet up again and maintenance is here now fixing it. We tried to fix it ourselves with no such luck, so before it got to late in the day I called and told the landlord our problem and she sent them over. Soon I should have a working toilet again, and not a minute too soon.

I am still sick with the cold, I have a doctor's appointment Monday to get meds so I can at least hear out of my left ear again and hopefully get over what ever the heck I have. Its such a pain being sick. I just today had enough energy to do dishes, fold laundry, change the cat litter, and breathe through my nose.

It's a bird, it's a plane, no wait its a clean Kitchen!

Today I finally had enough strength to actually clean up the kitchen by doing the dishes that had been adding up all week. My kitchen is nice and clean and the dishes are clean, except the lunch dishes but they will get done with the dinner dishes once my energy recharges.

This cold has just zapped my energy to the point where just reading makes me tired and fall asleep. Yesterday I did nothing but sneezed it felt like. Which I hope means that I am getting better cause I have those two classes to go to this week and would like to not have to have Kleenex stuffed everywhere so I can blow my nose. I would love, love love it if I could breath out of my nose again.

Kitty lovin

Just had to share this pic of me and Kramer. Richard took it last night with out me knowing about it till afterwords. Believe it or not he is purring like mad in this pic he wanted my attention so I picked him up and he started purring.

ramblings of a tired person

I want to sit here and rant about a friend who has been driving me crazy for the last couple of weeks. But what good would that do me? Knowing my luck that friend would read my blog get their feelings hurt and I don't really want that I just want to blow off steam and get my frustrations out with out hurting anyone. This friend doesn't know that they are doing anything that's driving me crazy and they really can't help it. In the end it would be me who would look like an ass for posting a blog about it instead of either talking to them or taking a break from them. When did I get so mature? I don't think I like it.

Richard and I are going out to Wasilla in a couple of hours to dogsit his parents dog Charlie while they go on a train ride to Denali. They will only be gone till tomorrow but would like someone to be with him so he doesn't get lonely and well make a mess in the house. It's also Richard's dad's birthday tomorrow so happy birthday dad we are watching your dog for you. :-)

September 22 and 23 I will be taking Excel classes, those days will be the offical start of my coomputer classes that I will be taking for the next couple of months. The classes are spread out and I have 2 classes each for Excel, Word, Outlook and Powerpoint all the 2007 editions of those applications. The classes just happen to be once a month and pretty much when the other ones are going on so I wont be done till the end of December.

I have also been having a hard time sleeping the last week or so, I wake up a lot during the night and then have problems falling back asleep. A lot of this has to do with the fact that I have my first cold of the fall/winter seasons. It's not a bad one, just a runny nose and a bit of a cough but its enough of one to throw my sleep off. I have been up since 7am today and the alarm is set to go off an hour from now to wake us up. UGH! oh well off to go feed the cat and get ready to go to the valley

People these days

I posted this on my myspace blog as well but not all of you on here are on there and well I want to get the word out.

I'm not going to go into great detail but I swear some people need to get a fucking life. Why do people find it necessary to be childish and petty? If you have a problem with a person either ignore the person or talk to said person but posting blogs using their full name is just fucking wrong! Why do you feel the need to do that, to make the person feel bad? or is it just that you are immature ? I would like to know. Now I don't mind if you give a person a fake name or say like my ex is a crazy ass bitch or only use their first name but to put their middle and last name in is just wrong. You never know who will look the person up and cause them bodily harm.

It's immature people like that, that make me hate society. To cause other people pain just to amuse yourself for a little bit, but you don't like it when people do it to you. I dunno I could go on forever, I feel very strongly about this. Mostly because I was one of and still am one of the people that get made fun of because of how I look, or just because I am in the wrong spot at the wrong time and am targeted. I of course don't let them see that it hurts me, nor do I give them the time of day when they do it but inside I die a little, I wonder what made them hate themselves so much that they have to pick on people? Was it cause they didn't get enough love when they were growing up? Did their parents beat the living tar out of them? I guess the world will never know why people bully.

I hope if you are a friend of mine you will think twice before making fun of someone just because they are different, and if you are mad at some one please don't make a blog that uses their full name, cause you know you wouldn't like it if they did it to you.

I hurt

I walked around for 8.5 hours yesterday at the State Fair and man do I hurt today. Funny thing is, its not my heel that hurts, it's my legs, at one point in time yesterday they felt like jello. I have problems walking if I sit or lay to long cause I get stiff but I'm not complaining cause I know it was good for me. I will be going back to the fair next Saturday with my mom and Richard, which will be a lot of fun.

Had a dinner party on Thursday which was a lot of fun. We had a few of our friends over for dinner then we went and played pool for a couple of hours. While playing pool we got into a chalk fight, I got scared so bad by Marya that I jumped, shrieked and then started laughing so much I was crying so now I have to find a way to get her back. All in all it was a great night and I hope to do it again soon.

Tuesday our friend Brian is thinking of coming over to hang out so that should be fun, I always have fun hanging out with him.

I am also reading Alex cross's Trial by James Patterson, so far its a pretty good book. It's set back in 1906 I believe, and is centered in the south.

Nothing much else going on, I have diet snapple so I am a very happy person, I love that stuff so dang good.

A Quick DVR Update

I had an appointment with my counselor at DVR yesterday to go over my clerical assessment that I did last month. She was really happy with the results but since they up and changed Microsoft word on me that I need to take some computer classes. I am now going to be taking some computer classes, I will take one for Microsoft word, excel, outlook and powerpoint, each class she said should take a week or was it that all the classes would add up to a week? I'm thinking more the first than the later. I am to call this one place by the 1st of next month to see when the classes are held, how big the classes are and the cost of the classes. I won't have to pay a dime for the classes DVR will cover them for me. I also finally rememebered to ask if they would cover the cost of new glasses and they will!!!!! SO I will be getting new glasses here shortly!! Finally, I am actually getting somewhere with DVR, its about freaking time!!!

banned from moms , and a thank you

I am banned from my moms house until further notice. No I didn't do anything to get myself banned from her home, my brother is getting sick, and mom thinks he might have swine flu and to be on the safe side mom doesn't want me around him because as we all know I get sick super fast and tend to get sick worse than the person who gave it to me. Mom and I have a warning system set up in place for when either her or my brother get sick, since we don't want me getting sick ever. Our plan is if they get sick, mom calls me and tells me and if I truly need to go over to her house to do laundry or something I am to wear an isolation mask, one of those masks that you see doctors and nurses wear. But since she thinks he might have swine flu she doesn't want to risk anything and is going to do my laundry for me since today is laundry day for me. I also can't spend time with her because she will be around him and could give me his cold so when she comes to ge the laundry i will have a mask on as I hand over my laundry. Oh the joys of a low immune system.

