Well, I'm not going to be able to head to Memphis like I planned. My gas tank is empty and quu warned me that most the gas stations around here don't have gas. Frankly I'm terrified that I'll be out in the middle of no where and stuck with an empty gas tank at a gas station that won't get gas for a week. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I tend to go with my gut feelings about things. Things usually turn out better that way.

This sucks because I really wanted to go support synamontwist. Why can't Memphis and Chattanooga switch places? Now I'm really all depressed.

On the weird side, I had a dream last night that I found two miniature yorkie puppies in my bedroom nesting in some old clothes and blankets. They were so tiny I could hold both in one hand.

Updated: Image wasn't actually LINKED to the fullsized version. Gods I miss my Semagic. Need to get it reinstalled.

 

A friend sent me the URL to this. I just HAD to screen it and keep it for posterity. Probably one of the best Blue replies I've seen in forever. Someone give this man a cookie, maybe a raise too. You can see the official thread here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9336870406

Take my advice, copy and paste the ASCII art into something that has 10pt Arial, looks fucking awesome.

Yea, I haven't posted in forever again, got depressed for awhile  after Dragon*Con so I visited a friend and been busy since. Have a WiiFit now and been making sure to do anywhere from half an hour to a full hour a day, not to mention taking River down to the park to walk for at least 15 mins.

I need to post more, but lack of a good LJ client for the iphone is making me drift away from it more and more. Yes, there are half a dozen blogging clients, but none do things like tagging, mood, location, music, or anything. It's just public posting. Hell, the overall lack of a good text editor really makes me miss my old Treo sometimes.

In other news, my new laptop is working great, except my external HD died. As in, corrupt master table. Quu has tried to fix it to no avail. The sad part is, not only did it have all my music on it (which was just copies from our master collection on the network) but all my stories and documents. All my notes. I had no less than two novel outlines in the works. All of it wasn't backed up elsewhere because I was in the middle of moving it to the new computer. THinking about it makes me depressed so unless I post to say it's fixed, don't expect me to talk about it much.

If you don't have a Wii, trust me when I say it's worth getting one just for the Wii fit. People spend thousands of dollars on excercises equimpment, but this is one that you will actually USE. The only bad part of it is that, according to the current BMI charts, the vast majority of americans are OBEASE. Most of these people are not obease by comparison to others, but the poor WiiFit can't tell the difference. Believe it or not, Quu CAN use it, but getting him to do so will be a chore. Pointing out that sex will be better when we're both in shape doesn't seem to effect him. *sighs*

In any case, I have a dozen errands to run and a puppy to take to the park.

My heart goes out to synamontwist .

Yea, my last post was from my iphone and for certain reasons I had to finish the post early. That's the disadvantage of posting from a webapp.

Anyway, After late lunch the three of us headed to Dick Blicks up on Highway 92. It was fun, and I even managed to get out of there without buying anything. Was finally able to use my Evernote how I want and take good notes on prices for some lightboxes. I really would like to try my hand at original scrollworking but I just can't draw freehand to save my life. I found out the secret is to find the image you want, trace it onto tracing paper with thick/dark lines, then put the tracing paper under the paper and use the lightbox to make it shine through so you can copy it to the actual paper. Nifty hun?

After escaping from Dick Blicks we ran over to Target so Tanya could get some more of her catbox system. She uses the Breeze system by Tidy Cat which is very different. It has a pad under the litterbox where the urine seeps through. The poop stays in the box and the large pellets then dry it out so it scoops out very easy. looking at the pricing, if you keep up with it i think the overall price goes down from real catlitter. I'm tempted to go ahead and give it a try with our cats.

As we were leaving Target we all got a craving for chocolate and wanted to head over to the Schakolad Chocolate Factory in Alpharetta when I looked it up and they close at 5pm on saturdays. Or so I thought. You see, the Alpharetta store isn't LISTED on their website yet so I had to look at the Dunwoody store and THEY close at 5pm. However, I just now looked at the google listing and it says they close at 6pm. I hope Tanya and Laura never find out least they skin me alive. Realizing we were heading in the wrong direction, we hop on 400 and take the interstate around and home. Get to the house and pick up Pat then decide to go over to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner.

I have finally tried all the sauces they have within my spice range and have found the few that I actually like. I'm going to have to ask for a side of ranch dressing with my order just to cut the spice periodically. But, it was good. We got one of the Buzztime quiz machines and between the four of us we managed to get in first place quite a bit. More than anything it was just plain fun. After dinner we went next door to the Yogoday yogurt shop. It LOOKS like a Japanese cafe straight out of Tokyo. Full of anime paraphernalia and everything. I think it's Italian yogurt though. Much like softserve. However, I suggest to anyone going there to first TRY the flavors they have. I love them all, but don't mistake "Plain" with "Vanillia". It's NOT. So far they have Plain, Green Tea, and Coffee.

