Halloween....

So before we venture into Halloween see that spot on top of Nissie's head and eyebrow? Go ahead guess what it is. Okay...okay....we had quesadillas and buffalo wings for dinner. D. decided to take the garbage out while I did dishes. We both forgot to clear the table completely off. I turned around and guess who was lapping up the sour cream? I'm thinking the white dot in the center of the dog's head is giving you the answer.

This just goes to show a man with one full hand and one hand with 4 3/4 fingers can still spoil his dog by holding her in his lap. Awwww.....isn't that sweet.

This is the pumpkin Ann and Alan at work made for the front desk. I think it's cool.

I'm betting at night you can't see the wires and the eyeballs might glow in the dark. Cool.....

We had a pot luck at work today. I organized it and we had tons of food. This is just the dessert table(s). I started out with one 8 foot table and we had to add on to it.

Just in case you didn't notice the jello. This is it up close. Is that cool or what. It's a brain!

This is actually 4 tables which equal about 32'. It doesn't look like much here but it was a ton of food. We had about 100 of the employees participate.

This is Ann. She and the Alan (her husband shown below) made the pumpkin above along with a pumpkin for each of their employees.

Is Alan cool or what? I didn't get a close shot of Ann and Alan standing but they were very sharp. Their department got into the swing and really went all out and dressed up.

This is Thao. She's very shy and quiet. Her Jack Sparrow outfit was really great. I pointed her out in a mass email and she came to the front desk and quietly said, "Oh...you outed me". I just laughed at her and said, "Well, yeah. You have a great costume!"

It's hard to see Nikki here. Her veil is really pretty black cobwebs with spiders on it.

Here are a few of Alan's staff. It's just a drop in the bucket. See the girl sitting to the left of the guy with the orange shirt? She got awarded most creative. She had on a black hoodie, and a box of Cheerios or something with knives sticking out of it. She hung it from her neck. I said, "Okay, I give what are you?" Are you ready for this????? She's a cereal/serial killer. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! I love it.

Well, that's all for the excitement tonight. I really had a great time at work putting the luncheon together and checking out the costumes. I have to admit though, I'm pooped tonight.

Bunny, Buzzsaw & Booties.....

I think I need to ask Santa for a nice camera for Christmas. My little one is great for pictures for the blog or CL but when I'm trying to take a shot from a distance, it just can't seem to cut the mustard.

We have lots of bunnies around here (okay, they're really jack rabbits) but they rarely sit still long enough for me to take a picture. They're actually quite large and very fast.

When H was growing up she called them Ed. She didn't care if they were boys or girls, she named them all the same. LOL!

I came home the other day and the sleeve of my jacket was hanging off the bar stool and looking rather odd. When I got closer, I noticed little buzzsaw (Nissie) got a hold of it and ate the sleeve up to the elbow.

I haven't a clue why she did this. I think the last time I wore it I was cooking something like bacon. Which means the smell was still on the sleeve and she decided to have a snack. I'm keeping an eye out, since she doesn't seem to have passed the pieces yet. Ewwww....

Let's see, we did the bunny, buzzsaw and now for the booties. I work with Irena. She's from Russia and we just hit it off from the beginning of my working at ITN. She makes me laugh. Sometimes I can't understand half of what she's saying but she keeps me in stitches.

Anyway, she's been knitting since she was 8 and loves it when I show her what my sister and nieces have been working on. She made these for me Monday night and gave them to me Tuesday at work. They're mohair and just the softest darn booties I've ever touched.

I think I embarrassed her and made her proud all at the same time because when I was at the front desk, I put them on top of the counter where everyone could see them as they walked by. When someone asked me about them I proudly told them Irena made them for me. She got lots of compliments.

Oh for those knitters in the family, she loves to knit and crochet baby blankets, booties, sweaters, etc. for new mothers. She can't afford to keep buying yarn so she gets it from....are you ready for this???? The second hand/Goodwill store. She buys sweaters dirt cheap, brings them home and washes/cleans them, then takes them apart and reuses the yarn for more baby stuff. I never would have thought of that.

She loves it when I show her the family blogs and new projects everyone is working on. I've promised to send her pictures of the blankets my sister made for the baby and my son and daughter-in-law.

Oh...maybe I'll do that right now! Yep, so I'll hush up and start editing pictures for Irena. Bye!

The Meltdown.....

So I had a meltdown this morning around 6:45. I'm talking embarrassing yelling and swearing using the F word. As you guys know, I never...ever use that word!

