HoundBlog

Talked to Kristy and Chrystalyn last night. Kristy is recovering from a hysterectomy. She says she’s doing fine and is already bored — I can empathise with her. Chrystalyn was telling me that she’s taking guitar in school. I asked her if she could get a recording of her playing and she said she would ask her teacher if she could do that. If I get one, I’ll upload it to the website so you all can listen to it.

Mom told me yesterday that Shiobhan has been chosen to go to Australia next year with a group of 39 other students. This is fantastic! I’m very proud of my grandniece! I’m also jealous as I would love to go to Australia someday 🙂

Had to come in to work today. We’re demo-ing two more software packages plus it’s the head of Accounts Services last day, so we’re treating her to lunch. I hate to see her go as she’s been a good friend.  Can’t blame her for leaving, though. She’s found work much closer to home (she drives nearly as far as I do) and since she’s got a child, and is trying to complete her bachelor’s degree and her husband is a police officer who works 12 hour shifts, this will help her out enormously time-wise.

Got to run — it’s almost time for the first demo and I need to visit the ladies room first 🙂

Love to all,

Margaret 

Just a short one today. It’s already 4:30pm and I have been busy, busy today. I just put the last load of laundry in the washer and folded the next-to-last load. I finished the newsletter for the Chihuahua Club and sent it off to the President for review before I print and mail it. I’ve already cleaned the kennels today, too — bleached the runs and pressure washed them. It was cold last night, so all the dogs slept inside in crates which made it easier to do the runs. I was glad that it warmed up enough for them to go out this afternoon, though. 

I still need to plant the mums that Charlotte brought me. I have kept them watered, so they are OK, but just need to be in the ground.

I also trekked stuff out to the camper, so now the bathroom stuff is out there and most of the dishes, silverware, utensils and pots and pans. I still have bed linens and Ken has a bunch of stuff in the garage to go in the storage bins — sewer hose, extra electric wire, water hose and the like. We had a discussion over whether this camper has more storage or less. I think it has about the same, but it’s configured differently. Two of the outside bays are taller than the ones in the other camper, but there is one fewer. Inside, however, there is all that cabinetry around the ceiling in nearly every room. Plus there is under storage in the closet and underneath the benches of the dinette. I’ll let you know when I run out 🙂

Let me get back to it.

Love to all,

Margaret

What is it about men and flatulence?

They think it’s hysterically funny and/or something to brag about where the rest of us think it’s just a bodily function that goes right along with the others that originate from the same region and just go on.

I can forsee, though ESPN carrying the World Champion Fart Competition. John Madden (who to me looks like he can cut ’em with the best of them anyway) and Phil Justin will be reporting the play-by-play.

John: “Here we are at the World Championship Fart competition. Today’s contenders are the reigning champion John “The Cannon” O’Connor who is a two-time winner of the title. “The Cannon” is from Chicago and is 45 years old. He’s been competing in Fart since he was a boy and comes from a long line of champion Farters. His father, Roy “Boom” O’Conner was champion in 2008.

Phil: ” John, you know that today, “The Cannon” faces his toughest competition ever in the young upstart Roger “Shotgun” Evans. “Shotgun” is best known for his trademark staccato farts from which he gets his nickname.”

John: “We’re ready for round one of the Fart Championship competition. First in the ring is “The Cannon”. He’s winding up for the pitch and zings us with a 3 second blast!! Oh NO! He only scored a 5 on the stink-o-meter! Tough break for “The Cannon”! ”

Phil: “Next up is “Shotgun”. He’s taking a little longer to wind up, but his pitch is a phenomenal 5 second trademark staccato blast that scores a 9 on the stink-o-meter!!! WOW! That’s unheard of to score so high on the stink-o-meter this early in the rounds! But wait! The officials are giving him a 2 point penalty for a wet fart! Too bad! But, he’s still in the lead by 2 after the first round.”

John: “Round one goes to Shotgun! You know, Phil, Shotgun told me in an interview before today that he prepares for these competitions by eating a dozen hard-boiled eggs. You’ll note that he’s got a really flat stomach — he says he does 100 crunches every day to keep his abdomen muscles at their peak. That’s what enables him to deliver such powerful farts.”

Phil: “Thank you, John for that commentary and now, after this commercial for Gas-X, we’ll begin round two, so stay tuned! The Cannon won’t be down for long and it’s sure to be one of the most memorable Championship fights ever.”

Love to all,

Margaret

Went to an MSDN seminar yesterday afternoon and was introduced to some really awesome stuff! I won’t bore any of you with the details, but suffice to say, I will have some fun with these new tools.

Also got a peek at Windows Vista (Microsoft’s new operating system that will replace Windows XP) — I was impressed with the looks of it, but didn’t get to test any functionality, so can’t comment there. Internet Explorer 7 is a great improvement over IE6, so don’t be afraid to download it. Microsoft did a lot of beta testing on this one, and the beta version I tried out worked very well.

Nothing in the works for this weekend. Ken is working and I have to get a newsletter done for the Chihuahua club and have two web pages for the SHOK website to develop. Also have the normal stuff to do (laundry, housekeeping, etc) so it will be a busy one. I think it’s supposed to rain tomorrow, which will keep me indoors with nose to the grindstone.

My neighbor, Charlotte brought me 5 chrysanthemums to plant in my flower garden (which is overcome by grass right now). Guess I will have to get out and do that this weekend as well. They are really pretty colors — she knows what I like and I have white, gold and a real deep purple.

That’s about all I have to tell you for now.

