HoundBlog

Another weekend shot. Eddie, Yvonne and Randy got here Friday around midnight — Ken and I were terrible hosts and slept through it. They got up around 9:00 and we went to breakfast at the local greasy spoon. Then I ran to Greenwood for an errand or two while they started laundry. When Ken got home later that afternoon, we sat around talking and then went to dinner. They left right after dinner to drive as far as they could that night as they wanted to break up the rest of the trip to Virginia Beach. Eddie called me Sunday morning to report they had gotten to Durham around midnight and would finish the drive to Virginia Beach that day. They’ll spend today co-ordinating with the movers to deliver their stuff to the townhouse, get electricity and phone turned on.

My eye is slowly clearing up. I look like a Mary Kay party gone bad 😆 I still have this nagging cough that just won’t go away. The medicine that the dr. prescribed makes me dizzy and feel weird. If I take it at night, it revs me up so I can’t sleep and if I take it during the day, I’m dizzy and “buzzed”. Not good. Have reverted back to taking Advil Cold and Sinus which I still can’t take at night, but at least it doesn’t make me feel weird during the day.

I’m still tweaking on Great Plains Securities. Am about to throw in the towel on it for all users except the ones who only need to receive and transfer inventory as it just doesn’t want to work for everyone else. No amount of research on my part has enabled me to come up with a definitive descrption of what check box affects what. Talk about un-user friendly! This is IT.

Well, that’s it for me! Hope your day is a good one!

Love to all,

Margaret

Geez! We are like the Keystone Kops around here! It’s giving me an ulcer, but I know that if I just perservere, it will all come right and I’ll be back to my daily grind again.

I am sure glad that tomorrow is Friday!

Eddie called yesterday and they put off the drive for a day. They will be here today or tomorrow — Yvonne wasn’t feeling well and I certainly can empathize with her! He said that Randy had a ball at the Mardi Gras parade they went to in some small town close by. They didn’t want to go to one in a larger town as it gets too rowdy, but this one was just right. It seems he had a great time at the wedding, too. I hope they got some pictures. I think it’s time for a new album 😉

I still haven’t received pictures of the Ohio kids in their new clothes. Guess I will have to call to find out what’s up with that as I did ask for some.

My eye is turning chartreuse. Very attractive color I must say 😛 I’m still getting horrified reactions to it, but at least people are asking if I was in a car wreck instead of whispering “what happened??”  😆 Poor Ken — maligned horribly, but so innocent 🙄

Well, guess I need to get back to the insanity of the office.

Love to all,

Margaret

I’m feeling better today and Ken went back to work. He’s very sore, but was determined to go.

Life is very complicated at work right now and rather stressful. I think once we have settled into this new program it will be OK, but right now people are flustered over the changes. I still have quite a bit of stuff to learn myself. I knew very little about the program to begin with and now that it’s upgraded, I need to know as much as I can about it as it will soon become our lifeblood.

I will be helping Charlotte move this weekend. She’s just moving back into the house she was in, but she has a ton of stuff, so it’s a major big deal to get her moved despite the fact that it’s only about 100 yards apart. I hope she has a lot packed.

I think that’s it for us today.

Take care — love you all.

Margaret

Left Ken at home with pain pills, the phone and the t.v. remote. He says he’s ok and that he will go to work tomorrow.

I’m really stopped up and have called the doctor for an appointment. I’m planning to go home after I see the doctor.

I have my issues solved except for one with the new server and will keep trying to get that taken care of, but can do it from home if need be.

Eddie called last night and they will be back tomorrow night late. Don’t know how long they’ll stay this time. The house is a mess and they will just have to live with it as I don’t feel up to cleaning right now.

That’s all for me today.

Love to all —

Margaret

Well, it was a busy weekend for me! Friday saw me wearing the hat of obedience trial chairman and my main job was organizing stewards for the 3 obedience rings that day. I had passed around a sign up sheet at the last meeting plus asked some people who are not in the club to work. Got enthusiastic responses until right before the day of…so, I had people trickle in and managed to beg enough people from the exhibitors to fill all my spots and it worked out OK. Once the trial was over, I had to go to work and get that new server up and going. That took me until 11:00 pm to get to a stopping point.

I drove home, got in bed around 12:15 and was up again at 4:00 to get Saturday started.

Saturday was hectic! Geez, you wouldn’t believe the number of people who wanted exams done! We took in nearly $8,000 and made a gross profit of around $1200 for the club. This is our main fundraiser every year at least until we get our shows going, but its doubtful that even those won’t pull in this much money. We don’t have a lot of expenses thankfully — the main one is insurance which runs us around $600 per year.