Well, I'm POed right now because I lost my old "Rounded Rectangles" theme and I don't know how to get it back. I wouldn't mind changing except all the new theme designers decided that it wasn't necessary to have separators between entries which renders my friends page near unreadable.

Going to go sulk now.

Bleh..

Really, I haven't been posting because I haven't had much to say. Been in and out of a depressed funk since I've been home. Most of it is just dealing with leftover stress from my trip. Getting used to things down here again is rough. I'm loving being home but it's not easy.

One of the best things, if y'all haven't figured it out by now, is that I managed to get an iPhone this past Monday. Woke up and went with quu to work, tatianamik actually going with us. After dropping Quu off at work, Tanya and I went over to North Point Mall where there is an Apple store. It opens at 10:00 am and we probably get there around 10:45 am. There is already a line, and they are already sold out. A bit frustrated, I drag Tanya over to the Gamestop or whatever it is that is there in the mall and ask if they have any Wii Fits... none. We then walk over and end up touring in the Waldenbooks for a bit. See all sorts of blank journals and whatnot, but I already have tons. Nearly got some book marks, but Tanya persuaded me to check back at the Apple store one more time to see if I could get a card to cut in line the next day. We get down there and one of the apple clerks is handing out more tickets. I ask, and yep.. they had gotten more instock while we were away. All they had left where some 8gigs and some 16gigs in white. Ick.. but.. I can live with it. Get a card and the two of us stay in line for probably two hours.

The line was pretty ok. A young guy and an older man behind us, a 'business casual' guy in front of us. Talked to some people who were asking questions before moving on. My knees were hurting bad by the time we get in, but it was livable. At long last we get up at the front of the line and after what seemed like forever had a sale's rep free up. I go in, give him my ticket and he heads back to go get it out of the stock room. I'm looking at the cases and stuff until he returns. When he does so, he hands me a box, and I notice it's black. My initial reaction was happy surprise! Maybe they had a black 16 gig! But then i notice... 8gig. WTF? Yea, he proceeds to tell me they didn't have anymore in stock. My brain is going "WTF, WHY ME?!" while my mouth keeps saying "She had more cards, there are others BEHIND me who have been told they had them in stock!" He says, "We're sold out of the 16gigs, but you can make due with an 8gig right?" I flat out tell him no, it's not enough. I should have told him "Hun, my house measures in terabytes, not gigs, so no this isn't going to be nearly big enough." He heads back into the stock room to check once more and I'm about ready to burst into tears while Tanya is ready to go nuclear and destroy the store. At least she was thinking "Can she at least get a card to get one tomorrow so she can skip the line?". Anyway, the guy comes back... with a shiny white box in his hands. "Luckily the manager had set some aside as 'emergency stock' for just these occasions." Yea, right. I know for a fact that the flat rule to all Apple and ATT stores is "SELL THEM ALL". They are not supposed to hold any back for whatever reason. Hell, Quu's seen memo's that went out to all ATT employees saying "If you don't -need- one, let the customers get them first."

So, I get my 16gig in white, nearly freak because Tanya forgot to warn me we needed a credit card, but thankfully Quu had just made me zero out my Discover card. I was waiting for him to say "we don't accept discover" in all honesty. But then next thing I know it's mine, it's activated, and I'm heading over to the accessories in this state of shock. They didn't have any docking stations, but that's ok. It's useful but not needed. Got a case but not sure if I'm going to stick with it or not. It has a belt clip as well as an armband. Nifty huh? Also got the car charger (with extra wall plug and mini usb cable) and a retractable Aux cable.

All in all I'm quite happy with it. Still getting used to it, but that's expected. I can now ditch all the "Agendus" software I had, which is good as it kept crashing my Outlook. I do need to go in and clean up my contacts though. A few things I don't like: Can't edit/rotate pictures I've synced from my computer, aim gets wiggy due to the 'no background processes' shit from apple, limit of 10 custom ringtones, still very very few Apps for it yet. I'm waiting for a blogging app for LJ and Wordpress. Web Apps galore but still few native apps. It will come in time though. My biggest love is Pandora radio. I'm gonna make a new post about that later.

Anyway, I've spent far too long typing this up.