The weekends are supposed to be my day to regroup and prepare for a busy week ahead. I'm not getting that because I have to get up and take D to work because he can't drive. He can work as long as he doesn't climb ladders, lift heavy stuff or drive because of the pain meds he's on.

With the bear getting so old, my morning routine isn't easy anymore. The little dogs don't want to go potty and pay attention because they want in the Bear's cage so they can eat her poop. She's been pooping and peeing in her cage because she just can't hold it at night anymore. Which means I'm picking up her wet stinky blanket and stuff and putting it in the washer each morning.

So the mornings have become a zoo trying to get the little dogs to focus. Then if I turn my back, Nuttie swoops in and starts eating the Bears breakfast.

The past few days the Bear has come out of her cage and while I'm dishing her breakfast and hiding her pills in it, she poops on the floor then walks in it and tracks throughout the kitchen. If I put her outside before feeding her, she just stands on the step and cries. Yet she can't hold it when she gets excited like she does when she sees I'm putting food in her bowl.

This morning she peed on the hardwood floor and I didn't see it because I was trying to settle the little dogs and feed them. I walked in it and it stained the hardwood.

Well, poor D was in the kitchen when I lost it. Yelling wishing his dog was dead. How life will be so much easier when she's gone and so on. It was a horrible, mean, ugly thing to say but what scares me most is, at the time I meant every word I said.

So instead of coming home after taking D to work, I went to WalMart, bought some stuff we needed along with a Vampire movie that looks pretty good. Then I went to the grocery store and bought what I needed to marinate the flank steak. I've decided on an easy dinner of BLT and we'll have a nice meal of the flank steak tomorrow.

I've put all the groceries away and fried up some little smokie sausages to eat. I know better because they have sugar and give me a migraine but I just didn't give a darn.

On the upside, I fried up 8, ate 2 and gave the other 6 to the dogs. Which of course, they don't get people food so they think I walk on water right now. I finished my two sausages about 10 minutes ago and I'm already fighting a headache. Well, doesn't that just serve me right!!!!

I'm going to go in, take a pill or two and watch my vampire movie. If I'm lucky I'll fall asleep for a short nap but I doubt that will happen with the migraine starting.

Once I'm rested, I'll go in clean the kitchen, put the WalMart stuff away and hook up the new wireless keyboard and mouse I bought D for the PC in the office.

Speaking of D. The surgery went well yesterday but the damage was more extensive than first thought so they had to do a 'modified amputation' on the tip of his finger. I believe the doctor said it was massive damage to the tissue. He should have a fingernail though and she removed 5 mm off the end of his finger. We'll see Friday what it looks like.

I really have to find that guy a desk job. He's turning me into a wreck. LOL! I've told him how much his 'accidents' affect me but I don't think he seriously realizes how each time something happens, it just drains me. This is his 3rd trip to ER in 10 months. Although, he has promised no more trips this year or all of 2012. You'll have to pardon me if I'm skeptical. sigh.....

Okay, where'd I put my vampires?

ER...ER....ERERER.....

Okay friends and family, I hope you're sitting down. 'As the D turns', has a new episode. Yep, this is my hubby Monday evening. Grab a cup of coffee, put your feet up, get comfortable and start reading.

He called me around 4 (Monday) at work and said, "Could you please come by ER on your way home from work?" That question would put fear into most women, for me it received just a sigh and a question. "What did you do now?"

The reply is, "I cut my finger so I'm in ER."

When I get to the hospital there's my hubby lying on a gurney. I look down at his baby finger and it's not a nice simple clean cut like from a utility knife. I sigh and say, "What did you do?"

D: "Well, I was working on the deck and cut my finger with the circular saw." Yes fans, it was that ugly.

He cut through the fingernail from the tip of the finger to where the nail comes out of the skin. The finger is dangling....okay that's graphic enough. Just suffice it to say it wasn't pretty. The doc in ER thought he was going to lose that part of his finger. The surgeon they called in said he knew a specialist that could probably rebuild the finger. So they stabilized it and we headed to the orthopedic surgeon the following morning (Tuesday).

She sees with some work, she can repair it with hopes that most or all of the nail will take root and grow again. The finger stitched back together and with some grafting over the end that's white and dead, it'll look pretty normal but he won't have feeling in that one spot.

After awhile and quite a bit of cleaning, they again stabilize the finger in a big splint with lots of cushioning and make an appointment for surgery Friday morning. They'll put him in a light sleep so it'll be easy to wake him, not require a tube down his throat and make it so he won't feel or remember any of the surgery.

