Daylilies

I'm having one of those weeks that I don't know what day it is - I think it's Wednesday but then sometimes I think it's Thursday.  Monday night when I got home from work I noticed the daylilies that Mike had planted several years ago in the planter around the tree on our parking looked really pretty with the sun hitting them just right so I took some pictures with my phone camera.  The yellow daylilies on the backside of the planter took a beating during the storm we had Sunday night.

Work is going good - still learning but they are actually letting me do things to live projects.  They either watch me do whatever needs to be done - or I do it and then they check me.  One gal is really getting into our unofficial company mud volleyball team that plays on 7/16 :)  She bought the guy that will cheer with me (he has a bad knee) our little cheerleading equipment pictured below - even company colors.  She found these at the Dollar Store.  She's on a quest for green duct tape to tape shoes to feet while in the mud pits and green bandanas for everyone too.

The guy that will be the other cheerleader with me is quite the reader too - reading some of the same authors I read.  He and his dad buy books when they come out in hard back - then share them with each other.  He's given me Michael Connelly's latest book to read and give back to him when I finish it.  I mentioned Tom Clancy has a new book out and he told me he would probably buy it and when he was done with it he would let me borrow it - he's also going to bring in Tom's last book for me to read since the WDM library doesn't have it.  I explained how I'm a "library girl".

Butler had a bad day yesterday.  I got home from work and he was laying on the kitchen floor by the table, next to the wall.  He'd peed and then sweated and gotten dehydrated - who knows how long he'd laid like that.  I got him up and his legs weren't working very good - he'd keep falling back on the floor - sometimes almost doing summersalts.  I got him outside and he did go head over heels a few times.  We got upstairs and I laid hands on him praying - and making sure he drank lots of water.  He didn't do much during the evening and wasn't overly active this morning either.  When I left for work I was pretty upset - even though I'd prayed for him again this morning.  I wasn't sure if today wasn't the day to take him to the vet to put him down.  I called home on my lunch hour - actually I debated whether I should call or not - but Dad said Butler seemed to be perking up laying on the couch barking at him a lot.  That's always a good sign.  When I got home his back legs weren't working the best and we struggled to get outside and struggled outside.  He's tough.  He's not overly active but he wasn't happy when I left him downstairs to take everything upstairs before I came back downstairs to get him - he barked and barked and barked at me.  I've given Butler to God and while I want him around forever I know that doesn't happen with pets but I'm hopeful God wants him to hang around a little while longer for me.

Last night my cousin texted me and as we're texting she lets me know her dad is talking to my dad on the phone, so I go downstairs to tell Dad to tell Uncle Gerald "hi" for me and then show Dad that Jana and I are texting.  I thought it was kind of funny at least :)

Baptism at Easter Lake and Potluck

Today I was able to do something that I hadn't been able to do since early February - bring my tithe into the storehouse per Malachi 3:10 and I was excited about it.  I was taught to tithe as a very young child and it was automatic for me ever since I earned money to give 10% as my tithe.  But I hadn't been earning money since early February so when Friday rolled around as my first payday at Submittal Exchange the first thing I did after noting my automatic payroll deposit in my check register was write my tithe check.

During church we had testimonies from believers that were going to be baptised after church at Easter Lake and one of those testifying was my friend Lynn's hubby, Ken.  Lynn is the one that invited me to LWF and it's been an amazing story how Ken was saved in February and now he was getting baptised.  But before testimonies, the little kidlets sang a couple of songs - one of my favorites "I'm In The Lord's Army" and they said John 3:16.

After church and after helping with some of tear down, Dad and I headed to Easter Lake to find a spot to put our chairs and visit with people until we had prayer over our food and headed to the beach area for baptism.  It was a little sad - before the prayer a good friend gave a testimony about how much LWF has meant to him this past year because Thursday he will be leaving for Portland, OR for a great opportunity God has given him.  Curt will be missed.

Enjoy the photos of the little kidlets lining up to sing - I was so enthralled watching them sing I forgot to take any more pictures of them - of the baptism service and then church fellowship at the potluck.

At work if you donated a specific amount of money you are able to wear jeans Mon-Thurs, along with Friday being jeans day this week with your donation going to Youth Emergency Shelter Services (Y.E.S.S.).  I made the donation so I'm a wearin' jeans all week :)

Rain and DSM Art Show (The Other Art Show)

Couple of things from yesterday.  Outside of Tattoo Dave I believe there are now a total of two men who have seen my actual tattoo - one is Dad and the other is my pastor as of yesterday :)  The pair of shorts I changed into after coming home from work allowed me to lift up the leg of my shorts to show him my ink - not sure how thrilled he was to see it but see it he did :)

And here's the photo of our company grill that didn't upload correctly yesterday - not too shabby.  Can cook a few burgers on this baby.  To the right of the open door you can see a little of the garage door I have talked about that we open.

When I woke up this morning I was excited for the day - painting the house with lots of my friends from church being here - but it was sprinkling.  One of the first things I do when I get up is plug in my phone so it can charge in the bathroom upstairs and off downstairs I went to do lots of things before everyone got here at 8:00 a.m.

About 7:45 a.m. I headed back upstairs to put on sunscreen - even though it was lightly raining - I was being positive that the sun would be coming out - and realized I had a voicemail from my small group leader.  I listened to the voicemail and Rob said it looked like we needed to postpone the painting until next Saturday.  He would call me back after Pastor Josh checked with the painter providing the equipment, paint, etc., to see if next Saturday worked for him.  By the time I finished listening to Rob's first voicemail, his second voicemail was waiting for me saying we were shooting for next Saturday.

