I think I’ve finally reached the critical mass stage with my time. My normal daily routine takes up so much time that I have literally none left to spare. One small glitch in any portion of the day, causes me to not have enough time to get things done. There is no wiggle room! These are things that, for the most part, have to be done—feeding/cleaning/medical care for the animals, L’s homeschool work, maintaining my household (at minimal standards). To accommodate the required duties, I have to cut out any unnecessary activities—like blogging, eating meals, sleeping. I’m not sure how long I will be able to keep this up, BUT I really don’t have a choice in the matter!

It seems like each weekend is so busy and chock full of duties, that there is no time to plug away at the many projects that need to be started or completed. It looks as though it will only get worse up through the end of the year.

I do have to say that despite being busier, I am feeling infinitely better than I was last year at this time. I was still at a very painful, miserable spot in my recovery from surgery. This Thanksgiving was certainly more enjoyable, as I remember feeling absolutely horrible (and was unable to eat) for last year’s festivities.

We went to my parents’ as we usually do on holidays. We had a nice quiet day of eating, talking and playing games.

M & I went out Wednesday to see my (old college) friend at the comedy club in Madison again. He was very funny, as always, and I love watching him do his thing! He was on Bob & Tom’s radio show last week as well, and I was able to catch some of that. The show was sold out, and we were on a waitlist, so I felt really lucky to get some tickets the night before the show. The body-to-body packed room combined with my two alcoholic beverages (there’s a two-drink minimum at the club) combined with my body’s maniacally random and unmanageable hot flashes, made for some fairly uncomfortable moments, but I made it through without vomiting from the heat. It was close there for a bit. All I could think of is how awful it would be to have to listen to both my husband and my friend crack horrible jokes about me for the rest of my life about vomiting in the club. I knew there would be no mercy whatsoever from either of those two, so I was super happy that I made it with no eruptions!

Other highlights from the week I was too busy too blog include attending a fur-free Friday protest in Rockford, which was very nice. The weather was decent, and we got good press coverage from two different networks! We also sort of celebrated M’s birthday on Saturday, but haven’t yet gone out for our big family celebration.

It was the weekend for birthdays, as my friend’s son Logan turned 8 on Thanksgiving day and celebrated with a party at the bowling alley on Sunday. L & Hunter were both invited and had fun bowling. It was nice to see the group of kids again (these kids have grown up together since L was a year old) and catching up with the moms (my friends). L is the oldest of the group, and Colton is the youngest at 4. They are all just growing up so fast!


This t-shirt was designed by Allegrea and her mom for the guys from the Rescue Ink show (on NatGeo). They were designed before the show was filmed. They wear them on the show, though, so if you've seen the show, you've seen the shirts. I'm too lazy to go upstairs and get my unaltered t-shirt to take a picture of it. It originally was a black t-shirt with white lettering and design. We each got one and have been wearing them proudly for months when L decided that she could improve upon her shirt. She used one of her fabric markers to color the lettering pink. She cut a cat out of the fabric that was leftover from her pencil roll, and stitched the cat onto the shirt. I was a little worried about it holding up, but it made it through the wash/dry cycle just fine. The lovely white cat hair on the shirt is Ivan's contribution to the project.

Science is one cold-hearted bitch with a 14-inch strap on

The title is a quote from Masuka (character on the show, Dexter). M & I found it hilarious, so we made a point to remember it. It still makes us laugh. Sometimes strange things make us laugh.

A few weeks ago, Dej called and said she was bringing something over for her sister. She brought her a cute little koala Webkinz, for no reason at all. That made it that much more special to L, who is thrilled whenever her sister spends time with her. She was giddy that Dej thought of her and brought her a gift for no reason. It was so sweet.


Fast forward to about a week ago, when the koaloa appeared in L's bed, under her blankets, but it had been slightly modified. M had taped black buttons over the koala's eyes, like Coraline. Both of my girls like the book and the movie, so the button eyes have been joked about many times. Since then, L has taken great pleasure in planting the koala (still with the button eyes) various places for M to discover. I'm wondering how long these two will keep the koala going before the eyes fall off or someone loses interest.


