CAUTION: Woman In Progress

"This is a day that the Lord hath made. I will rejoice and be glad in it." I think I forgot to do a "what I'm thankful for this year" post last year. But this year has been one rough patch over another one and yet I still have so much to be thankful for. In no particular order... My parent's health. There was so much potential for disaster this year with my dad's leukemia and my mother thinking she'd had a heart attack (I don't recall if I mentioned that or not.) among other things. And while daddy's leukemia is not cured, his was caught in the chronic stage and he has been treated and remains in remission. I know the health issues are only going to get worse as they age but for now I'm thankful that they are here with me and relatively healthy. My sisters. Gosh, what would I do without them? I know I gripe about Sis1 a lot and sometimes I'd like to shake 'em both till their teeth rattle, but if this past Saturday taught me noth...

How tall is a seven and a half foot tree, anyway?? Ack! Took that sucker outta the box and when I finally figured out which end was up and put the top part on I stood back and...holy crap. That is one tall ass tree. I swear the model did NOT look that tall in the store. Libby was all, "Meh, it's not THAT big, Mama. Get over it. Now, let's cuddle." I'd never had to put one of these things together before, though I'd seen my mother do hers for several years. Didn't look all that hard. Takes her 30 minutes, tops. Me, I'd always only ever had a three footer. Take it out, shake it out, decorate and there ya go! Perfect little tree! Gah! An hour into it and I'm only halfway through! Libby's not convinced I'm doing it right so she checks out the instructions for me. Then she remembered she can't read and decided to take a nap instead. Cake Boss was on, after all. (Note: I do not endorse the watching of Cake Boss. It's obnoxious.) Almost...

An email a library faculty sent out just now: There is a possum in the bushes behind the Library. Do not walk on the side-walk that runs between the bushes and the Library. A patron called animal control and they are on their way. What? Is it gonna jump out of the bushes and chomp on folks' ankles? *rolls eyes* Sure opossums are gross and disgusting to look at, but I've never been attacked by one. Generally they're content to scurry along their merry little way. If I'm wrong and they ARE dangerous, I'm glad no one ever told me. Been greeted by my fair share of 'em over the years. And according to some of the old folks 'round these parts--Them's good eats! (No, I've never eaten one, though I do know and am related to a few folks who HAVE eaten one. Blech!)

You know, this was supposed to be a good, relaxing weekend, right? I was going to go ahead and put my tree up, do some cooking for our Thanksgiving lunch at church and generally just hang out and do my own thing. God is soooooo laughing at me and my plans right now. Saturday started out pretty normal. Well, normal in the sense that I got up early to do grocery shopping. NOT normal in the amount of money I spent. I think this time of year just does something screwy to my normally careful internal budgeter. I dragged out Ms. Visa and totally made my head explode when I realized what I'd done. I bought groceries for cooking and baking. I bought stuff for the kids. I bought frivolous miscellaneous stuff like the new Veggie Tales Christmas DVD. I bought curtains which I thought were on clearance but turns out they weren't. Those, however, will be going back. But, you know, Thanksgiving cooking requires groceries so I can just suck it up and get over it. My fridge, however, is in sho...

Okay, so it's more like a movie ticket, but it's totally golden... A ticket to see New Moon Sunday afternoon! Woot woot! My bwf (best work friend) bought tickets for me, herself and two other friends so we're all going to make a girl's night out of it. Go see New Moon with all the other goofy Twilight fans and then go eat Mexican and drink margaritas. Wait...do they even SERVE margaritas on Sundays? Crap. Maybe I'll be too drunk on Jacob and Edward to notice there's no alcohol in my drink. Note to self: Learn how to spell "alcohol". And "margaritas". And "friends." *facepalm*