I also want to say thank you to you all who responded to my last blog, I am feeling better about myself and am making a change. I have started eating less and walking a bit more. Yes it kills my foot so I only walk every other day at the moment but at least I am doing something. it's nice to know that you all care about me. I wish I lived closer to all of you so we could get together and hang out or work out. At least we have each other online and for some of you through letters in the mail. I love you all!

Much Love to all!!

Hating Myself

I was hanging out with my friend Mandy today having a blast, until we walked into the Old Navy store at the mall. I try to avoid that store at all possible costs, along with the Gap, Hot topic, basically any skinny ass person store. There is no point in me going into these stores, their clothes won't fit me and well I hate the looks I get while I'm in there. That look of "what the hell is that fat lady doing in this store looking at clothes that won't cover her fat ass". But for Mandy I put on my brave face and not only went into Old Navy but Gap, Hot topic AND Forever 21 a new store here that you guessed it sells only skinny people clothes. I was hit in the face over and over again with size 0 - size 4 clothes that are insanely cute but that I will never fit in.

Needless to say my self esteem took a really big hit, I am hating myself and wishing I was some skinny ass person so I can wear the cute clothes instead of the fat ass who gets stuck wearing frumpy clothes because clothes designers feel that fat people don't deserve cute clothes. I don't see myself as pretty, I never have, I see myself as a fat cow. I am more desperate to loose weight now but I know I won't stick with it I never do. so here I sit a fat cow for life.

Do we tend to like characters that are like us?

I was talking to a dear friend of mine a few days ago about who our favorite characters are and how that we tend to like the ones that are most like us. As I pondered this I realized it was so true. My mom Fancies Eeyore and he tends to fit her. He is kind of a gloomy think of the worse thing to happen and she does the same thing, Not always gloomy but does the oh why bother grumpy Gus kinda thing. Oh and she is always loosing stuff HAHAHa

I have always liked Donald Duck, and I find I am a lot like him. one I have speech problems and not everyone can understand me all the time. In fact when I was little my brother was the only one who could understand me till I went to speech therapy. The other thing I have in common with Donald is well temper, I tend to fly off the handle when I get mad. Mind you it takes a lot more to make me mad now but my temper can and does get the best of me some times. I finished that cross stitch of him today.

My dear friend is Kinda like Piglet, she worries a lot, really kinda shy and just so typically piglet its kinda funny.

My question to you, What character do you like and do you see yourself in said Character?

Cross Stitching fun

I have been doing some Cross stitching and thought I would share some of my finished projects. Above is Eeyore who I finished this last Saturday, He is also the one that I finally mastered french knots on.

Here is my hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil tree frogs. My biggest cross stitching project yet. It took me about a year to finish only because after I finished the middle frog I got tired of cross stitching and put it away. I pulled it out this summer and finished it on my brothers 30th birthday which was July 25th, I had started working on it on that Monday. Mom did the french Knots in this one to teach me how to do them.

Updation on me

D.V.R. UPDATE: So I am getting ever closer to looking for a job. Monday and Tuesday I went to DVR for a clerical assessment and found out that I can type 34 wpm on a really really small keyboard. I would have done better I bet if it had been normal sized and not the smushed together one that I had to use. I kept messing up on the keys because I am so used to bigger keyboards that I would miss the key I was going for. I can also do numerical and alphabetical filing with out a problem, now to just improve my speed on 10 key. a little slow on that because I have never had to use it but I was accurate so that counts for something right? Now I just have to wait till after they move to their new location which happens Monday then they will make an appointment with me so I can meet with my councelor and see what she thinks we should do next, that could be testing me out at an actual job or sending me for some classes to improve on some stuff and learn the new Microsoft Word, we will have to wait and see.

In other news, the hot weather finally ended, it rained for a couple of days and today it is just overcast. I don't mind this at all, specially after all that hot weather we had, plus we really do need the rain to help with all the wild fire we have going on in the state.

We are also thinking of rejoining the gym again. we now have the funds to pay for it again since our care insurance payments are now below $100.00. We just have to wait till we get enough money in our account so probbualy after the first of next month after rent is paid.

Make it Stop

Here I sit, the only one awake in my apartment with my back hurting and itching like crazy. The bed I slept on friday night has totally messed up my back it hurts so bad, I can't sleep and have a hard time getting to a postion where my back doesn't hurt long enough for me to pass out. I am so tempted to have Richard ask his dad for some 303 muscle relaxers so I can sleep. don't worry they aren't perscription drugs, just over the counter stuff. Hopefully his dad has some or else I don't know what I am going to do. I have soaked in the tub, put hot packs and ice packs on, taken advil, nothing works. UGH!!!

I'm melting......melting

IT is WAY to HOT for me, my apartment is 80 degrees, if I'm not in front of the fan I'm sweating like a pig (wipes sweat from brow). Poor Kramer is so hot that he just sprawls in front of the fan or on the kitchen or entry way floor to try and cool off, poor long haired baby. I have to have my hair pulled up in a pony tail to help keep cool and even that isn't working very well. I love all the nice weather but I want it to cool down a bit too, the outside temps are in the high 70s to low 80's.

Who likes to play pool, we do we do, and birthday delema answer

As I mentioned in an earlier post I have been playing a lot of pool lately. I just played for a couple of hours today and about 5 hours 2 days ago. Anyways today while playing pool with Richard and our Friend Marya we all looked at our hands and we each had chalk on our hands, which lead to Marya grabbing her iphone and taking a picture. I thought I would share it on here so from the top hand to the Bottom it goes as follows: Me, Richard, Marya.

