WOOHOO!!!

Your Monday Photo Shoot: It's back to school season. Show us a picture of something that represents "Back to School" to you. Kids on their way to school, a stack of new text books, school supplies, parents leaping for joy... oh, wait, maybe not that last one.

Actually, I was doing the "hooray for school" dance while taking this picture!!!  Just kidding, but that would explain the look on Bum's face...lol. 

As I wrote the other day, they started school yesterday--2nd grade for Bum (again), and kindergarten for Little Guy.  This pic was taken in the morning, before we went to register/transfer.  We ended bringing Little Guy back home--we decided on afternoon kindergarten for him.  That way it would be a little easier to get them ready in the morning...at least for this year, anyway.  Speaking of that, they both like school this year...Joey came out on his first day and said, "School is awesome!".  That won't last long.  Same thing went for Bum...she was all smiles as she finished for the day.  Once she has homework, that smile will be gone (actually, that happened today--both things).  Maybe it'll get better for her.  I dunno.

til next time...=)

action-packed day! well, sort of...

Today's fun actually started last night, when Joey and I learned the first day of school is tomorrow instead of Wednesday...no real warning!!  Talk about taking us by surprise.  We were freaking out a little...no letter, no kind of notification.  What's worse, I still hadn't registered the kids at their new school.  That's not my fault, though...it would've helped if someone was at the school to answer the phone last week.  That's when I was told to call--the week before school started.   I tried calling Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of last week, all with no answer.  I even called their old school to see what I could do...they told me they would get their records ready for transfer; all they needed was the word from the new school.  I finally got someone on the phone at 8 o'clock this morning, only for them to tell me I had to go there and fill out some paperwork.  Now, mind you, I had work at 9 this morning, so that was out of the question, and I told the girl this.  So she says that I can do it tomorrow morning...before school starts.  YAY.  Gotta get both of the kids ready, even if he gets into the afternoon kindergarten class.  FUN FUN FUN.  That's enough about the school...wait until I go there tomorrow...but anyhoo.

That's not the end of my day; that's kind of only the beginning.  I almost missed the bus to go to work because of someone taking their sweet old time counting out change at the register at the store (had to get smokes!!).  I didn't take the car because parking downtown during the day's like ticket suicide--it's either park about 6 blocks from work, or get ticketed.  On my regular schedule, I can park in the mall for half my shift, then move it to the street later (the meter maids go home after 5pm).  Anyway, work was ok--especially the last hour, when all I did was really sit there and do nothing.  The computer froze, and wouldn't let me log on.  That was cool...getting paid for standing around and BS'ing. 

After work, I missed the first bus to get home, but caught the next one 1/2 hour later...no big deal.  When I did get home, Joey was out on the porch waiting for me.  He said I just missed a big thing...the house caught on fire!  (Don't worry, if it was that bad, I wouldn't be writing this.)  Not in our apartment...in the basement, actually.  He told me that the kids were eating dinner, when four cops came to the door..."what the hell did I do" was running through Joey's head.  They told him to get out.  Then they told him there was a fire downstairs and everyone had to get out.  He also told me there were about 4 firetrucks, 3 cop cars, and one of the local TV stations.  I was upset, since I missed all the commotion by about 10 minutes.   DAMMIT!  Oh well...maybe the girl downstairs will do it again (actually I don't know what caused it but who knows), only this time I'll be home...just kidding. =)

So that's my action-packed day.  I think tomorrow will come a little close, being the first day of school and all...no clue.  I'll fill you in with all the gory details...well, maybe not all of them...and I'll definitely have pics.  For evidence.

til next time...=)

speaking of bum...

Just an update on her nibble accident--she gets the stitches out tomorrow.  WOOHOO.  Then I have to schedule an appointment with an ear, nose, and throat specialist...just as a precaution.  Other than that, everything's going good.  The health department didn't call yet, so that's a relief.  But we're still getting rid of her...I don't want another accident happening.  It's a little ironic, though.  Just as Little Guy was getting used to Princess, this happens.  We've had her for 3 1/2 years...and it took him this long.  Oh well, better luck next time.

til next time...=)

double trouble

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Take a picture of two of something. Two of what? I leave that to you. But they have to be two of the same type of thing. Don't just put, like, a cookie and a Hot Wheel in the same picture and say it counts as two things. Two cookies, two Hot Wheels. You know. Double your pleasure and all that.

I took John's idea and tried it out (well, that and he explained how)...here's what I came up with -- my worst nightmare.

Here's Bum laughing at the face she's making...even she thought this pic was cool.  I used PhotoSuite...unfortunately, you can kind of see the editing lines.  Oh well, I guess the more you do it, the better you get.

til next time...=)

my little trooper

Poor Bum.  She got a booboo.  A big booboo.  See it on her ear?  I guess you can say our dog got a little hungry, and decided to take a bite.

