Please stop at Dads.

Please stop around Dad's place and give a hug. His sweet cat Princess is very ill.

Cool Saturday

I was feeling rather punk yesterday. Coming down with a different version of the crud that was going around. So really really not looking forward to working the next 12.5 hours. Truthfully feeling just a little sorry for myself. When...... low and behold.......they called and asked if I wanted to stay home for low census. Well would I!

So. I huddled in my warm clothes and read a book, right now I am reading The Walmart Effect. Good book. Really brings Newtons 3rd law of motion to mind, with the same magnitude in the opposite direction. The strong form of the law further postulates that these two forces act along the same line. This law is often simplified into the sentence Whenever a particle A exerts a force on another particle B, B simultaneously exerts a force on A"To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction."

They talk about decided to take the cardboard off of deodorant boxes. Yes, I remember when they came in boxes. That saved 5 cents per box which made Walmart around 2.5 and saved the consumer about 2.5 cents per box. Sounds great right? Then all the other stores decided it was a good idea. Trickle down effect. The company making the boxes for the deodorant boxes goes under and all the workers lose their jobs. Walmart didn't mean for that to happen, they were just trying to make costs lower thus making you, the consumer happy, and helping their sales.

Anyway. It is an interesting and thought provoking book. After I am done with this book though I am out of ready reading so will have to hit my local library.

Today it is cold and wet again. We have been getting down in the 30's. Rick and Zoey went for a nice long walk today. She comes back wet cold and happy but with a small limp. Checking her paws I find a burr buried deep between her pads, couldn't stop that tail from wagging though. This is her type of weather. She almost dies walking her in the summer with the heat but cool things off, she is in 7th heaven. Add some fresh snow to the mix she can bury her nose in and she is one happy dog.

Well, I am on my last cup of coffee, time to get busy for the day. Hope everyone has a lovely weekend.

Great post.

Good morning everyone. Another wet dreary day and very cool. Winter is around the corner. Rick is busy in the kitchen making a roast for supper tonight, I am drinking my coffee and thinking about working the next 4 days. Bummer. I have to work 13.5 hours one of these nights, Which night is it they turn the clocks? I don't think I want to know.

We had a great dinner last night. The prices are really reasonable which was a blessing. Of course I heard on the news that the people making more then $42,000, us rich people, are those they want to raise taxes on so I don't know why I worry about that. I'm rich right. Sure doesn't feel that way. Sure feels like I am taxed enough. In fact I paid over 10,000 in taxes last year. I can't afford to pay more. Anyway....... You all know how I feel by now. Less government taxes.

If you haven't seen Emmi's site you should check it out. It is informative, educated, fact filled and just pretty darn impressive for such a young lady. Check out the video she has on today.

Sorry to my friends over seas. I know I am preoccupied right now. It is nothing personal. I think everyone should fight in what they believe in and I support you in your beliefs. Plus I love your beautiful photo's of your beautiful countries. When it comes right down to it and I have said it time and time again is people all over the world basically want the same things. To raise your families, to have a roof over your head and food in your house. Good health and world peace. Good things to want.

Well I have to go. Time to fight with my Doc. We are not seeing eye to eye. I sure miss my old doctor.

We are thinking we are going to look for a new doctor. We can't get her to listen to us. Ricks BP is high, they won't do anything. 159/98 is too high. They said it was due to his worry about his mother. Gee, its been 9 months now. They said he needed sleep studies for his sleep apnea. We can't get them to schedule the test. Now who's going to schedule it if not them? They won't let me.

We saw someone different every time we went so we basically have stopped going. From talking to friends at work not all offices run this way so even though I have been going there since I was a wee child I will be changing. After all, we have outlived all our original doctors anyway. Why stay. For what I pay for insurance I want to be able to use it. Rick and I are getting older. I want to make sure they are on top of things and can ward them off. Both my parents were diabetics by my age. I am trying hard not be. I want my Doc on my side. Not too much to ask. Right!

What a Deal

We had a on line auction in our paper the other day and they had a bent willow love seat similar to the one above. I bid on it but not a huge amount. Few days later it said I didn't meet the reserve and hadn't won. I wasn't surprised since they wanted about 275 more then I bid, LOL. However.....2 days later I get a email that they were accepting my bid. Wow. For $85 dollars I just got a $352.95 love seat! For now it is in my old van and I will move it the basement during the winter. How cool is that. I couldn't get a picture as it is raining cats and dogs right now. I have always wanted one and next year if things aren't too bad we plan on putting in a patio. This will be perfect on it.

