Holy Cow

Uh….yeah…I’ve been running so fast I’ve caught up with myself….

except I’m still behind.  I’m not sure how that’s possible. 

I shouldn’t even be here.  I have to be up in three hours to head to the airport with KC and a group of church friends.  So I’m going to be gone for the next week and this is actually a legitimate reason to not blog…I will have no access because we’re going to be out of the country. 

Someday I’ll get caught up.  In the meantime, no, it’s not vacation, it’s a mission trip…but I’ll have to tell ya all about it later because I really need to try to sleep for the next three hours.  LOL.  Pray for us while we’re gone…and for the poor folks who got roped into holding down the fort for me while we’re gone…(lol…love you, people!) and hopefully…I’ll be back in about a week. 

Zapped

Well, it only LOOKS like I fell off the face of the earth…in all actuality, as is the story of my life, I was just zipping back and forth all across the face of this planet and was too busy to blog. 

We went to Ohio for the weekend, sort of a spur of the moment trip since we originally didn’t think we would be able to go, but we managed to squeeze it in.  I really dreaded the drive but once we got there, we all did have a great time.  I took like one picture the entire weekend.  Bad me.  I have really got to do better!

The kids went to the in-laws for a couple of days when we got back, which actually worked out really well for me, because I have been needing some time to get the rest of my immunizations before our mission trip.  So I met KC at lunch today and we went to the county health department to get those.  As a side-note, that’s a great place for people-watching…if you like to watch people with snarky attitudes who think the world owes them and revolves around them…in their pajamas.  LOL…oops…maybe I’m the one with the snarky attitude…but I am well aware that the world owes me nothing and it’s not all about me. 

Moving on…I got three lovely shots, and KC got two.  He was fine…I’ve been zapped ever since.  Maybe it’s my skinny arms and maybe they hit my bone with the needle.  Maybe it’s just because I didn’t think to eat breakfast this morning.  Maybe I’m just a little wimp.  But.  That. HURT.

I didn’t pass out, but the room went black for a few seconds and I got really queasy and dizzy and had to put my head between my legs.  That was after the first two shots.  I told her to go ahead and give me the tetanus shot while my head was between my legs and the room was dark.  The good news is I barely felt that one. 

I made it to the waiting room and held on to KC’s arm for dear life till we got to the car and I could put my head back between my legs.  Thank GOD, KC was with me and could drive till I got my equilibrium back.  That was kinda freaky.  No wonder kids scream bloody murder when they get their immunizations! 

Or maybe I’m just old.  Whatever the case, I came back and took a nap this afternoon and dreamed crazy alternate reality dreams.  Now I feel okay, just tired and my shoulders are sore. 

I still feel like sleeping though, so I’m going to head out now and do some more of it…hopefully without the crazy alternate reality dreams…lol.  Nighty-night.

Ahhh

Yeah, I went awol there for a few days I guess.  Didn’t even realize it…I’ve just been staying busy and haven’t spent much time on my computer. 

KC had a business trip and was gone a couple of days, so it was just me keeping up with everything here…and that’s enough to keep a person hopping, for sure. 

And then cleaning and having friends over…well…time sure does fly when you’re having fun. Although, the time doesn’t seem to fly on the cleaning part of that.  Haha. 

I almost posted Wednesday night…Bible study topic was on peace (as in, part of the fruit of the Spirit)…kicked up a whole batch of thoughts to chew over, but I guess I got sidetracked and forgot.  I’m pretty sure absent-minded-ness ISN’T one of the Spiritual fruits…if it was, I’d be all set.  Unfortunately, in spiritual school, I really need to bring my grade up in the Peace Class.  LOL.  But I’m working on it…some days are better than others. 

Since I’m already confessing, let me just fess up and say that I had a Dr. Pepper today.  First one in like a week…maybe a little over a week. I’m giving up on the part where I quit because I keep caving…so I’m just going to say I’m cutting back…and an occasional splurge is allowed.  ;-) 

Anyway, that’s what’s popping around here.  Next week looks to be more of the same…not a lot of laidback summer going on around these parts, but that’s alright. 

Just Keep Swimming…

Wow….I don’t know if I even have it in me to write tonight.  I am so far past exhausted I don’t know which end is up.  I don’t even know why…I didn’t do anything really huge today. 

I hope I’m not getting sick…that would stink.  Anyway, what DOESN’T stink is that it rained out the end of the swim meet tonight.  Thank GOD!  Actually, I should say, it stormed out the end of the meet…they still swim if it’s raining but if it thunders, they have to break for thirty minutes till it passes…and if it doesn’t…end of show. 

YAY for the end of show.  It was going to be a really long night otherwise…like midnight.  I was SO not up for that with both of the kids by myself…Whew. 