I texted Rob back and we shot a few text messages back and forth with me saying God must have a reason for the rain and we'll try next Saturday.  I already have an idea why God is thinking next Saturday which is the Saturday of the 4th of July weekend - I'll see if my idea squares with God's plan.  I also mentioned in a text message that I wished I would have listened to Rob's voicemail BEFORE putting on the sunscreen :)  Then Rob texted me saying how the different smiley icons on my text message app made him think of Mr. Miaggi and Dilbert and I replied that I was now worried about him.

So......I had a day "free" that I wasn't expecting.  A little before 10:00 a.m. Dad and I headed out to the library for me to get some books and then the grocery store - and then I headed to the Other Art Show at the Fairgrounds in the Varied Industries Building.  I had hoped to go to the show but figured it would be tomorrow after church - God let me go to the show today.  While Mike and I enjoyed the DSM Art Festival that is downtown on the street, if the weather is bad or it's hard to find a place to park, we didn't always go to it - and the art downtown was not "our style".  The art at the Fairgrounds is what we - I - like.

I'm very picky about what I buy but when something "hits" me and I like it - I buy it.  I came around the corner of one of the rows and a few vendors into the row was this guy that his art jumped out at me and I immediately fell in love with.  He had large, unframed canvas prints that were quite pricey - and I told him to keep coming back each year (he's from Miami) - and some day I hoped I would be able to buy a canvas.  But for now I'd have to settle on his smaller prints and here's what I bought.

Then I go down a few more rows and see a booth where an artist has made beautiful work with different sizes of ceramic tiles and this one immediately jumped out at me.  If you can't read what it says to the left of the single beach chair it's "Life is good" which it is, and you see me wear in tons of my Life Is Good t-shirts.  The single beach chair represents me and this will go on my enclosed front porch with the Caribbean theme once the walls are painted, the windowsills redone and carpet put down.  I'll try to put it on the wall near my pink adirondack chair Mike made for me.

So while today didn't go as planned - it was a good day.  Tomorrow at church will be testimonies of those that will be baptised after church at Easter Lake.  This will be a first for me to head with everyone else to Easter Lake for baptism and then a church potluck - looking forward to it!

My First BBQ

Today's theme at work was baseball and I totally forgot I had bought Mike and I both Red Sox shirts when I was in Boston for a CALEA Conference when I worked for the WDM PD - remembered this after I got to work today.  All I could come up with was digging through Mike's caps and found the Milwaukee Brewer's cap I bought for him when I was in Milwaukee August '09 when I trained a support group for our team when working at Wells Fargo.

Our Wellness Committee sponsors a half hour walk every other Friday at 11:30 so today I walked with 7-8 other co-workers before our monthly BBQ.  It was a beautiful day to be outside.

I'm not sure why my photo of Brad grilling didn't load correctly - I wanted you to see our company grill :)  We had a competitive game of bags going with so many points if your bag goes through the hole and some many points if your bag lands on the board.  The first team to 21 wins.  And I learned that there is a regulation distance the bag boards must be apart - who wouda thunk right?!

And you guys thought I was kidding when I said we played fuseball during our BBQ's right - nope.  The gent in the foreground is supposedly the company champ.  Some day I'll get a pic of some peeps playing darts.  FYI this room is also our main conference room, server room for the computer system, game room, dining room when we have BBQ's and it has an overhead garage door that we open on days like today during lunch.

One of my co-workers asked if I'd like to be on a mud volleyball team during the Dallas County Fair.  I never said "yes" even though a little part of me would like to do this.  Today I said I would be their cheerleader along with another co-worker that can't play because of his knee.  And since everyone is aware that I will usually have my camera with me when we do BBQ's, etc., I've become the unofficial company photographer :)

After work I came home to some people scraping the house to get it ready for the HUGE crew of people from my church tomorrow that will be painting!  I am still amazed so many are willing to have a servant's heart to do this project.  Pastor Josh and I were talking before he left tonight - he was the main scraper today - that we are expecting an awesome day tomorrow with everyone.  Trust me - there will be pix :)

I mowed both lawns and Dad did some weed eating to get that out of the way - so the lawn looks great - and by the end of the day tomorrow the house will look great too.

My oldest grandchild - Haleigh - will be graduating from her high school in New York!  It doesn't seem possible - it seems like only a few years ago Mike and I were holding her that first Christmas Casey and his family were able to spend with us when Haleigh was a little over a month old.

Rain ~ Grass ~ Painting the House (Finally)

I don't know where you live but it has rained like crazy some of the past few nights - actually mornings.  Dad and I were looking at my lawn tonight and I had mowed it Saturday - actually Dad mowed my backyard which I will address in a second - and it looks like the yard needs to be mowed again!  Dad thought he was doing something nice - which he was - by mowing my backyard Saturday but as I firmly told him he shouldn't have done that at his age and with his aneurysm.  He did say as he was picking up sticks before he mowed that when he bent down to pick up one stick he realized it was a dead snake - guess I ran over another snake with the mower and didn't even know it - blick.  Am very glad I didn't find that body.

This morning Dad wanted to make sure I was awake so he yelled VERY LOUDLY up the stairs my name - before my alarm had gone off at 5:30 and scared the crap out of me.  One - my alarm had not gone off yet and B - I had already decided that I could sleep an extra 20 minutes and still get around in time.  Well it took that extra 20 minutes to get my heart settled down from being scared half to death from a sound sleep.  I mentioned to Dad tonight at supper that if he ever yelled like that again up the stairs he better be in need of help and that's the only reason to yell like that up the stairs.

Then when I finally got up and was taking Butler through the kitchen to go outside to go potty - there was Dad in the corner - in the dark and scared the crap out of me again.  I think I muttered to myself, "he's lucky I don't kill him in his sleep" or something to that affect.  Needless-to-say my day got off to an interesting start.