Love to all,

Margaret

As promised, I’ve gotten the camper photos off the camera and uploaded them into an album which you can view by clicking on the link. I can’t wait to go camping in it, but guess it will be Thanksgiving before we take it for it’s maiden trip.

Worked from home today struggling with a file for Sharp. I’ve been working on it off and on for two months now and almost have it completed. It’s been a bear to create since the vendor wants it a particular way and everything has to be “just so” — no room for any variables. I just hope it ends up being worth it (as in we get paid faster).

Got to run — dogs are hungry and it’s been cold today, so they want to eat and come back in the house where it’s warm.

Love to all,

Margaret

Got the new camper Friday and took some photos of it. I’ve yet to download them from the camera, but will try to get that done tonight and post them either directly to the blog or in a gallery.

Eddie says he has some photos of the Navy Anniversary ball to send — that will be interesting. He’s moved to another villa (just in case none of you knew that) and is within walking distance of where he works, so he’s getting a lot of exercise.

Other than that, it was a fairly dull weekend. Groomed dogs, did laundry, cleaned house — all that ho-hum stuff that needs to get done and doesn’t unless YOU do it.

Ken says there will be 10 hour days 7 days a week for a while now. We both hate and love it — it means a smaller bonus next year as profits are down the tubes, it means he’s tired and has not had enough time off to really recharge, but our bank account looks pretty good. I know people who lived before the 40 hour work week worked harder and longer hours, but that’s cold comfort when I haven’t seen him but for 30 minutes a day for weeks on end and then only because I got up early enough to see him before he left for work. I do worry about his health a lot, too.  We at least have a couple of long weekends to look forward to — Thanksgiving and Christmas.

That’s all I have today.

Love to all,

Margaret

Ken called me this morning on his way to work. The following is a transcript of our conversation.

Ken: “Hi honey. I just saw your deer.”

I respond: “Oh…..yes?” (thinking now, just how does he know it’s the same deer?)

Ken: “Yes, she was walking down the side of the road on crutches and with a seeing eye dog leading her.”

Me: “Ha, Ha. Honey….don’t give up your day job. I love you.”

We’re going tomorrow to pick up our new camper. While Ken was in Charlotte last weekend, he walked over to the camper place close to where he was camping and found a nice Thor dual slide camper that he was able to work a deal for. It’s 29′ (1 foot longer than our current one) and has two slides which gives an amazing amount of living space. It also has a couple of features that I’ve been holding out for in a camper whenever this subject has come up in the past. Mainly it has a shower instead of the dinky tub that comes with most campers. The bathroom itself is bigger (Ken tested it out by sitting on the john to make sure there was ample “cheek room” — fully clothed — don’t get grossed out on me here!!!). There is also a wrap around counter which effectively doubles my counterspace and gives us an opportunity to set stools at it to eat there as an alternative to eating at the table. It’s also aluminum exterior instead of fiberglass which will hopefully make it easier to clean the outside of. I’ll post photos when we have it home.

Well, I need to get to work. We’re demo-ing several software packages today (what fun!), so I need to get my regular work out of the way as from 11:00 on I’ll be listening to sales pitches 😐

Love to all,

Margaret

I have a love-hate relationship with deer.

When I’m safely in the house, I love watching them meander through the yard, nibbling on grass and, when I’m really lucky, seeing the babies play. It’s so peaceful and relaxing to watch these outwardly gentle creatures.

Then there are times when I hate them. That’s when I’m behind the wheel of the car.

If you’re thinking “Oh no! She’s hit another deer!”, well you’re partially right. Actually, the deer hit ME. At least this time, the car is not totalled, although my nerves are.

I had just turned onto the “main street” from my driveway when some shadowplay caused me to hit the brakes and the deer plowed into the left front quarterpanel of the van. I wasn’t expecting to have to play dodge-the-deer quite just yet. That’s usually right after the time changes. They are creatures of habit and my work schedule usually has them still bedded down at 6:00 am, but this one was up and wandering for some reason.

She was knocked to the ground, got up and stumbled across the road into the pasture across from the people’s house whose yard she was grazing in when she decided to bolt back across the road. I don’t know how badly she was hurt and hope she was only dazed. I’m still nauseated from the thought of her having internal injuries or broken limbs and dying a slow, agonizing death. We don’t own a gun and I doubt seriously that I could actually take a life with one even if we did even under these circumstances. I’m sure Judy’s reading this and muttering what a pansy-ass her sister is. Yeah, I am.

Damage to the car seems to be minimal. A small dent beside the headlight is all I see. Ken, no doubt, will find anything else there is to find. I will try to bury myself in work today to get over the shakes I still have from the incident.

I hope YOUR day is less eventful than mine has been so far.

Love to all,

Pansy Ass

I discovered something about Ken this morning that I didn’t know.

I was folding laundry from yesterday when I began noticing the designs on the t-shirts I was folding. They all had NASCAR or racing themes to them. These were the clothes from his weekend trip to Charlotte for the race.

All these years, he’s tried to tell me that he doesn’t think about the clothes he wears (in terms of color co-ordination and so forth). He’s way more concious of making fashion statements than I ever gave him credit for.

Think he’s growing up?

Nah….it was a fluke 😛

Enjoy the rain.

Love to all,

Margaret

Eddie finally went to a “rug flop”. He sent pictures of some of the rugs he saw at the party and they are beautiful. Of course I saw a couple that I liked 🙂

I need to find out how much they cost. Of course, I need to figure out where I’ll put it :LOL:

I’ll add some of the pictures later.

Love to all,

Margaret