Trains

On Monday I took dinner to my parents so I could visit with Max who had been on vacation with all the other retired people in the world at Quartzsite, AR.  After dinner I discovered that the only thing less interesting than playing legos is playing trains.  Ugh.  After pushing the trains around on the sand pit / train table I said, "Oh Max this is soooo not interesting."  He thought I was funny.  Then I discovered that all of his trains have names so I started making up stories for them and before I knew it Thomas and Emily were kissing.  (Whatever, they've probably been "friends" forever.)  In between kissing I exclaimed "Ugggggh, Max this is so boring!"  Then I made the trains ride up on my arms and jump (in hopes that the trains jumping would help Max to jump in gymnastics because the jumping he does in gymnastics is only a distant relative of actual jumping.)  I also had the trains crash into each other until I realized that this might result in boy violence and since I know better than to throw my trains into my mom's cabinet of porcelain cows I thought I probably shouldn't model behavior that might lead to that.  In any case, what I came away with is trains are fucking boring.

I didn't get to go to gymnastics today because I had to go to a meeting.  Every week this month I have been to one meeting that has made me want to change my profession.  Today, at the end, I thought what if I just burst into tears? What if I just start sobbing because I can't fucking stand this fucking shit any more?  What would happen?  I think I'm a good person.  I try to do my best.  It leaves me to wonder why I have to sit through such awful meetings.  The best part of today?  My walk with Clarence and Bill.  Why?  Because it was at 10am on a weekday and because they're fucking funny.

Lazy Sunday

First, I looked over to see Randi playing hide and seek with herself.

Where's Randi?

Then she got up and was wearing the blanket.

Next she was laying all classy like on the couch when Earl decided he wanted to sit on the couch, so he just climbed up and sat on her stomach.

So she just gave him a hug.  He sat half squishing her leg, stomach and lady parts and half in my lap for at least 20 minutes.  Randi did not care that her leg, stomach and lady parts were being smushed by Earl.

Warm!

This week has been ridiculous.  It was one thing after another from 4:30am to 8:00pm.  I cried more than once.  All I could think was Friday this week will be over.  Friday...Friday... Friday...

Monday I finished and installed my Pinterest project.  I bought a buffet from the thrift store and redid it using a recipe for "chalk pain" that I saw, where else?, on Pinterest.  I took out the bottom shelf and used my round saw to cut a piece of wood to make wine storage.  I've got mad saw skills.  There's 18 bottles of wine in there and room for more.  It looks great.  I also painted the top, but it was way to heavy for me to move in the house and I haven't decided if I'm going to keep it or not.

Monday I also decided that I would use Earl as a stand in for conversations that I wanted to have with people with whom I can not actually speak my mind.  I thought it might help my anger issues.  My conversation with Earl started with "You are a beeping, beeping, beeeeep, beeeeeeee."  That worked ok, but Earl started wagging his tail and then I just started laughing.

On Tuesday my house finally got warm!  Warm! Warm!! It's so exciting.  In what was a stressful afternoon, my pellet stove got installed and I promptly turned it up and got warm.  It hasn't been all that cold this week, but it has been stinking amazing.  It's possible I don't even have to wear my robe in the morning.  All four of the dogs slept out in the living room.  Amazing.  The installation was a bit of a circus because I had to have everyone in the Little Backyard where Randi dug a foot deep hole in probably 20 seconds.

After this crazy week, I've spend most of the weekend trying not to run around.  It's nice not running around.

This week's photos:

What I do 1.22.2013
I took this Tuesday instead of Monday since Monday was a holiday

Corner 1.22.2013

Electric 1.23.2013

Stripes 1.24.2013

Landscape 1.25.2013

Together  1.26.2013
There's so few pictures of me and Clark

 

Randi and Earl this morning.

Photos

Circles 1.13

Something Yellow 1.14

An Ordinary Moment 1.15

 

Two things 1.16

Ready (to eat) 1.17

Shadow 1.18

Delicious 1.19

Something you saw 1.20
(I think this is a woodpecker.  I've never seen this bird before!)

Reason Prevails

The Saratoga Animal Shelter is now a St. Bernard puppy-less Shelter.  Chloe went to a new home today.  This home found us last weekend and I did have a brief moment when I thought I wasn't going to be able to let her go.  But then Monday I was unexpectedly gone until 9:00pm and when I came home Shila was in the access road and the neighbors called to tell me she had been out all day long (did they call when she got out and I could have done something about it?  No, that would have been too much to ask.)  I said to myself as I was driving around to get Shila, "Self, you do not need a St. Bernard puppy."

Chloe has gone to a friend of a friend's family.  There are three kids and a mom and a dad, a Great Dane and I've been telling Chloe all week that she's going to be super happy with all of the attention she's going to get.   The family came to get her and the three kids were ecstatic and Chloe was beside herself and the little girl said, "What's that dog over there?" and pointed to behind my fence and it was fucking Baby Shila.  Since there were small children around I held my tongue and said I'll be right back and got the leash and the car and drove around to go get her.  (I was pretty certain the family was not going to steal any of my stuff while I was out.)  When I got back I put Shila in the house and the family took Chloe and her paperwork and left and then I chained Shila up while I worked on my Pinterest project.

