trying again

As you may have noticed, I’m trying to remember to blog again since I forgot for so long. I should have plenty to say, but I’m really trying to not turn this into a pregnancy blog. Oh! I actually haven’t even mentioned that yet, soooo I’m pregnant! You already knew that, though. The due date is January 14, 2012, but we’ll see when she or he decides to show up.

We went to the lake Friday afternoon and came back Saturday evening at 8. Our friends Daniel & Crystal came with their Great Dane, Apollo, and we all had good times. I am very, very tired, though.

This time, Brian found and later killed a water moccasin! It was hiding in an old shoe in the boat house, so it never would have bothered us, but since we found it, that sucker is history.

While we were gone, our next door neighbors killed a copperhead in their front yard at night! I have definitely had my fill of snakes this year. Could they please go away?!

Choxie has met 5 dogs in the last week that she has never seen before, and she loves them all! She didn’t quite know what to think of the Great Dane, but they definitely got along. She was a little scared of him because he is about 5 times bigger than her. Speaking of new dogs – when we got home today, she ran directly to the fence in our backyard to look for her other buddies she made on Friday. They weren’t there, but she’ll see them soon, I’m sure.

I don’t like bathing really, even though I do (don’t worry), but I do love showering at my own house with my own soaps and such after being gone and getting dirty. It feels so good! I also cannot wait to sleep in my bed tonight. 🙂

GOOD THING: Everyone was safe at the lake.
BAD THING: probably ate way too much crap this wekeend again, but that’s ok, I guess

friday again

YES! It’s Friday! This work week was just 2.5 days for me, so that is a big plus. However, I was still very ready for this week to be over. And, of course, today was the worst work day of all with tons to do and all of it consisting of stuff that makes me nauseated, so I am extra glad it’s Friday afternoon now.

Here is what I’ve done today so far: woke up late, went to work, worked hard and fast, got lunch from Homewood Gourmet (grilled ham & cheese with potato salad & sweet tea), filled our bird feeders, and stole the dogs from next door to put them in our yard to play with Choxie.

So far, I’ve done enough to feel successful. Now, I’m waiting on Brian to go to the lake for the night. It is so relaxing there – especially when you can stay for a few days.

I also met our across the street neighbor yesterday (just the husband), and he was nice. I found out he actually goes to our church, but they don’t get to go often because they are both doctors. I invited him to our Sunday School class. It was so hot outside when we talked that I had to come inside and change clothes afterwards. That is gross.

GOOD THING: FRIDAY!!!
BAD THING: so hot outside

loong weekend

I added an extra ‘o’ because we took an extra day off! We did lots, but I will try to keep it simple.

Basically, we went to the lake for the first weekend this year. We were able to go Friday afternoon and not come back until Tuesday evening! We found out the phone and the satellite service were both messed up (we think the house got hit some by lightning), so that cut out some options at night, but it really was better that way. On Friday, Brian’s parents were already there, so we hung with them. Saturday, Drew and Vaughan came down, and we had fun. On Saturday evening, they and Brian’s parents went home, so we had one evening and morning to ourselves. On Sunday evening, both couples came back after church and stayed the night. We had super fun times! We swam and floated lots, went on some boat rides, ate lots of food, played with our dogs, and went to the fireworks show on the water Sunday night. I haven’t laughed as hard as I did during the fireworks show in a really long time! Vaughan and I almost died by some redneck’s fireworks that were landing directly over our heads. Monday afternoon, everyone went home but us, so we had another day and a half to ourselves. On Tuesday, we just floated around and took turns riding in the kayak. We had a good variety of people combos.

Also, I got to see some cool animals: green heron (usually hard to find, but we saw him every day!), giant black grasshopper (love those), baby skink (so cute), lots of dragonflies, a baby turtle, and 2 crawfish. Brian also saw a snake on the pier, which had apparently been right behind us for a while, but I didn’t see it, so I can’t include it in my list. I saw other stuff, but those were notable things.

Since the TV was out, we rented 3 movies while there, so I have now seen: True Grit, The Rite and The King’s Speech. They are all good. True Grit was the worst because there’s a creepy rattlesnake scene, and a poor horse dies. I hate those 2 things in movies.

GOOD THING: All the dogs this weekend (4) got along PERFECTLY! They had SO much fun, and it was fun watching them.
BAD THING: back to work tomorrow. Can I win the lottery soon?

wowza

I remembered today that I have a blog! I never mean to go this long without posting.

This weekend, Brian and I took Chox and headed to the lake on Friday to spend the night. I finally finished a book I’ve been reading, and I already know which one I want to read next. I hope it’s awesome! I finally have a very short list of favorite authors, and it is: Barbara Kingsolver and Mark Childress. That’s it. I’m sure there are more people I’d love, too, but I haven’t found them yet.

