Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Cat Facts

Very interesting cat facts (found here)…

Albert Schweitzer’s cat, Sizi, would often fall asleep on his right arm. Rather than disturb her, Schweitzer would write his prescriptions with his left arm and so became ambidextrous.

Almost half the cats on the estate of the late Ernest Hemmingway have six toes. Hemmingway, who shared his Key West home with more than 30 cats, once said, “A cat has absolute emotional honesty; human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.” *I love this quote!!!

The giraffe, the camel and the cat are the only animals to move forward by moving both their right feet, then both their left feet, when walking. This approach lets them move with grace and agility in perfect silence.

Winston Churchill commissioned a painting of his adored orange tabby, Jock, who slept in his bed every night, went to all of Churchill’s wartime cabinet meetings, ate at the same table and was with him when he died.

Cats with bells on their collars are often better hunters than those without. This is because they learn to move without the bell making a sound and become even more stealth-like than other cats.

Turkish Vans, unlike other cat breeds, adore water and have a waterproof coat.

Under the rubble of the World Trade Center, rescuers found three newborn kittens and their mom in a carton of napkins. The queen was named “Hope” and her babies “Freedom,” “Amber” and “Flag.”

Responsible

So instead of working on payroll like I should be doing I decided to blog… I guess I should mention that today is the first day this week I’ve actually had some work to do… Monday and Tuesday were spent wishing for 5:00, reading True Office Confessions, and being extremely bored… and I suppose I didn’t blog because I had all the time in the world… today seems like it’s going to be a crazy day though… it’s payroll day and inevitably if the day is going to fall apart it’s going to either be Wednesday or Friday… R has a dr. appt today at 2:15… he called me last Thursday and said that he thinks he needs to go to the dr. for a physical… his dad had a heart attack at like 50 and in the back of R’s mind whenever something happens I think he’s imagining himself having a heart attack… of course though as soon as I made his dr. appt he’s been feeling fine… he’s still going though!!
Our windows for the house aren’t in yet but that’s ok… unless the installer wants to do it on Saturday I’m going to have to take off work to be there when they install the windows… then momma had a good question… can they get them all done in one day? I didn’t even think about that!!!
As for the living room furniture and the sliding glass door that is on hold for now… (R and I have been working on getting new living room furniture for about 2 years now)… the transmission in R’s truck is slipping really bad, it’s a very good thing work is only about 2 minutes away for him… he kept saying, I feel so bad that we’re buying a new motor and transmission for my truck… my response was, you can’t drive living room furniture to work… it was either fix the transmission or get him a “new” truck… he chose to fix his truck and I’m just glad we have the money to get it fixed…
For a little over the past month or so I thought my car had been running funny but I was having a really hard time telling because of the weather… nope, as of this morning it’s official… there is something wrong with it… the malfunction indicator light came on twice this morning on my way to work… it really scares me when lights come on and stay on… apparently the light is to let you know that there is something wrong with the emissions part of your car or something… I don’t know… I got the book out and was reading it… it was pretty much greek to me but I tried… I called R to tell him the “good” news… he was still asleep (at 8:45- must be nice!) and he said he’d call his dad and see what he says… we have a warranty on my car but I’m not sure if whatever is wrong with it will be covered… now another challenge, when and how am I going to get my car to the dealership…
So today I am grateful that we do have the money to get our cars fixed… (being “responsible” sucks!) :o)

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Challenges

When Kelly and her husband were down a few weekends ago we were talking about work and how easy it is to become distracted and disgruntled… up until this conversation I thought there was something wrong with me... at my previous job, at a call center, I loved it when I first started… when I got bored I would transfer to another team and learn a different job… at this job I don’t have that option… I’ve pretty much learned everything that I can learn without stepping on toes… I have no idea if rrll ever plans to retire (he was old enough to retire two years ago but still hasn’t- I would have so already been out of here!!)… I could learn his job but that’s a very sticky situation… and I’m not going there until I’m “told” too…I really love working here and I really don’t want to look for another job so I’m not sure what to do… I’ve been trying to think of ways to challenge myself… I bring a book or magazine to work everyday to read during lunch but don’t have the balls to just bust it out at my desk… I’m not sure that would go over too well… I get so bored with the internet… there’s only so much looking at it I can do… I’m working on updating my resume just in case I decide to look for something else… any ideas?

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Icky

i haven't been feeling good for a while now and yesterday i was feeling really bad so i left work early, went to the dr, and then came home and slept... at the clinic the dr. told me i had an upper respiratory infection, an inner ear infection, and a stomach virus... they gave me a shot and some antibiotics... i've pretty much been asleep since yesterday... except for the time i've spent dealing with the stomach virus... i am feeling better though... and that's a good thing... so here's to napping and catching up on all my shows i have dvr'd in hopes that tomorrow will be a much better day!!

since i've been home yesterday Mazzy & Murphy have both been sleeping with me and following me around (even to the bathroom)... they haven't even been being "bad" either... very impressive kitties, very impressive!!!

oh yeah, grateful... what am i grateful for today? i am grateful that i was sick today so that i didn't have to get out this morning and drive in the icy weather... it's only 26 here right now!!!

