Almost Tattoosday

Okay, so I’m late for Tattoosday again. I was so busy finishing up work on the Alliance database that I lost track of time and forgot everything else. M (I’m embarrassed to type this) was at his friend’s last night playing video games. It still puzzles me and defies all logic that adults find such things entertaining. The only thing I can remotely find entertaining about it is trying to figure out the logic in the code behind the games. My computer geekness does sneak out every now and then, I guess. Anyway, he got home around 11, and I was just shipping off the final version of the database complete with the documentation (manual). I put the documentation off until the end (as always), because that’s my least favorite part. So M. asked if I had finished the blog entry. Since I’m still featuring his tats, he remembers Tattoosdays better than me apparently. I am so happy to have the database upgrade done, that I don’t even feel bad about my lateness! ;) Now I have to start working on the Service Master database, and then I still have one more in the queue to work on after that is done. Hopefully I will get a break then!

So this tattoo is pretty straightforward. It’s a sun on his left ankle. He likes the sun. I guess that’s a good thing, since it makes his career possible. He intends on getting some type of moon on his right ankle, but is planning the “green man” on his back before that. Allegrea is working on drawing the “green man” for him now.

Last week, I was horrified to see a letter to the editor, in our lovely local paper, maligning Peter Young and the reporter who wrote the article on him when he was in town. She did a great job, and Peter himself felt the article was very fair and accurate. The woman who wrote the crappy letter was the same obnoxious mink farmer who showed up at his talk (with her smelly—LITERALLY—heavy-mouth-breathing husband) and tried to jump Peter. It was clear from listening to them try to make him look bad there that they were not gifted with intelligence or quick thinking. He trounced them immediately, in the nicest of ways. She’s also the one with whom I exchanged some unpleasant words, after she mistook me for a sympathetic party. I’m still beyond insulted that she looked at me and somehow assumed that I would be her “buddy”. Do I really look like someone who would interact with a fur bitch (language cleaned up significantly for my sensitive readers ;D )??!! So her letter to the editor was equally disjointed and illogical enough to be quite harmless overall. However, she attacked Peter and his character, and I simply CANNOT let that one go. I sat down and drafted up my own letter to the editor, which was fabulous. Then I ran word count on it. It was nearly 200 words OVER the allowed 250 words. Seriously—250 words—that is just not enough. My initial draft was quite brief for me, considering all the points I needed to make. Then I spent then next hour trying to pare it down to 250 words, which I finally reached—exactly 250 words. So it was printed the next day, and I am happy. Peter’s honor has been restored. ;D

Hallowe'en preparations

I don't get into seasonal decorating, so our Hallowe'en prep is pretty quick and easy. I do decorate for winter solstice/xmas, but mostly because I would feel guilty and like the worst mother ever if I deprived my kids of all the materialistic trappings for the BIG holiday. The others, though, I just can't justify the money, the storage of all the crap for the whole rest of the year, and I can think of about 12,000 other things more important and enjoyable to do. So, I guess that makes me a holiday curmudgeon.

L. went out to the garden and selected a pumpkin for carving. This is the first year she has actually carved one. We have, up until now, just had her paint her pumpkins. She was very excited about carving, though, so that's what we did. She got the honor of cleaning the "guts" out, because we wouldn't want to deprive her of the really fun part. ;) She drew a cat face on the pumpkin and got her special carving knife ready to go.

She did almost all of the carving by herself. M. helped her with a few tough/tricky parts, but the rest was all her. I was impressed by how much she was able to do, because our pumpkins have extremely thick walls. Her cat face turned out to be adorable. Lila had to supervise the entire process, up close and personal, of course. The masterpiece is in the refrigerator right now--we will put the candle in and light it up tomorrow. We got it finished while it was still too light outside to light the candle, then we went to my parents' and returned after her bedtime. We want to make sure the debut of her first carved and lit jack-o-lantern has the appropriate pomp and circumstance. As soon as we got everything put away and cleaned up, Lila jumped onto the couch and curled up and went to sleep. All the sniffing and supervising must have been exhausting!

L. was also very anxious to try roasted pumpkin seeds for the first time, so we made up a small batch of those. They turned out as well as M & I remembered from childhood. We have enough pumpkins out in the garden that we will probably make another batch or two this fall.

All four of us went to my parents' for my dad's homemade pizza (yea!!), and we watched "The Time of our Lives". I think that's the only Abbott and Costello movie that I like. Since it's about ghosts, it seemed perfect for tonight. It's one of those movies that we've all seen before but enjoy watching again.