Some of you know how Mike's old boss organized (and collected funds) to paint our/my house last year but unfortunately the house didn't get painted.  Mike's boss and co-workers wanted to do something nice for us because Mike spent so much time off-hours being called out to deal with City buildings and also working so hard during the day while being ill - that when Mike got home at night and on the weekend the last thing he wanted to deal with was work on painting our house.  Mike's boss retired from the City as of 12/31/10 and some of the folks attempted to get enough people rounded up to paint the house the first Sat/Sun in May this year but it fell through.  Then I was approached to see if I couldn't get a crew together to paint my house to which I told the guy (a vendor that the City used for some projects) I could not in good conscience go to people and ask them to give of their time to paint my house.  Long story short - my small group leader stopped by to talk insurance and I shared the story of how the house should have been painted last year - he thought it would be a great service project for some of the men of our church - and if the weather cooperates - this Friday and Saturday some men from my church will scrape and paint my house!  I prayed about this project and gave it to God a long time ago never dreaming men from my church would take this on.  The only thing that could get in the way this weekend is the weather - which I again prayed and gave to God.  If it rains - God has a reason.

I found out at our monthly all company meeting today that Friday is our monthly BBQ for lunch and everyone is suppose to wear their favorite baseball team's t-shirt.  Don't have that so I'll see what I can come up with.  I was also forwarded our company social events for the rest of the year which include a golf outing in July (don't have any clubs but I'll go and have fun), company picnic in August, some sort of Iowa/Iowa State rivalry the whole week leading to that game in September and then our Christmas party (yes it's called a Christmas party) in December.

Dad said Mom is continuing to improve - she's still using the walker but the goal is to get her strength up so she won't be using it and they are moving her to more solid food instead of blending all her food.

And Butler has been a very good boy each day I've gone to work - only two or three poopy accidents.  He has waited to go pee until I let him out when I get him home - which includes tonight with me trying to get the duct tape tab from his Speedo loose and ended up having to get scissors again from the junk drawer to "free" him.  And his boo boo on his butt seems to be healing!

Father's Day

Dad went to church with me today and we listened to a good sermon on being a good father.  Pastor Josh spoke from Ephesians 5:25-29 and 6:4.

It was a little bittersweet for me because the verses state how, "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her....."  I know Mike definitely did that for me.  Pastor said the most important thing to being a good father and making a marriage work was to love your wife and Mike definitely did that.  I look back at our marriage and think Mike was the better partner at loving, caring and doing the little things for me than I did for him.

When Pastor read Ephesians 6:4, "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger...." I just sat there and didn't look at Dad or anything.  He leaned over to me and pointed out that part of the verse and kind of chuckled - we'd been having some issues with that since he'd moved in June 1st - but we had had a good chat about those issue last night.

As we left, all the men got a packet of super glue which Dad was pretty tickled to get.  I wondered if the men would get anything for Father's Day since the ladies all received an herb starter garden kit and a petunia bloom.  DeVon who was handing out the super glue made me chuckle.  I was introducing her to Dad (like I did to everyone at church) and she said something to the effect that she knew immediately that he was my father without having to be introduced.  When I was a little kid I could have one adult tell me I looked exactly like my mother and the very next adult tell me I looked exactly like my father - guess through the years with both of us aging the family "look" is still there :)

So I was very lucky - my dad was a good father who raised me up well and my husband was a good husband who loved me like the Bible commanded.

After church Dad wanted to take me to dinner and I suggested Culver's thinking he'd eaten there before - I was wrong - it was a new experience for him and I got a strawberry sundae out of the deal as dessert.

I found one picture of the fire truck spraying water at Summer Splash on our church's Facebook page.  The fire truck is to the left of the shed and you can see the beginning of the arc of water so imagine the water arcing still a little higher and then how far the water shot over the kids.  The reason the picture is a little "hazy" below the arc of water is the water coming down in a mist over the kids (and adults) getting wet.

The planter is on the landing going into my house - I took this picture today after church.  All the flowers are really taking off.  The little pot in front is my Mother's Day petunia bloom from church.

This past week I received a CD copy of Mike's CaringBridge web site - I finally remembered to let them know they could release that space in their system for another family to use.  I received an email asking if I'd like a complimentary CD copy of Mike's site to which I answered yes.  I put it in the laptop tonight to take a quick look.  I never went back to the site after 9/26/10 when I said that was my last post but I found two friends had posted comments after 9/26.  I read their posts which were both very special - thanks Sheryl L. and Bonnie S.

Summer Splash ~ Graduation ~ More

I have my first week under my belt at Submittal Exchange and already I have seniority over two people!  We have a new Tech person coming on board July 1st and they are hiring another person for the Marketing Department.  I learned we have a few company committees that employees are encouraged to volunteer for each December for the next year (Social Committee, Green Committee, etc.).  And music to my ears - we recycle EVERYTHING!!!!  Some of us ordered pizza Wednesday for lunch and we recycled the pizza boxes.  We recycle the paper towels used in the bathrooms (if people put them in the green recycle trash bin in the bathroom), etc.  I really am in 7th Heaven.  Friday is jeans day and the last week of June which is a short week, for a specific monetary donation you are able to wear jeans that Monday - Thursday with the money going to a local charity that was determined by the company.

This past week my church hosted Summer Splash - our summer Vacation Bible School.  I had originally planned on helping but then with starting a new job and leaving Butler all day I didn't think I should run home, let him out and then run off for the evening - but I did help the last night (Thursday) when we served hot dogs to everyone.  We had 500 hot dogs, chips and beverages for everyone and I think I opened at least 400 hot dog buns :)  Below are a couple of pictures from that night.  A highlight that night was the HUGE aka GIGANTIC fire truck from the DSM Airport coming to spray water on the kids before the hot dogs.  I could not believe the power of the water - how high the arch of the water sprayed (they need to put fires out on airplanes, duh) - and how far the spray of water went - utterly amazing.