Munchkin is the one in the middle.  She won second in that heat.  She only got to swim twice, but that was okay with all of us…she was cold and after the rain started, so was everyone else.  LOL. 

And I was falling asleep driving home (well, I mean, I managed to stay awake, but I had to fight it) so I’m calling it a night and letting my eyelids have their way now. 

Night.

‘Net Woes

Our internet is driving me nuts right now.  It’s like we’ve gone back to the days of dialup.  LOL.  It’s so slow right now that I got tired of waiting for the page to load and figured I’d come blog while it’s loading.  I just wrote this whole paragraph and it’s still loading.  No idea what’s up with that.  But at least we have internet….and electricity…  Always a bright side.  =)

Argh.  It works for five minutes and then nothing.  Having trouble seeing the bright side. 

I might as well go grab my book or do laundry or something that would actually be more productive than sitting here griping at my computer, huh? 

Tomorrow is Munchkin’s first away swim meet.  It’s an hour away, and it’s in the direction we used to live, so I have some errands to run while we’re going through that area.  Multi-tasking is a wonderful thing.  I’m tempted to find someone to crash with after the meet, since the meets go kinda late and then we’ll have an hour drive back, but then I’d have to figure out something to do with the dogs, and it’s easier just to drive back home.  LOL. 

I’m trying to keep plenty of down-time available this week, since we’ve been on the go so much this summer, but when I have down time it’s spent doing laundry or cleaning something, so I’m not sure which is worse.  Cleaning is probably cheaper and better for the house, but…anyway.

Speaking of better for the house, since the internet still isn’t working and I’m getting aggravated, I think I’m going to get a head start on tomorrow morning’s chores.  =) 

I wonder if the internet will stay up long enough to post this…..

Blessings Upon Blessings

Kid free weekend…KC’s parents wanted the kids to come over, so we’ve had some grown-up time…blessings.

Except, when you’re parents, even time without kids is spent doing things like…shopping for some of their back to school stuff early, working on pictures of other people’s kids, doing kid laundry…etc.  =)  It’s okay though…wouldn’t trade it….blessings.

I’m kinda tired right now though, and I’m giving serious consideration to early bedtime…although, I just looked at the clock and realized it’s not really that early.  LOL. 

I’ve decided that for future sessions, my prices for photo sessions are going up.  I spend more time on the photos than what I charge for…because I’m a perfectionist like that…I’d have to charge a fortune to actually make money on what I do, and I’m not going to do that, but at least I need to get a little closer to a good balance between making a few dollars and paying the customer to take their pictures.  LOL. 

Gotta stop going overboard.  Like that picture.  It was so cute already….but I wanted it to be perfect.  The background only had a couple of flowers…now it has lots.  =) 

The problem is, even if I controlled my perfectionist tendencies and spent less time making them just so…I’d still not be making a profit.  I’m way more of a laid-back artist than a business-person.  LOL.  Maybe someday I’ll get there….I’m working on it.  Baby steps.  =)  Anyway, there are more pictures from that session uploaded on the photography blog, but I’m not going to tell you anything else about what I did to the pictures.  =) 

But I’m finished with another session, and it turned out (in my own humble opinion) pretty good….blessings.

Blessings upon blessings…I can’t complain.

Anyway…it’s not early anymore, so I’m going to bed. =)  Laterzzzz

Wildlife Stinks

So evidently, it’s a Red Velvet Ant epidemic year…two more were killed here on Wednesday, and today I discovered the male version, which has wings.  It also died, a horrific, grinding death.  Thankfully, it died without stinging me.  And then another one was spotted, but it got away.  NOT COOL!  I’m now paranoid of walking through the yard. 

And last night, I went out to walk the dogs…and I only stepped out on the concrete patio downstairs…it’s not like I was walking where I couldn’t see what I was walking on…and suddenly there was this squish and something was wet under my foot….and I looked down, and something was hopping away.  So the poor little frog survived the giant’s misstep evidently unscathed, but I must have squished the pee out of it, because left a puddle on the pavement…and on my foot. 

Well, I promptly walk/hopped to the bathroom sink and hiked my foot up there and scrubbed it clean with soap and water, but then I went to bed and imagined that I could feel warts starting to pop out already. 

I know.  Dumb, right? 

Our backyard is evidently out to get us…KC walks out and develops swollen, itchy, red eyes, and I go out and encounter bugs and animals of every variety!  Sheesh.

Wildlife is awesome…but when it interferes with my personal space, it kinda stinks.  =) 

A Boar-ing Neighborhood

Life isn’t dull around here, that’s for sure!  You’ll never BELIEVE what wandered through the front yard this morning.  Well, okay, maybe the title gave it away. 

I snapped a few pictures with my phone, and then I went and got my big camera and took a few more. 