Now most of you would say he'd stay out of trouble. NOPE!!!! It turns out he needed an EKG before they'd do surgery. Instead of calling me back from work to take him (awhile after seeing the surgeon) Tuesday morning, he drove himself to the doctor for the test.

While getting out of the truck, he caught his finger on the door and ripped the splint and protective padding off of it. Yes, he said it hurt like....well you get the picture.

As luck would have it, the orthopedic surgeon is downstairs from our family doctor who was going to do the EKG. So D stopped in at the surgeon's office (second time that day) and had them wrap the finger again.

I'd like to point out that when I got home I immediately noticed the finger was wrapped differently and asked why. He had to confess his trip back to the doctor and the damage made to his poor little finger.

Just a few points. This happened because he was too cheap to go out and buy a $40 Forsner bit to do the job that needed to be done. Instead he thought he could save money by making the cut with the circular saw. Um...WRONG!

I asked how long it would have taken to go buy the required bit and he conceded maybe 30 - 40 minutes. So my comment was, "Let's make this easy. $40 and 40 minutes to get the right equipment. Right?"

D: "Well, yeah."

Me: "So now you've spent 5 hours in ER and spent a few thousand dollars and the finger is still not fixed."

D: "Uh huh."

Me: "Now we've got plastic surgery to put the finger back together, which means more doctor visits and probably a little less than $15,000 or $20,000 to do the job."

D: "Uh huh."

Me: "I'm thinking, $40 for 40 minutes is looking pretty good right now."

D: "I suppose if you look at it that way, yeah."

At this point I'm about ready to fall on the floor laughing at his male mentality. Then he hits me with sticking his pinkie up in the air and says, "I think Home Depot should let me give the safety classes." I almost peed my pants laughing so hard!

He said, "Ya gotta have the right tool for the right job!" Duh, now the light goes on over his head. Hahahahahahaha!

I'm one tired, exhausted, wife with a very warped sense of humor. Definitely not the same woman he married 38 years ago. I like to think of myself as seasoned. LOL!

Ah....note to self. Thank boss tomorrow for the wonderful Health Care plan I'm taking for a test spin. {;- )

The Good Wife...kinda...

Earlier this week my boss got flowers from her future daughter in law and son as a thank you for throwing them an engagement party. When I came in Friday, they were on my desk. It was a very nice surprise for 7:15 in the morning.

I went in to thank her for them and her comment was, "I'm sorry, I meant to give them to you yesterday morning. I wanted you to enjoy them longer."

Before D left this morning, he was a bit down and told me how he envies me and my working relationship with my boss. I told him I've had some very nice bosses in the past but Ann walks on water as far as I'm concerned. She appreciates everything I do and asks my opinion on stuff a normal boss wouldn't bother with. I give her way more than 100% of my effort and time. I love her to bits.

I thought I'd be good and clean house today and shampoo the hall and bedroom carpets. While I was working my fingers to the bone, a little black dog was getting into things she didn't belong in.

I came down the hall to refill the tank for the shampooer and saw these batteries on the floor in the kitchen. I know I'd put them on the kitchen table.

When I started shampooing the hall carpet the bills were in a nice neat stack under my purse and my wallet, checkbook and hankie were safe and snug inside of it.

Friday morning Nissie got into my purse and ate my chapstick (again....sigh....) and my bubblegum. Apparently that wasn't enough for her and she went back to the source today for my new tube of chapstick and anything else she could find. Luckily, I gave Janeen at work my last two Pepto Bismal tablets yesterday because she had an upset tummy.

I know it was Nissie because when I was picking up the stuff to put it back in my purse, I glanced down by the bar and she was rolled over on her back showing me her tummy with that, 'Nuttie made me do it' look. I'm thinking it's time to start putting the purse on the bar in the future.

Today I was a good wife by cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. Now I'm sitting here looking at the bills and checkbook balance. My friend Toni said when she noticed she still had money, that meant she needed to pay bills. I see what she means. I've just been procrastinating because yesterday was payday, the checkbook looks healthy and I haven't felt broke for 24 hours.

Maybe tomorrow I'll bite the bullet and make some creditors happy. I'm thinking PG&E and the phone company will be the first on my list.

Well, time to go make some rice for dinner. S called yesterday to say hi and inform his ma Safeway has huge shrimp on sale for $7 a pound. D's going to bring some home tonight so I'll make his favorite Shrimp Victoria for dinner.