Yesterday was certainly a Monday. I did finally get my prescription situation figured out and am back on my meds. Yay! Want to know something yucky? When I went to the pharmacy Monday night to pick it up guess who was heading toward the line at the pharmacy window... Maintenance Man. Remember him? Blech! So I kindly did an aboutface and headed to the snack cake aisle. I needed some 100 calorie cupcakes anyway. Then (because I'm such a baby) I snuck back through the store and peeked around aisles to check the pharmacy to make sure he was gone. Whew! Crisis averted. It's kinda funny, though, cause I know he saw me. He looked right at me, made eye contact and everything and I just... zip!... turned and ran. LOL I'm so mature like that. But me? Stand in line behind a man who makes my skin crawl and possibly be forced to make small talk with him and have him leer at me? Not so much. Thanks. Anyway, yesterday was a GOOD DAY. (All caps because yesterday was awesome.) I came to w...

Ugh. And boy howdy. I've been arguing with the automated pharmacy people about needing/getting refills on my synthroid and they keep telling me I have no more refills. Called doctor's office who said two weeks ago that they were ordering me some more and apparently the pharmacy lost my prescription. Now I'm out of synthroid and will prolly hafta wait a couple days to get it. Pharmacy has a 24hr refill policy...and that's even IF I can get it figured out today. *sigh* Which, yeah, I guess it's not a HUGE deal if I miss a couple days of it but...Ya'll, life is so much less DARK with my synthroid. I never knew that having your thyroid out of whack could cause so much chaos with your emotions. But apparently that's what was happening to me all these months I was so darned depressed and lethargic. I haven't gone on a crying jag or wished I was dead in WEEKS. So yeah. The thought of even a couple of days without my meds is a little scary to me. I know it would...

No one ever believes me when I tell them my fridge mostly consists of half and half, string cheese, jelly and condiments. Well, here's you're proof. Even Devil Pup isn't impressed . Top shelf: Grape and Strawberry jelly (for my Sat. morning biscuit), canister of Pioneer baking mix (for those rare occasions I bake sausage balls), terriaki sauce (from when I used to cook a lot of stir-fry), half and half (because my coffee isn't coffee without it), two cartons of dip (left from my housewarming party which has since been eaten), two bottles of water (left by my sister), and small tub of low fat Blue Bonnet margarine spread (for my toast.) Middle shelf: two types of string cheese, a leftover half a loaf of cheese bread (left over from the housewarming which has since been eaten), and Country Crock tub that actually has a half a tub of homemade bbq sauce left over from 4th of July instead of margarine...terrible, I know. lol) Bottom shelf: Three Diet Cokes Sis1 left a few mo...

My life is incredibly dull these days. Oh, but that's right. I've always been incredibly dull. Just...well, now I'm so dull I don't even have anything to blog about! So far the biggest thrills for me this week have been the BK stacker I had for lunch yesterday and the buffalo chicken sub I had at Subway for supper Tuesday night. Well, them and the TONS of "fun" sized Snickers I've eaten. (They were on clearance. I was weak. *sigh) (Is it just me or is it incredibly sad/pathetic that all my biggest thrills involve food? I should be ashamed. And I would be if I cared.) I did my very first bit of Christmas shopping today. (That's exciting, right?) I ordered Lyssa's gift from Kmart. And as I was telling my mother about it at lunch she says, "We shoulda waited to see if we could get it at the store." Me: When do we ever go to Columbus to go to Kmart?" (we don't have one in either of my two towns.) Mama: "I'm going Tuesday for...

Today's a "just sits" day. For a Wednesday, it ain't so bad. I'm just feelin' mellow. Especially now that I've added a BK Stacker to my ever-expanding-doesn't-matter-how-hard-I-try gut.