Every single time I try to photograph still objects, no matter where I do it or what I use as a backdrop, my nosy cats have to instantly walk all over the object, the flat black or white surface I have underneath/behind it, and rub their furry little bodies across the camera lens. Every time I do this, I end up trying to move around to dodge the cats, which makes it very difficult to get a good photo. They make everything so very difficult.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Since this is post 400, I thought it should be special. This is my favorite commercial ever! Enjoy.


'Grace': PETA's Thanksgiving ad

The shit hawks are coming!

I've been sitting here with a blank screen for the last 15 minutes. I'm determined to blog, as it's the first downtime I've had for days, but I keep getting distracted. L wanted to watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua tonight for family movie night (on Netflix), and I keep getting sucked into looking, not because it's a good movie, but I can't resist looking at dogs--any dogs! Dammit, I must be strong...I just lost another five minutes staring at it!

I've spent the computer time I did have this week on learning about feline diabetes. There's a lot to learn, and it will definitely be a life changer for all of us. I'm still feeling very intimidated and nervous about it. I have to watch constantly to make sure she's okay. One little screw up on my part could be fatal for her. Insulin is ridiculously expensive as is the special food she needs. We have to sit next to her, literally, and guard her while she eats or the other cats will edge on in and steal it. Her daughter, Lila, is the worst one of the bunch. They are so naughty!

M & I went to see the MadHatters last night at the Overture Center. We both thought this show wasn't as strong as their others. We enjoyed it, but what really made the night for us was one of the opening acts. The UW Bhangra group gave an absolutely house-rocking performance. By the sounds of the applause and cheers, the rest of the audience agreed with us. We would have been thrilled to see more of them! We will definitely be watching for future performances, so we can take L to see them.

You can view one of their performances HERE. It's about 9 minutes long and is worth the time to watch. It just keeps getting better! The performance last night was equally energetic, but more polished last night. Loved the music too!

It's a very different style of Indian dance than the Bhartanatyam that L takes, but it looks equally difficult and is very cool. They offer classes as well, so perhaps someday she will participate.

Here's another interesting event from our week. We took all three dogs for their normal swim session Thursday afternoon. We noticed when we got home from swim that Jezi's tail was down and stuck tightly to her body. We tried to look at it but didn't see anything, and she cried whenever we tried to look in the area. Because I hadn't been to the vet quite enough that week, I took her in on Friday morning to see what was wrong. She had sprained the base of her tail. A sprained tail. Is there anything my animals won't do to get to the vet?! Only time would heal it, but Dr. Mark gave her an anti-inflammatory to help with the swelling and pain. We were SO happy to see her tail up today!

Oh, and I spent another couple of hours on the phone with AT&T on Friday, in an effort to get Dej's Internet up and working. It's still not, by the way. They sent a technician out to her house Saturday morning, and yet again, they said she should be all set. She's been working too much and hasn't had time to try it out yet, but I'm anxious to see if this time they finally did something right.

I got some new pics of the grandkitties last week, while I was there suffering through the AT&T debacle. I didn't get any shots of sweet little Myrtle cat, though. She is very shy and was hiding from me, and I didn't' want to terrorize the poor girl by hunting her down.

Tuesday

I feel as though I should be in a bad mood today, as it’s been the kind of busy, non-stop day that I don’t really enjoy. And I couldn’t sleep last night (or the two nights before that), so I’m really tired, too. I wish I knew why my moods can be good on a ‘bad’ day and bad on a ‘good’ day!
My happy little C#-heads-down coding time is gone this week. I spent four hours in meetings today and have five hours of meetings tomorrow. I’m still sneaking into my happy little coding bubble for the brief few moments I catch between meetings. I’ve been on a tear with it this week though and am just flying through the project, which makes me SO happy.

