HoundBlog

Well, here it is the last night of the year and I’m writing in a blog — pretty much describes my life 😉

I did play some with the new camera today. Uploaded some pictures to my Webshots album, but here is the best of the ones I took.

This mockingbird has pretty much taken over the suet feeder, keeping any and all others away from it.

The only problem with that is, there’s a seed feeder hanging from the other crook and he’s keeping the Cardinals and chickadees away from that as well. They can pick off the ground, but not get on the feeder. Guess I need to find somewhere else to hang the suet feeder.

Ken and I want to wish all of you a safe, happy, healthy and prosperous 2007.

God bless you all.

Love,

Margaret

Well, Ken finally succumbed to the lure of post holiday sales and bought a new t.v. today. He’s been looking at them for some time now, and I guess the price finally got where he wanted it to be. Of course, the fact that 3 of his buddies at work have purchased new sets this week may have had something to do with it as well.

At any rate, he bought a new 42″ plasma tv. He’s really enjoying it a lot!

I’m sure the dogs are enjoying it just as much as he is 😛

I know when the Nascar races start, he’ll really get into it, but it’s nice that he can have a new toy.

I’ve finally gotten the Now Reading plug in to semi-work. It still gives me a “can’t find the page” error when I try to add a book, but when I go to the manage books page, they are all there, so I guess while that’s inconvenient, I can live with it. It will remain to be seen if I keep it updated 😉

It’s rained all day today. I wish I could have spent the day sleeping, but had too much to do and still didn’t get but just a couple of things accomplished. Oh well, all the dirty clothes and dirty dogs will still be dirty tomorrow (only there will be more of them and/or more dirt :lol:).

It’s late now and I need to hit the sack.

Love to all,

Margaret

Well, the last night of the year is nearly upon us. 2006 went by in a blur. It was a year of mixed blessings, but our biggest blessing of all was that our family is safe and healthy.

Two of the cockatiel babies went to new homes today. Skippy (so named by his new mother) and Junior (the baby from the first clutch) have gone to co-workers to be spoiled. Charlotte wants the remaining one if it’s a female and we’ll have to wait awhile to determine that. Meanwhile, Mom and Dad are sitting on 7 new eggs. I hope I shook them all enough that they don’t hatch as I think they need a break from chick raising.

I have not had time to take any pictures with the new camera. Well, that’s not exactly true as I have taken some pictures with it, but they are more on the order of finding out what settings to use for what circumstance and seeing how they transfer off the camera itself. None are anything I really deem publishable.

I guess Judy is taking Mom home today via Frances’ house. I hope their weather is conducive to driving and that their trip is uneventful. I’ll call Mom after work today to see how things went, although when I talked to her Monday, it sounded like she was having a great time.

I can leave work at noon today if I wish and I probably will as I have things to do at the house (clean bird cages, wash clothes, clean house — you know all that fun stuff!). Ken’s off Sunday and Monday, so we will probably have a repeat of last weekends’ movie going and shopping (not that we bought anything, just went and looked).

Guess I should get back to work and give the company some of its time 🙂

Love to all,

Margaret

Ken and I got home from work within a minute of each other last night. Man! That was sweet! We actually ate dinner and had an hour or so before it was time for bed to sit and talk. I could get used to that kind of schedule for him, but alas, next week he goes back to the dawn to dusk routine. Hopefully that will only last until the end of January as he tells me they will go to a different shift model then.

I’m going through a bunch of old files at work trying to get some of them closed out and invoiced. It’s crazy how we bill our customers. Something that should be very straightforward is horribly complicated and we end up losing way too much money in revenues because of it.

We are hoping that if we go to this Eservice nationwide that we’ll get things done more timely. I hope so. This is crazy!

Well, back to the grindstone.

Love to all,

Margaret

Well, another Christmas behind us. I hope yours was merry and bright!

Got to talk to all the kids Christmas day. Found out that Chris and Gina had moved, so their Christmas presents from us are delayed since we sent them to the address we had. I hate that for the kids, but there was nothing we could do about it finding out when we did. We hear she got right ugly about when she relayed it to John and Pam :roll:, and I’m really sorry it upset her so badly. It helps immensely if you tell people you expect things from that you’ve moved when they are 1000 miles away from you. She finds time to send us all kinds of junk e-mails, but can’t take 5 minutes to type out one telling us about the kids or what’s going on in their lives. 💡

Things sure aren’t the way they used to be when I was growing up. I don’t know when I ever *expected* my grandparents to give me a gift. I was just thrilled to go to their house for Christmas and see them and all the other relatives. We got to play with the cousins and go over to Great Aunt Rose’s house and play the piano and sing Christmas carols and go to Great Aunt Pauline’s house to visit with her, too and eat some of her pecan pie. 😀

We got a lovely book from John and Pam with photos of the kids in it. This is a real thrill to have as a keepsake. Pam did a great job composing it.