Later on we are going to eat at the Texas Roadhouse for supper for my son's birthday. I haven't eaten there yet. So many restaurants I haven't eaten at. We have cut way back on our eating out and expect to be cutting back alot more. darn, I love not having to cook.

My next weekend off we are going to DeSoto National Wildlife Reserve to see the snow geese migration, or maybe 2 weeks after that. They usually post when the best time for photo's is. I am looking forward to getting some shots. Hopefully they will turn out well. I also ordered a Macro lens today. I was torn between this lens or the 70 - 200 but will get that one next year. One thing at a time.

Should You be allowed To Vote?

I got this from Emmi's site. Food for thought. Must admit to doing this with my hubby but except for 2 my answers were the same as his. Take the test, come on, I double dog dare ya.

You Should Be Allowed to Vote

You got 15/15 questions correct. Generally speaking, you're very well informed. If you vote this election, you'll know exactly who (and what) you'll be voting for. You're likely to have strong opinions, and you have the facts to back them up.

Should You Be Allowed to Vote?

My Sons Birthday

Something strange has happened. My oldest son turns 33 today. How could that be? I couldn't possibly be old enough to have a 33 year old son. Why it was just yesterday I had him. I was in labor 3 days waiting for him to come. Back then you had natural childbirth. No epidurals. Not that the mothers weren't begging for them. They just made you feel quilty and said no.

He was a cutie pie and a good baby after he outgrew the colic. Except for some horrible teen years he has grown into a very nice man. I haven't aged a day but he looks wonderful.

We are going out to eat. I won't be making him a birthday cake as he is on weight watchers and unlike his momma, doing great. Love You Luke

OMG, bring on the coffee

Have you read the headlines today? Excessive coffee results in shrinking breast tissue. Horrors.

Once my doctor figured out how much coffee I drink a day. Lets see. My coffee cups holds 3 cups of coffee. I drink coffee from the minute I wake up at 3 until around 4 am. I double the strength of my coffee because......... well gee, I work nights. It averaged out to around 5 pots of coffee a day, on a slow day. And you know what? My breasts never shrunk. In fact if you have read my journal for a long time you know I had many inches removed from my over endowed much unappreciated too big for cute bra object of years of unwanted false attention, source of severe and painful back discomfort and simple ugly huge oversized breasts.

So whats up with this new unfounded and false in my eyes claim? In fact, my coffee intake has increased recently, unfortunately so has my bra size. You can't fool mother nature. I was intended to have planet size breasts and by god, I was going to have them. Wanted or not.

So here is what I think. Drink that coffee, have a chocolate bar, drink a nice beer, Jimmy have a Martini on me. If it was meant to kill you it will, otherwise Karma rules. You just can't fool mother nature or the laws of the universe.

Check out my Photo blog

I add all my new photo's to my journal blog. Check them out.

Monday Monday

Good morning blog land. Seems strange not to say J-land. Should it be B-land? Hummm.
So far this morning I have been busy getting my pictures ready to post. I will be posting most of them on my photo blog. Check it out if you haven't been there and remember.......click on the picture for a bigger view. The picture above I played with and like the way it turned out. I like the original though also.

We are both going to the hairdresser today. Rick is torn between growing his hair back and getting it cut. I want him to cut it. I liked it short. I liked it long but now that its all gray I like it better short. I am getting my hair trimmed and highlighted. We will both look so good we will have to go out on the town tonight. We be bad.

Listening to the news today I find we weren't the only ones being attacked by the killer beetles. Seems the warm weather brought them out in mass to ruin a otherwise lovely day. And did you know these were a introduces species gone bad. Everytime they do that, introduce a species to control a different species it goes bad. Look at the rabbit population in Australia or killer bees. You just don't mess with Mother Nature. She had it all figured out if we would just leave it alone.

Kind of like the human body. It is a wonderful marvelous thing. When working perfectly it is something we can't duplicate, even with cloning. We can do alot with medicine these days but nothing is as good as it was originally. Now tell me that was a accident.