The birthday party question has been answered, Marya answered it for me, I am going to have a small Lowe's friends birthday party on Friday, if all works out it will be Me (of course), Richard, Marya, Jenny, Brian and Sandra. I would of invited our friend Amanda along as well but she is out of town till after my birthday. So far there is going to be cake, chips and dip, possibly a veggie tray, Marya said she would cook something, Beer Pong, pool, music, video games, Gifts and soda's. A pinyada was mentioned but not sure if that will be there or not. So, so far it seems like it will be a lot of fun, now to just set the time and make sure people actually show.

Today was my Mom's birthday so mom and I went out to the Peanut Farm with our friend Carrol for lunch and then Richard mom and I went out to Outback for dinner. I think my mom had a good birthday, after we ate dinner mom went to go see a movie and well We went to play pool.

To Party or not to party that is the question

I'm thinking of having a little get together for my birthday this year, I have been toying with the idea for a few months, and i am starting to lean too having it. Only draw back is, a lot of my friends work at Lowe's and well I would have to work it so a lot of them could show up. The nice thing is, that my birthday falls on a Saturday, the bad news is, not everyone gets the weekends off. What to do what to do. I mean i don't want to buy a bunch of stuff only to have a few people show up or none at all. I guess I just need to buck up and decide what I am going to do. Hopefully people decide they like me enough to show up and celebrate me turning older. Any of you out there in blogger land want to come?

Blog of randomness and 100th post

Tomorrow the 27th marks 15 years since my father died. Wow is all I can seem to think, 15 years sped by like a blink of the eye. For me tomorrow will be like any other day, I will wake up and go through the day like normal but in the back of my mind I will know what day it is. Don't be sad for me, it's in the past, part of my life that helped make me well.... me and I wouldn't change that at all. Be happy that I am here, happy, well loved and I made it through a very trying time 15 years ago and came out a better person.

My health is slowly coming back to full strength, I have gotten some of the hearing back in my left ear and no longer suffer headaches every night. My allergies are even under control now, it takes two meds to do it but better that then suffer. Hopefully I will be done with colds till at least October or so I hope so.

I happened to glance at how many posts I have and realized that this one will be my 100th blog on here. GO ME!!! Not like Deb who has like over 400 or some ridiculous number like that but still something to be proud of. So here's too 100 or so more posts!

I have also been playing a lot of pool lately and my game has improved a lot. I now don't suck nearly as bad as I used to, mind you I still suck but just not as bad. It's a lot of fun and I have my friend Marya to thank for the improvement of my game. She taught me how to use my Carny hands to my advantage and for that I am in her debt. Richard and I in fact are going to go shoot some pool with her tomorrow so that should be fun.

Fathers Day

Happy Fathers day dad, I miss you!

Drs are a wonderful thing

I finally dragged my sorry butt to the doctors office today and got meds, it turns out that I have had a sinus infection for over a month. Which explains why I was so crabby the other day with Richard, I wasn't feeling all that well and sick of being sick and just tired. So I am on my meds for 14 days and will be better and back to my normal happy go lucky self. I have had headaches for over a month all because of the sinus infection it will be nice not to have one.

Pissy for some untold reason

Today has not been a very good day for me. Well it started out perfectly fine, I got up fed the cat then decided to clean the apartment. The apartment is looking good and by the time I was done with that, Richard was home from work and that's where my day turned ugly. He came home and we watched a movie together that I had put in before he showed up then after the movies was over he wanted to read and I just snapped, told him fine what ever and he says to me that I could read too that's when I turned to face him and yelled at him that I didn't want to read. I put Gilmore Girls in to watch the next disc of episodes and he stopped reading and watched it with me. He then tells me he is hungry and I said can it wait till this episode is over he says sure, it ends I ask him what he wants for dinner and he goes well I thought you were going to decide, then he tells me he loves me and walks off while I do the bit of dishes that are in the sink. I go walking out to the living room to see is something sounded good only to find that not only is he not there, the tv is off and he is laying in bed reading. I went into the bedroom and asked him if he was still hungry and had to repeat myself twice before he looked up at me then he said that he wasn't hungry and went back to the book, I snapped at him again saying well thanks for telling me and walked into the computer room where I then throw something way in the trash and he yells at me for breaking something which I haven't done, then corrects himself by saying throwing things around. Only thing I could think of saying was yelling at him to stop telling me what I can and can't do.

What the hell is wrong with me? I don't even know why I am so mad at him today, yeah he is ignoring me with his book and he ignored me on Sunday with a video game and Monday he ignored me because he was tired but that didn't bother me but today it seems like he can't do anything right. I don't know why I am so upset, it just baffles me that today I am mad at him. It would be nice to spend time with him but not just next to eachother while he is reading and ignoring me and I am doing something else like reading or watching tv. So here I sit in the computer room all upset, confused about why I am this way and he is totally not getting the fact that I am upset or why I am upset. he just has his nose in that damn book. I guess he figures that I need alone time and thats only making it worse but if I go and try to talk to him all its going to do is piss him off and he won't talk and just go somewhere else to read his book.

I want it to be tomorrow!!

DVR Update

6 months down and god only knows how many more left to go, I know I will make it 7 months with them and still be jobless. I went in and did a 3 day exploring your employment goal thing this week and made an appointment with my counselor for July 7th. Why so far away you ask? good question, the answer being that the person who did the "class" I was win this week needs to write up an evaluation on me and give it to my counselor who then has to look over it, plus she is supposedly pretty busy, which I guess I can sorta understand. I am so sick of having to jump through all their hoops to get help!! So here I sit twiddling my thumbs till the 7th to see what other hoop I will have to go through.

R.I.P. Goober

  Richard’s dad called us this weekend to let us know that Petunia had died. Dad came home and found that Tunes had died in her sleep on their bed. She was a pretty old dog, they rescued her from the pound in 2000 and at that time they figured she was around 5 years old  so she was about 14 years old when she passed. She had lost her hearing end of last year and had started going blind but still played ate and had a good life. We think she just died of old age.