I was supposed to return to work Saturday after the clinic was through, but it was after 7:00 pm when we got the last vet out the door, so I went home and planned to go in on Sunday after our meeting.

Sunday morning when I went to let the dogs out, I fell going up the steps to the back porch and hit my head on the door frame. I have a nice black eye and big scrape down my cheek. It looks worse than it feels, but I will admit that it looks pretty awful.

My cough and cold have come back, too and Advil Cold and Sinus is just barely keeping that at bay.

I took Ken to the Surgery Center this morning to have his tumor removed. He was such a baby! Had to have his hand numbed for the IV and made all kinds of noises when she pulled off the things they stick on you for an EKG.  He’s home and in bed with pain meds sleeping. He says he’ll go back to work tomorrow. The Doctor said the tumor didn’t look like it was anything other than a fatty tumor although they still sent it off to be tested. I have to call and make an appointment for Ken for a week or two later.

Well, that’s all our news! Take care!

Love,

Margaret

Last night, Ken and I took Yvonne, Eddie and Randy to our local Mexican restaurant for dinner. We had a great dinner, then went home and got caught up (well, maybe not totally) on each other’s lives. Ken went to bed around 10:00 and I stayed up a bit later, but finally had to call it a night. They’re leaving this morning to head down to Louisianna where they will be attending the wedding of one of Yvonne’s friends and visiting with her family. They’ll come back up here next week on their way to Virginia Beach, so we’ll have a second visit with them.  I would love to talk to Eddie about his experiences in Iraq, but there just wasn’t time these last two days. We did talk a bit about what he’s going to be doing going forward. I asked him if he was going to learn  any foreign languages and he said no, but that he was seriously considering learning Chinese as he would receive more pay if he had one of the “hot” languages — Chinese, Korean, Farsi or Arabic — I asked him if he had any plans to go to the language school out in California and he said no, but he knew quite a bit about the school, so I think he’s probably checked it out.

All this talk of languages made me think of Kitty’s son, Matthew who has taken quite a few languages in college — last I heard he was taking Swahili and Chinese. He has quite an affinity for language and picks them up pretty quickly. He graduates this year and will be entering the Army.

Our new server is supposed to be here today (snow willing in the North). It was supposed to be here yesterday, but got held up in Chicago. Guess it will be a really long day today as the push is to get it up and running and the database transferred and the program update installed and tested. I hope we can get it all done tonight, but I’m prepared to come tomorrow after the show is over to finish up.

Well, I need to get back to work.

Y’all take care!
Love,

Margaret

Happy Valentines Day! Ken had a little stuffed dog dressed in a bee costume sitting on my chair this morning. I had to cry as not only was it so sweet of him to do, it’s message of “bee mine” brought back memories of Mom Bee and how she and Granddaddy loved each other so. It feels good to be following in that tradition of love and companionship.

Eddie and Yvonne arrived last night. Eddie got here around 9:00 pm and Yvonne got in sometime after 11 pm. We could only spend a few minutes with Eddie as we had gone in to Anderson to pick up a dog from the vet’s and it was after 10 when we got back. We were both really tired and had to get up at 4:00 am. I’m afraid we’re terrible hosts, but it can’t be helped. We’ll see more of them tonight. Ken said he was getting off at 3:40 pm today and I’ll get off at 4, so we’ll be home by 5.

They had a challenging trip trying to transport 3 cats and 2 dogs and 1 2 year old. Talk about a zoo 😛

Ken’s surgery is scheduled for 1pm Monday. They say they didn’t find anything on the MRI and offered to try to remove it again in the office, but Ken declined. He’s been in such pain after the last attempt, I know he want’s to be totally out of it when they try again. I’ll let you know how it goes Monday and you keep him in your prayers.

The Greenville semi-annual dog show is this weekend. This is the first time in years that we haven’t a dog entered in it. I will be there all 3 days as I am obedience trial chairman for the Greenville club, so will be organizing stewards and judges for the obedience trial on Friday. Saturday, I’m the co-ordinator of the all-breed health clinic that the Chihuahua Club is putting on. We have over 100 dogs pre-entered in this clinic and more are asking for appointments every day. It’s going to be very successful as our past ones have been, but it’s a long day although very busy. Sunday will be an easy day. I just have a meeting to attend and since I’m the club Secretary, I guess I had best not miss it :). One of my puppy buyers is going to come Sunday with the dog she bought from me so I can see him again. At any rate, I shouldn’t be there more than a few hours on Sunday. I’ll probably go home and collapse, though. Ken is working all weekend.