We had 132 or 136 kids the last night - almost double from last year's attendance I've heard.  The kids are listening to Pastor Josh before the fire truck and hot dogs.

The white t-shirt guys are the good guys and the blue t-shirt guys were pirates or something - remember I wasn't there every night to know how LWF adapted Noah and the ark :)  But blue t-shirt guys were sinners that clung to the ark and were saved from the flood and saved by God so they could go to heaven.  The three middle guys are Pastor Josh, Assistant Pastor Greg and our Music Director Ben.

Remember the weekend when Dad was up in May to help me plant some flowers and start demolition on the enclosed front porch?  Well my yellow hibiscus for some reason decided it wasn't going to bloom any more but finally this past week it started blooming again :)

 

Today was a hugely momentous (sp and is that even proper grammar) day for my niece Chrissy.  After two long years she received her DOUBLE Masters degree from the University of Phoenix!  The graduation ceremony was at Hoyt Sherman which is an awesome landmark in DSM.  Marcia my sis-in-law (who just got back from a two week Alaskan cruise last night) and Chrissy's two boys were there along with three of Chrissy's halfsisters and their famies.  One of Chrissy's halfsisters took this pix of us (me, Colton, Chrissy, Tanner, Marcia).  While it was a great day for Chrissy - it was one of those bittersweet days wishing her dad and Marcia's hubby Ron (Mike's brother) and Mike would have been able to have been there too to help celebrate.

Mom is doing better - she was moved to the geriatric floor of the mental health wing of Lutheran Wednesday afternoon so Dad is back with me.  She is getting around a lot more and eating a lot better Dad said.  She is still using a walker to get around because her blood pressure is low making her a fall risk and while she was in the actual hospital after her seizure she wasn't out of bed all that much.

Finally - a Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there - especially my dad even though he's a stubborn, old fart at times and has made life interesting since "moving in" on June 1st.  And I am my father's daughter so I have that genetic trait too :)

So What Do I Do At My Job?

Let me just say that someone who will remain nameless but has four legs, a tail and a hole in his butt better let me sleep all night tonight :)  For some reason he (again nameless) woke me up at 3:00 a.m. this morning and didn't let me go back to sleep - not good when I'm in training all day to learn a new job.

He looks so innocent here doesn't he?  Looks can be deceiving especially at 3:00 a.m. :)

Anyway - what do I do at Submittal Exchange?  My title is Project Guide and I am a member of the Client Experience Team (CET).  Once Sales has a signed contract for our product it is handed off to our team and we have two Team Leads that will determine which Project Guide will be assigned the new project to handle or work.

We are the go between with our client and Submittal Exchange.  If something has to be developed for our client (a special form, etc.) we work with our Web Development (Web Dev) department.  We have two people on the CET who are Client Experience Specialists that are "techies" that handle a lot of questions that come in via the telephone about our system and they also enter projects into the system.

I will do online training with our clients, architects, general contractors, subs, etc., via a Net Meeting-type system (via the telephone and our computers) for those not familiar with our product.  When everyone calls in to Go To Meeting and logs in a meeting code they will then see my computer screen and hear me over the phone give the training and they can ask questions.

If after the online training the client still has questions, they are able to contact me via telephone or email - or again call our help line and talk to a Client Experience Specialist or another member of the CET to have their question answered.  Once all the bugs are worked out of their specific project for our application - the client then uses our application on their own.  If they have another construction project they wish to use our system on - they go through Sales to sign a contract - to be assigned to a CET to help setup this project and do any training necessary for people that are not familiar with our system, etc.

This system is amazing.  The sub can upload a .pdf form of a spec of a part to a construction project and have it sent to the next person to approve, make notes, changes, etc.  That person can upload their file and send either back for changes or forward to the next person to approve.  Once a file is uploaded and sent to the next person, an email notification is automatically sent to that person alerting them they have a file for that construction project that needs their attention.  Each part of the process goes through these steps until it is approved and there is a complete history for everyone to see once logged into Submittal Exchange.  We also have a LEED (green) application that a client can purchase if they want their project to be LEED certified.

I find all this amazing and interesting and will enjoy learning the construction industry.

We also had a meeting with a company that is going to start looking for new facilities for our company because we have no more room where we are located.  It was funny when we listed items that were important to what we were looking for, a biggie was having room for our social area.  Evidently they BBQ at least once a month and have other company functions at the building - along with trying to have monthly company outings.  Last week the June outing was a Cubbie game.

Mom's biopsy report came back today with good news.  They thought the spot was filled with liquid but when they did the biopsy they found out it was a mass - but the mass was not malignant.  We are all very thankful for that report!

First Day Of Work

Thank you to everyone that emailed me and/or posted a message on Facebook wishing me good luck today on my first day at my new job and that you were saying prayers for me.  The day went well - not what my manager had hoped for since the other new person and I didn't have our computers or phones but we were flexible - sat in on some meetings, got a high-level overview of the company and more - plus were taken out to lunch.

The good news was we were taken out to lunch - the bad news was that a typhoon hit about a half hour before we wanted to leave for lunch and we finally had to brave some of the typhoon to drive to lunch.  It was raining so hard water was coming in under our front doors.  And we have a metal roof on our building so you could really hear the rain coming down.

I'm not sure if I have technically mentioned the name of the company I am working for but it's Submittal Exchange and I found out on our web site (http://www.submittalexchange.com/) that we were named by Inc magazine as one of the winners of the 2011 Top Small Company Workplace competition.  Some of our management staff will be traveling to Texas later this week to accept our award.

