HoundBlog

If the date looks familiar it may be because today is my birthday and I’m 58 just in case you didn’t know.

I’ve received several really nice gifts:

1. A husband who although ill, isn’t going to croak on me any second despite what it seemed like at 2:30 yesterday morning.
2. An air conditioner that’s actually working
3. A pretty card from my mother
4. A bunch of friends who are wishing me well today
5. A 100% on this week’s assignments in school

Ken has a whopper of a sinus infection that has caused his throat to swell up. He woke me up yesterday morning unable to breathe and making the most awful wheezing sounds I’ve ever heard. Fortunately, sitting up for a few minutes took care of the immediate problem which was his throat was so swollen that sinus drainage had pooled and blocked his airway. We went to the doctor yesterday and she gave him predisone, antibiotics and cough syrup and today he’s much better.

The air conditioner decided to stop working sometime Monday and although they came out Tuesday to fix it, they didn’t get it quite all right, so a return trip yesterday was required. $325 later, it seems to be working properly now, but we had a miserable couple of days. I am glad that the weather wasn’t too terribly hot although it was too hot for me. I know now that if I move anywhere it needs to be to the Arctic rather than to the Amazon.

Now I just need to catch up on some sleep and I’ll be in great shape.

Gotta run. Work is calling.

Love to all,

Margaret

Happy Memorial Day! I hope you’ve all enjoyed the long weekend.

Ken and I have spent most of it doing stuff around the house. Although the rain has kept us from mowing , there’s a chance that will get done today if the sun stays out long enough to dry off the grass.

We’ve eaten well this weekend. Saturday was the semi annual shrimp fry at the church in Honea Path, so we gorged ourselves on shrimp, cole slaw, french fries and hush puppies. Last night we grilled boneless ribs on the grill with some Sticky Fingers barbecue sauce and corn on the cob. Tonight, we’ll grill steaks and have more corn on the cob. I found an apple pie at the grocery store that looked pretty good — Ken’s been wanting apple pie for awhile now — and this one turned out to be EXCELLENT! Usually store bought pies have a tough crust, but this one is so flaky and light! Just like home made! Coupled with ice cream and we are in hog heaven.

I’m watching a green anole shed its’ skin. It has most of it off, just has some on it’s back legs which it’s reaching back and pulling off and alternately scraping the legs against the wood of the porch rail. There’s a male on the deck showing it’s dewlap, so I guess the one shedding is a female.

The phoebes on the back porch have either fallen out of the nest or fledged as the nest is empty. It sure seemed to take longer for the eggs to hatch than it did for the babies to leave the nest if that’s the case.  I took photos of the babies about 5 days after they hatched and it seemed like they were gone a couple of days after that.

Well, Ken’s off to see if the race is finally being run today — it got canceled last night due to rain.

Love to all,

Margaret

Well, it’s been a busy week for me at work. Have had several rush projects to finish. Thankfullly all are complete and everyone is happy.

Just in time for a long weekend! We have plenty of stuff around the homestead to keep us busy, so will work on our respective honey-do lists although I hope we can find some time to go to a movie or something.

Ken has had a class these  past two days, so went in late and got off early. That was nice for him, but tomorrow it’s back to the same old grind. Next week is his last week on 8 hour shifs as they move to 4-10 hour shifts. Since there’s still no overtime, that means he’ll have Fridays off which may be nice but then again, we’ll have to see how tired he is after the long days.

Gotta run — need to feed these birds and fix supper.

Love to all,

Margaret

I hope your weekend was dryer than ours! Despite needing to do outdoor work such as mowing and weeding, the weather pretty much kept us inside all weekend.

We did go out Saturday to see the new Star Trek movie — I forsee a new generation of Trekkies coming from that one. But what was with the young Spock’s mouth? It looked like he had some kind of dental appliance in there to make it conform to a certain “look” and he had to work to keep from letting drool drip down his chin. Actually, all the characters were apparently specifically chosen to conform to how their older characters would have looked at that age. They did really well with all of them for the most part. Speech was another aspect that was carefully schooled. Each of the main characters — most notably the ones who played McCoy and Scotty had voices that were pitched and were given some of the key idioms those two characters uttered frequently on the old Star Trek. It sure sparked some great memories!

Yesterday we drove into Greenville — I had to get dog food at Sam’s Club and Ken wanted breakfast from “somewhere we haven’t been in awhile” which could be lots of different places. We at first said we would go to Cracker Barrel, then decided on IHOP, but when we saw the line at IHOP and found there were no parking places either, we went on to Cracker Barrel. We got seated almost immediately which is a rarity at CB! I had a “skillet” of homefries, smoked sausage, gravy, eggs and cheese. It also had onions and green peppers cooked in with the potatoes and was very tasty! Thankfully they didn’t drown it in gravy which was my biggest concern.

We went home to enjoy a quiet afternoon as the rain poured down. I read a book, piddled on the computer while Ken played poker online with some guys. When I last asked him about how well he did, he said not very well because he hadn’t gotten any good hands.

Well, that’s about all there is to tell you. Just a ho-hum kind of weekend!

Love to all,

Margaret

Hello and happy Friday! We made it through another week!

I had some successes at work so it’s been a good week, but I won’t bore you with details.

Ken got some overtime at his work which has made him happy.

We have a fairly lazy weekend to look forward to which also makes me happy. So, I’m really pretty happy today. 🙂

I talked to Eddie Sunday and he told me that they are planning to stop by next month for a few days as they take Chrystalyn back to Orlando for the summer. I’m looking forward to that visit!

I finished up another class at school this week. Although final grades aren’t posted yet, it looks like I’m going to end up with a 94 — still an A so I’m still on the honor roll. Have already started the next class — jumped in early and got a bit of a head start. It’s another IT class on communication.