Friday, January 18, 2008

Pandas & Kitties

i love this place.

they have the cutest pictures with the most hilarious captions... have i ever mentioned (probably only about a hundred times) that i L-O-V-E kitties and pandas!! L-O-V-E them!!!


funny pictures

Funny Pictures

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Ranting & Raving

Today I’m not so calm… at least I haven’t been for the past hour or so… I am pissed… oh so pissed… at rrll and my boss… rrll for not doing anything except working on his church (volunteer) work… he’s so damn concerned with getting his church work done that he puts his work that he does up here (that he gets paid to do!!!) last… um, I think it should be the other way around… anyways, my boss calls me to ask why his youngest son’s youngest daughter isn’t on his insurance… um, well, your lazy ass son and his lazy ass wife didn’t get their paperwork in on time to get her added on… and she wasn’t added on at open enrollment because we didn’t check open enrollment we checked family addition… now my boss is 10 shades of pissed because of all the “technicalities”… well, you know, if you have one kid or one hundred kids insured under our policy it all costs the same and they’re not going to add another kid on there if they can get around it… it’s as simple as that… but what really burns me up is that a year and a half ago when they had their first daughter we went thru the exact same thing!!! The exact same thing!!! Once again it rolls around to your son being lazy and used to having everything handed to him on a silver platter so he just expects for everyone to do everything for him… and hello, I gave his wife the insurance papers right after their daughter was born but it took them forever to sign them (3 weeks!!!! And she comes in every Friday to pick up his paycheck!!!) I even filled them out for them!!! All they had to do was sign them… so while I’m on the phone explaining this over and over to my boss a man walks in… I kinda motion for him to sit down because I’m on the phone and can’t help him right then… my boss keeps me on the phone forever (very unlike him) and finally I holler at dumbass, I mean rrll, to come help them… hello, rrll has a mirror on his door so he can see when someone walks in… I know he can see the guy sitting there… but once again, laziness and church work prevails… and it’s not “his job”… he’s very big on not doing anything that could not be considered “his job”… I just want to scream right now… my head and my ears are killing me… my head hurts so bad and my ears feel like they’re leaking some kind of fluid… I feel like poo and just want to go home and crawl into bed… if the day keeps going like it is I just might do that… I don’t know if I could have fit all this into TOC’s confession box so I thought I’d just get it out here… stupid freaking idiot… doh!!! (it’s a good thing I’ve been working on staying positive and feeling gratitude! Please note the sarcasm…)

What am I grateful for today… ok, today I am grateful for a job to bitch about…

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Intervention

I love Intervention… it is such a good show… the episode with brooke, the girl with rheumatoid arthritis, brought up a whole plethora of emotions that I haven’t felt in a long time… chronic pain sucks and it can change a person in so many different ways… it can change everything about them… it did for me… when my back problems first started and we couldn’t get my pain under control my dr. referred me to a pain management dr… the first dr. I saw immediately put me on oxycontin (and laughed when he told me he was going to put me on them, making some sort of reference to Rush Limbaugh) along with several other meds… talk about being messed up… the dr. told me how to take me meds and what my options were when the pain wouldn’t subside… family, friends, & co-workers saw me taking meds… like the girl on Intervention sometimes I would pass out from the meds… that was the sweetest relief… not being in pain… I wasn’t abusing the meds… I was taking them like they were prescribed… my family and some friends didn’t agree… they saw what they saw and thought I was abusing them… how can you tell me that I’m abusing them when you have no idea how I feel… I would do anything for no pain… and if that meant staying doped up and pilled out all the time (and the dr. said it was ok) then that’s how it was going to be… the dr. finally listened to me when I told him that the oxycontin weren’t working… he pulled me off of them (no gradual decrease in the meds) and put me on morphine patches… I had already given R my last two oxy’s and told him that no matter what happened do not let me have them… the withdrawals I went thru were so bad… to this day I have never experienced anything like that before… and I hope I never have too again… my body had become physically addicted to the meds and getting off them was a living hell… before this whole thing happened I could never understand how someone would chose to stay on the meds (or keep using)… after the withdrawals though, my whole perspective has changed… I can totally understand how it would be easier to just keep getting pilled out than to have to deal with the withdrawals and everything else that your body goes thru… I was reading this article about a lady dealing with her addiction and she said, “The withdrawal was horrific, I’d sleep 24 to 48 hours at a time. The worst would pass in a few days. But then I’d look at my life and feel bad. That’s the real pain when you’re an addict: Using hurts, but reality hurts worse.” So true, so very true.
Lucky for me, after getting off the oxycontin and my head cleared up a bit I realized that I did not want to live this way. Something needed to change… so I changed doctors… we worked to get me off all the “hard” medicine and then I was just taking pain pills… breaking the pain pill addiction isn’t as bad as the oxy addiction… I’ve broken the pain pill addiction several times and it doesn’t get any easier but at least I know I can do it… I know I have an addictive personality and I know I need to watch what I do… but dealing with chronic pain is a whole different ballgame altogether and it made me sad to watch Intervention and feel her pain, to understand and know what she’s going thru… my whole back ordeal has really opened up my perspective to a lot of things… and the one thing I keep trying to remember is not to judge someone else by their actions alone, you don’t know what they’re feeling or what they’re going thru…