The sun is so deceptive today. Looks like it should be warm and sunny.. while it's actually FREEZING cold. Ok. only 49 degrees, but that's COLD for me. Why can't it at LEAST make it into the 60s? I'm camped out in the Conference room up here at Mom's office because it's the only place I can setup and get connected to the network. however, I can't plug the heater in. If i plug it into the only other outlet in this room, it flips the breaker which includes the computers in the main office. OOPS. My cell phone was dying so I had to sacrifice my external hard drive in order to get it charging.

Ugg.. getting such a headache.

Ok.. While mom has needed me less and less, I've actually been doing something akin to "consulting" work for the office. Howso?

Well, they don't have a single person inhouse who knows computers. General concessus is that my mom knows the most out of everyone. Mom's not computer illiterate, but she knows she has limits. So, here's what's going on:

For awhile now, the company has been using high speed DSL from a local provider now. They also have web-hosting, 2 domains, and their email through them. Ever since they started with this provider they have had nothing but trouble. So recently they switched over to comcast.

Yes, comcast. I groaned inwardly, but the problem is that they are almost the only option around here. Well, I think it was last week, they finally got everything transferred over and the comcast internet is working fine. Now there is the issue of the website.

when they canceled their previous DSL, they didn't realize that their website was on the same account so they got notified that it was going to be canceled. It was more of a wakeup call. I happened to be around when all this was going down, so the General Manager (read: boss) asked me if I'd be willing to help sort all this out. Y'all know me, I said yes. It's not so much that i'm regretting doing so, more like I never realized just how much work it was going to be. First off it was hard to find what they had included with their package, then hard to find what they NEEDED for their website. To say it was a mess is an understatement.

Things probably would have gone smoother had I been able to get to a computer with net access. The ethernet drop in the conference room is either a dead end, or their network is specific as to who can connect maybe via mac address. All I know is I plug it in and my computer still says there isn't a connection (yes, made sure the stuff was on, just wasn't getting anything off the cord), as in "nothing is plugged in" even though it is. There is a wireless in there, but it's passworded and no one around there even has a clue what the key is. *facepalm* They don't understand that all this stuff needs to be documented. Their network is done by a group that's hired in, but if the physical cables are any indication of how good they are, I'd have fired them the moment I looked at that mess. Medusa's hair is easier to detangle than that crap. *sighs*

So anyway, spent just about my entire afternoon dealing with that stuff. Got them started with transferring over to digital phones. Figured out what's going on with their web packages. Oh gods I'm so pissed off with that. I got told 15 different things before being directed to this one website where i had to create an admin account for our actual account and THAT is where we pick our webhosting packages. No other way to find out the prices for the packages.

Found out WHY comcast support is so crappy too. Calls go into a national switchboard, even though service and everything are regional.

Tomorrow I go in and hopefully can get everything all setup and done. *crosses fingers*

Once again I was woken up at 3am by the alarm on my grandpa's watch (needs batteries changed, it's weird). Tossed and turned in bed till 6am when I finally gave up and came out to watch the morning news. Don't think it's the Claritin. *sighs* Going to move that watch out in the dining room or something so it doesn't wake me up at 3am.

Yesterday was up in mom's office with the laptop, phone was near death so I was out of touch the entire day. Today poses to be much the same though I should have my phone.

Packing up the laptop now.

Slept in LATE. Mom went to work in the morning because there was some stuff that needed to be done before she went on leave. Really wish the company would invest in hireing someone actually qualified for the office. The girls are nice, but they are just local gals who don't have much experiance. One just makes screwball mistakes because she never asks questions, another can only do what she's told, and the third has english as her second language and mom has to proofread all her corrospondance. *sighs* But... no one listens.

Anyway, got up and we went to Bob Evans for lunch. Mom went home to clean while I ran some errands. Exchanged my Rocketfish bluetooth for the Jawbone. Winced writing the check, but I'm finding it well worth it. Need to fiddle with the zillion adjustable pieces to get it to fit perfectly, but otherwise it seems to work fine.

After best buy I ran to walmart for some other stuff for mom. Ended up buying a messenger bag. Why? I couldn't pack either of my purses. While my waller has a wrist strap, I find it akward to carry like that the majority if the time. I've always wanted a messenger bag anyway. Since I've already got two purses I can switch between, well actually three, I didn't really want another one. My mom has assorted bags I can use, but as anyone can attest to, its a bitch to get the little things out when they fall to the bottom. This bag has the big main pouch (really big too), one small zippered pouch inside the lip of the big one, two velcroed pouches on the inside under the flap, and one thin velcroed one along the back behind the big one (not under the flap). Only issue I'm having is it not keeping its shape. Came with a piece of cardboard, so thinking of putting it in the back slot to help it retain the overall rectangle shape. Things still pile on the bottom, but I can atleast keep the smaller stuff seperated. Hmmm.. wonder if my laptop will fit.. probably not.