I was wondering how Butler would do being alone all day, I said a special prayer about him last night.  This morning I duct taped his Speedo around him really good, got him settled on his unboo booed hip and told him to be good.  I got home and he was on the floor (couldn't get up but not panicking), the floor was wet but when I let him go outside his Speedo had not been peed in so I think he had sweat some on the floor while laying there.

Talked to Dad and he said the biopsy procedure for the spot on Mom's lung went smoothly and they may get the results tomorrow.  The physical therapist got her up and walking more today and Mom seemed to be more talkative today but still tired.

It's amazing how pooped I am without doing much today.  Gonna read for a while.

Big Day Tomorrow

Yesterday I learned that gas goes bad - evidently.  All the lawn mower place could find wrong with my mower was I had bad gas, they drained the gas, put fresh gas in and the mower worked just fine.  I was able to pick up my mower yesterday morning and got it out of Dad's trunk on my own.  I had some other errands to run and then headed down to the hospital to pick up Dad to come home with me so he could pick up some more things and take his car back to the hospital - I had his car since Thursday night when I had taken him down to stay with Mom.

I had planned to go to the ladies night out our church had planned but between running errands, needing to mow the lawn and some other things it just didn't work out - poo.  If I hadn't mowed the lawn yesterday I would have had to mow it today and again I don't like doing that on Sunday and there was no way I wanted to come home Monday after 6:00 p.m. (my first day at my new job) and then mow.  Good news was I only saw one snake and it was a baby - bad news I saw one snake so I'll be calling the pest people again.

And last night one time when Butler went down on his behind when he didn't have good footing he must have ripped one of the two sutures out that was holding his bed sore/hole in place because he started bleeding.  I got the bleeding under control - it wasn't too bad - and put a bandaid on him.  This morning I checked it and saw there was a small hole so I'll probably take him to the emergency animal hospital in a little while to have them put more sutures in to close the hole so it can finish healing.

I went back down to the hospital last night to take Dad his laundry I had done yesterday and while I was there my uncle/his brother called my cell phone so it worked out they could talk and Dad gave my uncle the phone number to Mom's room.  Mom is doing so/so.  She's not eating a lot.  She's pretty tired - a lot could still be due to recovering from the seizure Thursday night.  Tomorrow they are going to biopsy a spot on her lung - I wish they would have done this last week when I wasn't working so I could be there with Dad during the test......we found out about the biospy late Friday afternoon.

I've gotten things together to take to my new job tomorrow (a couple of things for my desk) but need to decide what to wear and get it ready.  I'm really excited to start my job but a little emotional because Mike isn't here to be encouraging tonight, not here in the morning to wish me luck with a hug and kiss, and then won't be here tomorrow night for me to share all the scoop of my first day.  Butler's going to get an earful.  And it will be interesting to see how Butler does being alone all day - it's been since early February since then.  I think I'll be duct taping his Speedo around him tomorrow in case he can't wait until I get home without having an accident.  I duct tape around the front of the Speedo to make it tight against him so he isn't able to "free Willy" like he had learned to do.....

Frasier Friday and More

Frasier Friday!!!!!  And I'm blogging while watching tv so hopefully this will make sense :)

We had quite the hail storm yesterday morning and then typhoon weather most of the day.  I went to the library and as I left I got DRENCHED and I was wearing my long, hooded raincoat.  After one step outside, the hood flies off, my coat flies open, my shorts get drenched, I get drenched, my shoes and socks get drenched - not pretty.  And I'm like, "crap my phone I can't get the replacement phone wet!!!"  Where do I put it???  I don't want to keep it in the pocket of the clutch I use, I can't put it in the pockets of my shorts because the front of my shorts are drenched, I finally was able to keep it dry as I ran in and out finishing my errands.

I meant to share something about when Dad was working on dinner the other night.  He was going to make cole slaw and for some reason decided he needed to cut the slaw - it looked ok to me.  Well, before I could stop him he grabs the scissors out of the junk draw (that should be your first hint) and starts cutting away.  Finally I found my voice to scream, "don't use those scissors!"  Only heaven knows what all I've cut with them.  Dad's like, "these aren't your food cutting scissors?"  I just look at him and then say, "why would you think I would have food scissors?"  Dad said he would pray extra hard over dinner that night.

I've been using Qwest's Live Chat a few times to get bugs worked out with going from MSN to Q.com and even though I wasn't sure if the Tech could help I explained the issue about not being able to get my Q.com email on my cell phone.  The Tech gave all the information I could take with me to Verizon for them to setup my Q.com email account.  Well, later yesterday I thought I'd give it a whirl - I had no clue if I was encrypted or not because you had to choose one port for encrypted and a different port if you weren't but whatever I did I'm getting my Q.com email on my phone!

I treated myself to a massage yesterday afternoon with a scalp treatment add-on.  I had no idea that there were oils involved that would be rubbed throughout my hair - I was just going to be greatful someone would rub my head.  Well, right after my massage I was going to meet - for the first time - the lady that is going to work with me to refinance the house - and my hair would be an oily mess.  Oh well.  And my hair was getting longer because I was waiting for my haircut appointment today to have a good, fresh "look" Monday at my job.  So with wild, oily hair I meet Rita the refinance lady.

Last night we got a call from the hospital that while they were moving Mom to a different room she had a seizure.  Once they got her settled, they would call us and I told Dad I would drive him down to spend the night in Mom's room with her.  Dad thought he could drive and I told him NO I would drive him.  So in the midst of the storm down to Lutheran we go.  They were trying to get an I.V. started but Mom's elbows are so bruised from everything else (blood tests, etc.) they were having problems finding a vein.  An ER nurse couldn't even get an I.V. started.  Finally this morning a doctor ordered a PICC put in so they wouldn't have to keep poking her.