Yikes! Ivan just let out the most ungodly series of yowls. I went running to him, just in time for him to hurl out an enormous quantity of freshly eaten (and seemingly unchewed) cat food. I'm thinking he just ate too much too fast, but will have to watch him closely (and baby him of course) for the rest of the night. My poor little boy!

Last night was BTC's annual Hallowe'en carnival. We met Orinda and the boys there, and all the kids had fun. L. wanted to go through the haunted house, so I took her through. She was pretty timid about walking through there, but was fine as soon as we got out. They played a few games and ran around. The guy who was there this year doing balloon sculptures did the most amazing balloon art I've ever seen. It was really quite awesome! L. wanted a cat (what else?), and Logan wanted a sword. L. also got a black cat painted on her cheek. Her costume turned out to be a bit of a surprise. She has the cheetah costume from last year that still fits, plus her new costume for this year, but she did not wear either of those. She came downstairs in one of her beautiful "dressy" dresses, ghoulish blue makeup under her eyes, and the piece around which the entire costume was built--a special thumb tack on her cheek with a stream of "blood" pouring down from it. We went to our normal Friday lunch at El Jardin, and Carrie and Eric were there, playing with a thumbtack that had the point pulled off and a piece of tape in its place. They were sticking the tack on various body parts, making it look like it was stuck into them. L. thought that was the coolest thing ever, and they gave it to her when they left. Little did any of us suspect that it would become the catalyst for her "creepy girl" costume!

I was a good girl today and got my chores done and the weeks' homeschooling lessons done. Since my youngest is in bed, and my oldest is out doing god knows what, I'm going to go downstairs with M and watch whatever come in from Netflix today. Pretty rockin' Saturday night, heh?

And the reason we went on a second date is...

Well, I'll try to keep this simple, but we still disagree on when our first date actually occurred. We went out for lunch and somehow got on the topic of tattoos. Mark said he had five, but I didn't believe him. He definitely didn't look like the type of guy that would have five tattoos. Obviously, I was wrong (hey, it happens to everyone ONCE ;P ). He was telling me what they were (I wasn't yet able to see them) and said that he had a scorpion on his left shoulder. I asked if he was a scorpio (that would have been a deal breaker for me--one scorpio in a relationship is MORE than enough!), and he said he was a sagittarius. I totally didn't believe him then, because why the hell would someone get a scorpio tattoo if they were not a scorpion? With Mark's sense of humor, it's a safe bet to assume he's messing with you until he proves differently. He finally convinced me that he was indeed serious and really had a scorpion. He had always loved scorpions and had even had a "pet" scorpion in college. He also loved the band, The Scorpions. Since I also had a scorpio tattoo and I am a scorpio, I took that as a sign that he was worth further investigation. The rest is history--a history that you will get two completely different versions of if you were to ask each of us. Mine is the correct version. ;P

Dej did very well this weekend at her debate meet. She and her partner took 3rd place (of 19 teams competing) and went undefeated for all three rounds.

I got to visit Sweetie , who is now Callie, tonight. She's one of the foster cats I placed a few months ago. It was GREAT to see her looking happy and healthy. We cuddled for quite a while tonight. I'm pretty sure she remembered me and was happy to see me, too. She wasn't at all trepidatious about me invading her space and trilled the minute she saw me walk through the door. I had forgotten how incredibly cute she is! It was wonderful to be able to spend time with her!

Mark just walked in from a presentation at UW Madison. I haven't seen him since our walk at 6:00 this morning, so I'm off. Oh, I do have to say that Venus has been just gorgeous at 6:00 am when we go for our dog walk. If you get up early, it's worth stepping outside for. It's very big and bright right now!

And that one guitar just blew him away

Tonight was the Alliance's annual vegan dinner and silent auction. We arrived late, but there was still plenty of good food to eat. I was really sad, though, that my favorite--the chocolate chip cookies that Leslie makes--were gone. The butterscotch rice krispie bars with fudge frosting were almost as good. I met some of the veganrepresent.com posters face-to-face, which was pretty cool. I've chatted with Sonia before and finally got to put a face with the name. She's very pretty with beautiful teeth! Her partner Nick (also a member) was there, too. They won an awesome cat tree from the auction for their cat, Willow. We got some incense. and L. got a cute little owl for wearing her costume. She decided to wear last year's cheetah costume instead of this year's costume. She helped herself to my new eyeliner to draw her cat face/whiskers. She looked adorable, so I just bit my tongue and didn't comment on my brand new and now mangled eyeliner. Jason got hit by a truck while riding his bike to the dinner. He's fine, but the truck didn't even stop--just hit him and kept on driving. What an ass!!