So anyway, get home do some chores, then its time to cook dinner. Wasn't sure what I wanted to do, as I had two boneless/skinless chicken breasts dethawed. Anyway I go I am gonna need spices, so that means another trip to the store. (Most of mom's spices predate ME.) I get there, pick up a few general combo ones, then decide to bite the bullet and take a risk. Gonna try a stir fry. Got sliced water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, bean shoots (or whatever those white things with tiny leaves are, since I'm tired and can't remember), stirfry sause and a few other things.

I come home and get right to work. Pound out the chicken as much as I can, then slice it into chuncks before putting them in a large skillet (no, don't have a wok). Drizzle on some seasme oil and stir fry sause before opening the cans of water chestnuts and bamboo. Didn't add the sprouts since I was already worried there would be too much food. Add a bit of chopped carrots and heat it all on med low at first before bumping it up to medium heat. Then just stir, add more sause and oil, stir more. Once the chicken looked done, let it cook for a bit longer before slicing one of the bigger pieces and prouncing it done. When served, it needed a bit more stir fry sause, but otherwise it was great. Mom loved it. Very little left over. maybe one serving I'm hopeing to reheat once mom goes into the hospital.

Cleaned a bit more before I had to help Mom get into bed. Not so much she neede help actually getting INTO bed, as she had gotten stuff all over it while trying to sort it out. I love my mom, but I know where I get my emotial crankiness when I'm dead tired from.

Poked around on her netflix before crawling into bed to type this out.

Also need to contact the Mundu support people for the treo 650 patch as mine keeps resetting all the damn time. Worked fine until I patched it. If I don't respond to an IM, its likely I've been disconnected because of the damn thing. Very frustraiting.

Miss everyone, but overall things are going fine. Have to wake up at 8am tomorrow because mom wants to go to church. After that is lunch with grandpa and a few other family, then off to meet with a bunch of mom's friends who she hasn't seen since before christmas.

Hopefully will be around somewhat.

[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

Woke up with a massive headache.

Eyes hurt, almost migraine level.

Felt a bit dizzy, lips are dry, cotton mouth... dehydration. So I drink a lot of water. Doesn't seem to help

Ate lunch, it was good.

Couple hours later.. the glands in my throat suddenly feel like they are swelling up. Still feeling dizzy... go to lay down. I -think- i sleep because one moment I' in one position, next thing i know river is laying her head against my ankle and i have no clue how I got in the position on my other side.

Head feels like it's about to explode.

going to take a shower.. maybe lay down.

blood pressure through the roof as there is drama over on the nwn game i USED to play. I've quit btw, more details over on my silvershadow_ journal.

pat home.. feel sick.. snuggles then shower.

Well, christmas is come and gone, still have a handful of cards to still send out.. hopefully before new years. *sighs* But.. got a LOT done.

( Cut for kids stuff. )

( Cake and Soup Adventures! )

( Christmas. )

( Gaming. )

( LJ Icons! )

( Health and Depression. )

( Da House! )

Gah.. that's about all I can think of.

Trying to get back in contact with friends again.. but it's hard. Ya'll know how bad I am at keeping in touch.

Looking forward to ShadowCon though.

Enough for now.. hope ya'll enjoy the LJ cuts.. didn't want to clog up the friends pages and make everyone ignore me. >_>;;;

Laters!

Today is a very bipolar day, and not in a bad way. I'm in the dining room, my illumination stuff on the table, a bucket and sponge up against one wall, the step ladder with putty knives and a bucket of joint compound on another, a hammer and tiny crowbar on yet another. Going from one thing to another to another.. toss in the occasional computer break and walks with river (can't let her run around outside) and i'm just busy busy busy!

At least I'm getting stuff done, even if just a bit here, a bit there.

On one of my walks with River I went down and said hi to grandma and grandpa. He's the one who gave me the joint compound. Told him to go ahead and give the floor guy a call. Now that the den is cleaned out, we can lug the furniture up there (though might need to get some rugs so as to not scratch up my floors.

Talked with my mom for a bit. She had gone into the doctor's and gotten the pins in her toes removed. Originally that was scheduled for next friday, but they were already starting to poke out (perfectly ok) so they called her in and took them out.

Pat's going to the AMV dinner tonight so I'm home alone. At least I've got plenty to keep me busy.


BTW: LOVE my new Baroque CD collection. Best 20 bucks I've spent in a LONG time (only 10 once we get the refund check back). I've missed my classical music. Was getting sick of Beethoven and Mozart all the time.