Actually, it's more serious than it looks...she had to get 8 stitches, and it looks worse in the back, since there's another bite mark that the doc wouldn't stitch.  And it's black and blue too.  It happened yesterday...I just didn't get around to posting it.  Bum was petting Princess, I guess it was too much for her, and she snapped.  I was in the other room--all I heard was a bark and a scream.  Luckily, Joey was there to get Princess off...he had to punch her in the head to do so.  When I first saw her ear, it looked like Princess had taken a chunk out.  The whole time, Bum was screaming, but when she got into the car, she stopped.  In fact, on the way to the hospital, she was smiling...she said, "I guess this means I'm off punishment?"..lol.  We were in the ER for about 4 hours, mostly waiting.  She was really good, though, which shocked the hell out of me.  She has to go back in 5 days to get the stitches removed, and then to a specialist to see what's next for her ear.  I don't think they'll have to do anything, but I just want to be sure.

In a way I'm glad it happened to Bum instead of some stranger--imagine the bills then.  It's bad enough that we're probably going to get fined for not having Princess licensed, but that's better than getting sued too. 

Conclusion?  The dog must go.

til next time...=)

interesting...

I got this in an e-mail this morning...I'd thought I would share it with you.

"The English Language. Have you ever wondered why foreigners have trouble with the English Language?. Let's face it. English is a crazy language. There is no egg in the eggplant No ham in the hamburger. And neither pine nor apple in the pineapple. English muffins were not invented in England. French fries were not invented in France. We sometimes take English for granted But if we examine its paradoxes we find that Quicksand takes you down slowly, Boxing rings are square. And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. If writers write, how come fingers don't fing. If the plural of tooth is teeth. Shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth, If the teacher taught, Why didn't the preacher praught. If a vegetarian eats vegetables. What the does a humanitarian eat? Why do people recite at a play, Yet play at a recital? Park on driveways and Drive on parkways. You have to marvel at the unique lunacy. Of a language where a house can burn up as it burns down. And in which you fill in a form by filling it out. And a bell is only heard once it goes! English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (Which of course isn't a race at all) That is why when the stars are out they are visible, but when the lights are out they are invisible, and why it is that when I wind up my watch it starts, but when I wind up this observation, it ends."

til next time...=)

this weekend

I actually had the weekend off...and I think I made the most of it.  Yesterday, I made the drive to get my license renewed, with our car.  If you've been reading for a while, you remember when I had to get my drug test for Verizon?  Where I had to go is in the same industrial park.  Besides, the local state police barracks is the LAST place I want to take the car, since it's not inspected, not insured, etc.  That's why I put this off until the last day...I've had the form to get the pic done for two months.  Luckily for me, there's a supermarket across the street, so I parked there and walked over.  Needless to say, I made it home without getting pulled over or anything.  Phew.  And that was the highlight of yesterday.

Anyway, me and Joey were cleaning up the junk and stuff outside today (and there's LOTS of that).  Among the things we found:  loads of pincer bugs, lots of spiders, some broken glass, part of a Christmas tree stand, garland, broken shingles, and a decomposing squirrel.  Fun.

And this is what the kids did...

...turned the hill behind the house (well, actually right off our front porch) into a makeshift slide.  They did this for the better part of two hours!!!  Well, you can just imagine what they looked like when they were finished.  Bum's white shirt was either gray or black, depending where you looked.  Little Guy was worse--he had a huge hole in the butt of his pants from sliding.  Of course, as soon as they came in, the tub was calling them.  They were both black with dirt.  Bum's knees had to be scrubbed...and Little Guy's back was completely covered in dirt.

All I can say is, at least they had fun.

til next time...=)

saturday six #70

Here's my answers for this week's Saturday Six!

1. A reader to "Men's Journal" recently wrote about technological innovations, stating that there isn't any gadget he couldn't live without:  "To see how vital technology is, spend a few days in the backcountry without your phone, pager, PDA, laptop, cappuccino machine, or MP3 player.  You'll emerge cleansed and refreshed."  Could you go a whole week really roughing it with no modern conveniences?  Would you want to?

If I could have my coffee pot, I think I could do it.

2. What is the most you've ever paid for a:
    A) Shirt  $50
    B) Pair of Shoes  $65, I think
    C) CD or Album  $15
    D) DVD  $20
    E) Book  $10
    F) Vacation  about $150

3. Looking back at the answers to#2, which one was the most foolish?

The vacation, since that was for the "vacation from hell".

4. Take this quiz:   Which snack food are you?

5. There are three wells:  Love, Beauty and Creativity.  If you could only drink from one of them, which would you choose and why?

I think I would have to choose Beauty, since I have Love, and I think I have some Creativity.