This morning I had to take my mower back to the place that gave it a spring check-up, it had been acting up.  Dad was going to help me put it in the trunk of his car but with him at the hospital with Mom I was going to attempt to put the mower in the trunk myself - nope.  I called Public Works to see if one of the guys on the street could pop by the house really quick to help me put the mower in the trunk and thank you to Bob D., he put the mower in and off I went.

I headed down to the hospital later this afternoon with some things Dad needed and to see how Mom was doing.  She was still tired but able to talk more, and was able to poke some fun at Dad staying with me.

And this morning Butler decided he wanted to jump on the bed - I told him, "no that's what started some of the problem with the boo boo on his butt, if he wanted on the bed I'd put him up there."

New Email ~ New Phone

Well yesterday for some reason I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep - I think it was Butler.  Today I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep and know it was Butler.  It was storming out and he's never been a dog that reacted to storms (neither did Milly) thank the good Lord but against what I'd rather be doing at that time I decided to take him outside and he peed and pooped.  To which I told him "good dog" and back upstairs we went. 

I decided to go online since my brain was going 90 mph but I was having issues logging into the Internet - the modem is downstairs in the office.  So downstairs I go at 5:00 a.m. trying to be quiet on the very creaky stairs.  I even tried to walk on the outside of the stairs like they say in mystery novels so the stairs wouldn't make any noise so I wouldn't wake up Dad in the guest bedroom - well no matter where you walk on my stairs you will make noise and lots of it.  And I had to go back downstairs a second time to unplug and replug in the modem.......

Yesterday I took Butler to the vet to check the boo boo on his butt and she said it looked great!  She was amazed that it looked like the open bedsore from a couple of weeks ago was actually trying to close itself.  I told her how I try to keep Butler off that side but I know if it was me I'd get tired of laying on only one side so I do let him lay on the boo boo hip once-in-a-while but not at nighttime.

Then after dropping Butler off at home - off to the Verizon store I go with my replacement phone to ask questions about my phone and hoping we can rescue my contacts.  As I got in the car to drive to the store I said, "God my contacts are in your hands.  I know this isn't a big deal in the scheme of things and if I have to re-enter everything by hand I will.  But....nothing is impossible for You."  Get to the store and my Droid is d-e-a-d.  The guy takes the Droid and HTC (replacement phone) in the back to see what he can do to bring up my contacts.  Comes back to me - no luck.  I was never told when I purchased my Droid that I could save/export my contacts to the SD card in the phone but I know now to do this :)  The guy asked if I happened to know what Gmail account I had for my Droid - I'm like no I honestly have no idea - he thought he might be able to synch my contacts that way.  We go through my questions and then need to create a Gmail account so I can download free applications to the new phone.  We try several email names but they have already been "taken" by someone else for Gmail accounts.  Sometimes I wonder about myself and am amazed that God doesn't slap me upside the head.  I finally look at the guy and say try this one:  mcfallroni and if it says it's "taken" that means that is my Gmail account for my Droid.  Mcfallroni was taken, after two tries at the password we were in my Gmail account for my Droid and the guy was able to pull my contacts and calendar over to my new phone!!!!!

Monday and Tuesday I had a handyman in working on the bathroom floor that I tore up a few months ago and he got it all done Tuesday and it looks pur-tee.  But there was a HUGE leak by the bottom of the toilet Tuesday night.  After my contacts were restored in my phone I called him to tell him about the leak so when he stopped by yesterday to drop off his bill, he looked at the problem and it was an "easy" fix.  He had to replace the screws that are inside the tank of the toilet.

Before, the dark parquet (sp?) peel n stick we had in the bathroom and you can see some of the subfloor.  I had all the subfloor exposed except under the toilet and had been walking on the subfloor for a few months.

After, really lightened up the bathroom :)  Good, old peel n stick from Lowe's.

I was also able to see my grief counselor yesterday, I hadn't seen her since early February.  It was kind of a "check up" like we said to tell her how I'd been doing, dealing with my first non-anniversary without Mike and the first anniversary of his passing and everything else.  She gave me a great quote and scripture:

   It's not what lies behind you

   ...nor what lies ahead of you

   but what lies within you that matters.  

              Ralph Waldo Emerson (she thinks)

   Psalms 122:8  ......peace be within you.

Another thing I've done is get a new email address.  I had MSN and as of June 30th if I want to stay with them I needed to sign up with them and pay a separate charge to MSN for my email.  I bundle my Internet and tv with Qwest already and was not going to pay an additional charge to MSN for email.  I thought I'd go with Gmail but had a horrid time trying to get through the process of setting up a Gmail account.  A couple of girlfriends from church advised to go with Hotmail and I could keep greyhound484@msn.com.  I did think about doing that but decided to switch to Qwest and go with a brand new email because.....I know Butler will not live forever and I'm not sure if I'll replace him or not so I didn't want my email to say greyhound.  And the numbers 484 in my email represented our anniversary (April 84).  Time for a change.  But I didn't want an email that would give any personal information away now that I'm single.  No mcfallroni61 or anything like that.  I wanted islandgirl but that had been "taken".  So I came up with islandgirl21@q.com.  Why?  Because Mike and I loved our times we were able to trade our timeshare in the Caribbean and we always said we should sell everything and just move to one.  21 because that is my birthdate (9/21).

Mom is doing a little better as of yesterday Dad said.  She is having an issue with her blood pressure too - it's a little low.

Last night at about 10:15 p.m. the tornado sirens go off and I'm like, "what in the world?" so I turn on the news - there is no weather going on outside at all.  The weather guy finally comes on and the first thing he says is that the tornado sirens in WDM had accidently gone off.....................



Another one of my pretty pink hibiscus from Tuesday :)

Dead Droid :(

Well it was an interesting day today.