The good:

Last weekend was a blast!! Saturday, Pat, River and I walked to downtown Kennesaw for the "Taste of Kennesaw" going on by the train station. Was small but SOO fun. Lots of other puppies there. River was SOOO well behaved. She got kinda scared when a train went by, but she never barked or anything. Just skittish and shaking. It was a GORGEOUS day too. Sunday we stayed home, but I spent the day making my famous "Meat Buns". Though sadly I can't find my normal bread recipe and had to try a new one. Tried out an Egg Bread recipe that actually turned out really well. The only part that was kinda so so was that we over boiled the gravy and it was STRONG. But the REALLY fun part was that while I was cooking dinner, Pat cleared the table off and we played games while the food was cooking. Home cooked food and games, sooo much fun.

The bad:

River is currently in with the vet. Nothing unexpected, but this is her first round of heartworm treatments. They are keeping her in for 3 days (we dropped her off monday morning). Though the only kinda bad part was that they had done some xrays monday and there was something in her lungs. Probably just a piece of heartworm, but they wanted to call us and let us know, finding out if she's been acting odd (coughing whatever) the past few days. Apparently what the heartworm treatments do is slowly kill off the worms which then break apart and flow into the lungs where they get re-absorbed into the body. So that's probably what showed up on the xray. I really like our vet. Some wouldn't bother telling us this stuff.  Haven't heard anything today so I guess things are all ok. I pick her up tomorrow.. hopefully. Scary part is that even once we get her home we're supposed to keep her calm for a month. You ALL know how spastic she get's when we come out. We've got the name of a specific sedative to ask for if they don't give us something (who knows, they might just give it to us anyway). I think they will get to know exactly what we mean when we show up to pick her up and she freaks out. Anyway, I'll keep ya'll updated. Just really miss her right now.

The UGLY:

My laptop is dying.

Some of you might already know about this from Quu's journal (or maybe I've already posted about this? Hell if I know!), but a couple months ago I started getting these one pixel wide vertical lines going down my screen. The count is now up to 5: 1 cyan, 2 yellow, 2 magenta. The 5th line showed up when I was having a very very shitty day up in Michigan. Anyone who knows Quu knows that one of the primary ways he shows his love and affection is by buying gifts. (No.. not buying your love, but 'spoiling' people.) After I refused to talk to him (or anyone else that day) he never did get to tell me.. but when I got home he kept saying "You've got a surprise coming on the 19th!" My first thought was that I had out of town friends coming up to stay for an extended weekend or something. But no one would spill the beans even though Pat was all but BURSTING at the seams to tell me (god that man can't keep a secret to save his life, but i love him for it!). So eventually we go out with folks, i think to a movie or something, and I come back and find a Dell receipt  displayed on my web browser. Yes.. Pat had already bought me my new laptop. Yes.. it's shiny and new.. and while it was supposed to be here by tomorrow, won't be here till NEXT Friday.

Ugly part is having not only to move over all my files, but having to dig up all my old passwords and clean them off this puter. Ooo.. and my email. ;_; Thankfully I've already got all my MP3s moved over to a file server (which my itunes points to), but damnit I'm gonna lose my ratings on everything. GAAAHHH... anyone know how to share the ratings on songs in itunes form one computer to another? It is the one thing I hate about getting a new computer.. moving all my flies over. Though technically this one still works so I can use both... But i want to clean most my stuff off so I can let pat use this when we go out.

While I might miss my old full keyboard, I think Pat is going to get me a docking station for it so I can hook up my keyboard and mouse to it. Would do better on my back than having to reach up to the laptop (don't have a proper desk chair at the moment)


An now for something totally random:

Tonight: SCA Fighter Practice - 7:30-dark at Bell's Ferry Park

... that i haven't been posting again, let alone keeping up with people's journals. *sighs* sorry about that.

It's been a rough past couple of months.

While my trip up north was fun and productive, it was taxing being away from home for so long. Not to mention frustrating that mom's surgery didn't go through. A week from today is her doctor's appointment and she'll find out if they are gong to go ahead with the surgery on the 10th or not. If yes, i'll be buying my plane tickets and going back up there, but I might just go ahead and cut back as much as I can on how long i'm up there. Four weeks max, not a day longer. That's about all I can do before I start to break down.

For those who don't know, River has heartworms. It's going to be hard when she has the injections because we have to keep her calm. Might have to ask for some sedatives because she get's exceedingly worked up when pat or I come home, even if we're only gone for 5 minutes. Ladye Gray's tests came back, she's doing perfectly fine, as are the rest of the cats. However, I just noticed that Sasha has some real bad matted knots in his fur. Worse than Sebastion EVER had. They are in sensitive spots too.. like under his neck and behind his ear. I find out last night from pat that while I was gone, Sasha got out and was trapped in the POOL for quite a long time (my guess is River chased him there). His fur is so fluffy, all it would take is a single twig or burr and his fur is real bad. I'm trying to cut them out as he'll let me.. but he's more slippery than Sebastion. *sighs*

I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things. Pat's been patient with me. All i've wanted to do was sleep and poke on the puter. Been cleaning on my own again.. not much, but it's slowly coming back.