   Poor Charlie is a very mopy puppy cause he misses Tunes. I guess Dad has him with him today and was at Lowe’s earlier and Richard said that Charlie didn’t try to fidget around when he picked him up. He also I guess won’t leave dad’s side. My poor puppy! Richard said his dad was going to stop by the apartment with Charlie at some point in time today so I can see my puppy and maybe make him feel a bit better. I call him my puppy because when we lived with Richard’s parents for a year Charlie got really attached to me and would listen to me more than dad, so we all decided he was my dog.

bookworm

Books litter the floor

All of them read at least once if not more

She started reading when she was young

At first just to broaden her vocabulary

But now they are read to pass time

To go places she will never go

To escape reality for a while

To get lost in a good book

What a day she would have

Curled up in a chair

Turning page after page

Till the story is complete

Getting so immersed in the book

Name called time and time again

With no answer to be had

Because in her head

She was in a different land

Only snapping back to reality

When someone tapped her on her shoulder

Many authors have been read

A few made the list to read again

More made the list of never again

Never regretting giving them a try

For how would she know if she liked them

if for not giving them a go

Today you can almost always find her

In a chair of her choice

With her nose in a book

It may be a favorite book

Or one she just bought

she will enjoy it just the same

WHen the Cat's away the mice shall play

Richard has been working a lot of overtime at work the past couple of weeks. This week alone he will have about 65 hours on the week when he gets off work today. He also has to work this weekend so he will have more overtime for next week as well. This leaves me alone in the apartment pretty much all day, with nothing to do. I have spent a lot of time with my mom once she gets off work which helps with the evenings but the days are just so boring. I have no housework to do because I did it all on Monday and Tuesday, I did the laundry Sunday, instead of doing it on Monday and that just threw my entire week off. It also doesn't help that I have no new books to read.

I was trying to read a book my brother let me borrow but I just can't get into it. Every time I start to read it I suddenly find myself getting really tired and want to take a nap, no matter what time it is, even if I have just woken up I get really tired, which means that this book just isn't for me to read. I gave it a good shot too, I made it well into 100 pages which is more than I give most books. I do believe a trip to the bookstore in needed so I can find some new books to read. My favorite author James Patterson doesn't have a new book coming out till the end of June, his last one came out in April and I finished it in like 3-5 days. I think its time for me to start another V.C. Andrews book series, plus her books are really cheap so I can get a few of them.

I have also finally given up on trying to eat scrambled eggs, there is just no hope for me there. Scrambled eggs are evil I tell you EVIL! I for some reason was really craving them so I made some knowing that my body wasn't going to be happy with me. I don't know what it is about scrambled eggs but man o man do they upset my stomach, I have been fighting the urge to barf most of the day, I am finally starting to feel normal again. I just don't understand it, I can eat any other form of eggs and be fine but if I eat scrambled my stomach gets upset and I get the over whelming urge to hurl. So no more scrambled eggs for me..NONE, not even one bite!

Summer days, and Kramer wars

It has been absolutely beautiful here the sun has been shinning, birds singing and hot weather. I love all of it besides the hot weather making the apartment a sweat box, the later in the day it gets, the warmer the apartment gets so by 6-7pm its almost 80 in here. I have been putting ice in Kramer's water dish so he has cold water, poor cat you know when he is warm cause he sprawls on the floor and doesn't move. all the windows are open to an extent because of the black cat coming around and attacking Kramer through the windows we can't have them open all the way, just enough to where Kramer can hardly put his paw through to the screen unless we are sitting next to the window then its wide open.

Yesterday I went for my second walk, I know I said I would be going everyday but I got busy this weekend with Aces games and I figured walking up and down the stairs at the stadium was good enough exercise for the weekend. Richard came with me last night and said he would go with me every time I go. I tend to go around 8pm when its not to hot and Richard has had time to relax after work. We just go up the street a bit and back but its about a half hour 45 minute walk depending on how far we go. And yes I woke up to my left foot protesting the fact that I walked yesterday. But you know what, tough for it, it loosened up after I hobbled around on it for a couple of minutes.

I think I finally broke Kramer of wanting 2 cans of wet food a day, I haven't given him his second can for 5 nights already, he just doesn't ask for it anymore so why give it to him. Only down side of giving him his one can in the morning is when he decides he wants it he has no qualms about coming into the bedroom and meowing at me till I get up to give it to him. Its an on going fight between me and the cat to see who gets their way. He starts his meowing at 7am and continues till I get up and feed him. some days that's at 8am and other days like today it was at 10:45am cause I can ignore him if I am tired enough. It's funny though cause he tries his hardest to get me up, by walking on me, meowing in my ear, patting my face with his paw, licking me, and headbutting me, to just laying on me and purring really loud.

exercise glorious exercise oh and Oragami too

I have decided that every day I am going to go for a short walk. I started today and ended up doing a 30 minute walk, which isn't a bad start. When I got back to the apartment however my feet were killing me and I was thinking how the heck did I talk myself into going for a walk? Oh well I'm in it for the long haul thats all I gotta say about that.

I also believe that my really expensive shoes are working, my mom and Richard have noticed that my stomach is slimming down! I haven't lost any more weight but I am getting smaller so I do believe I am gaining muscles. who knows really but something is working in my favor and I like it!

So I have learned how to do some pretty simple oragami today while being bored and not having anything better to do. Yup i was that bored. Sad, yes I know.

Time flies by so quickly

Today my friend Kaori who I have known for about 15 years, Richard and I got together and hung out for a couple of hours today. She is up visiting for a while from Texas and brought her 3 month old baby boy Peter up with her. We went and saw her mom at her work and she was reminding us of how Kaori and I would make tunnels in the snow when we were kids and now we are both grown up and married and she has a baby. Where oh were did the time go?