A lot of the photo's I took yesterday are Iowa farmland at its end of season. The farmers are all out gathering the grain and putting the fields to rest for the year. The smell this time of year, spicy earthy smell and the crunch of leaves under your feet as you flee down the hill. I just love it. Although snow gets old I do love the seasons. Fall is too short though and winter too long. But as you can tell by Zoey's face, its all good. She had just got done with a dip in the lake.

Well time to visit you all. Bye

Attack of the killer Asian Lady Beetles

We did decide to go and try and get some pictures and do some hiking today. I love fall.

We drove to this country spot we like to hike in. Zoey was thrilled to be out and immediately hit the tall grass. All I could see was the tip of her tail wagging. We climbed to the top of the hill with me taking some shots along the way.

It seemed like every time I stopped one or two of those pesty beetles would land on me. They look like cute little lady bugs..... but they're not. I am not fond of them because they bite. Also they stink. If you squash them they stain what they were squashed on orange. So I don't care for them. The further in we got the more seemed to be around. Stopping was not longer an option. You started to get covered if you stopped.

Rick! Lets go back, I yelled. Just then one flew in my ear. Yikes! Turning I started running down the hill. I could hear Zoey and Rick right behind me. All of a sudden it didn't seem like such a nice day. All of a sudden it seemed like something out of a B horror flick. Tiny little hard shelled bodies landing and biting right and left.

Bolting to the van I was horrified to see it covered with hundreds of the creepy critters. I stopped in my tracks giving the few thousand chasing me time to catch up. ARRRGGGHHH. They were in my hair, down my blouse, crawling up my pant legs. There I danced in the parking lot madly swatting and screeching the bugs off me and finally made a dash in the van. Not without about 8 hitching a ride. Panting I looked out the window. There danced Rick, madly swatting and jumping around in circles looking like a mad man. A car slowly drove by with the occupants faces pressed against the window trying to figure out what was going on. Looks of horror and amusement on their faces. What a picture we were. Finally he leaped into the van gasping for breath and we planned our get a way.

The windshield and all windows were covered. We turned on the wipers to the added gruesome vision of millions of hard shelled bodies being smeared against the glass. Looking out we could see a huge cloud of bugs everywhere we looked. OMG. We were being invading.

Don't open the windows, Rick gasped and we took off through the swarm. As we drove like mad we went around the corner to see a motorcycle innocently driving the other way. Right into the swarm around the corner.
No, we yelled waving our arms like mad. The man happily waved back and continued on. Should we turn around I asked? He may need help! It's too late my husband moaned, he's had it.

Needless to say I didn't quite get the pictures I wanted today. We did manage to capture some shots around 10 miles away. But we were wary. One of us kept watch. They live.....they live.

I will post some pictures later. Most you can't tell I was running in them. I didn't know this would be such a dangerous hobby. I sure am glad I was feeling better

Sleeping late

The one good thing about having the crud is you finally get to catch up on all the sleep you have missed out on in the last month. Of course you do it in 2 days by sleeping 12 to 18 hours a day and your body is stiff and sore from laying in one position that long, but you have to admit, you haven't slept that good and that long in a long time.

I have my yearly crud I get this time of year. Your sad and depressed your lovely long summer is gone, bike riding finished for another year. Your co-worker reminds you that you get to work 13.5 hours this weekend and they shorted you on your check. Might as well throw a illness into the mix to really make your spirits sore. Oh yeah, bring it on. I can handle it.

I had a old boss once that used to tell me change was good whenever we had a new change of policy at work that usually involved us working more and taking on more responsibilities. Oh Yeah! I would challenge. Well what about those nose hairs, and gee aren't those body aches and pain a thrill. don't you just love the fact that you have to get up every few hours to pee and that your breasts are now nestled on your tummy next to your navel. Yup, change is just thrilling, LOL.

Use to be when I was ill I would still go to work and if I was off I wouldn't let that stop me from going out with friends and having a good time. Now I crawl into my bed and do the deep sleep. Wake up every few hours to pee and see if I still feel like crap. If I do, back to bed. I don't fight it anymore. The warrior in me has long gone. Now I use it as an excuse not to do anything and catch up on sleep.

And I can sleep. Without a sleeping pill, in the middle of a movie, no book keeps me awake. When I have the crud that is all I can do. Rick almost held a mirror to my mouth this morning to see if I was still breathing. I crawled out of bed at 10 today and guess what? The worse is over. I have been awake for a record hour and a half. I may go out for the photo shoot by the lake I wanted to do earlier this week.

I will live. Yippy.