Ok, now if you’ll excuse me I’ll step down off my soapbox.




I am so grateful that my back problem is no more... it has been taken care of and now I just need to take care of myself.

Monday, January 14, 2008

What?!?!

YAY!!! so i was yakking the other day about windows on the house... we asked for gift cards/money for christmas so that we could replace our windows... ... r and i had decided to only do the front three and then wait until we had the rest of the money to do the rest of the windows...

we've been wanting to get new living room furniture for a while too... and we were kinda looking at a new sliding glass door until we saw how much labor was on the windows (and the door)... anyways, r and i got a check in the mail from our escrow account at our old house... this didn't even occur to me but when we closed on our old house our insurance and taxes were paid and so the money we had in our escrow account was refunded to us!!! Fo' Sure!!! so that was a totally unexpected (and very awesome) surprise!!! so r and i start to discuss different options... maybe do all the windows? front three windows and either furniture or a door??

kb and her hubby were in town this weekend (YAY- we had such a good time!! it was a good way to welcome the new house to the group!!!)... kb and i had to run to town saturday afternoon and when we got home r said that lowe's had called on the windows... did we know what we were going to do? i told him i'd call them sunday... i completely forgot about windows though (hhhmmm, wonder how that happened?!?!) until momma called sunday night... r and i were watching the hearbreak kid when she called... when r and i bought our first house six years ago we borrowed our closing costs from them and paid them back monthy... sneaky sneaky parents (but this time in such a good way)!!!! momma and daddy decided way back then that they were going to put that money into a savings account for us and give it to us sometime... when momma called sunday night she told me about the money and that her and daddy had been talking about giving it to us so we could put it towards a project for the house, like to do all the windows!! (they're not saying that's what we have to do- just an option)... OMG!!! pinch me, tell me i'm not dreaming!!! really?!?!? another excellent and awesome surprise!!!!

so, as of now, the new, improved, and revised plan of action:

i went at lunch yesterday and paid for all the windows!!!! they are ordered and will be here in 2 to 3 weeks... the installer will call as soon as the windows are in and he'll come hang them!!! oh yeah!!! this will help out incredibly on our heat and a/c bill!!! as well as highway noise!!! i am so excited (about some damn windows- of all things, but i am !!!)

new living room furniture!!! YAY!!!! now we just have to go look!!!

AND we're looking at possibly/probably a new sliding glass door too...

the rest will go into savings....

really?!?!? i am so excited!!!!

i'm not sure if it's the watching the thought thing, good luck, my meds are finally all good, or what but i'm really happy... i feel really happy... things are going really good... i think this is maybe how things are "supposed to be"...

i am grateful for all the opportunities that r and i have had (and will have) to better ourselves and our life together...

Gratitude

lately i have consciously been making an effort to "watch my thoughts"... i have been trying to think positive thoughts as well as thoughts of gratitude instead of being negative and griping all the time... i've also been reading several books too... it seems that the underlying message i'm getting (right now) from everywhere is gratitude... gratitude towards everything... being thankful for everything (that i have, have had, and will have)... i wish i could explain how i'm feeling but i am having a very hard time putting it into words... it seems that when i think how lucky i am to have such great family that thought leads to how lucky i am to have such great friends and then onto how lucky i am to have such great kitties and on and on... when i'm in a bad mood or i can tell that's where i'm heading i've been trying to think positive thoughts or thoughts of gratitude... for the most part it has been working... don't get me wrong, it's not 100% foolproof but i've been very impressed with the "results"... for instance, instead of getting raving mad at rrll when he does something completely stupid i am trying to think to myself, i do things he may consider stupid too i'm sure and none of us are perfect... and i usually i find myself pitying him... not in a bad way though, more like an understanding... another example, road rage... that is a big one for me... if you're not driving the way i think you should be (according to how i'm driving at the time because my driving will vary) then you're driving the wrong way... um, ok, really, what sense does that make?!?! so i've been working on that... just driving... staying calm...

so i am going to challenge myself... each day i will find something to be grateful for... something to give thanks for...

so today i am grateful for this blog (and for the person who introduced me to blogging- GIRL!!!) this blog has done many things for me... the top two (in no particular order): it has allowed me to say whatever i want and it introduced me to my blogger sisters!!!