Deck stuff again....yawn....

While D was at work Sunday I thought I'd go over and work on the deck. The boards coming out of the house were pretty rotten so my job was to sister boards up to them for the new framing.

I was getting ready to work on the first one and decided I wasn't going to get close to these cobwebs. I know there are black widow spiders living among the wood. Yep, I'm a chicken. Remember this pictures. LOL!

I got quite a few of the joists done. I was even able to get all the joist hangers installed. We decided to recycle some of the wood from the old deck that was in good condition. It won't be seen but the rest of the wood that'll be exposed will be the same new stuff D's been using.

We're already putting tons of wood in the landfill so it was time to scout for something that's reusable. It was a hard search since the entire deck was so darn bad.

Remember the cobwebs? Every place I put one of these little screws, D has to go back and put 2 screws next to the house melding the boards together. He made fun of me that I wouldn't work with the spiders but a girl's gotta stick to her guns sometimes. LOL!

On Saturday, I just went over for a short time. I was working on the downspout. D lifted me up on the framing then went to cut some boards in the back. I thought it would take me 10 or so minutes to do my job but it only took about 2. So there I sat until he was done with his job to help me down.

I toyed with the thought of jumping. It doesn't look high from this picture but when you're sitting there, it's high. Add to that, I'd hurt my left knee the day before at work. Don't know what I did but it was very painful. I'm thinkin' it might be an old age thing. sigh....

In the backyard, the neighbors have this scraggly thing that tries to pass as a tree. I've been convinced it's dead because it's been so lifeless. All of the sudden it broke out in these beautiful berries. The tree is still scraggly looking but colorful now.

I can't figure what kind of tree it is. It's almost like a pyracantha but the berries and leaves aren't quite right. It's definitely not a holly. All I can say is it was a nice spot of color.

My trees are more confused than ever this year. Look at this. These are all Raywood Ashes and yet one is already about to drop its leaves while the other is still lush and green. Looks like we'll be enjoying the fall colors for some time to come.

Speaking of trees, we had Davey Tree come out and inspect them and found massive damage to 7 trees and moderate damage to another 10. They're cost to save them....are you ready for this.....$1700! The guy who will prune and deep fertilize them gets $185 an hour. I'm thinking I'm in the wrong business! Hahahaha!

We'll see what J. B. Hunt has to say about that.

Ahhhhh....my husband....

Remember the paper patterns in the last post? Well here they are cut for the deck.

I think they worked out pretty good. Although, there might be more metal in the post from the screws than the plate D made. Hahahahaha!

I think this was a good idea and an even better idea putting them on the inside where they aren't seen. Great job D!

When I came home Wednesday after work I couldn't find my husband. I called and searched then went to the kitchen and low and behold he was BBQing in the rain. It was pouring and there he was. LOL!

I have to admit the steak was one of the most flavorful and tender ones we've had in a long time. Was it the rain or the chef....hmmmmmm...something to ponder about.

My son says I put to many dog pictures on the blog so I thought, 'what the heck'. This is Nissie going through her nightly routine. She is begging to be put in her taxi for the night. She shuffles all four feet in one space, like a doggie moon walk, then does this weird stuff with waiving her head around and flapping her mouth. No, that's not a bark, she usually doesn't make a sound with the exceptional groan that might pop out. It's just hilarious.

It usually starts around 5:00 but now I've got her trained to wait until after dinner. If I ignore the dance, she'll jump in my lap, try to lick my face, jump back to the couch and dance, then jump back into licking my face. It goes on until I tell her, 'Okay, ya wanna go to bed?' Then off she runs to her taxi.

I'm thinking the dog has a wee bit of personality.

Her mother on the other hand, doesn't want to go to bed so she finds someplace to hide until I hit the sack. It'll be in a pillowcase, in the Bears bed, under any blanket or pillow she can find, in any room she can hide in.

Animals are God's little joke on us. If you pay attention, they'll do something funny and make you laugh.

Trees...

Yeah, I know, I'm supposed to be cleaning out the retractable, cleaning the sewing room and embroidering. And here I am blogging again. I swear, I'll do at least two of those things today, even though it's almost noon. LOL!

This is Robbie. He's a very sweet guy. He's the tow truck driver we use when we buy cars for our Australian friend. Robbie is important to this story.

This is Robbie's business partner. She goes everywhere he does and is soft, gentle and loves to be stroked.