In less than a month Richard and I will be celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary! 5 years!!! again where did the time go? It just seems like time flies and all of the sudden you are years down the road from where you started head spinning going whoa how the heck did I get here? I of course am madly in love still with the man I married and now thanks to my friend Kaori he really wants a baby, so I told him you help me loose weight we can have a baby. I know a lot of it lies on me to loose the weight and I too want to have a baby with him but I know it will happen when the time is right. Just hopefully before I’m 30!

Crazy Cat adventures

Kramer decided to climb up on top of the door by using the door jam, I was able to record him getting down from up there. He is one Crazy cat!

red heads and sun do not mix. Parking Problems

So yeah we have been having wonderfully nice sunny days pretty much all week, weather has been in the upper 50-60s. I went outside today for all of an hour. One freaking hour and now my arms and face are sun burned. My arms are worse than my face but still an hour! It has been said that red heads burn easier than any other hair type, not every one knows this but I have red hair. Mind you its only red highlights but I guess it still counts because I burn way to freaking easy. Oh well for the rest of the summer I will put sun screen on.

At my apartment complex, each apartment has their own assigned spot to park, that way we know that we will have at least one spot guaranteed. Anyways since our neighbors next door to us have moved in which was last I believe October we have been having problems with people parking in our spot and other neighbors spots or behind our cars so we can't get out. I went and complained to the land lord about it last November and she gave me letters to put on the cars when I see them parked where they don't belong. I have used these letters time and time again and still their friends don't get the idea that they aren't supposed to be parking where they park. Today Richard and I came home from going to his work to see a friend and there is a honda element I believe is the car parked in the spot next to ours but over the line so we can't safely park in our spot. i got the letter walked up the the lady who was in the car and calmly explained why she couldn't park there. She didn't take the letter, she said she was parked there cause she had to go to the bathroom. She did move her car but didn't get out. Richard and I went off again to go get dinner, when we returned she was gone but I have a feeling that once we left she moved back to where she was. If I see this car in any spot besides visitor parking I am going to call the land lord, cause the letters aren't workiing.

A trip around the rink.

I started out not liking this picture of me at all and have now grown to like it. Its actually not a bad picture of me. This picture was taken at the look out in Kenai for Mt Redoubt. Richard and I went Monday. then Richard, my friend Mandy and I went again on Tuesday, this picture of me was taken on the Tuesday trip.

this picture and the one below it were both taken on the Monday Trip. I don’t know why but I love this picture of Mt Redoubt off in the background I guess a lot of it has to do with sun reflecting off the ocean.

close up view of Mt Redoubt Steaming up the place. Both the trips where a lot of fun and I actually want to go back again. It was just so Beautiful there.

In other news Richard and I went to two Aces Hockey games, one yesterday and one today. The Aces won both games, yesterday was 3-0 and today’s final score was 8-2. I had a great time at both games, of course now my throat hurts and my voice is all scratchy cause I was yelling and cheering on my team like any fan would. My cow bell got quite the work out as well as my voice and the arm that held it.

Expensive Shoes = happy feet

                  

That is a picture of my very expensive shoes. those shoes cost my mom $245.00! The reason she bought me these shoes is I have Plantar faciitis in my left heel. These shoes will help me get rid of it and also help me loose weight, by working out my legs, back and stomach. Give it up for multipurpose shoes! The best way to describe the shoes is that it simulates walking on sand, by rocking your foot as you walk. Plus you walk heel first in them and that’s how I naturally walk so its not that much different for me. Mom heard about these shoes from a lady at her work who swears by them and I can see why, I love them they don’t hurt my foot when I walk in them. Plus the soles are so thick that I’m taller while wearing them.

Easter was a lot of fun, Richard and I went to mom’s house for dinner. Mom cooked a ham, her sweet potatoes that she learned how to make thanks to Deb, and green beans. It was a nice family dinner, my brother was even there because Arby’s was closed for Easter. After dinner Richard and I talked mom into playing a game of Phase 10. Where she proceeded to kick our asses and win the game, it was her first time playing the game! Mom just got lucky is all, no wait we let her win, yeah we let her win. Seeing as how there is no way to let someone win that game I am just being funny. But she had fun and so did we.

Today will consist of me going back over to mom’s house to do laundry. Richard will come home for lunch and take me over so I can get it done while he finishes the rest of his work day. I really kind of enjoy going over to moms for laundry because I can hang out with Josh (my brother), just the two of us and either play video games or watch something. Mom likes it too because we never used to get a long and now we are becoming friends instead of enemies. I think she likes it because there is peace in the house because we don’t fight anymore.

Blast from the Past

So as some of you might know, I have a half brother, I don't really talk about him that much cause well there really isn't much to say. He isn't in my life at all, last I heard he was living in Florida. But he has an ex wife with whom he has two girls with. I have a total of 3 nieces I have seen all 3 at least once, the oldest twice. Anyways Mom and I haven't talked to Meike in 9 years, we just sort of lost contact with each other. Well today mom checked her email and had an email from you guessed it Meike! Oh yeah the two oldest nieces live in Germany with their mom, Rebecca is now 15 and Melissa is now 11! mom forwarded me the email and I replied to it as well. It would be so cool if I could be an aunt to them, as best as I could be that is since they live thousands and thousands of miles away. SO I am hoping that Meike will stay in contact with us and let me be Aunt Stephanie.

These are the Days of my life.

Thought I would share a picture Of Kramer to show that he is alive and well and as big of a pain as ever. He loves to lay on the blanket that is folded up on the end of our couch, I think he thinks it’s his big soft squishy bed.

Dvr is just a pain in the ass now. I know its supposed to help me but so far all its done is take money away from us.  I got the test results back and as I expected I did great in everything but math and spelling. It also showed that I don’t have very many interests. Which is a lie, it’s just that the test didn’t have any of the things I liked to do on it. So they are making me take more tests my next one is on April 17th then after that I have another one but that one I don’t know when I’m taking it. I know they need to know what I am good at or what I like but I freaking need a JOB! Plus mom is going to be out of town so Richard has to miss another day of work because of DVR. I don’t like this, So far I feel like they are just yanking me around seeing how long I will last with them before I give up on them.  I Hate that it’s taking so long. I knew it was going to be slow but I had no idea it would be this slow.