Talked to Eddie and Yvonne and Chrystalyn. Sounds like they had a wonderful Christmas! I’m glad Chrystalyn got to spend time with Eddie and Yvonne and Randy. Yvonne was in the throes of cooking what sounded like a huge meal! Turkey, ham, potato salad, mashed potatoes, yams, cornbread stuffing! Yummy! We had a pork tenderloin cooked all day in the crock pot with onion soup mix and mushroom soup on it and potatoes, carrots and portabella mushroooms cooked in the gravy. It was delicious!

Neither Ken nor I really wanted to come back to work today, as we thoroughly enjoyed our 3 days of sloth, but you have to get back to normal sometime or other — can’t be lazy bums for the rest of our lives.  At least it’s quiet for me. I don’t think Ken will have such a quiet day. He’ll at least get off at a decent hour this week, so will be home shortly after I get home. That will be a nice change.

Well, guess I need to wrap this up and get back to work.

Love to all,

Margaret

 

OK – I know I don’t usually blog on Saturday, but….

Ken’s been asking me what I want for Christmas and threatening to go out and buy something really big and gaudy and make me wear it. Well, I don’t know anything really material that I want for Christmas, so whatever he gets, I’ll just have to wear it with pride that my husband won’t take “no” for an answer.

What I do want for Christmas are the following (and before you start reading, I already know I don’t have a chance in hell of getting any of them).

1. Peace on Earth along with understanding and tolerance among men

2. Risk taking taught to children beginning as early as day care.

3. Everyone to take responsibility for the decisions they make in their everyday lives.

4. Seniors and others living on subsitence (or less) to have their basic needs for food, shelter and health care met.

5. Illegal immigrants to go back to their countries of origin and apply to enter the US legally.

6. Peace on Earth along with understanding and tolerance among men. ( I know I listed that one already, but it bears repeating)

To one and all, Merry Christmas!

Love,

Margaret

Good morning everyone! I hope as your week winds down that you have gotten your Christmas shopping done (I haven’t) and are all ready for a long weekend. The rumor around here is that the CEO is going to let us all go home at noon today — that will be very nice!

Today is grandson, Randy’s second birthday! Happy birthday, sweetie!

We had a bit of drama last night. Skinny Marie — our tiny little rescue girl — gave us a scare. She loves to sleep under the covers in bed with us and usually there’s no problem with that, but last night, two of the other dogs had her pinned under the covers and she got overheated. She woke Ken up with her heavy, laborious and loud panting and when he pulled her out from under the covers, she was hotter than a firecracker! He wet a towel in cool water and began trying to cool her down without shocking her system. We moved her to the tile floor in the bathroom since it’s cool and kept rubbing her with the damp towel until her body temperature was more normal. She got more alert as her temp came down and drank a little bit of water.  We all went back to bed and finished out the night/morning and when I left for work this morning she was alert, but didn’t want to leave the bed. I made her go in the living room, though and put her in a dog bed as I didn’t want her trying to jump off our high bed. She’s obviously still weak, but I think she’ll be fine in a few days. We’ll have to be really careful about her sleeping position from here on out as I know I don’t want a repeat of that!

Wes brought in some neat and easy-to-make treats this morning for each of us. They are miniature pretzels with a hershey kiss placed on top and put in the oven just long enough to soften the kiss, then a peanut M&M is placed on top. He used the peppermint Kisses instead of the chocolate ones and they are really yummy! I’ll have to make some for Ken to take to work with him tomorrow.

Well, guess I need to actually do some work this morning instead of goofing off 😆

Have a wonderful day!

Love and kisses to everyone!

Margaret

Good morning everyone! This should see Ma reading from Chattanooga as Judy was to have gone and kidnapped her (or should that be seniornapped?) from Maryville to join the Wright family in their Christmas celebrations this year. I know Ma will have a wonderful time while she’s there — she always does.

Meanwhile, I have nose to the grindstone and fingers to the keyboard as I try to get some projects completed that are have been on the back burner while it was so busy with emergency stuff. My new computer is working nicely although there are some changes that I don’t particuarly like.

For instance, with Win2K and Office2K, I could see a count of unread messages in Outlook on public folders for which I was an author. With Win XP and Office2003, I can’t and the option to enable that is greyed out. That means I have to keep checking those folders for new mail since I can’t see at a glance when there is a new message in the ones I have to keep monitored.

Guess I will just have to suck that one up, but some of the other things I’ve been able to tweak and get them to suit my work style more.

I see that Lee has sent pictures of Snowflake — remember the little dog I rescued last year? Lee has spoiled her ROTTEN and the dog now has a bigger wardrobe than I do.

 But isn’t she adorable?!?!? 8)

Well, back to work — have a wonderful day!