I had Michael's boys this afternoon, and their puppy, Johnny. My cats at least didn't gang up and terrorize little Johnny like they did poor Romeo the pit bull. Petey was just starting to warm up to him, and I think if he had stayed longer, they would have had a lot of fun playing together. He was really fascinated with the catnip toys, and kept trying to abscond with them. My parents took Johnny for a walk and left, while the boys stayed and played with L. They all had fun. Elijah was a dancin' fool. He saw L's DDR (dance) toy and was curious about it, so I got it out. Once he saw how that worked, he stayed on that the rest of the afternoon. He frequently pointed out to me what a good dancer he is (I agreed, of course) and showed me his dancing "style". L. & Pavielle took turns dancing on the other side, but Elijah just kept on dancing. I'm thinking he should be tired tonight.

The good news for today is that the state of WI has finally passed a budget. Even better news, the cigarette tax is going to go up $1 per pack.

Even more good news came later in the day, when I got an e-mail from my friend and fellow activist Anthony Marr that he will be in town the weekend of my birthday.

Late Tattoosday 8

I would have blogged last night, but I had to do some urgent database work for the Alliance. I got the urgent stuff done--the rest I can plug away at. Mark's upper right arm/shoulder has a tattoo of his family crest. He researched the original clan's crest and had it recreated.

I just finished watching a very unique play, performed by L. & Hunter. It was called, "The Witch and the Knight". It involved a lot of karate. They spent the afternoon/evening together and were very productive. They cleaned and decorated her tree fort. They used a lot of duct tape and some of my quilting fabrics. It's pouring rain (with thunder and lightening) right now, so I'm afraid their decorations aren't going to hold up very well. Then they came in and announced that they were in a cleaning mood and asked if they could clean the bird room. Okay! Works for me! Now she would like to know how much money she will get for cleaning the bird room. Hmmmm. I smelled a plot. Then she said that they wanted the money for the Humane Society--aaaww, how can I argue with that one?

Monday night was our appoint to pick out D's senior pictures. That was not fun. It was expensive! She had a lot of really nice pictures, so it was hard to choose. She wasn't very pleasant either, and that didn't help. Mark had a presentation in Baraboo, so he couldn't join us. My mom was able to come for a bit, but had to leave early as she had dinner guests. Now we just have to wait 4-6 weeks to get the pictures in.

I will be driving to Madison tomorrow, which totally pisses me off (with my stupid self). We went to Farmer's Market today (Sarita and I usually go on Wednesdays), and I got the last of the organic raspberries. There isn't very much organic produce there--not nearly what I would expect of Madison! I have to work very hard to find anything organic, and as there isn't much of it, it tends to go early. So, I got the berries and was thrilled, even though they were a bit pricey. They were huge and it's so late in the season. So, like an idiot, I walked out of work leaving them on my desk. I will be damned if I will just let them go to waste. So I will spend gas and two hours of time to get what will prove to be the most expensive raspberries ever. I will enjoy them though.

There was a big rally in front of the capital today about the state's lack of a budget. Nothing I love more than a rally, especially if it threatens to turn into anarchy. It was hard to leave and go back to work, but it didn't look like there were too many cops or any arrests imminent. It doesn't count as a real march or rally unless there arrests. :) The square was also full of cars and trucks circling, honking their horns non-stop. I really felt naked having no sign! It is so ridiculous to me that every single person in this state will suffer as a result of having no budget approved. There are just a couple of short months left before state employees will be laid off. These are employees that everyone depends on! Among others, think educators and law enforcement. That's just the tip of the iceberg. However, the dishonest, greedy morons who have created and continue to perpetuate this mess will NOT suffer. Why? No matter what, they will be overpaid their obscenely high salaries and continue to receive their cushy benefits. They are the only ones who will not suffer. There is no penalty for them if they don't establish a budget (unlike most other states). They can drag this pissing match out indefinitely. I am so beyond fed up with ALL politicians. If Americans weren't so drugged out (legal prescriptions of course, courtesy of the pharmaceuticals) and complacent, we wouldn't keep trying to hobble along and patch a government that is irrepairably and permanently broken. It's too bad that the 5% of the wealthiest control absolutely everything. There could be a lot of power in the 95% of us who are forced to swim around in the shit they toss at us repeatedly, but the masses are happy to suffer in ignorance--just as long as the drugs are still available.