I'm not going to reveal my Pinterest project until it's all done, but I did join Pinterest this morning.  I'm not sure how I feel about that yet, but it was so easy to show my dad all of the ideas for my Pinterest project on one board.  (My dad, for the record, does not care about Pinterest or my Pinterest project, but he was raised right, so he pretends to listen.)

Tonight we are going to celebrate our new St. Bernard puppy-less status by laying in a pain pill stupor on the couch.  I am very sore because yesterday I tripped on my desk drawer and fell in my classroom.  It was super early in the morning and I said, "Fuck, that's going to hurt later."  And it does.  I'm not dying, I'm just sore.  I had to call the company nurse and they asked me all kinds of rude questions like whether or not I was married, had ever been married or if I lived with someone and then they had to repeat it back to me condescendingly "You're 37, not married and you live alone?"  I felt like adding, "But I don't have forty fucking cats, so don't judge me."  The company nurse told me I should go to the doctor, but that was going to ruin my Friday evening so I politely declined that and came home and drank wine.

Sara sent me this

Earlier this week

Stranded

The Saratoga Animal Shelter has been sans weefee this week.  I didn't think people actually lost their Internet anymore.  I thought that this was something students just made up when they didn't finish their projects like they were supposed to.  I knew my Internet was out Monday, but I did not have the stamina to endure what I was certain would be a marathon telephone call to Verizon.  It has been my experience that calling Verizon is the equivalent of eating shards of glass.  Generally I just end up yelling at the automated menu "I want to talk to someone!  Can I talk to some-oooooooooooone!"  So finally yesterday I blocked out a couple of hours to call Verizon.  My modem had stopped talking to the mainframe and within minutes I was once again surfing.  Being stranded without the Internet wasn't all that bad actually.  Nothing to distract me from new TV episodes.

The retour de weefee came just in time because I have some plans to spend some massive time on Pinterest.  Yesterday when I went for my walk I noticed that my neighbor had some rather interesting wood pieces in his front yard.  These people have been purging for weeks and so on my way back I asked him if I could have them.  He said yes and I have plans to build some shit.  I want to make a headboard for my bedroom and also do something with the pallets.  If you're not sure what, just search pallet furniture on Pinterest.  That's what I'll be doing.

Pinterest here I come!!

This week I also bought a pellet stove.  It would have been awesome if I had purchased the pellet stove two weeks ago so it would have been installed for this week's Arctic temperatures, but it's ok.  I've told everyone that once it's installed they can come over in their bikinis because we are going to have it on high.

Wednesday Max and I spent some quality time together watching Toy Story 3 in French.  I asked first if he would mind.  He didn't say no, so we watched it in French.  I balled like a baby.  We also spent some quality time with me walking and him sleeping and then we went to Auntie and Me gymnastics.  I'm not sure how Auntie and Me gymnastics is doing with my back because Thursday I was very, very sore.  I also told my mom that Max needs to practice his moves because he's too little to understand when the teacher tells him to do things to stretch, so we've been working on putting our hands above our heads so that when we go back on Wednesday he looks less like "WTF?"

Clark's camouflaged on the dog bed.

THIS WEEK'S PHOTOS

Mine 

Street 

Starts with "T"
I don't understand why people think they can just dump stuff in the desert.

Paper
This is my dad's "organized" desk.

One O'clock

Water
Yep, that's a knife.

 

Surprise

Photos and Sunday

I can tell Clark is feeling much better because he is once again growling at Chloe and this morning even barked at her.  Randi and Earl, for their part, mostly find another spot to sleep or go out and play with her, but I believe that Sarah Warah is looking down from dog heaven and saying to those two, "Payback's a bitch isn't it."

I decided to do another photo challenge, because why the fuck not.  This one has a different subject each day from Fat Mum Slim.  Here are this week's photos.

Today 1.1.2013

Something New 1.2.2013

Heart 1.3.2013

 

The View From Here 1.4.2013

Movement 1.5.2013

Retour au golf

Today me, my dad and Sara went to the driving range and hit some balls.  I used to golf quite frequently.  At one point I was playing 9 holes 3-4 times a week in the afternoons, but I haven't done anything since my surgery.  You could tell by the look of my golf bag.  Nevertheless we had been talking about going out and hitting some balls some time.  Sara's been taking golf lessons and my dad just needed to get out of the house.  I hit less balls than they did because I wasn't sure how my back would be.  Turns out it be sore.  I took a 1/2 a muscle relaxer when I got home and I fully expect to take a pain pill once I get into bed.  I guess I'm ok.  I'm not in horrible awful terrible pain, but I'm not sure golfing is something that I'm going to be able to do and then do something else.  Golfing may be an end of the day activity.  Or the last activity I do before I lay on the heating pad for the rest of the evening.  I guess I'll know more tomorrow.  The best part about golf is beer and turns out they have $1 drafts at the golf club house.  I told Sara we should consider just going there to drink.  $1 drafts.  I haven't had beer that cheap since I was in France at the chemist bar underneath the chemists' lab.