Spring is in the air, well sort of. There is still a tone of snow on the ground but the days are getting longer and brighter, now just just get the snow gone. I want summer! I want to go outside and soak up the sun and take pictures of beautiful things. Its so ugly here right now the snow is dirty from ash and dirt and puddles are everywhere. sigh.

I am thinking of throwing a party for by birthday this year. I don’t know why but it just seems like fun to have a bunch of friends over to celebrate me turning 26 years old. Of course only draw back is that I don’t have that many friends so I don’t know how many people would show up. Needless to say I am debating it still and its still 3 months away so I have plenty of time to make up my mind.

DVR, Spring and Internet

Tomorrow I have a meeting at DVR to see what I want to do with my life, rather it’s go to school or get a job. My counselor will also tell me what she thinks is best for me to do as well. I want to get a job that I can last at, but I also in a way want to go to school. She will also inform me on what all those tests I took at the beginning of the month say  about my strengths and weaknesses in math reading and writing lay so that should be entertaining.

I can’t believe it’s almost April, it feels like just yesterday it was the first of the year. I just wish all the snow would go away, I am so sick of it, and having to wear a jacket and being cold. I want the sun, the warmth the longer days all of the stuff that comes with summer besides the bugs. I can live with out the bugs and spiders and all creepy crawly things. I want to be able to have the windows in the apartment open to let fresh air in. I do this now but only with one window and only for a very short amount of time because the apartment gets to cold if I leave it open for too long.

In other news, my internet provider is trying to get Richard and I to switch our house phone over to them. It would be an internet phone, as in if the internet went down, or we had a power outage we would have no phone besides our cell phones. Yes as of right now we do only have cordless phones in the apartment so when the power goes out we are only left with our cell phones but that’s just because I haven’t found our corded phone at my moms place yet. The deal was free phone for 24 months so all we would be paying is 50 dollars for our internet, but they wouldn’t tell me how much it would cost after the 24 months was up and it would cost us 20 bucks to get the adapter for the phones to the internet.  Plus they were saying it would save us money to only have to pay them for phone and internet besides the phone company and them. I just don’t like the idea of having our phone through the internet besides our internet strength changes by the minute from strong to week because we are just on the edge of service for them up here so who knows what that would do to our phone. I told the lady no and she was shocked that I said no because not many people tell her no. She still tried to get me to switch over after I told her no. I hate people who don’t take no for an answer and keep hounding you trying to get you to change your mind.

it's raining, it's snowing... no wait thats Ash

MT Redoubt Erupted a couple of times today sending ash on its merry little way to me here in Anchorage. It's just starting to come down a little bit. they are saying we are supposed to get a light dusting,, but the sky is getting pretty dark as the cloud of ash rolls in.

In other news, health wise I have a bladder infection, fun fun. Went to the doctor today got the script for the meds and went to Fred Meyers which is where we found out about the Volcano erupting. So I am now on antibiotics to get rid of the infection of Burning hell as I have now started calling it. I also have cranberry juice to help.

Man of my Dreams

I would like to know how I was so lucky to land Richard. He got me those flowers, just because he felt like it, and to show he loves me. I don't need flowers to know he loves me but he loves to buy me stuff. It hurts him that we don't have enough money for him to buy me more stuff then just flowers. He wants to be abe to buy me jewlery. I tell him over and over again he doesn't have to buy me anthing that all he has to do is love me, but he doesn't listen. Not that I'm complaining I love it when he buys me flowers, but I don't want him thinking he HAS too.

I have to admit I feel like I am the luckiest girl out there, to have guy like him. Richard is just so sweet and caring. When I'm sick he refuses to let me do anything but sit on the couch and relax so I can get better faster, he will bring me drinks and food and anything I want when I'm sick. I have to force him to go to work if I'm sick cause he wants to stay home and take care of me. Mind you this is only when its something worse than a cold, but still its sweet. He makes me feel like a queen and that I have married a king. I love him so much, I just want to know how was I so lucky to get him?

DVR Update, Trip to California and a treadmill

I am able to get help from DVR, I got a letter in the mail earlier this week saying that I was disabled enough to qualify for their help. My next meeting with my councelor there is on March 25th. So I am headed in the right track I guess.

Depending on how much the PFD (money us Alaskans get) is this year Richard and I are going to go down to Califonia to visit his grandparents in December. They throw a Christmas Party every year and both Richard and I would like to go to at least one of them. we would be gone from the 4th till about the 18th of December. I am actually looking forward to going, I think it's going to be a lot of fun. They also have offered to show us some of the sights around where they live. So I'm hoping that we get at least a thousand dollars in this years PFD. We will also be saving a little money all year so we can have some spending money while we are down there. One thing I would like to try and do while down there is get to Long Beach, they live in Sacramento so its a long shot. The reason being is that my friends Larry and Judy live down there. I met them because they are Dianes Brother and mother. Diane wanted to see me with long hair but never got a chance too cause she died 5 years ago, I started growing my hair out in 2002 because she wanted me to and have refused to cut it till I can see Larry and Judy in person. I guess I figured if Diane couldn't see me with it at least her family could.

Richard and I bought a treadmill on Tuesday, then returned it on Tuesday and got our money back. We bought it at Sam's Club brought it home and the back foot/leg thingy was broken so we wanted to trade it for a none broken one but we wanted to check the next one before we brought it home but they won't let you open it unless it is bought already. I demanded my money back, cause I wasn't going to take the risk of taking another one home to have it turn out the same way. We had gotten the better looking box of the three that where there too so we could only imagine what the other ones looked like. so now we are waiting for our money to be credited back to our account and part of it is going to go into the savings account to start our trip fund.

Anyhoo I'm off to go eat breakfast then do my daily chores.

Mission: Organize... Fail

I of all people should know better then to try and clean and organize before 8am, it never turns out well. I got up this morning with Richard and got him off to work, took my cup of coffee into the computer room and started surfing the net. I then got the bright idea that should clean out my desk and organize it a bit better then what it was. Sorting the papers and deciding to move the scrap booking materials to my closet was easy, or I thought it would be easy.