You've met Milo. Hi, Milo! But have you met Dog? She's the hound(mix?) who adopted the folks a couple of weeks ago. Ain't she perty? I told them they needed to name her Otis to go with Milo but all she'll answer to is Dog. Milo says he doesn't mind not havin' an Otis. He's too busy makin' all the girls swoon. ;-) And all the girls love Milo. All but one. She's not so impressed, actually. hehehe

So we gave Emmy an early birthday party Saturday. Her actual birthday is next weekend but she's having a sleepover party with her friends in T-town. We decided to do her gifts and stuff this weekend while she was here. Can ya'll believe my sweet baby girl is turning ten?? It seems like only yesterday that she was my sweet chubby legged baby who sucked on my hair and made me dance around the room with her for HOURS just to get her to take a ten minute nap. Now she's this moody but sweet almost teenager who thinks I'm getting lamer and lamer each year. lol I swear, I think she's actually a hormonal sixteen-year-old trapped in a ten-year-old's body. Reminds me SO MUCH of Sis1 when she was around sixteen. Only in between the mood swings she's way sweeter than Sis1. hehehe Anyway, we had her party at Sis2's house because Sis2 still isn't all that up to travel yet and doesn't want to get Mr. Cuteypants out yet either. I got there around 10:30...way bef...

Talk about one long drawn out week. *big sigh* This has most definitely been one of them. I don't know if it's due to all the excitement of last week or what, but I've been utterly bored with this entire week and it couldn't come to a close fast enough. But this week has had it's share of excitement, too. Well, maybe not so much for me, but for Mama. She's a new furmama. As I'm sure ya'll recall, she lost her beloved Nipper last September. (September truly does suck. Have I mentioned that before? lol) It's taken her a long time to even begin to adjust to him being gone. I hope someday when I die, someone somewhere will grieve for me as much as she has for sweet Nipper. Lately she'd really begun praying for God to send her a new furbaby. We're dog people. Our lives are not complete without a furry companion. And I don't know about ya'll, but most of the time I prefer the company of furry friends to most of the humans I know. lol Furbab...

The Devil Pup loves Josh Gates. Made me stay up WAY past our bedtime last night to watch Destination Truth on Syfy. She's a sucker for the goofy hot guys. Takes after her mama. And yeah, she was actually watching it. Wouldn't even TALK about going night night until after it went off. hehehe PS: They didn't "catch" the Yeti...but they got hair samples! :-D

You know, I'm quickly discovering why I'm not meant to be a mother. I'm clueless. lol I still haven't figured out what to do about Libby's little issue. I definitely think the swelling has gone down but it feels more like a lump now. So I don't know if that means it's going away or getting worse or what. Do I take her back to the vet for a surgery that may or may not be exactly necessary? Or do I wait a while longer? Ugh. I wish there was some way of just knowing how serious it is or isn't. She still seems to feel fine. She and I got into a little chase-fest last night. Poor baby's so outta shape she was panting harder than I was and gave out quicker than she used to. I need to get back into the routine of walking her for more distance than just around the yard. It'd be good for her AND me, I know. But she's still eating great, still playing, still sleeping. No trouble jumping other than the fact that she spends more time on my bed than I do...

I got my pizza bagel today. Much joy ensued. Cheesy greasy overpriced ecstacy. I even sprang the buck fifty for a fountain drink. I'm feeling zen. And slightly bloated. And broke. hehehe Contemplating stopping at Subway for a buffalo chicken sub on the way home. Heard it's good. And I'm feeling decadent today. Decisions, decisions. If only all things in life were this "complex."

The Folks have been adopted by a dog. Yeah, you read that right. They've been adopted by a dog. Sometime late last week, a pretty little hound mix showed up in their yard and decided to keep them. They've been feeding her and have given her a name. You'll never guess what it is...Wait for it...Dog. Yeah. My folks. They have creativity in spades. *rolls eyes* Ever had one of those days where you were looking forward to a pizza bagel only your mom brought your lunch and it was gross baked chicken with congealed cheesy taters? Yeah. That's me today. Mama is off work today to help Sis2 with Mr. Cuteypants. And you may or may not know, but she usually brings lunch for the both of us because she says that's the only way she can feel safe in knowing that I get one nutritious meal a day. But today since she was going to be off work I had assumed that I was on my own for providing lunch. Had totally psyched myself up to having a lovely calorie laden and semi-expensive but s...