Both of the pitbulls we placed this month are doing well. Everyone is happy, healthy, and in love. I just love the happy updates! I still have two dogs I am working on placing--very sad situations--but am having no luck. The more I do rescue work, the more antisocial I become. I am really, really starting to hate the human species and their innate selfishness. Although, it may be an American thing more than a human thing? Not sure. I just know I don't have the time of day for assholes with plenty of money, a yard, 2000 sq. feet of house (or more), who can't share any of it with others. Adopt, share, help! If animals aren't your thing, fine--take in some foster children or something. People are so stingy and lazy! I have permanently altered my opinion of the vast majority of people I know and had previously considered to be "nice people". Nope, they're selfish assholes, who I truly hope find the same compassion, when they are helpless and in need, that they have shared with others throughout their lives.

I've never been into organized religion but have always been very spiritual--until recently. Doing rescue work has finally disabused me of any notions of any type of sky fairy. It always made me feel infinitely better to remind myself that the universe unfolds just as it should, and all would get their just desserts eventually. It somehow made me feel better to know that justice would prevail, even though it wouldn't be within this lifetime. The concept is called karma, but unfortunately, karma has become the least understood, most wrongly used term in the country, so I really hate to use that word. Now, sadly, I am having a hard time convincing myself that this is the case, and it is making me a lot more angry and bitter with these people now. I have to find a way to work this out, because it's making me very stressed, sad, and angry a lot. My mom reminded me last night that all the animals in my house will absorb and suffer from my negative emotions. I am responsible for keeping them healthy and happy, so ... I have to figure out how to adjust to my new outlook.

We also adopted two parakeets this weekend. I'm so happy we were able to get them out of the hellhole situation they were "living" in. They are still quite overwhelmed with the freedom and space in the birdroom, so they are temporarily in the large, human-size cage. Usually the door is open, as it's full of toys and the birds like to go in and out to play. Because these guys have been so confined and are terrified by everything, I am keeping them in the big cage until they adapt to that and are no longer fearful. Then I can open the door and give them the freedom they deserve. It kills me to see them caged, even though it's huge, but I know that right now they are happier that way than they would be with freedom. It's always been so heartbreaking to see animals that I adopt respond fearfully to freedom and an enriched environment. They all take to it with relish eventually, but it's just so overwhelming for them initially. L. named the new babies Sky and Rain (they are both blue).

We've had a disastrous few days, computerwise anyway. Dej has downloaded so much music, that she filled up her entire pc drive and our entire music hard drive. I've been warning her for some time now to clean it up and burn it, because I needed to delete it. It's hard to feel too much sympathy for the girl who irresponsibly broke a $400 iPod and hasn't managed to find time to call about getting it fixed in almost a year. Anyway things reached a critical mass this week. Her hard drive was too full to update any virus definitions for a while, so our whole network ended up infected. UGH!!! It was pretty severe, so I had to fix it immediately. In order to fix it, I had to blow away all of her music. I found out after that she had completely ignored my warnings to burn it and get it off the drives. Why didn't she burn it, you may ask. Because she used almost our entire spindle of 50 cds already, to burn music cds for herself, so I told her she had to replace them. Apparently this was too big of an expenditure for her, which is odd considering that she has more disposable income BY FAR than we do. The hell of fixing a completely fucked up computer network was only made that much more special by the histrionics that ensued over her lost music collection. Oh, and I did give her the option of having me recover it, but she would have to pay $30-$50 for software that would do it (I couldn't find a good reliable crack--I tried). Although she blows three times this much in less than a week, that was too much to spend to for the 1500+ songs she lost. Oh well.

While digging through the computers and drives, I happened to notice some of the searches that had been keyed in to a Yahoo engine (not what we use for searches). In between searches for spy gadgets, I found "nekked peple" and "nekid peple". OMFG!!! Clearly not my teenager and definitely not my little one (she at least knows how to spell "people"!). The only other choice: L's little spy buddy, Hunter. We had a talk this evening about appropriate computer behavior. Thank god he can't spell!