M had talks scheduled last night, tonight, and I think on Thursday as well. That annoys me. I’m done talking about that.

Here’s a breakdown of today:

- Wake up (40 minutes BEFORE my damn alarm went off!)

- Drop Luce off, drive to Madison

- Code, meeting, admin tasks, meeting, synchronize code branches

- Drive back to Jvl

- Clean and change food and water for birds, rabbits, guinea pigs

- Feed dogs

- Feed cats (decide to wait until later)

- Wash dishes

- Feed Luciana & myself

- Take L to gymnastics, where my mom met me so she could stay for the

last 15 minutes and take L home

- Go to class, where I am giving an exam (which is where I am at the moment)

When my last five students finish their assessments, I get to go home, send my mom back to her house, snuggle and tuck my girl in, do another round of animal-care duties, catch up on some e-mails, hang with the hubs for a few brief minutes (after he gets home and before he falls asleep) and then I am left to surf the net (need to be researching some issues but may or may not have the discipline to be productive) or watch crappy tv til the wee hours of the morning, then get up bright and early and start again.

Our poor sweet mommy cat, Hallie, appears to be diabetic. She’s lost some weight, so our vet ran a blood panel and the bad news came back Monday. We go back in Thursday morning to run another test and then work on a treatment plan. I’ve not experienced feline (or human, for that matter) diabetes, so I will have a lot to learn. I feel so bad for this poor, sweet, super timid little girl. She came to me with permanent repiratory damage and has almost constant herpes flair ups, as does her daughter, Lila. Her little eyes and nose gets crusty and blocked, and I have to clean them out for her. She and Lila also have bad teeth that require frequent cleaning. She doesn’t see well. She’s tiny, and just so sweet, that I hate her having to deal with one more issue!

I had originally intended to post a cute Hallie picture tonight but just don't feel like looking for it. I'm about four months behind on filing my downloaded photos to the very organized folders I store them in. , It's a ton of work to find specific pictures until they are filed. This pic was on my desktop, and I don't think I've posted it yet. It's a rare picture of Allegrea and me without signs/animal rights' gear. It really sucks to be a horribly non-photogenic person and have to stand next to a best friend who is thin, pretty, and very photogenic. >:-P

We are still absolutely desperate to find a home for sweet Lola the pit whose been bounced from foster home to foster home. We’ve run out of foster homes, haven’t been able to place her, and have kept the poor girl boarded at a kennel to buy some time. We’re running out of our kennel reservation and money to pay for it, so she has to be out by the end of the month. She is a wonderful dog!! She just needs someone to love her and a place to call home for more than 2 or 3 weeks. PLEASE contact me if you know of anyone who may be able to help with Lola!

A late birthday surprise

We had another great day for protesting Petland. The weather wasn't too bad for this time of year, and we had tons of community support and positive feedback again. The ever-ridiculous owner, Sardina, showed us today how much of an effect we're having on him. It gave us a renewed burst of energy for the battle. He had to have gone out to the Internet and Google himself and his animal exploiting business (which is pretty pathetic...get a real life, dude) to find out that we were protesting today. He had put a new 'sign' (black ink, printed out on his computer) taped to his door, offering $100 off the purchase of any puppy as a "Protest Sale". We already were aware that we've had quite a negative affect on his bottom line and he's having a hard time 'moving' his puppies. Additionally, we had enough power to cause him to lose $100 profit off any puppies he managed to sell today. How cool is that?!!! Oh, and he's balding and sporting a 70's porn moustache. Thanks to our group, he's not going to be buying any more gold chains to nestle in his glorious chest hair. I find joy in the little things. ;P

Allegrea and I have been very busy lately and haven't time to hang for a couple of weeks. She was able to come over today after the protest, and it was very nice to have time to vent, relax, and catch up on everything! It was very restorative.