Love to all,

Margaret

Last night was the GKC annual Christmas Party. This year they had it at the Poinsett Club which is this antebellum building downtown where gazillions of young ladies have danced at balls and cotillions over the decades and where wedding receptions are held and just about any top social event is held. It’s a beautiful place that is decorated at Christmas time like some kind of castle. Giant Nutcrackers guard the exterior doors and each of the huge rooms is garlanded with real pine garland, holly, and fairy lights and where real Christmas trees decorated like something out of House Beautiful grace every corner.  This was a sit-down dinner and the round tables were set beautifully with silver place settings and lovely china. I mean they were set with all 12 pieces from salad fork to dessert spoons! Linen napkins for your laps and tablecloths on the tables. Our events chairman had made centerpieces for each table that were rosemary bushes shaped like Christmas trees which were decorated with dog bones, tiny glass ornaments and red velvet bows. Each pot that the bush was planted in was tied with a wide red velvet ribbon tied into a lovely bow.

There were only two entrees offerred — shrimp and grits and a chicken dish. I had ordered the shrimp and grits while Charlotte got the chicken. It was pretty good, although not the best shrimp and grits I’ve ever had. Charlotte said her chicken was tasty enough, but when she got to the leg, she left most of it as she didn’t want to pick it up with her fingers (it had some kind of sauce on it) and it was too hard to cut the meat off the bone with a knife. (You would think that as posh as that place was, they would have used boneless chicken for that dish so people all dressed up in their party finery would not get food on their clothing trying to eat.) Dessert was a lovely french silk pie which was served with some wonderful coffee.

Anyway, after dinner, we did our traditional gift exchange. In years past, this has been a white elephant exchange, but lately, everyone has brought nice gifts that you’re not too ashamed to take home 😆 I brought a jar candle with a pretty top. Charlotte brought some Christmas ornaments that had dogs painted on them. I already have a set of those, so when my turn came, I chose a different gift and ended up with a can of gourmet hot chocolate mix and a package of gourmet coffee. Now, Ken will not drink the coffee, so I brought that into work where we’re enjoying it this afternoon. I’ll keep the hot chocolate mix at home and Ken and I will enjoy that on cold winter mornings or in the evening when we’re watching TV.

I had ordered a dress for this party and it was scheduled to be delivered yesterday, but the Fed Ex guy didn’t make it until 7:00 pm last night. So, I had to wear something from a couple of years ago. Oh well, now I have a dress for next year 🙂 The one I bought is very pretty — just a simple mocha colored sheath with a beaded bolero jacket. Maybe by next year I can make sure I have some jewelry to go with it. This year I just wore pearls which complemented the ivory two piece dress I wore.

We even got home at a reasonable hour — 10:00pm, so I was able to get a decent night’s sleep before coming into work today. Thankfully, it’s been quiet here at work, too. That’s giving me time to work on some projects I’ve been keeping on the back burner. I might actually complete some of them before it picks up again in a couple of weeks ❗

Well, back to the grindstone!

Love to all,

Margaret

Had an email from Eddie this morning — he will be back in the USA later today! YEAH!! Go and read his added comments on the postcards post — he talks about the area getting heavy rains the past few days and the flooding going on.

My weekend was pretty hum drum. Took Bruno for a re-check at the vets and he got more antibiotics, then went shopping for a frame for the picture we bought Janet for her birthday/christmas as well as to get the gift cards for the kids and grand kids. (Not very imaginative gifts, but it’s all we’re up for this year) Then back home to get Ken’s car and take it to the oil change place for an oil change. That took care of my honey-do list and I could get started on all the things I needed to do 🙂

Sunday had me cleaning bird cages and working some with Taji. He’s learning how to high five and wave. The high five he does with a foot and the wave he does with one wing. We also dance (the boogie) and I want to teach him to do a chicken dance — he likes me singing to him at least, despite the fact that my voice is more of a croak right now than it is a singing voice. Riley looks on with great interest at out antics and I expect him to start mimicking the songs I’m singing any day now which should provide a source of laughter for Ken when he hears them (I’m doing the training when he’s not home, remember, so he hasn’t heard any of this 😆 )

Speaking of Riley — he’s been quite sweet this past week. He’s inviting me to pet him pretty regularly and hasn’t bitten me lately. I don’t know what Judy did to him while we were gone, but he was very happy to see me home.

Charlotte brought over Christmas gifts last night. She knitted me a scarf which turned out quite pretty! It’s made from that yarn that looks like feathers and is so soft and warm. I have it on right now as my neck was so sore this morning and the added warmth is making it feel better. She also brought a jar of watermelon rind pickles (I guess since I had such a fit over them at the restauraunt last weekend she thought that would go over well — and it did! Not nearly as good as Ma’s though.)

I got her a set of wooden knitting needles as she’s been complaining about the metal ones she’s been using being too slick. Since I don’t knit, I’m not sure about the benefits of wooden over aluminum, but that’s OK — she knows.

Well, I need to get back to work.

Love to all,

Margaret