6. If you were another person, do you think you would be friends with the person you know as yourself?

I think so.

til next time...=)

neighborly love

Since I haven't written in a few days, including my day off (but I left an audio entry in my other journal), this is gonna be a little long.  I'll start off by telling you about last night.  Did I tell you about the girl downstairs from us, and the music she likes to play?  Now that I looked, I didn't.  I'm surprised, since she's been blasting her stereo since day two of us being here.  We told her about it the first day; she said she didn't know anyone was living upstairs.  Okay, we thought--now she knows we're here, and she won't do it again...WRONG.  Two days later, she does it again.  Now it's the middle of the afternoon, but it's loud enough that we can't watch TV without turning it up.  If I knew Spanish, I would be able to translate it, since I could hear the words.  Anyway, we really can't do anything about it, except call the landlord and have him do something.  If either me or Joey went down there, we would've ended up either popping her in the head or smashing her huge subwoofers into a few hundred pieces...either way going to jail.  Thanks anyway.

So that day, I called the owner from work (no long distance on the home phone, take advantage of my employer) to tell him about it.  He said he call her about it, and I left it at that.  Needless to say, she did it again a few days later...and again, and again.  I called the owner again, and he said he would come down to talk to her.  He lives 1 1/2 hours away and runs a business, so he has to plan coming here for the morning or whatever.  That was LAST week.  Still no sign of him.

That brings me up to yesterday, or should I say last night.  Around 11pm, she came home (I guess) and started with the music again.  Now around here, loud stuff after 11 isn't tolerated, and cops will come if called.  Captain Obvious doesn't need to tell you what happened next...actually, I did it twice--once at 11, and again at 1am.  It was like she was waiting for them to come; when they would pull up, she'd turn it down, when they left, it would go back up.  She kept it going until after 2am...maybe a little longer--I fell asleep listening to a rain CD as loud as it can go on my walkman.  Girl's actually lucky the kids are heavy sleepers (a little too heavy if you ask me)...if they woke up from her music, look the f*** out.

So at this point, we're looking to move again.  But before we do, we're trying to find out if the music thing qualifies as something that the landlord didn't fix.  That way when can get our security back, although we broke the lease.  Don't worry, we're calling a lawyer to answer the question...we don't want to take any chances.

til next time...=)

woohoo

ok...I'm in a little dilemma.  I went back to AOL and started a new journal.  The thing is, do I keep this one going and use the new one only for audio entries, or do I only use the new one for now, and if AOL shuts me off (again), I'll come back to this one?  I dunno!!

til next time...=)

by the way...here's my first audio entry...don't laugh too hard.

just some stuff

Just writing to say hi...not too much going on here--I think it's because I'm working sooo much.  And I'm not talking about what I'm doing at home; today's day 4 of 9 straight days having to go to that place that pays me to be there.  So as far as getting things done here, well, not really happening.  Today we have to go and get a cord and hose for the dryer--finally, no more going to bitch-in-law's (lol) house to dry our laundry!!  The only thing we'll have to go up there for now is to drop off and pick up the kids on the weekends...woohoo!!  Also, we're looking for a kitchen table, since we don't have one.  The last house had a built in breakfast bar that we used as our table, so of course we didn't think to get one.  We have to also get curtains for the kids' room, since right now there's blankets up on the windows.  Oh well.

One more thing--Ehrlich's coming tomorrow...YAY!!  We can finally put the last of our things away...the dishes and food are still sitting in the boxes now...no sense of putting them away; we'll only have to take them back out anyway.  I dunno.  Well, off to work...talk more later!!

til next time...=)

close-up revealed

Ok, I see from the comments that no one can guess what the close-up was.  And I can't wait any longer to show you what it was (well, that and it's Thursday)...

I thought mine was going to be easy, since I took a partial pic of the ball.  Maybe you might want to start smacking yourself in the forehead now...I dunno.  Anyway, thanks for playing!!

til next time...=)

i'm ready for my close-up

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Take a picture of something in extreme close-up -- so close it's hard to tell what you're looking at. Ask people to guess. On Thursday, reveal what you've photographed.

Here's mine...

Leave your guess in the comments, and see you back here on Thursday!!

til next time...=)

thank you

Sorry I haven't written in a few days...just trying to get some stuff done around here.  It's actually starting to look like a house--the only thing that's left is really the kitchen.  That was the worst room in the house...where the white floor was gray, the outlines of the appliances were marked in yucky stuff, and the little pests were feeding on what the last tenant had left behind.  But Joey's taking care of that.  The rest of the apartment is done, except the pictures aren't hung up; we're waiting until we paint to do that. 

Normally I would've given up days ago, but I am determined to make this work.  That and my readers (one in particular--you know who you are...lots of hugs!) and your words of encouragement, I really dug in and got the job done.  While Joey was working on the kitchen (he still is), I got rest of the house done almost all by myself.  Of course, the weakling that I am had to have him lift stuff like the TV, and put the bunk beds together.  You know, man stuff.  But other than that, it was pretty much all me.  So thanks for all your support through my really rough patch...who knows what's to come now.  I guess it can only get better...

til next time...=)