She brought me a birthday present, and she shouldn't have, but now that I have it, I'm really glad she did. It's one of the nicest gifts I've ever received! It's kind of too nice for my house, but I have it up already and love it! She's a fantastic artist---that's her career. She does a lot of multi-media work and often incorporates text into her art. Even if I didn't know her, I would LOVE her art. It is totally my style and my very favorite artistic genre. This piece, in particular, is gorgeous and the theme is perfect for me. It's one of her animal pieces. It, like all of her work, is multi-colored, multi-layered, and multi-textured. You can look at it for months, and still notice new details.

I had a terrible time getting decent pictures of it. The flash reflects off some of the shiny surfaces on it, especially the mirror in the center of the spoked circle. I couldn't get a good shot without the flash, because it was dark by the time I got it. It was a frustrating endeaver, and I didn't really get one great picture of it.

I'd cut off both your wings on principle alone

It's been a busy week, as usual. It seems to be only getting worse, too. I used my blogging time to get online and work on my project a few times this week. I don't usually do that, but I left Weds. late, regretfully, as my code was really close to working. I really wanted to have that finished before I left for the week. I couldn't get it out of my brain--it was such an intriguing problem, and I just knew I almost had it. I got it! It's such a great feeling! I knew the only way I would be able to get the problem out of my brain, so I could enjoy my time off, was to just finish it. It worked. I am so happy to have it working, I kind of want to remote in again just to look at it's greatness. ;-D

So now that I have time to blog tonight, I'm in a foul and hateful mood. There's only one thing in the world that can make me this hateful and insanely pissed--yep, my oldest who I am now so fondly thinking of as 'the douche'. I need to go be mature and slam things around for awhile. I would like for it to be socially acceptable to kick people when they make me angry. Just kick them repeatedly in their shins, until I was no longer pissy. As long as I'm feeling so ugly, it's a great time to vent about something else. My idea of a clean house, as in, "I just cleaned yesterday, so you can come over", is very, very different from what someone to whom I gave birth means when she says it.

To end on a more positive note, this is one of the fun things I get to do every night. I have an armful of cuddly guinea pig love! Here's Oona and her baby Luna.

ZPG!

This day has worn me out, and I don't have much going on mentally at this point. I think my brain gave up on the day after the first HOUR I spent on the phone with AT&T trying to figure out why Dej hasn't had Internet service for the last several months. I hate calls like this and have tried this call several times in the past, only to give up in frustration after a couple of hours being bounced around or accidentally disconnected. It only took two hours today, and perhaps, just maybe they will get it right this time and install her service at the correct house. That is a hell of a way to start the night after a long work day.
_____________________________________

That was the post I started last night, and then Dej showed up. I never made it back to finish the post. Today's a new day, so I'm moving on with a new post.

I have had a glorious two days of work this week, and tomorrow should be more of the same. It's been a rare week--no meetings, no analysis, no documentation--just coding. I can lose hours, even days, lost in my zone. I already know that next week won't be so wonderful. It's back to a more normal week. While I do enjoy many aspects of my job, I most enjoy my 'head down' coding time. I'm looking forward to getting back to it tomorrow. The only aspect of my career that I hate is when I have to give estimates and talk about money and budgets. It's necessary, but I LOATHE it and will go to great lengths to avoid it, delegate it, or procrastinate it.

The rough thing about my uber geeky job, is that I can't really share my victories, defeats, joys and pain with other people, because they just have no clue what I'm talking about. I've tried many times to share things with M, and I see the always familiar lost, bored, and fully checked out glaze in his eyes. Sometimes I would really like to share a particularly funny/difficult/exciting incident when I get home from work, but it's hopeless. Only other geeky IT people get it.