I checked out the online library for the first time last night. I think I will stick with google for researching my assignments. The library was a big disappointment and not at all user friendly.

We’re hoping that this last “fix” to the pen the big dogs are in has done the trick. I know we’ve sure struggled with these dogs and there have been times when I just wanted to shoot them and get it over with (not that I would have!). I have to remove bedding from their crates though because when the weather gets hot, they will spend the day inside and the nights outside and don’t need the quilts that are in there now. They’ll be hot even in the house if I don’t take those out.

There seems to be some kind of musical event going on outside as I can hear the drums….I need to check that out as I don’t remember seeing any notice of such going on.

Love to all,

Margaret

Hi all — hope you had a wonderful weekend! It wasn’t long enough, but that’s always the case, isn’t it?

Yesterday, Ken and I slept in until 10:30 — way late for us! We went to Anderson to the Golden Corral for lunch which as always was very good! While we were there, I indulged in some people watching. It can be a lot of fun.

Anyway, this couple came in and sat at a table close to ours. They were a bit older than Ken and I; probably in their late 60’s or early 70’s. The lady was dressed in this dress that I had never seen the likes of before. It was quite pretty but not something I would expect to see on a lady of her age. It was like a dress you would have seen in the ’30’s  — very floaty and feminine. It had a strapless bodice that she wore a lace shrug over and the skirt was two tiered and swirled with each step. It wasn’t all that full, just one of those skirts that has an extra panel in it to make it flare out at the knees. She wore a black beret tilted at a rakish angle over one eye. Anyway, as we were leaving, I leaned down and told her how pretty her dress was — that she looked like she was ready to Tango. She threw her head back, flung her hands up in the air, and laughed and said “YES! Bring on the music!”

She was still smiling as we walked out the door.

It felt really nice to make someone smile like that.

I hope your Sunday had smiles in it.

Love to all,

Margaret

Felicia Cinco de Mayo! Or Happy May 6th. I hope you’re dancing the Mexican Hat dance or a Tango or something in honor of today. They aren’t in Mexico thanks to the H1N1 or Swine Flu.

And speaking of the flu – I hope you’re feeling fine and dandy too! Ken and I are both sniffling but it’s from all the pollen and has nothing to do with any viruses imported or domestic. Give us a few weeks and this will all be behind us.

I have a bird I’ve never seen before nesting on my back porch. After googling some, I found out that it’s a blue-grey gnat catcher and summers across the southern half of the US. It built quite a neat looking nest on the shop light hanging on the porch — I guess it also has a ready supply of food since I see plenty of insects there as well and given it’s name it must catch flying insects. It leaves the nest every time we go out the door and sometimes forgets where the outside door is, so I see it frantically hopping around on the screen trying to escape. At first I would catch it and release it outside, but anymore I just leave it alone. I have a photo of the nest on the photo blog (www.travelinshow.com), so you can see it there if you want to. I’ve also taken some photos of the bird, but haven’t downloaded them off my camera yet.

Yesterday while I was working from home, I looked out into the yard and saw a wild turkey meandering across it. I’ve seen them in the woods around the house, but never in the yard. It came up fairly close to the house, but not as close as the bird feeder, so although I got lots of photos, I’m not sure how they will turn out.

I have bluebirds nesting in the Martin house. Last year we had what I think was a blue grosbeak nesting in it but this year, it’s definitely a bluebird. Those are the first I’ve seen around here too although they are a normal bird for this area. Maybe it was too dry last year for them and that’s what also pushed the grosbeaks up as well. I don’t know for sure, but just have a feeling that has to do with the unusual bird species I’m seeing. Like last year, though I have brown headed cowbirds. They tend to stick with the grosbeaks since that’s one of their favorite nests to lay eggs in, but I haven’t seen any grosbeaks so far.

I have hummingbirds — one rather odd looking guy with a head full of feathers that stick up at odd angles and the rest are ruby throats.

Nothing remarkable on tap for this weekend. Hopefully Ken will not schedule too many projects. He kept himself overworked trying to get caught up in one weekend what he should have scheduled out over a couple, but to give him credit, he got it all done. He thought he was going to have Friday off as the plant was needing some parts that come from a factory in Mexico which was closed for the flu outbreak. They canceled that yesterday, so he’s working all week.

I got an early Mothers’ Day gift from Pam, John and the kids – it is a lovely silver bookmark that has their names engraved on it — you KNOW I’ll put that to good use! And from AKC, I finally got my bronze bred-by-exhibitor champion medallion.

Well, lunch is over, so it’s back to work for me.

Have a great day!

Love to all,

Margaret

Happy May Day! Are any of you going to dance around the maypole today? I’m not.

Nothing on tap for this weekend that’s very special. Ken has a boat load of yard work to be done — mowing and finishing up with the tree. He now has all the branches cut that were over the fence and leaning into the back yard, so it’s just a matter of cutting the tree back to the stump. Garbage needs to go to the dump — the cans are VERY full.

As for me, I have a mountain of dog laundry to get done. It’s been piling up for weeks and I just need to get on with it! Bird cage cleaning is on my list as is the normal bathroom duty and our laundry.

I completed all my assignments for the current session in school — that has me done two weeks before the session end. All I have left to do is respond to the other students, but I can’t do that until someone has actually posted something. I screwed up big time in this class and failed to turn in a second part on an assignment, so I’m only working on a 93+ in this class. I think that still translates to an A for this school, though. I did extra work on two other assignments that I’m hoping will give me extra credit and make up for the missing assignment. Then again, this professor doesn’t seem to be easily impressed.

Well, I need to get my act back on work and see if I can do something productive today.

Have a great weekend!

Love to all,

Margaret