Today was A Meal & A Deal at church, which is a fundraiser for the Youth Department, and I put 2 necklaces in for them to auction off. They both brought way more money than I sell them for, so I’m glad I could help! I was looking around at everything, and most things didn’t sell for double what the asking price was – but mine did! Most things didn’t even sell for the full retail value, but some went over just a little.

I went to Target tonight at 10, and that is a great time to go! Unfortunately, I didn’t find any clothes I wanted, but I did buy 1 pair of shoes and grabbed Brian some peanut M&Ms.

GOOD THING: Brian was super awesome and studied to teach Sunday School tomorrow instead of me! What a nice surprise!
BAD THING: Choxie is fishassing, and it’s sick. Why do dogs do that?!?!?!?!

brian is awesome

Brian is awesome! I have lots of reasons, but the very latest one is that he secretly set an event and alarm on my phone tonight, so it went off, and I had to go see what reminder I’d left for myself. I expected it to be something I did to remind me to prepare for selling t-shirts at church tomorrow, but instead, it just said “You are cute” on the screen. hehe

We just got back from the lake this evening, and we had a ton of fun! Choxie especially had an awesome time playing outside. She played with us, mostly herself, and then some with Durwood, a cousin that lives next door. She also got ran out of their yard by the tiniest dog several times named “Smidget” to emphasize her size. She doesn’t play around with people in the yards she’s claimed on that road (since that one isn’t even hers). It’s hilarious to see Choxie intimidated by her.

Anyway, the adults had fun, too. The fun included a little TV, Brian taking some photos, me reading a new book, and both of us enjoying the nice weather. We also canoed for a long time today and saw lots of things like different birds (including an almost attack of me by a turkey vulture), funny squirrels, sick fish 😦 , and too much trash in the water, which I picked lots out of the water. You wouldn’t believe what all you can find floating in the back of some off-the-path slews on the lake. It’s sad! I picked up 4 containers full of bottles and stuff, but I’m going to make sure I do that every time I go down there if I can.

I’m pumped about church tomorrow, mostly because of our mission trip meeting and our special service, and I’m also nervous about selling the Walk shirts because I’m afraid no one realizes it’s going on again this year. We haven’t advertised as much because we almost did too much last year, and we figure the people who will participate will participate. Anyway, I don’t have the sweet booth setup that I had last time (mostly because we didn’t ask for it), so Brian and I will make do with an easel holding our smaller sign and us wearing our shirts as the examples. Hopefully we will see at least a few! I sold one during the work week this past week, so we don’t have to worry about a bust.

I feel really good these days! I wonder if that is mostly due to the vitamins I’ve been taking every day for over a month. Surely that would be enough to perk someone up. I have always been really terrible at taking a daily vitamin, but I’ve been good this time. I’ve also been good at keeping on my running schedule! It’s fun to run with Brian, and it’s fun to succeed. I seriously doubted that I could even run the first step of our process, and I was certain I would have trouble with the second, but I’m already several steps in, and I haven’t had trouble yet! Tomorrow, we’ll run almost 85% of our time, which is much more than I thought I’d ever do. Toot! I can’t wait until I can run the whole time. If I ever can say “I just ran 3 miles” or whatever distance it’d be for us to run 30 minutes, I would be super proud. I know lots of people can do it, but I never though I would. I’ll be excited!

I am sending a special shout-out to Misty since she still reads the blog! I’m glad she enjoyed the blog on panties haha. Maybe I should start taking blog topic requests. If you have one, let me know! I’ll blog about anything you want to hear! Maybe.

GOOD THING: feel great
BAD THING: uncalled-for anxiety about selling shirts tomorrow – no idea why

long time coming

Okay, okay, I know I said I would blog soon, but I haven’t felt like it. I will (instead) do a shorter version of all I was going to say and cram it all into one post.

Choxie had some issues in the past couple of months. These started off by a vet visit revealing really high liver enzymes in her blood. We had to wait a couple of months before she could have a blood test again to see if they were still high. If they were, we would need to start making little changes to see what could help her out. In the meantime, she stopped wanting to eat. She would eventually eat all her food, but we’d have to convince her to eat. That lasted about a week, then we switched her food and she ate for a couple of days, then she didn’t want to eat again for several days until we took her to the vet on that note. That and the fact that she got a huge gash on her chest. The vet figured out she had 2 kinds of worms (not the visible kind), and he gave her a pill to kill them. That was why she had no appetite. He said he has no idea how she got them since she takes heartworm pills (because those work on other kinds, too), but she had them, so we gave her a mega dose of something. Also, she got antibiotics to heal up the giant cut. We’ve since taken her back to check her blood, and the liver issue is fixed! Her liver healed itself he said, which isn’t that rare. There was previously some sort of blockage keeping those enzymes from going into her intestines, and they were dumping into her blood instead. Also, her cut healed SO fast. It will probably just leave a little scar. Also, she loves eating now (except when it’s early in the AM – she’s a sleeper like me). To boot, we give her a different food now that is better for her, so she’s in tip top shape. Yay!