My vet called to tell me that Baxter's ashes are ready for pickup. :( I'm still missing Baxter horribly! I think of him so many times every single day! I've noticed a pretty big change in Oliver since Baxter's death. He's gotten increasingly needy with me. It's been noticeably different, and has been consistent since the death. I'm very curious about it. Ollie and Bax were close, but Ollie gets along really well with all of the animals and humans in the house. He's mr. chill and very sweet and playful. It's not like Baxter was his only friend, so I'm surprised by the magnitude of the change. It makes me wonder if the change is due to his really missing Baxter or if it's because he is picking up my sadness from missing him so much.

The girls both enjoy dressing Ivan up in embarassing and girly ways. He and the girls have a very strange sibling-type relationship. They are truly more like brother and sisters than like two girls and a cat. I do realize how strange that sounds. Those of you who have seen them together know what I mean though. They pick on each other, they taunt, they fight, they tattle, but they absolutely adore each other. He does not just meekly tolerate things he doesn't like, so I have never worried about him being at a disadvantage. He is not shy about laying them open if they cross his line. Anyway, they take great pleasure in putting strange things on him. In this picture, they were using L's socks to form a heart around his face. I happened to have my camera within reach and got some cute shots. Don't feel too bad for Ivan. He will pay the girls back for this!

It's better to burn out than fade away

Back to Halloween, since I didn't get a chance to post all that I wanted to. L & M carved another big pumpkin last week, and it turned it really cool. M got pictures of it but keeps forgetting to send them to me, so I can't post it yet.

As evidenced by the one Halloween pic I did post, Logan & Colton joined us as they usually do. As always, M & I had a blast watching the kids. They are so cute and all take care of each other so nicely. The weather was nice for Halloween--it was above 40 with no precipitation. L has eaten about four pieces of candy from her haul.

She made some fabulous little sculptures--a crow and a black rose. I have to say I was shocked when she unwrapped them to show me. I thought she had purchased them and was giving them to me as an early birthday gift, and I thought they were very cool. Then she said she made them. Wow!

Bye, sweet Baxter boy.

I do not believe in luck or curses or any other silliness, but I do seem to have an inordinate number of really yukky things happen on or very near my birthday. This year, we moved my birthday from the 3rd to the 1st. I started out having a busy, normal, and fairly pleasant day.

Baxter woke me up, as he frequently does, especially on weekends, to remind me that he needed his treat—Really needed it right that minute. The husband brought me breakfast in bed—fake bacon—and Baxter was the ring leader in bullying me to share with all of them. He then followed me down the stairs in anticipation of the breakfast I was about to prepare. We came down, and as always, he went into the dining room to wait while I prepared their food. By the time I got all nine dishes put in their proper places, I noticed that Baxter wasn’t eating. That is definitely cause for concern.

He was sleeping all cozy and cute under the sewing table. I went over and rubbed his side. He was warm but was most definitely gone. He was a very healthy 6.5 year old with regular health checks and a very high-quality diet. It was such a shock!

He clearly didn’t suffer. He was completely peaceful and relaxed. I have that as a consolation at least. He felt great, happy, and loved right up until he left us. The vet feels that it was probably and aneurysm, because it was so quick and painless.
We miss him so much! I’m not sleeping well at night, because he was my sleeping buddy. He was on top of me, holding my hand, every night, all night. He followed me everywhere (unless there was company he had to hide from) and jumped into my lap the second it formed. He was the daily reminder to give morning treats, morning feeding, evening treats, evening feeding, and a piece of any food that I was preparing or eating. I can’t tell you how many times, and in how many ways we’ve missed Baxter already. Luciana and I have been very weepy over the last couple of days. He was unique, special, and loved beyond words. I will never put a bite of food in my mouth or climb into bed without missing my sweet Baxter boy. He left WAY too soon!

We did have a good Halloween, and I have pictures to post from that, but tonight is just Baxter. I'm so glad I take thousands of pictures of our animals. I'm also glad I have the little video of him taking imaginary bites and chewing his imaginary food with me. This is one of the more effective tools he used in conning me out of my food. About 15 seconds in, he starts, and you can see him take a bite when I do (though you can't see me) and proceed to chew.