My handy guy showed up at 8:00 to work on the bathroom floor upstairs - remember a while a go when I decided to pull up the old peel 'n stick floor, got the saws all out and almost got all the old under layment up?  John needed to pull the toilet, put down new under layment, lay my new peel n stick and reset the toilet. 

I had to mow and wanted to get at it early since it was going to be mid 90's today.  Front lawn all done right about the time the structural engineer showed up to check the crack on the porch.  He poked his head in the crawl space under the porch, looked at the crack on the outside and then on the inside of the enclosed porch.  Good news, he didn't see any structural damage to the foundation.  He thought something happened one time to make the porch kind of shift.  He told Dad and me to put flashing on the outside of the house to keep the water/rain/moisture out and then fill the crack on the inside really good, put tape over it like Mike had and we could paint the inside of the porch.  I thanked him for stopping by and asked if I owed him a trip charge and he said no - that he really hadn't done anything for me.  I told him that yes he had - he had eased my mind that there was no damage.

So off to the back yard I head to mow and guess what!?  If you guessed I saw a snake you would be correct and it was so fast it got under the fence into the "deadman's zone" between my yard and my neighbor's garage before Dad could kill it.  I had problems getting the mower to start but it did and I was going along ok until I got to the planter in the middle of the back yard and guess what?!  Another snake!  I stopped mowing and screamed at Dad who was working on the front porch and he came to the back yard but of course the snake was under the stone of the planter.  Again the mower gave me problems starting but if finally did and I finished mowing except for a little bit around the planter - we wanted the snake to get out into the yard for Dad to kill it.

So we waited and waited for the snake to reappear and it didn't.  By then I'd had it and I decided to see if snakes liked water or not and sprayed water all over the ground by the stone by the planter where the snake had gone under.  The nozzle of the sprayer got stuck on.  I had my Droid phone with me - the only time I've had it with me while working outside - because I had some phone calls that I was expecting to be returned.  I had just gotten off the phone with John who had run to buy something for the upstairs bathroom when the nozzle on the hose got stuck and somewhere in the midst of all that my phone got wet and DIED!  Wonderful - and I don't have a landline anymore.

So I shower and off to the Verizon store I go.  I'm told I have to call the toll free number to make a claim since I pay a monthly insurance charge for my phone.  I tell the guy I can't make a call since my phone is dead so they let me use a store phone.  My replacement will arrive sometime tomorrow.  The bad news is I don't know if I'll be able to recover my contacts or not - lovely.  A Verizon guy told me to put my phone in a baggie with rice to try to suck moisture out of the phone so it's sitting in a baggie.

I had left a voicemail over the weekend with the pest people about seeing and killing three snakes since they sprayed the snake repellent and then this morning I called to tell them about seeing the two live snakes (five snakes total since they sprayed).  They would call me back later this afternoon - but my phone died this morning so I wouldn't be able to get their call.  I was dealing with a bad headache this afternoon and after John left I was able to go upstairs and lay down.  Guess who showed up at 5:45 - the pest guy wanting to spray the snake repellent again.  I wasn't up to talking to him so Dad went outside and showed him where he'd killed the two snakes and we'd seen the snakes today. 

I tell ya if it's not one thing, it's something else.........  :)

My Chair

Yesterday I had a project to spray paint a chair Mike had built for me a long time ago - actually he was going to build one for him but he never got around to it.  My chair has sat on the enclosed front porch ever since Mike finished it, never used, with a basic coat of paint on it.  Now that I've got the paint for the front porch I decided the chair needed to be painted and I would use it.

I LOVE the color!  Dad help supervise and hold my glasses (I didn't want any spray paint to get on them).  He'd tell me where there were spots that needed to be painted and let me tell you there were a lot of sides and angles to this chair :)

This morning we ran some errands and one was to my bank for me to order checks - the first time to order checks since Mike passed.  It was sad to change the name information at the top of the check by only having me on the check - and that is only my first initial and last name.  Dad was waiting in the car for me and I told him that was sad to take Mike's name off our checks and got a little emotional.

Dad's big project while he's staying with me is to find as many snake holes in both yards as he can and fill them up with dirt so if snakes do come back to my yard, their old holes will be gone.  Supposedly snakes don't make their holes, they use old holes.  I don't need to mow until early next week so I got my weed eater out and weed eated some of my back yard where I "just knew" the snake hole was where the snake popped up on me Memorial Day.  Dad actually found the hole which was an old bunny hole (I knew it had been a bunny hole) and he filled it up good - he said it went way down into the ground.  I showed him where some other spots were where I thought holes were and one was by a ladder next to the house.  Dad moved the ladder, saw a snake skin, then saw two live snakes and killed them for me.  Then he came inside to get me to see if the bigger snake was the butt, ugly, dark snake - nope.  So 7 snakes killed and 2 I have chased out of my yard so far this year plus who knows how many repelled.

Dad said Mom was doing better yesterday and he's down at the hospital right now visiting her.



Butler's boo boo looks really good today - I'm sure everyone is so glad to hear that :)  And he's a turd.  Last night while Dad was working on supper (spaghetti chicken alfredo) Butler was "helping" while I was working in the office.  I decided to check on Butler and he's no where to be found.  I had left the door to the upstairs open and up I go - and there he was upstairs.  He'd gone upstairs all by himself and thank the good Lord he hadn't fallen as he went upstairs - sometimes he does and that's why I go behind him with my hand on his behind to help me.  I told him he was worse than a little kid and picked him up to carry him back downstairs - and closed the door on him.

I'm in the process of switching my MSN email to a Gmail account and trying to come up with an email name which is not easy.  I don't want my email to have anything "personal" in it (ronimcfall@gmail.com or rmcfall@gmail.com, etc.).  I thought I finally had a cute email name and then found out it had already been used by someone else - back to the drawing board.

Catching Up (Again)

Wow - it's been a week and a half since I blogged and a lot has gone on.