Well, you’re all caught up now.

Have a wonderful day!

Love,

Margaret

Hi everyone!

Ken and I went to Charleston Saturday to see the “What D’Ya Know” show that’s on NPR radio on Saturdays at 11:00 am. We didn’t get to play the quiz, but had a good time being part of the audience.

Today, two of our dogs were photographed for an article going in the Greenville News on the “diversity of the species”. They photographed my little Chihuahua with an Irish Wolfhound to show the differences in size and my hairless Chinese Crested (yes, Ma — one of the uglies) with a Shih Tzu that was in full coat to show the differences in coat types. It’s supposed to be in Friday’s paper, so will have to  make sure to buy a copy so I can enjoy their 15 minutes of fame.

Eddie called and they are delayed getting here by a day. They still have some cleaning to do at the house. He says they’ve already had several people look at it, so hopes it sells quickly.  They had to rent a trailer to put all the “stuff” in that they didn’t trust the movers to take :O. At any rate, we’ll see them tomorrow and that will be very nice!

Have spent the day today immersed in Great Plains security. Logistics wants a popup to go away. Well, I can’t make it go away, but I was able to prevent someone from acting on it. Now we’ll have to see if these changes are what they REALLY wanted or if they were just blowing smoke.

Got to run!

Hugs,

Margaret 

There was a time when being thrifty
Was a virtue; now it’s a crime
Where once I thought was really nifty
My kids say don’t squeeze a dime.
Now my cost-cutting is “penny pinching”,
My bargain shopping “so uncool!”
I guess at my age that’s not important
But I hoped to teach my kids that rule

Of a penny saved is a penny earned
And money doesn’t grow on trees
It’s just so easy to get burned
With taxes, tolls and fees

Put aside a nest egg for needy times.
Life’s not all milk and honey.
You’ve never lived through lean times,
But rest assured, they’re coming.

è¿é

Hello everyone. I hope you are all well.

Ken had an MRI yesterday. He won’t find out the results for a couple of days, but the surgeon decided he wanted to see just what he was dealing with in Ken’s belly. I will keep you all updated. He’s supposed to have whatever it is removed next week sometime. The initial diagnosis was that it’s a lipoma which is a benign fatty tumor, but I’m thinking the surgeon doesn’t really KNOW what it is and has decided he needs to c-h-a (cover his a$$). I’m really concerned over  the amount of pain he seems  to be in from this thing. That just doesn’t sound *benign* to me.

Talked to Eddie the other day. The movers are coming today to begin packing them up. They will leave Monday for our house, spend a couple of days with us, then go on down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras and a friend’s wedding. Am looking forward to seeing them and Randy.

No answer from Gina on sizes, etc for the kids. Ken and I are prepared to shop this weekend, though, if we get the necessary information. We want to be “good” grandparents.

Got the news today that we are set to go ahead with an upgrade to our SQL server to SQL 2005. I’m kind of excited! We have a deadline of 4/23 to have it installed, upgraded and running. Fortunately, it isn’t only me that will be working on the project, but we will use an outside contractor to help do a lot of the work. They have already done 20 or so of these, so I have a lot of confidence in their ability. We have already talked about how we will do it and I have begun working on cleaning the data that we’re going to have to move over to the new server.

What about this crazy weather??? The weather report yesterday said our high was supposed to be 55, but when I got in the car last night, it said it was 70 and felt it! Not that I’m complaining as I LIKE 70 degree temps, but I had left all the dogs in as I thought it was supposed to be cold. I put them out this morning and I know it was 34, but it feels pretty warm right now, so I suspect they’re enjoying the spring-like weather as much as I am.

Charlotte called me last night. I swear — that poor woman LIVES a soap opera! Now her daughter’s ex-husband has committed suicide! Did the deed with a double-barrelled shotgun. I can only imagine how awful that was. Charlotte and Deni were having to clean it up!!! YUCK! I told Ken that if he ever decided to do away with himself he had to find a method that was NOT messy! He looked at me rather strangely and informed me that doing away with himself was not going to happen as he liked breathing too much. I breathed a sigh of relief.

How about that nephew of mine, Colin?? The awards just keep pouring in for his Crystal! I’m so proud of him!

Well, I reckon I’ve rattled on enough for one day. I need to get back to the grindstone.

Take care!

Love to all,

Margaret