The highlight of my week and perhaps my life, was getting to hear Peter Young speak twice this week and getting the chance to meet him and talk to him. He's so much better than I even imagined him to be, and that was pretty great! I have been fortunate enough to meet many of the biggest "names" in the animal rights movement--authors, founders of some of the largest most well-known organizations, really amazing people. I was more excited about meeting Peter than any of them! He didn't let me down. I enjoyed every minute I was able to interact with him and listen to him speak. He is intelligent, humble, compassionate beyond description, witty, extremely brave, and his life is a message and an example. According to my standards, he is absolutely perfect! I have been walking on clouds since we've met, and I am so looking forward to our future conversations! I am thrilled that Luciana was able to spend time with him as well. He is a hero to her, as well he should be. He was very kind to her, and she made him some works of art to remember her by. He even wanted them signed and dated. Prison has done nothing but strengthen his resolve. I will probably write more about this in future entries. I have so much more I would like to say, and his talks really inspired me--not to mention gave me some very crafty ideas that I hadn't previously thought of. I have some amusing stories about the mink murderers who showed up to confront and attack Peter (who they would have gotten near only over my VERY DEAD BODY!!). I'm just too lazy to type any more tonight.

Devil's Lake part deux

The bluff that we barely managed to climb up and get back down!

We decided to go for a short hike after breakfast on Thursday. Our plan was to be done in time for lunch, have a picnic lunch on the beach, hike again, then let Luciana swim. Mark looked at the map and selected a trail that promised to be scenic and was fairly short. There are many bluffs, mostly made of rock. We took the appropriate amount of water for our short hike and started up the trail. After just a short time, the trail changed from walking on flat ground in the woods to climbing up an enormous, rocky bluff with irregular "steps" carved from the large rocks that comprised the bluff. This was fairly treacherous in spots, not to mention the thigh burn after climbing up like this for well over an hour. We realized at this point that we were not even half way up, and had long since completed the short .5 mile distance the trail was supposed to be. It was at that point we realized that the trail's distance was "as the crow flies", not the actual distance that one would walk. Water was becoming quite precious at this point--even warm! We climbed up further, taking frequent small rests to stop and look at the gorgeous scenery below. We ran into a school group that was climbing a sheer facing about halfway up. These outlooks were not for the faint at heart, as there were no guard rails or protection from the edge. There were some beautiful views. Hours later, we had still not reached the top, so we knew that we weren't even at the half way point! L was whining at this point that she was tired and didn't want to climb anymore "steps". I was whining on the inside. We were all tired. Close to the top, we went through an area called "Devil's Doorway", which was very cool. We ran into a couple of guys who were climbing this large structure, with their two dogs waiting at the bottom. One of the guys yelled down that the dogs were friendly and not to worry about them, so of course we had to stop an visit with the pups--an exceptionally large husky and a black lab. We had a nice little visit with them, caught our breath, got a furry critter fix, and continued upward. I truly cannot believe that L. kept going! Seeing the dogs seemed to recharge her. I can't think of any other child who would endure such a difficult, long climb with such good spirits. We ran out of water shortly after we reached the top (FINALLY!) and started back down. While we hoped the climb down would be a lot easier than the climb up, it wasn't quite as easy as we thought. It was certainly less of a thigh burner, but it was very slippery and quite dangerous. We finally made it back to level ground, well past lunchtime. For all the bad stuff, though, it was a beautiful hike and we had a great time together. It would have been much better, though, had we known how long/far/difficult it would be, so we could have been properly prepared and equipped.

After that, we all agreed that we would not hike any more that day. We had a late lunch and then headed to the beach. It was in the low 70's and much, much too cool for us to swim. L was determined and didn't think it was too cold at all, so we headed to the lake. She had loads of fun swimming, catching minnows in her net (never removing them from the water of course, but thrilled to actually see them swimming around in her net), collecting shells, and building several structures out of sand and rock. We enjoyed sitting on the beach watching her play and reading a bit. Each time she caught minnows in her net, she called for us to come see them. One time she called me, and as I was getting up she yelled that she had a brown slug on her hand that she couldn't get off. Before I took off running toward her, M & I looked at each other, clearly with the same thought: oh god eeeewww, don't let it be what I think it is! Sure enough, it was a leech. Eeeww.

I tried to pull it off, flick it off, slide it off--no luck. I called Mark over, hoping he knew more about leeches and leech removal than I did. He didn't. I wasn't sure if part of it could stay in her and cause problems or not, and didn't know what to do. At this point, she screamed that it was biting her and it really hurt. Mark went running to get a subscription card from the magazine he had been reading, hoping to slide it under it and get the leech off. My baby yelled again in pain, and I picked up a flattened reed off the sand, slid it underneath, and was able to "break the seal" and flick it back into the water. She just had a small chunk missing from her hand where the little bugger was snacking. Now here is just one of the many things that is so cool about L. She looked at her wound, asked me a few questions about leeches (to which I gave my usual answer, "I don't know. We'll have to look it up.", and ran back into the same water she just saw me flick that leech into. She continued to play as if nothing had happened.