Ok.. so a couple days ago I find a green hairball on my living room floor... gross, yes, but not as gross as what was in it. The green color I knew was because I had the cat grass out again.. but that didn't account for the insect like exoskeletons the hairball contained. My first thought was: "holy shit those look like god damn huge fleas!" yes.. dime sized fleas..

I freaked.

Talked to pat, and was on the phone with the vet in less than 10 mins. Scheduled an appt to bring in all the animals because i was terrified that if one had digestive parasites then probably they all did. Besides.. River needed her heartworm checkup and the cats were vastly overdue for their shots.

By the time pat got home that night, he mentioned the near infestation of crickets we have in our basement and that Sebastion had been down there for a while the other day. My freaking out lessoned, but i'm still not 100% sure it's crickets.

--
fast forward to today
--

Appt is set for 2pm. At 1:40pm we pull out the cat carrier and the dog crate. Pat grabs Sebastion and I pick up Sasha. Two attempts to get them in the crate and they are NOT happy.. we have to let them out because the two boys started to fight. Oops. We resign ourselves to the fact we're gonna have to come back to get The Tasmanian Devil (aka Ladye Gray) after we drop the boys and River off. The boys are mewing in protest the whole drive, but River is happy as a clam. We get to the vet and they go ahead and put us in the exam room, let Pat borrow one of their cat carriers to go get Ladye Gray (spouting all the while that I'm going to have to buy him dinner to repay him for his trouble >_>).

First up is River (who's shaking like a leaf) and Sasha, taking both in the back for the general stuff they do. I'm sitting on the floor petting Sebastion through the door on the crate (nice hole I can squeese my hand through) to calm him down when I hear the yipping and barking from River. She's such a cry baby. They eventually bring them back and River is more than pleased to be back with Mommy. She parks on my lap, loops around my chair, and sometimes hides under my chair. Almost 10 mins have passed and still not Pat and Ladye Gray. I'm slightly worried. Vet comes in with the nurse who's got Sebastion and his crate. He gives Sebastion his physical and his shots and they get him back in the crate fine... though he was obviously NOT happy about getting the shots.

Next is Sasha... and comedy ensues. The Vet is writing notes on the charts while the nurse tries to get Sasha out of the carrier. He's got his head to the back, and it's a pretty tight fit (not too tight, but quite comfy) plus the carrier is on the floor so she's having trouble. She brings it up to the table and tries to maneuver the carrier while drag him backwards all at the same time. Cat is NOT budging. Sasha, as most of you probably know.. is a slippery cat. His fluffy fur only adds to his ability to slip through your fingers. I'm starting to laugh at the poor girl's trouble, and offer to help even though River is on my lap. By this time the Vet was done making notes and reaches over to take the carrier from the nurse. He then proceeds to upend the thing and try to shake him loose while the nurse reaches up inside to try and pull Sasha out. Picture this: Ever seen those cartoons where someone is about to be dumped in a pot of boiling water or some such? They brace their feet on the rim and refuse to budge? Now picture this cat doing the exact same, only he's inside and refusing to come out. The towel comes out fine, but Sasha just is NOT leaving that damn carrier. By this point I'm laughing so hard I'm crying. Eventually the nurse manages to get ahold of him, I think he eventually turned around, and plops him on the table. We're all laughing by this point. The vet looks him over and gives him his shots (though he nearly got away once).

Ok.. by this point.. Pat STILL isn't back with Ghetto Girl and i'm about to call him when the door opens and there he stands... looking like he just ran a marathon.. or been through a warzone... take your pick. Pat sets the carrier down and proceeds to tell us the story while the vet finishes up with Sasha. Apparently as soon as Pat walked in the door and LG saw the carrier.. she tore off like a flash. He tried picking her up off the couch.. and she took the cushions off with her.. all three of them somehow. He tried getting her in the carrier four times.. she 'shot out like a chinese cannon' each time. At one point he had her and she managed to scratch his belly (not too bad).. but then her back claws dug into his jean shorts and literally tore them to shreds. I will admit.. I thought he was over exaggerating at this point. Mostly cause he kept saying 'You're very lucky she didn't cut the skin or i'd be a eunuch'.