Last week Thursday the snake guys came to spray the snake repellent all over the lawn and as we were walking the lawn so I could show places of snake sightings - we saw a snake. Stomp, stomp by snake guy - dead snake.  After they sprayed the other snake guy (in training) told me he walked around again and at one place shook the ladder that there seems to be a snake hole behind and found a big garter snake - another dead snake, plus they took the snake that was killed Monday.  The snake repellent smelled like garlic and really opened my sinuses but I didn't care as long as it repelled snakes.

Then had a guy come to check the crack on the front porch where the porch is pulling away from the house - this has been ongoing for a while - I just uncovered how Mike had hidden it when he painted the porch the last time like 15+ years ago.  Repair guy was really nice but didn't think he could take care of that - I need to call a structural engineer and he gave me a name.  I'm waiting to hear back from the engineer to see if he wants to stop by.

I'm not sure if I've blogged about Butler's boo boo on his butt, but greyhounds have very thin skin and they cut very easily and when you add to that mix a very old, bony greyhound I'm honestly surprised Butler hasn't had more boo boos with as many falls as he's had with the stairs.  God must have guardian angels for dogs too :)  Somewhere along the line the boo boo turned into a bedsore with a small open hole that my vet didn't want to stitch shut because she would have to put him under and neither of us wanted to do that at his age and she wasn't sure if staples would even help.  Between some hydrogen peroxide, triple antibiotic and bandaids we were doing pretty good until Sunday night when he tried to jump onto the bed, missed and landed on his butt and there was blood everywhere. 

Let me just preface this by saying I woke up Sunday morning not feel right - thinking I was starting to get a cold and took some Zycam.  By noonish I had a full blown cold with sneezing and runny nose like you wouldn't believe.  I've never had a cold come on that fast in my life.  I felt like crap honestly and at 8:00 pm Sunday night I'm trying to get a bleeding dog into my car to go to the animal hospital.

This is what the floor of the exam room looked like after Butler had bled all over and then walked all through the blood.  I called it a mafia hit crime scene.  The doctor on call had seen Butler before - she's the one that had taken the lump off Butler's left side and did such an awesome job you can't even see where he'd had a HUGE incision there.  Anyway about 20 minutes later here comes Butler a little dopey because they had given him a local to deaden the pain and put in some sutures to close the bedsore - along with four temporary sutures to weave a shoe string through to hold padding next to the wound.  Of course they made all this look so nice and it looked nice until Butler fell into the foot well of the backseat getting him out of the car in the driveway, the padding got all bloody and I had to try to redo it with some of Mike's old socks which did NOT work.  And it didn't help that one of the four temporary sutures to hold the padding came out.  I'm sure they had one person to hold Butler while the doctor made the dressing look pretty while I tried to do it all :)

Monday was Memorial Day and while I didn't feel the best I knew I had to mow - I'll say more about that later and had some errands to run.  I had to buy the paint for the enclosed front porch so I could get my rebate and then stopped at Walgreens to get more large bandaids, a new (non-bloodied) shoe string and gauze padding for Butler's boo boo.  I go up to the pharmacist and explain why I need the gauze (for my dog's behind) and we determine which gauze of the two boxes I brought up seemed to have the best padding.  This was my attempt to sort of make the dressing look like the doc had from the animal hospital.

Before I do my errands I want to mow - the first time since the snake repellent has gone down.  Front yard no problem and no snakes.  Back yard I took down the cattle shoot because the grass was looking pretty good there.  Oh yes - and I had found Mike's steel-toed work boots he wore so I have worn them the last two times I've mowed.  I don't see me actually stomping on a snake like the snake guys but it makes me feel like my feet have more "protection" from snakes than my thin, old, beat-up mowing tennis shoes have.  I come to what used to be an old bunny hole and guess what pops up its head - a snake.  I start the self-propeller function and let it run for a second as the snake goes back into the hole and think it will stay there and for some unknown reason I just mow over the hole.  The next pass around, a little past the bunny/snake hole I see the dead snake, on its back, slit by the lawn mower and let out a scream - but at least I don't throw up like I thought I probably would if I'd ever mow over a snake.  I keep mowing the back yard but don't mow by the snake and leave a small area of tall grass where the body is.

I'm like "great now what do I do, I can't pick the dead snake up even with a hoe or shovel to put in my trash can - no sir, no way, no how."  I finally got a friend from the City to stop by Wed night after work to take care of it for me.  I also warned Butler who once-in-a-while will have his back legs go out on him in the back yard that if he went around that dead snake and fell down on it - he was stuck there until I didn't know when so he better not go near the dead snake.

I don't know how well you can see in the picture but I bought those little things you hold in your hand that the wind blows and they twirl and are pretty.  I bought five flag themed things to put in the yard for Memorial Day and thought they looked cute and it was definitely windy enough to make them twirl.

Tuesday I pretty much was in bed from this cold but Wed started feeling better.  This was the fastest coming on cold I've ever had and I think the fastest cold I've gotten over too - weird.

Wednesday was Mom and Dad's 64th wedding anniversary!  It ended kind of sad with Mom being admitted to Iowa Lutheran Hospital and Dad has moved in with me for the duration.  One project Dad has while here is to fill all the snake holes in both yards.  Evidently snakes don't make their holes - they use existing holes.  We'll be taking care of that :)

Took Butler to the vet yesterday for her to check his butt and she was amazed at how well it looked, she said it looked 500 times better than she thought it would from reading the report from the animal hospital.  I'm to keep putting bandaids on the boo boo and keep him off that hip.  He goes back next Wed to see if any sutures need to be replaced - unfortunately with a bed sore it has to heal from the inside out and everytime he moves that hinders any healing that has taken place.

Never a dull minute.