I was so wrong!

I grabbed the bag of scrapbook stuff and put it in my closet, where I saw something I wanted to look at and when I grabbed it, the scrapbook stuff decided it didn't like where I put it. It fell from the shelf onto my head, then the floor. Paper went everywhere! So instead of cleaning and organizing like I had planned I ended up making a bigger mess then what I started out with. I cleaned up all the paper, stencils, scissors and tape and put it all back on the shelf. As I turned and left the closet I heard a thundering crash as something hit the floor, I turned around to find that something else from the other side of the closet decided that it wanted to join in on the fun that the scrap booking material had when it fell. This time it was my cross stitching supplies, yes you guessed it, all of it went all over the floor that I had just cleaned up. I cleaned it up, put it back on the shelf and said I quit, I'm done cleaning for the day. So here I sit with a slightly sore head and a bruised ego waiting for the next thing to fall in the closet.

Eagle Attack

Yesterday was a bit on the interesting side for me, it started out like the rest of the week with me going to the testing that I'm doing (which finishes today) at DVR. I got done testing and walked outside to see if mom was there yet, she was so I walked over to the truck and as soon as I opened the door she asked me if I had talked to Bobbie (Richard's sister) lately. I told her the last time I talked to her was a few weeks ago right after she got her new puppy, I then asked what caused mom to ask me about when I last talked to her. Aparently while waiting for me to get done mom was listening to the radio, and there was a news break or something and it said that Bobbie Lee Briggs had her puppy taken from her by eagles. The eagles knocked Bobbie down then scooped up her 11 week old puppy and took off. Bobbie lives in Homer and there was a lady who fed the eagles on the Homer Spit but she died and her friend was supposed to continue to do it but he's not so the eagles are hungery and go into the city of homer and get squirls and all kinds of small animals,They are getting to be a real pain is what Bobbie told me after I texted her and she called me.

here is a link to an article about what happened.
http://www.homertribune.com/article.php?aid=3941

R.I.P. Kookie

Testing..1..2..3..Testing

I survived one round of testing 3 more to go. When I got home yesterday my head hurt so bad, its not used to thinking that hard. The last time I had to think that hard was 7 years ago in high school. I did 5 tests yesterday 2 reading ones and 3 math tests. I freaking hate math, it has always been one of my worst subjects, the others being History and science. Out of those three I do better in science, but not by much. Anyways I go back today and the first test I have to do, you guessed it, another math test!

On the plus side when I get done testing I get to go to moms and do laundry and have meatloaf for lunch. I know, I never thought I would be excited to do laundry but its such a brainless job that I am looking forward to it. I can just shut my brain down and let it recover from all the math I am going to have to do today. Plus I love meatloaf, it has always been my favorite meal that my mom makes. When I was little my mom would say I could eat my two favorite foods, meatloaf and potatoes and never get sick of them. You know what, I think she's right.

This day hasn't started out the best for me, I get up get my coffee and go to feed meme (Kramer the cat) and feed him his wet food with out a problem. The problem happened after I was done feeding him, a friend of my moms collects pop can tabs for some Charity or something , Well ok any metal tab thing like on a can of wet food, soup, pop, you get the idea. So I am wiggling the tab back and forth trying to get it to come off the lid when my thumb slips and goes sliding down the edge of the lid. Yup I sliced my thumb open with a lid from wet cat food. Its not a bad cut, it just bled for ever. It's now covered with a band-aid but still freaking smarts when I use my thumb. I'm just glad it wasn't my right thumb that would have totally sucked.

DVR Testing and Power outage

At 9am I go to DVR to take some academic testing to see what I know and what I don't know. I have to do this testing for the next 4 days. I'm not looking forward to it, i haven't taken a test since freaking high school. I know it's to get an idea of what I know to help them help me to get a job but its a pain for me. I have to find a way there and a way back, mom is taking me there today and Richard will pick me up today. Tomorrow and Wednesday mom will take and pick me up then on Thursday it will be like today she drops off and he picks up.

I thought DVR was supposed to help me, so far all they are doing is causing Richard to miss work so I get to them. This week just so happens that I get done when he takes lunch so this week won't be bad but, he is my main transportation and I can't have him leaving work early to get me to my appointments with them cause that takes money away from us. They are supposed to be helping us get money by helping me get a job and right now they are taking it away from us.

The power went out this mornin right after I decided to get up, I was getting my coffee ready to be drank and the appartment goes dark, at first I thought it was Richard trying to be funny but he was like nope not me the power went out. It was out for a good 20 minutes. I had nothing to do but sit at the table and drink my coffee in candle light.

Back to normal

We have our car back, it turns out it was the starter, the nice thing is it was still under warranty so we didn't have to pay for that. Only thing we had to pay for was the oil change, so we have our car back and its running nicely. We got it back on Monday so it all worked out for the best.

Monday also brought us our toilet back. It was nice not having to leave the apartment to go to the bathroom. It took maintenance 2 hours to get it up and running again. They actually had to take it apart to unclog it. But it also is working nicely now.

My shoulder is still a little on the sore side but its getting better, I can now almost have my arm completely over my head and not have that much pain. Plus I am also almost done with my meds for my ear. My hearing is about 97% back so that's good as well.

Off to go help make dinner. Laters!

My very long weekend

I had a very well intresting weekend. It all started Friday morning with our car not starting at all., it had battery power but would not start. This lead to me calling my mom at 5:45am and asking her to come take Richard to work. At about 10am I started by calling the auto shop asking thm if they could please tow our car to the shop so it could get fixed, which is when I realized that Richard took the car keys with him. The shop said they would get the paper work started for the car, The sad thing is when I said my name to the lady who answered the phone she said oh the land rover. It is sad when they know what car you drive just by your name. Anways, when I found a way to get the keys to give them a call and they would send the tow truck. Now I just had to find a way to get myself to Lowe's or get the keys to me. I called my father-in-law and asked if he was first off in town and second if he could get the keys and bring them to me.