We stayed until dinner, when we returned to our campsite. We finished up with dinner just before it got dark. Then it was time for ghost stories by the campfire and cuddles again. After we got L asleep in the tent, we came back out to enjoy the campfire for a couple of hours. Our raccoon friends from the previous night returned to visit us. It was a cloudless night, so the stars were amazing! We had a perfectly adventurous camping trip as a whole!

Devil's Lake

We camped at the most used state park in WI--Devil's Lake. We've never been there before and were extremely fortunate to have the place almost to ourselves! It was truly a ghost town, which is enjoyable to us. We would not have enjoyed it during it's peak-season. The weather was wonderful--low 70's and sunny during the day and low 50's/upper 40's at night. The evenings were cold, but we had plenty of layers and a warm campfire. We slept well, since between the layers of clothing and the sleeping bags and blankets along with the body heat of three of us snuggled up cozily, kept us pretty comfortable. Going outside to go to the bathroom in the middle of the cold night isn't particularly enjoyable, though.

Mark was feeling daring, so we lived on the wild side by NOT having a practice set up with our new tent. We just set it up for the first time on the site. We had a few problems initially with the screened-in porch and with the rain cover, but everything came out okay. It was our first camping trip without our well-used and well-loved Coleman tent. We missed having the Coleman, as it's part of our camping tradition. It seemed very strange to be in a different tent. Our new tent is very nice and just as roomy. It's also taller, so there is room to completely stand up straight. L. loved the idea of having a screened-in porch. That was just so cool to her!

L. brought two of her Furbies along (with new batteries), so we got to listen to them during the ride there and for most of the trip. They don't bother me too much, but sometimes it can get to be a bit much. M. doesn't have much tolerance for them though, so it was torturous for him. Since it got dark so early and got pretty cold once the sun went down, we were able to snuggle up by the campfire and start reading from our ghost story book earlier than we can during summer trips. That's one of our camping traditions that L. really looks forward to. It was extra creepy, too, as we were so alone on the campgrounds, and there were tons of owl and coyote noises to add to the effect.
Lots more to talk about, but I have to go get L's homeschool work for the week printed out and organized. I'll have to continue tomorrow: highlights include the hike from hell and swimming with leeches.

Tattoosday 7

I'm starting with Mark's tattoos this week. He actually let me take pictures of them! This one is probably my favorite, although I noticed in taking a close-up photo that it could use a little brightening up with a bit of recoloring. It's on his upper right shoulder blade. It's of a dragon with stonehenge in the background. He got it in Green Bay (the outline and the dragon colored), but got the rest of the color done in MI, later.

Saturday did not bring Mark's third chili victory in a row. I think there were 11 or 12 chilis in the competition this year. Rick Bogle (the head of Primate Freedom Project) won second place, and his wife, Lynn won first. I did not get to sample Rick's chili, but I did have some of Lynn's and it was delicious. She used a lot of fresh cilantro, which gave it a great, rich flavor. Mark's was very good too, of course. I think his only flaw was that his carrots didn't quite get done, but the flavor was fantastic--lots of garlic. I had to save room for the plethora of yummy vegan desserts. I only got to try about half of them too. My stomach just can't contain all the good food at these dinners. We had lots of time to chat with friends, and had a great conversation with Helene--so very glad she could make it! Sylvan, Sorrel, and Stephanie also came, so L & Sylvan played and giggled all night. We had a hard time getting the kids to leave and ended up staying and helping clean up and shut everything down, so the girls had more time to play.

Mark took off Sunday with L. for an adventure. They went to New Glarus state park and hiked, ending up on a trail that was much longer than they anticipated. They didn't return until after lunch! I really missed my girl, but she had a lot of fun, as she always does on adventures with daddy.

We just finished getting packed and ready to leave tomorrow for our last camping trip of the year. Dej will stay here, as she has to work and attend school. My mom will help her run the zoo while we are gone. This will be a pretty short trip--three days/two nights. That's actually about the longest I like to be gone from my critter babies. I start to get withdrawal pretty quickly and worry so much about them until I get back.

I had a stomach bug and was unable to go to work today, which strangely enough, bummed me out. I was working on a problem when I left yesterday (Mon.) and thought of a possible solution for it that I was pretty excited to try. Since I don't have a full-scale Oracle database and my Java RAD at home, now I have to wait until next Monday to try it. Plus, I have a big, important project due at the end of this month, and missing two of my three weekly workdays is not helping me make the deadline!