Everest Roofing in Janesville, WI

Don't use them. They put our roof on a few years ago, and we developed a few new leaks AFTER the new roof was put on. We tried to call them several times and left several messages. One time, they said they would come out to look at it but never showed. Our final phone call was never returned. So much for the warranty, huh? M & my dad looked at it to see if they could find the problem, and noticed that the portion of the roof outside the girls' bedroom windows was done incorrectly. M climbed up on the roof (and he does NOT like heights) and patched up the incorrect portions with some type of gooey tar (note that this is probably not the technical name for it). That seems to have done the trick. At any rate, they had been using us as a reference. So now I'm giving them a reference. They do not stand behind their work--or under it, as they would end up wet.


SATURDAY
Today was pretty low key. We got up this morning and went to Logan's 6th!! birthday party. I can't believe he's six already. The kids had a blast playing together, and the mom's were able to sit and chat with almost no referee duty. We got Logan a dragonology book--those books are so damn cool! Orinda made a veg-safe cake that was pretty good. We left at lunchtime, so Colton could take a nap and O. could work on her 20-page paper that's due on Monday (for her Master's). I really miss the classes and the learning part of being in grad school, but when I watch her try to get these ridiculously long and difficult assignments done while balancing work and kids, I don't miss it. It makes me really, really glad to be done! I still want to finish up with the PhD but I think I need to wait until my girls are out on their own, if for no other reason than I can't afford to pay for their college and mine! I guess for now, when I start to miss being in school a lot, I'll just watch O. and remind myself how unpleasant it can be at times. Thanks, Orinda. ;D


After the party, we came home and baked chocolate chip cookies. Luciana wanted to use cookie cutters to make fun shapes, but that doesn't work so well with choc. chip cookies. We gave up on that idea. They turned out well, and I think that (vegan) tollhouse cookies are the best in the world, so I'm pretty happy to have them around. We continued our Monopoly game after dinner. We actually started the game on Tuesday, but at bedtime we stopped and put it aside to finish later. We are still not done, so we'll probably be plugging away at it again tomorrow. L loves Monopoly, and I have her do a lot of the banker duties, so it's good math practice for her. She spends an inordinate amount of time during the game spreading her money out and arranging it in various ways. Mark was able to get the garage cleanup done today, so I can park my car in the garage again. He dropped his motorcycle, while trying to move it. Glad he didn't end up underneath it! I think the outside stuff is done now, so we're as ready for winter as I will ever be, considering that I HATE cold weather.


I have a cold/sore throat, which really sucks. What's really odd, though, is that nobody else in the household has a cold now, other than three of the cats. Oliver and Ivan have an extremely mild one, but Baxter is pretty miserable. He keeps sneezing and has a runny nose--the poor little guy. I've been babying him and giving him extra treats. It hasn't interfered with his appetite at all, which is a good sign.

FRIDAY
Hunter spent the day with us yesterday, so the kids spent a lot of time in their "spy lounge". I reminded them not to use the computers unless I was right there with them. I just cleaned up the second nasty malware infection left on our network from their last bout of surfing for spy gadgets online. They made some very cute mice out of paper, ribbon, decorative scissors, and lots of glitter, leaving a lovely tornado in the craft area for me to clean up. We then made some shrinky-dink xmas ornaments. H. had never seen or heard of shrinky dinks, so he was completely enamored of them, and really, who doesn't love shrinky dinks?! They are pretty damn cool! The kids ornaments turned out very cute, and L. is planning to make some s.-d. cat earrings---maybe tomorrow.

FRIDAY - THE EGGS
The kids found two eggs, lying atop the big food station cage in the bird room. Lexi (a cockatiel) is very old and has never show any interest in sitting. She also hasn't mated with her pair-bonded partner, Rex, since I got them several years ago. I had to rush out to pick them up in the middle of winter from an alcoholic ass who decided he didn't want them and was going to let them go outside. Anyway I knew she was laying last week. I was 99% sure they weren't fertile, but even if they were, they had been sitting unattended for several hours (the newest egg) and almost two days (the first egg), so if they had been fertile, they wouldn't have hatched after being unattended for so long. L & H decided that they really wanted baby cockatiel, so they made a nest and carried them around, thinking they were going to hatch in three weeks. I explained that the eggs were not kept warm enough, even in the great nest that they made for them, and that they have to be turned very regularly, and that hadn't been done. I hated to disappoint the very excited kids, but I always try to be respectful and honest, and it didn't seem fair to let them get their hopes up. We candled them to see for sure whether they were fertile. They were not. L. then asked if she could break them open to see what was inside. Of course it was just a miniature version of the chicken eggs people eat. I asked her (totally kidding of course) if she wanted me to mix up a little omlet. She looked at me in absolute horror and said NO WAY! She was pretty grossed out by the whole idea of people eating eggs. Ethically, I suppose I can't think of an objection to eating them (in this case), but eeewwwwwww. It's been so long since I've had eggs that the very thought of eating them--any kind of eggs--is as gross to me as it is to the lucky little girl who has never had them!

A VEGAN THANKSGIVING - MURDER FREE; EXPLOITATION FREE
We spent Thanksgiving day with my parents. My mom made vegan lasagna, green beans, and garlic bread. We all enjoyed a great meal! We had brownies for dessert. We were all a little bummed because we had no banana-nut bread. Banana-nut bread is a Thanksgiving & Xmas tradition, and my mom makes the best b-n bread. Neither my mom nor I had any ripe bananas, and there were no ripe bananas to be found in town this week.

WEDNESDAY - CAT COUNSELING
Weds. evening I spent several hours at my parents' house, meeting with a cat behaviorist about the problems Emmy is having with Camille. Camille has very poor cat manners and has been overbearing with trying to play with Emmy. Poor Emmy is so extremely shy and timid, and as a former feral, she tends to have a lot of little 'issues'. Camille had poor Emmy so intimidated (not from aggression, just from being overbearing with play/stalking) that she was afraid to leave the bedroom or use the litter box. She ended up with stress-induced colitis, and if you've ever had it, you know how incredibly miserable it is. Dr. Krebsbach talked to us for a long time, checked out the environment, and made some suggestions for moving things around a bit. She then taught us a couple of exercises to do each night with the girls to help their relationship. After their second "gentling session", performed by my parents on Thurs. morning, Emmy was downstairs on the couch, in the same room with Camille. It was a huge and unexpectedly quick improvement. It will take a lot of continued effort on my parents' part, but thank goodness they are the kind of people that are committed to their animals' happiness and well being, so they will do it. I really wish more people shared that kind of committment. I'm so sick to death of people giving animals away as if they were furniture that didn't quite match!

MORE DIRTY PUPPY MILL DEEDS
There's a big, notorious puppy mill in Sun Prairie, Puppy Haven. They have been running a classified ad in the Gazette, and I'm sure the Madison area papers as well, looking for people to sell puppies out of their homes. What an interesting move. It's obvious that puppy mills cannot have people coming on the property, as they would run screaming an horrified by the disgusting conditions these poor dogs are subjected to. Apparently, this is their new marketing idea--find some ignorant person who thinks puppies are cute, plop them off in a "normal" home as a front, and sell lots of them in time for xmas. This even cuts out having to pay Petland and their ilk their "cut" of the sale. Please keep an eye out for this type of ad in your local papers, and let me know if you see anything suspicious or if this is something you've seen done before.