An hour later I have the keys in hand, tow truck has shown up and I am now helping the guy push our car out of our parking spot and into the drive way so he can load it up. Let me tell you that that car aint light. I have had to push that car more times then I want to think about. The guy towing the car is impressed with the fact that I can push the car and tells me that most women can't or won't help push their cars, that I was a breath of freash air and that I gave him hope that there just wasn't helpless women out there. The down side of having to push the car is the fact that it hurt my right shoulder, the one that got hurt in the car accident almost 2 years ago. Man oh man is it pissed at me for pushing the car.

Then I find out that Richard's mom has said that we can borrow her car for the weekend the catch is, its out in the valley and we have to ride out with them to to go get it. Thats not a problem. We get picked up and go out to the valley with his dad and mom. All the way there we are listening to an audiobook, A very weird audiobook. Now I don't like audiobooks, I find it rather boring to listen to some person read a book while in a car. Richard's dad loves audiobooks and thats the only thing he listens to now these days. It used to be just the Harry Potter ones bun has now branched out. Anyways I'm sitting in the back with Richard and I am so bored I am falling asleep. We get out to their house pick up the car and are on our way home. We get home with out any problems and continue on with our weekend.

Saturday we wake up to a clogged toilet, so Richard grabs the plunger and starts working on it, nothing happens, toilets still clogged. He takes a break from it for about an hour goes back and tries again still nothing. Finally he gives up and tells me to call our land lord so she can call maitnence and have them come fix our toilet. I call and get the answering machine, I leave a message and hang up. The time is now about 2:15 and well I have to go, so we go up to moms house explain to her whats going on do our stuff and leave. When we get home we have a message from the land lord asking us to give her a call back that she will be there till 3:30, its 3:00 when we get the message so I call and get the machine again, I left another message and we go about our day. Now mind you any time one of us has to go we either go to the Holiday up the street from us or to moms.

I'm going to make this short, today is Monday and we still have a clogged toilet. We are first on the list for maitnence when they get here. My problem is, Richard is at work and mom will be at work and I don't want to drink anything cause I don't know when the toilet is going to be fixed and I am dying of thirst.

That is basically my weekend. We still don't know whats wrong with the car cause the shop isn't opened on the weekends. Hopefully this week goes betterr.

Searching for a song

I have always loved this picture of my dad, a lot of it being the fact that I can see a lot me me when I look at it. I have his smile, his eyes, and his forehead. I never really saw how much I looked like him till I got married and saw a picture of him then me, thats when I knew I truely do look like him.

I remember this one country song that my dad really liked, I remembered seeing it on CMT and dad saying that he liked it. After he died I wanted to find that song, the problem I had was the fact that well I only knew a few words of the song, and it wasn't the title. The other problem was I for the life of me couldn't remember who sang it, I knew she had longish brown hair and that she was skinny. But I also knew that if I ever heard the song again that I would remember it.

I searched for years on the internet for that song, thinking of names it could be and entering them in and with no luck. I even asked a good friend of mine who loves country music as much as I do if she could help me. We both tried but the only words we had to work with were: With a drop of a tear they're gone. Still no luck in finding that song.

Then a few years ago youtube.com came along, I figured I would give it a shot and started putting in every country music female singer from the late 80's to early 90's that I could think of which wasn't very many and waided through all of the videos, still no luck. I decided to give up the search for a while figuring it would be the never ending search.

Today I am proud to say that after almost 15 long years of searching, hair pulling, fist pounding, cussing, and screaming and crying I finally found that song. I did my usual go to youtube and put in names search and found nothing. then I went to yahoo and searched for ways to find song only using some of the lyrics, which brought me to ask.com. I typed in at a drop of a tear they're gone song lyrics, hit the search button and prayed that it would work. The first match was the song that I have been searching for, I couldn't believe it. I pulled up youtube typed in the singer and song title and it pulled up the video that I remembered watching back in 1991 with Dad.

The singer is Kathy Mattea, the song is Time passes by. Here is a link to the video on youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dn6f12kBEY

My search is finally over!

Poor Kramer

Yesterday Kramer went into the vet's office for a teeth cleaning, no big deal, my moms cats Data and Alex went as well. We knew going in that Data had to have some of his teeth pulled. He has some auto immune disease so his body is attacking his teeth, same goes for poor Alex, she had to have 12 of her teeth pulled yesterday and the vet said that she will eventually have to have the rest pulled as well. Kramer had the healthier looking mouth Saturday when they went for their physicals and shots.

We got a call from the Vet while she was cleaning Kramers teeth. She was calling us to tell us that Kramer had 4 teeth that needed to be pulled cause they were getting reabsorbed. We gave the go ahead and Kramer got the teeth pulled. They were the teeth right behind his fangs so there is a hole behind all 4 of his fangs.

I had asked the vet on Saturday about changing Kramers food from kitten chow to something else cause he hadn't been eating any of his dry food,just the wet. I figured it was because he didn't like the dry food anymore. He had also lost about a pound so that wasn't good. She said yes try him on Iams. So Saturday Richard and I went to the store got him the new food and switched him over. He ate some of it so I figured yay he likes it.

So mom and I go pick up the cats at 7pm last night, they stayed open that late just for us cause they had, a few emergancys come in and had to put off doing Alex and data's teeth till after noon for Alex and poor Data didn't go in till 3. Anyways I asked the vet if Kramers teeth that were removed were the reason he wasn't touching his dry food and only eating his wet. She said that yes, that those teeth had been painfull for him. That, that was why he was only eating the wet food and why he had lost that pound.

I feel like a bad pet owner because I didn't realize that he was having teeth problems! I had noticed he wasn't eating his dry food all that much but he was eating his wet food, he has always loved his wet food more but eats the dry as well. Then all of a sudden the dry food stayed at the same level and never went down. I noticed this a week before his first visit to the vet. My poor baby was in pain and I didn't know

So I have to give kramer nothing but wet food for the next 5 days, along with pain killers for the next 5 days and antibiotics for the next 2 weeks. He seems like he is back to his normal healthy self. I wonder if him biting me a lot this last couple of months was him trying to tell me that his mouth hurt.