Well by this point the vet was done with Sasha and he went back into his carrier fine. River was up next and she was a good puppy. He looked at her tail, and it looks like there are probably some fleas in the backyard that are biting her. She just does NOT react well. She's also got a few other allergic reactions and said we could give her a normal dose of benidryl to help with the allergies until the flea medication prevented the fleas from bothering her.

Finally he's done with River and it's time for the Tasmanian Devil. After a good discussion.. we decide to have her put under anthisia so the doc can give her a full check up. I'm quite worried about her because she looks like she's lost a lot of weight. Anyway.. that gives us about a half hour to wait so Pat takes the boys back home. Pat get's back just after LG finally starts to wake up, so we had to take her home in the borrowed carrier. I did spend an extra 5 bucks and got River a pink ribbon neck-kerchif. Less for the kerchif and more for the donation to the Komen foundation. But anyway.. got everything all paid up, meds bought, then took River and LG home.

Needless to say, LG bolted as soon as the door to the carrier was opened and we had a hard time even finding her before we left to return the carrier and get some lunch.

Oh.. btw.. pat was NOT exaggerating when he was talking about his shorts. I HAVE to take pictures of these so you all can see them. I think we're going to hold onto them as a deathly reminder.

Been an interesting day to say the least ^_^

Tonight after I picked Pat up from work we went to the "Pho and Com" (pronounced CUM) restaurant that's on HWY 92, east of sandy springs in the same shopping area where the Mellow Mushroom is.

OMG! It's sooo nice to have good Pho again! And not only is it good noodles, but they put the cilantro and stuff on the side so you can season it yourself. Apparently that's the traditional way to serve Pho. I STRONGLY suggest to anyone who's up that way to go try it out. It's WELL worth the drive too. They do pick ups and delivery (within 5 miles) too. I also suggest trying the smoothies. It's very unique and not like other smoothies, but they are good, or at least the strawberry is. I think they make it with strawberry yogurt cause it's a weird but good strawberry flavor. I recognize it and am sure it's from some yogurt I've had, don't know which one.

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Anyway, today has been really good. Was tired when I woke up, but got moving pretty quick. It was funny cause when the alarm went off the second time I reached over and hit Pat and said "What are you still doing here?". Apparently he'd hit the snooze and it was still the 'first' alarm (my second one goes off at 10am). So I got up and moving but grumply.

Dropped Pat off at work and then made the bad decision to stop by Dick Blicks on my way to my appointment. >_> Was SOO hard not to get the primary color pack of the good Winsor Newton gouches. It was only $36.39!! ;_; I managed to pry it out of my hands and instead go with the crappy Reeves set for only six bucks. Did get some Gum Arabic so hopefully it will help the crappy paints not be that bad. I pulled out an old Onyx Chalice Gleann Abhann blank scroll I had left in my SCA stuff (which is no longer exits because they became a kingdom) and have started practicing with the crappy paints. The blue and red were working ok, but the greens, which I had to mix to make an acceptable color, were not mixing well and are not even. Dunno how I'm going to fix it other than going over it later with another coat to make it completely opaque. I need a better light though, the desk lamp I have is still too dim to make it light up like I need it. Need a real desk lamp to shine down on my work. *sighs* Probably get that when I get my real drafting table. Oh well. It feels good to be able to do the illumination again. It's one of the things that I'm actually really good at.

Had a good lunch with android18sl after my appointment. Chatted about a lot of things, and was just a lot of fun. Made it back home to play with my paints and River for an hour before driving to go get Pat. Unfortunately I hadn't seen his LJ and had to wait around his office for over an hour before we could leave for dinner. I'm so proud of him for his job, even when it is inconvenient. He's gonna have to work this weekend, which is sad. Was looking forward to everyone being able to hang out, and will be weird not having him with me at the RenFaire (which its still in doubt if he'll have to work sunday or not, he might be able to go). Just.. trying not to really look forward to everyone coming over, just in case things go to shit and no one shows up. Too many times plans go awry and there isn't anything anyone can do about it. Just don't want to get my hopes up and then get depressed because it all goes wrong. If no one comes down, then I'm still going to go to the Ren Faire on sunday, hopefully with local peeps even if my out of state friends don't make it.

Anyway, now just relaxing at home. Think I'm going to head back and keep working on my illumination. I need to see if I can find my gold paint, however it was weird stuff that required turpentine to clean the brushes with. That's why I like watercolor based paints the best. Easy clean up!! Maybe I might try my hand at actual gold leaf overlay sometime. Still looking forward to having someone help me learn how to make original scrolls. *happy dance* Maybe I can get all my supplies before heading to Michigan so I can work on them up there. Who knows?!