I don’t think he was completely wild, because he didn’t run away, and he would almost come near you, but he wasn’t tame enough to completely just come up and be petted. 

No worries, we didn’t try that.  We called animal control…HE tried.  lol….it was SUCH a strange morning. 

And do you see the bush behind ol’ Hogwarts? On Saturday night, I was standing out in the driveway with a friend as she was leaving and it was dark, and the shape of that bush in the streetlight caught her attention.  “Is that a pig or a bush shaped like a pig over there?”  “And did you do it on purpose?”

“Good gravy, no,” I said, “but you’re right, it looks like a pig…except it’s just a bush…this isn’t a pig kind of neighborhood.”

“Well, that’s what I thought, too,” sez she, and we both laughed. 

And then today….well, like she said….maybe we can find a bush shaped like a million dollars.  I’d sure like to see a million dollars wander down to my yard.  LOL.

And after I put my camera back because we were getting ready to leave, Mr. Animal Control was able to get his little leash things around the poor fella’s neck…and one around his belly, too. 

Well, then I felt sorry for it, because it put up a squealing and hollering like I’ve never heard in my life.  (But I wasn’t so sorry for it, that I felt bad taking a cell phone picture of it’s misery…lol)

Evidently, wild boars don’t care much for restraints, because it danced and hopped and squealed and screamed across in the neighbors yard until it danced right out of those restraints and ran away.  Mr. Animal Control put up a good chase, but Hogwarts escaped and Mr. AC had to call in reinforcements. 

That’s when I had to leave, so I missed the end of the show, because we had appointments and a busy day to get to, but…boy howdy….what a dandy morning. 

Now if I could just remember if I put the bills to mail in the mailbox or if I dropped them somewhere else during all the excitement, I’d be in good shape.  *sigh*  Is it any wonder I’m losing my mind?

Close Encounters of the Creepy Kind

It seems that I have had run-ins with the most hideously ugly and/or evil things over the past few days. 

At some point while riding this thing on Wednesday, something evil bit the backside of my leg.  I don’t know if it was under my leg and I sat on it, or if it just happened to crawl up while I was mowing.  It seems like something always happens when I do a good deed for KC.  It never hurt, but when I got in the shower, and was washing the dust off, I felt this big swollen lump on the back of my leg.  And that was last Wednesday.  It’s still looks like this and it’s been what—4+ days?  It’s about the size of the end of my thumb, and not quite as creepy looking as it was originally, so I’m hoping it wasn’t a spider of the deadly kind (which we do have around the house here).  I’m hoping since it’s been 4 days and I’m still alive and not feverish and my skin isn’t falling off, that it was just a mean one and not a deadly one.  

Then I walk out the front door a couple of days later and this guy is right at eye level right in front of my face.  He was probably completely harmless, but he wasn’t one of those beautiful lizards and he gave me quite the startle. 

And Saturday, I was down at the pool getting ready to swim with the kids and this awful thing was waiting in the chair.  I saw it before it got me, thank God, because I am pretty sure it would have been extremely painful.  As it was, after I took the picture and then flipped it off the chair and tried to kill it, it wouldn’t DIE!  I stomped on it (on the concrete) at least five times and each time it just got up and kept right on scurrying away, like I was just playing with it.  Oh my word…and then I took a large rock and bludgeoned it around 10 times before I finally beat it to death.  Well…I hope it was dead…it was still moving after all that, but I got the back end completely separated from the front, so I’m hoping it was just taking awhile to die. 

KC looked it up, it’s actually called a Red Velvet Ant, otherwise known as “cow killer” and it’s actually not an ant at all, it’s a female wasp.  It also doesn’t actually kill cows, it just hurts bad enough that people say it COULD kill a cow. 

Now I’m EXTRA thankful I saw it before it got me. 

I don’t know that this is technically a close encounter, but last night, I had vivid nightmares about a man with giant knives that had captured me and other people and was chopping their heads off with his knives.  He even NAMED his knives…and I was next, but the guy, who worked for psycho-man, was supposed to chop my head off and couldn’t stomach it, so the psycho chopped his assistant’s head off right in front of me instead, and just moved me down the list.  And I couldn’t figure out how to avoid being next…it was a hideous dream. I don’t know where it came from either, because I haven’t read any books or watched any movies about psychos with an addiction to knife inflicted deaths….*shudder* 

Well anyway….other than that, everything is all good.  And I’m considering the fact that it was a dream and I woke up, to be a really good thing, too. 

Sheesh.  LOL. 

So…I’ve been a busy girl…and it’s been close at times, but I’ve mostly been staying out of trouble.  LOL.  And now I’m going swimming…looks like it’s heated up outside enough to make the pool feel nice.  You know…like 98 degrees or something like that.  =)  Thanks for dropping in…ya’ll have a great day.  =)