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

The House

here are some pics of the house... please don't judge based on my horrible photos... i
apologize in advance... i am in dire need of a new camera!!

the front of the house (realtor pic)


standing in the entryway (the kitchen "window" and Mazzy with her lazer eyes on! she loves having her picture taken- she was in the ones the realtor took of our old house!!)


the living room (the view from the kitchen "window")


the kitchen


the dining room


the kitchen (standing in the study)



guest bathroom


green room (aka R's room- we didn't get it painted before we moved in so there is probably a snowballs chance in hell we'll ever get it painted!!)


our bedroom (more maroon than red- bad pics!!!)





the study (a disaster area right now- it's acting as the "catch all" room)



the guest bedroom (right now there's nothing in it but home "decor" i have out trying to figure out if i'm going to use or not; oh yeah, this is not my paint job!)
for the house having such hideous colors the only 2 rooms i'm really wanting to paint are the green room and the purple room... the color of the master bedroom and the guest bath somehow managed to work out pretty good... i love our bedroom!!!

TOC

I posted on True Office Confessions (TOC) today!!!

True Office Confessions

Monday, January 07, 2008

Portionpals

momma "recycles" all her old magazines to me... reading one of the magazines this weekend i came across these new things called portionpals... i'm not sure if this would work for me or not... i found this very interesting though... any ideas or thoughts? do you think it would work??

portionpals

2008

I feel like I have been so busy… but then when I think back about what I’ve been busy with I draw a blank…. So anyways I feel like I’ve been busy…
I have decided that going back to work after vacation sucks… but at least I get a vacation so that I can complain about having to go back… the first “week” back (ok, really only 3 days) weren’t too bad… I’m all caught up now from vacation…I think it was a good thing that vacation was over though… the kitties and I seem to do a little better with some sort of structured routine… (although I do believe that we could find a routine if I was lucky enough to get to quit work- one day!)
R and I decided before the holidays that we were going to ask for gift cards to either Lowe’s or Home Depot, one or the other, so we picked Lowe’s… and after listening to our single pane windows rattle from the wind and the highway noise we decided that we would buy new windows for the house… and surprisingly we are excited about the windows… Saturday night we went to Lowe’s and picked up our quotes… we asked them to quote the front windows and then the rest of the windows… we only have a total of 8 windows to replace but to replace all 8 of them would be right around $4,000… having the front 3 (that all face the street) replaced will be around $1,700… (when R and I were pricing windows we discovered that most of the windows we need actually cost less than the labor to have them installed)… labor is $160 a window… and like the living room and our bedroom have “one” window but they’re actually two windows put together to make one window (does that make any sense??)… so it’s really $320 to have those “two” windows installed… quite tricky the Lowe’s people are… anyways, we have several options… we could just have the front windows done or go ahead and have them all done… we could have them all done by financing them thru Lowe’s for a year interest free or from our savings account… both of those options make me a little nervous right now though considering we haven’t even made our first house payment yet… I’d kinda like to see how everything is going to fall money and bill-wise with our new house payment…. anyways, new windows are coming soon and I’m so excited!!!!
I decided this year not to really make any new year resolutions… why set myself up for disappointment and failure so early in the year… but I do need to do something about my weight… I got on the scale this morning for the first time in I don’t know how long and was shocked but not too shocked… I’ve been avoiding the scale because I can tell that I’ve been gaining weight just by the way my clothes are fitting… it’s a good thing I didn’t get rid of my “fat” clothes after I lost all that weight 2 years ago… otherwise I would have no jeans to wear… so right now I’m debating on joining weight watchers again or just trying to go it alone… alone doesn’t seem to work for me though… I do miss my skinnier self and my self confidence that went along with it… that’s the great debate right now…
R and I were productive over the weekend… we got a lot of stuff done around the house… and today the cleaning lady is coming to clean so hopefully when I get home tonight I can take pics of the house and post them… I’m really excited… the house is looking so good… I just hope that the kitties are ok with the cleaning lady though… Murphy will be but it’s Mazzy I’m worried about… when the doorbell rings she runs and hides under the bed… I can only imagine what she’s thinking with some stranger in the house cleaning… and then when she runs the vacuum… poor Mazzy… hopefully she’ll get used to her though…
So far 2008 has been a really good year and I’m hoping this trend continues!!! I just keep reminding myself of all the good things in my life… and of all the good things to come!!!