Clark stayed outside this afternoon for about three hours.  He ran up to the gate when I got home and everything.  I tell you, if it weren't for his skeleton look you'd never even know that a week ago that guy was skirting death.  Very happy about that!

"I swear I can fit."

"What?"

Guard dogs

Sara and my dad

All Systems Go

It appears Clark is nearly back to normal.  Yesterday he peed on the floor while I was out.  Last night he peed on his bed and is back to passing an enormous amount of gas.  So much me and Sara were nearly forced outside.  Now my goal is to get him fattened up because he is a skeleton.   He's still not eating like he used to, so I'm like a nervous mother taking everything out of the refrigerator in an effort to find something that pleases him, "How about this?  No?  You don't want that?  What about this?"  He ate a little bit this morning, but I expect he will eat much more this after noon when Sara is here.  I've tried rice, rice and ground beef, rice and gravy, gravy and dog food, dog food, eggs, cheese, eggs and cheese, eggs and cheese and dog food, bread, bread with gravy, bread with gravy and dog food.  Today I'm going to roast a chicken and see if he want some of that.  He's eating.  Just not a lot.

Helping me crochet

He does this when you say "smile!"

Gymnastics

I'm pretty sore after Auntie and Me gymnastics.  I'm not really sure if it was the gymnastics or the fact that I decided to get some shit done and moved a bunch of crap in the garage to clean.  Probably it didn't help that I did gymnastics on the same day as moving the crap around in the garage.  Auntie and Me gymnastics was quite fun.  I registered us this morning and since I'm not Max's actual parent or guardian I had to have the Big Guy come and sign the papers at the town hall.  Awkward.  Then I called the gymnastics place to see if there was more legal guardian papers that had to be filled out, and there were so the Big Guy and the Little Guy had to meet me over there.  More awkward.  I told my dad yesterday that I wasn't sure if I was supposed to wear a leotard or not and when we registered the dress code said specifically, sweats, comfortable clothing or leotard.

There were only two other kids at Auntie and Me gymnastics so we got a lot of attention.  Mostly gymnastics consisted of Max trying to run up, jump and climg over things.  It was pretty darn fun.  He was skeptical at first, but warmed up after he saw the little girl doing things and then he was clapping for himself after he did something.  We did running and tried some jumping, but he's not real familiar with the word jump because I'm pretty sure jumping is discouraged at Grandma's house.  The only thing that can happen when you jump is you fall off the bed and hit your head and Grandma has to call the doctor.  I'm sore because all the "jumping" was really me lifting.  My dad watched from the gallery.   And at the end we did sit ups.  Nobody broke their arm and nobody pooped in their pants, so I think overall- an excellent day doing gymnastics.

2nd Annual

Great news!  Clark just went outside to eat like he normally would.  I fed him about 2/3 of a can of food and he ate all but a few bites.  Yea Clark!

This morning Chloe or Randi chewed off Chloe's shock collar.  I'm going to have to have my mom help me sew a new collar and buckle on it.  I know my mom has buckles because she made a special buckle for Max to do over and over and over and over.

Today we climbed Bell Mountain.  It was me, Bill, Pete, EDub, Don with the Brick Driveway, Dean, Gene, Gene's son and Gene's grandson.  Sara couldn't go, of course, because of her foot.  Last year Sara, Bill and Gene climbed the mountain and I just walked to the base and back.  Today's hike  was long.  It was hard.  And Bell Mountain is damn high up.  I did fine going up, but the first part coming back down was scary because it's so shaley (sp?).  I thought, oh dear god don't let me fall down this mountain.  It was a good thing I had my new shoes!  They were my present from me for having walked over 600 miles in 2012.  I used to like Gene, but I can't stand that guy any more.  Just last week I said that guy, Gene, he's got good manners because he sent me a Christmas card and Saturday morning he called me to check on Sara.  But that guy doesn't even have the decency to act his age.  Today he was bounding over rocks and boulders with his son and grandson and finished probably twenty minutes before me, Bill and EDub.  Geez.  Also, when I tried to convince him he needed a St. Bernard Puppy ("Think of all the women you'd get, Gene!"), he just walked faster until he couldn't hear me any more.

I'm sore from my walk and so I will probably take a pain pill because tomorrow's a big day.  Me and Max are going to go to our first Mommy (Auntie) and Me gymnastics class.  I am very anxious about Auntie and Me gymnastics for these reasons:

1. Auntie and Me gymnastics takes place during hours which are sometime used for napping and which may produce a toddler who is not all that interested in gymnastics.
2. I don't have a leotard.
3. I don't know what kind of crazy gymnastics moves I'm going to be required to do.  
4. The last time I did gymnastics was in the fourth grade and I broke my arm.

I'm just assuming that I'm going to have to take part in the gymnastics since it's Auntie and Me gymnastics, but who knows.  Maybe they just have red solo cups full of gin for all of the Aunties to drink while they watch the little people do gymnastics.  If they don't they should probably consider adding that as a feature.

Bell Mountain

Base of Bell Mountain

At the summit.  Stupid sun behind the clouds.

Me at the summit

Pete at the summit

This happens frequently.

Big dog on a little bed