Our vacation week at the lake was great. I took detailed notes each day just so we could remember what all happened, but I won’t get into many details here because it’s too much to type. We kind of did nothing, but we did a lot at the same time. We spent time playing in the yard with the dog, taking a few boat rides, and canoed for almost 4 hours one day where we watched birds, ducks, turtles and a deer eat for quite a while. We also drove to Prattville a couple of times to eat and made some trips into Clanton for groceries and stuff. We watched some TV, slept a lot, I read parts of several books and finally finished one that I’d been dragging through. Also, we spider hunted! We made a sweet discovery one night (well, Brian did), and we learned that wolf spiders’ eyes glow in the dark! Well, they reflect light VERY well and show up blue or green. With Brian’s headlamp, we walked all over the front yard and found literally thousands of baby wolf spiders. It was crazy. It was weirdly fun, though, and we found a salamander while we were hunting, too. We had lots of fun that week and wished we never had to work again.

The college visit I went on last week went great! We had fun that day in the car (even though we drove 40 miles out of the way – talking and early AM doesn’t mix) and looking around campus. She wants to go to that school for sure now, so I would consider the trip a success. We had lunch with my old college roommate who works there on campus, so that was fun, too. I’m excited for her if she decides to go there!

GOOD THING: listening to old school country songs online
BAD THING: nothing worth putting here

whoa nelly

Today was SO BUSY at work! It was probably my least favorite day of the year so far. 😦 I really hope tomorrow is better. I stayed an extra 40 minutes or so today just so tomorrow morning won’t feel so overwhelming. Let’s hope it works!

This past weekend was pretty awesome. Brian and I went to the lake by ourselves Friday at lunch time because he took off work for his birthday that was Wednesday. They let him choose whatever day he wants. We went to Pizza Hut in Clanton for dinner and had pizza for lunch the next day. It was really yummy. PH wins the pizza contest. We lad lots of fun at dinner laughing about stuff. When we got home, we chatted with his sister on the phone for a long time, and that was funny, too. Brian got to wakeboard for a little while Friday evening right in front of the house because the water was so calm. It was really awesome and fun to drive him with perfect water and no other boats. It started lightning, so we had to quit lest we get struck down. The next day, we woke up late, then took the boat out again. I got to wakeboard then, and I wakeboarded for a realllly long time until my arms hurt too bad to hang on. The water was pretty rough, so that sucked my energy up faster. We had a good time either way. Choxie played in the water some more, too! She likes it. Brian’s dad came down about the time we were thinking about leaving, so we took him for a long boat ride complete with the dog after he had time to mow the yard. Choxie was too cold on that ride, and she got restless. That resulted in her peeing in the boat. A lot. She’s never done that before, so I’m blaming it on the really rough water over an extended amount of time.

Sunday was the day that Dr. Sleeth came to speak at our church! I was so excited for him to be there. The only things that went wrong Sunday were these things: I decided to wake up early to go hear what he had to say BEFORE the Q&A time, but I heard his talk at the later service was awesome and different than at the early service. Oh well. Also, he announced that he would sign books after the second service, which I wasn’t going to. Thank goodness someone volunteered to get my book signed! I know it’s not a big deal, but it is to me. I am really glad I got to go up and meet Dr. Sleeth before the church service that morning to thank him for coming and tell him how excited we were for him to be there. He’s a really nice guy, and I think he’s funny, too. I’m looking forward to his next book coming out.

Sunday afternoon, I went to the bookstore and bought 2 new books and a planner. I’m pretty excited about my books, but I will wait and talk about them later when I have real comments on them.

GOOD THING: today is OVER!
BAD THING: still haven’t planned September’s Circle meeting – oops!

quite regular

I’m on a roll with these posts!

Below are some pictures from our lake weekend even though you’ve probably already seen them on Facebook.

Joanie

Matt & Elise

Lexie & Choxie

Brian with Happy, the one-eyed little doggy

Adam

Brian driving our boat

the big dogs playing in the water

me in the boat

Matt catching some air

even me in the air

awwww I’m up on my tiptoes trying to get close to his face

🙂

our family!

 

That was probably more than you wanted to see. We had fun! I wish we could hang out with all of them more often. Maybe we will try to have a reunion soon. Wait – we will see them all in October at Mountain Day at Berry. Yes!

GOOD THING: 15 minutes until I go home from work
BAD THING: still stuffed from lunch

lake times

This weekend was a weekend at the lake! We had not been in a few weeks, but it felt like it’d been longer. We invited 2 other couples that we don’t see very often. Both husbands were college roommates of Brian’s. We had tons of fun wakeboarding, watching TV, playing Rock Band, swimming, playing with our dogs (every couple had one there), eating and talking. I’m sure something else took place, but those were the main things. I think everyone had a good time. We will probably see them all again in October when we got to Mountain Day at Berry. I didn’t take the first picture, so I will only post some after Adam puts some up on Facebook probably.