A few weeks back, D's clutch went out on the truck. We called Robbie to come and tow it home for us because he has a nice big tow truck. Now remember the nice big tow truck phrase and it coming up our driveway and going down with our big truck on top without a lick of trouble.

Now part two of the story. A day or so following Robbie bringing our truck on his tow truck up the driveway, D was under the portico working on repairing his clutch. He kept hearing loud exploding noises and found a huge J.B.Hunt truck trying to make a u-turn in the circle, without being noticed.

D went to investigate and started yelling at the guy. What D was hearing was the branches exploding off our trees as the idiot came up the driveway.

If you look carefully you can see limbs hanging off the trees further down. This is the first tree on the right as you go down the driveway. You'll notice a large portion of it is laying across the brick light pillar.

Look carefully and you'll see the light fixture among the branches. I was amazed when D moved the branches off, the light was not only unbroken but the bricks were also okay.

This shows where two large limbs snapped and partially snapped off the tree.

These are the trees just past the light pillars. The damage goes all the way to the base of the driveway.

Apparently the fool driving the truck wasn't smart enough to figure, "Duh, if I don't fit down here and I'm destroying trees on this flat section, maybe I won't fit at the top either." He was definitely not a brain surgeon.

Anyway, when D saw this guy trying to make a u-turn in the circle he investigated, saw the damage and started yelling at the guy. The driver just kept saying, "Call J.B. Hunt, call J.B. Hunt!" Which of course gave D the impression this wasn't the first time this guy has destroyed property.

Ya ready for the best part? He was at the wrong address. Yep, Einstein was delivering a washer and dryer to our neighbors. Apparently he failed to notice the 3 foot yellow sign part way up the driveway that has our name, address and an arrow in bold black paint on it.

D contacted our neighbor got the delivery information and has been in contact with J. B. Hunt. He said at this point he wants them to pay for Davy Tree to come and inspect the trees. If they suggest making some trims here and there then D will do them. If they say some of the trees won't make it through the winter and will go into shock because of the damage, then we will expect J. B. Hunt to replace them with full sized trees. Considering these threes are over 25 years old, it's the least they can do.

We aren't even dealing with the gash the boob put in the aggregate driveway, bricks he broke off lining the circle or the juniper bush he ripped limbs off of.

I'm telling ya, common sense is a dying thing when it comes to those who practice walking upright these days.

Fall is in the air....

Fall is upon us and it's been raining pine needles the past few days. It looks like brown snow.

They blanket everything from the patio furniture, shrubs, ground and roof.

The rain gutters are filled with them. Guess that's on the list to clean out before the rain starts.

It's Saturday so time to go work on the deck next door. First thing on my list is to grab my favorite cup and fill it with ice water. This cup goes in the freezer and has a gel that keeps everything cold for awhile.

What I don't like about it is, after awhile my water tastes like plastic. I hate that and I can't believe it's really good for me if it leaches into my water.

D's been busy on the deck this week. He's got the outside framing done boxing in everything that was done the previous week.

I spent awhile today putting screws in specific spots for extra strength.

This is the 3rd and last side of the deck D ripped out last week. It's connected to the front of their house. There were only a few support uprights holding this thing in the air and they were pretty rotten.

Remember the rickety steps from a few posts back? This is what D ripped apart.

This will be an interesting corner. I don't know if D is going to angle it or just make it a square corner. I'm not going to ask him, I'd rather be surprised.

This is a bit out of order but it shows the frame we worked on week before last (on the right) and the new outside wall D added last week (on the left) and how he pulled them together.

I bought this radio for D years ago. It's been a real trooper. He's dropped it more times than I can count and it's even spent quite a bit of time in the rain. I think it might be on its last leg though. I couldn't get it to work today.

I find that funny since D showed me yesterday it has a built in battery charger in the back. He just figured out it will charge two sizes of his batteries. It took how many years to figure that out? Hahahahaha! I think Santa might have to buy a new one of these this year.

Okay, what is it? Come on...it's my homework from next door for the day.

Give up, they're patterns. D. wants to add steel support brackets to some of the beams of the outside wall he created last week. Each one is a bit different so he had me make custom patterns so he can cut the brackets and install them next week.

Another case of overbuilding from my dear husband.

Well, that's it for today. I'm just shooting the breeze waiting for D to come home so I can make some scalloped potatoes. I have the meat, cheese, onions but not the potatoes. Minor detail.

What can I say, the cool air blowing put me in the mood for oven baked food tonight.