Oh, BTW, if you want to know how the Illumination scroll work works, see this old scroll I dug up while I was cleaning. Too bad it's yet another scroll for a now debunk award. *shrugs* Still pretty. If you want better examples, try this page.

Today has been a KICK ASS DAY!

Need more days like this.

First off, started work cleaning out the den. Got one corner cleaned out and in my head went "What the fuck, I have a carpet knife, what could go wrong?" and then proceeded to cut out the area of the carpet that had the worst of the cat pee. Roll up the strip of carpet, put it in the trash, then start to pull up the padding.. and what do I find?

Beautiful hardwood floors.

That's right.. The entire den is nice hardwood just like what's in the hallway. This makes me happy to no end! The only problem is that some of the wood under the worst of it all are actually ruined and will have to be replaced. However, replacing a few boards beats having to redo the entire floor. Talked to Pat, and apparently the entire upstairs is the same, excepting the living room which used to be the carport. So I'm slowly getting all the carpeting out, then going to somehow have to get the carpet tack strips up (they are nailed into the floor) without damaging the floors themselves.Once I get the den done, will probably go into the library and pull that out next. This will mean the bookshelves we have will actually lay right rather than keep tilting dangerously (probably do to the carpet tack strips).

So that was really really kick ass.

Then, omgdontlook and I head over to the local SCA fighter practice. SOO much fun. I can't begin to tell you how good it felt to be around Scadains again. quu was asking me later what was so different about Scadains verses 'normal' people, and we finally pegged it. In the SCA, you stand on your own merits, your own skills. You are either a good fighter, or you are not. You are either able to create beautiful things, or you are not. There is no 'epeen'. So the SCA acts as a 'filter'. Those who are flaky and want 'epeen' so bad, just don't stick around. You still get some people who are drama whores, not to mention people who develop their cliques, but they all still have a certain maturity that the others lack. The people with lackluster skills are the underdog types who don't care if they are good or not, they are there to have fun. The people who -do- have the skills, have done things to EARN the respect others give them. Hope this makes sense.

Anyway, we arrived and met up with allicat42 and her husband, stood around and talked to people. I met up with the seneschal who also hosts the scroll painting workshops. She also does, or at least helps teach, original scroll work. Something that I've always been interested in. Mostly just stood around and talked alot. Met people, but I know I'll forget names very quickly. The important thing is to meet them. After it got dark we went to Chilies with a group of people and had dinner, chatted and just hung out. Got to talk to the A&S officer who's really nice. She did say they were about to have some really good classes coming up next month, one of which was woodworking, and the other I don't remember what it was. I'll post later dates and times, even if I can't go.

The best part was that quu actually showed up and joined us at the park. I can't begin to tell him or anyone else how much it means to me for him to actually come to something that -I- want to do. I know he'll never be big into the SCA, but that he's willing to go with me and have fun anyway is just... priceless. I love you soo much baby!

Soo.. day was good. I'm tired, and I'm sore (no I didn't fight).

android18sl and I are heading up to check out the Hidden Creek park up near Calhoun today. Wish us luck!

Very tired.. got a lot done today. Still more to do. Mountains of laundry to wade through.

Think I might go to bed early. Mind racing.

omgdontlook came over today and helped me clean the house up. Got a LOT done. The living room is almost livable again, the library room is showing floor. Still SOO much to do, but it's slowly getting done.

After she headed home, I went out in the back yard and did a bit of trimming of the trees and bushes. Need to get a tree specialist and find out what I need to do back there. They were all planted so close together that they have to be trimmed/pruned regularly. Many MANY branches are completely dead due to lack of light. I -think- I know what needs to be done, but i don't want to end up killing what's all back there, not to mention some of the pruning is so high up I can't do it alone. The front trees are the same way. They need SERIOUS work. The branches between the oak and the willow are all -dead- because they are not getting any light. Looks horrid.

Also going to have to get new furniture eventually. While vacuuming the couch, I'm noticing wear spots in the upholstery. Some of it is even beginning to fray. However we have a lot that needs to be done before that. AC needs to be replaced, floors need to be done, shelves need to be bought. Yea... you heard me. When the floors are done, I'm going down to Ikea and buying the good shelving units to put up along the walls in both the den and the library room. These cheapy things from wal-mart are dying and won't last much longer.

In the meantime.. I'm totally wiped out. Going to go take a shower and nap before Quu get's home. If anyone wants me, call.

Just got this email today:

The Hidden Creek campground has not been sold and developed it was only
decommissioned and all amenities were removed. It is now a dispersed
camping area.

Anyone wanna go with me this friday/sat and look for it? Quu and I stayed home this weekend (my sleep schedule got fubared sat when we slept all afternoon).