Choxie was really good and got in the water more than ever! She even got in the water two times on her own without us even coaxing her! She almost did it a third time this afternoon, but we called her back because we were getting ready to leave.

Oh, I need to back up. Friday was my shopping afternoon with Sheena! We had fun of course. We started with a super yummy lunch of O’Carrs fruit (for both of us) and chicken salad (for me). Then, we went to several stores to try on jeans for me (finally found some). We also got free 5 (or 15) minute massages while we were out! Yay for nice customers of Sheena’s.

And even FURTHER back, we had a fun TV night Thursday! We laughed and talked a lot, and I finally met Casey’s parents. They’re very nice, of course.

I am sunburned and really worn out from this weekend, so I’m hoping to go to bed really early. I highly doubt that will happen, but it sure would be nice. I really do think that any bedtime in my own bed would guarantee a much better night’s sleep than my last 2 nights in the bed at the lake, so I’ll be happy no matter what.

GOOD THING: Everyone had fun at the lake, and no one got hurt!
BAD THING: sunburned

long lake weekend #2

The long holiday weekend at the lake was fun! It seemed like it lasted longer than the previous lake weekend, which doesn’t make sense because it was almost exactly the same amount of time. We did lots more stuff this time, I guess, so maybe that is why.

Anyway, we had fun with lots of family around – some I’d met and some I had not. We had some of our own overnight guests at our house Friday night (at the lake), and tons more came over Saturday for lunch which involved BBQ, homemade ice cream! and swimming with the young people before, during and after the 2:00 boat parade (there is also one at 10:00). I chatted with Brian’s cousin’s girlfriend that I’d never met before, and she seemed really nice and cool. I heard lots of stories being retold about old times, of course, and the older cousins seemed to have a good time recalling stuff just like any family get together calls for. We went on some boat rides, caught the fireworks show from the water, and swam with family.

We also wakeboarded with Dan & Carrie before Brian hurt his knee too bad to go anymore and I ripped the skin off all my fingers trying to work in the yard without gloves on. I jumped higher than ever! I’m proud of myself, but I am not happy enough until I jump much farther/higher. I know for sure I can do it now! And it’s not as scary as it used to be. My highest jump was actually the easiest; I guess I did it right for once because I am starting to become less scared. We also got Choxie to swim! We keep standing her in the shallow part and trying to show her that there are things like sticks and weeds to eat in the water, and that helped. We finally tag teamed her and got her to actually swim out to deeper water to come to me and a stick or something, then she’s take it and swim back to Brian while he sat in the shallow part. She did it like 3 times! It was exciting. I think by next year, she’ll love the water. She also fell in a time or two, and she is not a fan of that.

I also completed a successful Wal-Mart trip and scored a new fishing pole with some bait and a tacklebox, and I got a new shirt for $9!

Saturday, we realized my car had a flat tire on it. this was around 6:30 or 7:00 PM on the 4th of July, so there was no fixing it then. We stayed overnight and took my car to a tire store the next day around lunch time. We aired it back up, and it stayed inflated, so we drove it in. It was still aired up when we got there, so that was great. Then, they put my car on the lift, and we all saw that my tire had a giant crack all along the edge of the inside, meaning a blowout was about to happen. I’m so glad it deflated Saturday! We could’ve had really bad happenings on the way back to Birmingham. The tire store didn’t have any tires to fit my car, but he did find a used one to get us home on. I have to get new tires this week on my car; it needed all new tires anyway, but we’d been putting it off. I’m so glad I didn’t have any more trouble out of them than I did this weekend.

When we got back, we met Bobby! He is our new friend by way of the Pattons, and he is moving here soon. That’s what I heard, so he has to. We watched Hot Rod and played some Scene It, and the girls actually got lots of points even if the boys won. No one can argue that we did better than we usually do.

Today, we’re all back to work. It’s been alright so far. Lunch was fun with lots of laughs, and I have already been to the pet store to get Choxie some more food since we ran out this morning. She will get a new toy when I get home! I think I actually found something she can’t destroy in 10 minutes.

I’m thinking about going to the chiropractor after work to try and fix my pitiful neck. I also need to go return some books that I am saving over $17 on! I’m still happy about that. And I need to go pick up some contacts I ordered about 2 weeks ago. Maybe I can go for a walk with the dog tonight around 7:30 and not burn up!

If we have any pictures from the lake, I will put them up soon.

GOOD THING: I’m still in the mood to work on organizing our basement.
BAD THING: Rain in hot weather calls for even worse humidity!