Don't make eye contact

When will I ever learn not to hit enter after the title of this thing so there is now a post of just a title! Hard to teach an old dog new tricks.
Now back to my blog! Just got back from a short trip to New York State to see the foliage so I thought. My husband has a friend with a cabin that I have been to once years ago and since I found myself on vacation with no trips planned(yes I know that is a great shock but it did happen) I said yes to a trip to the cabin! The cabin is very nice but we weren't in the door when my husband had his hunting gear on and calling the dog to see if he could find some grouse. Now it became all clear to me this was a hunting trip under the guise of a fall foliage, apple country trip. Now I didn't mind but again just like hitting enter instead of tab on this computer when will I learn. The weather and the color of the foliage were spectacular so even though I was in the dark about the real reason for the trip I enjoyed myself!

My Eyes, My Eyes

I have previously told you we have 14 guinea hens and boy are they stupid! We let some of them out each day so they can eat the ticks and insects in our yard(the reason we got them). We only let some of them out and not all because if all are out they tend to roam further distances and if only some are out they stay pretty much in our yard. They have their own large pen with a hen house with Andersen windows and door(lock included just to keep the fox from knocking). Yes they have a double and two single Andersen windows with screens to keep the bugs out of their pooped house! Don't ask I don't know why?

My husband knew it was time before winter sets in to clean the hen house so he got in there and removed the chips that had been there all summer and replaced it with wood shavings that his brother had given him. These wood shavings were light in color compared to the usual wood chips we had been using but we never counted on the guinea hens being afraid of the wood shavings and fleeing their home and refusing to re -enter it! They will sleep on top of the cage or house but not inside. So we are trying mixing the light color wood shavings with the dark color chips to see what happens. Wish us luck! If anyone whats to know what guinea hens look like here they are.

Costco

Now that I am back into blogging you might never stop me!!

I like a lot of women I like to shop but as I age the people in the store start to scare me!! I just got back from Costco (looking for the 6th season of Monk on DVD) and while I was there I noticed several types of people! The group that go for the free samples and wear clothes that used to fit, the group that haven't eaten in years so I don't know why they are at Costco buying in bulk(probably cleaning products) and a large group of about to be in the need of medical help! I don't know what group I fit in but I don't eat the samples, I live to eat, and God I hope I am not in the last group!!

Back to my original thoughts Costco. Before our trip to Alaska I bought a camera package from Costco because everyone said I needed one. I think my smaller point and shoot did almost as well but my eyes are aging. We are using this new camera with it's telephoto lens and it just decides to stop working on day 2 of our trip!! Now I don't want to point fingers but my husband was using it when it stopped and he is not known for his photo/camera expertise! The next day we are on the way to Denali to see Mt. McKinley without the "good camera" so I say lets stop at Costco in Anchorage on our way there. To make a long story short they took the camera back with me promising to mail a few books I had left home and sold us the newer upgraded model even though I had had the camera more then 90 days. I must have looked really sad or scary you can pick one. Thank You Costco

Lost and forgotten

Sorry I haven't blogged in a long time but I have been so busy living! Or do I mean working? Since my last post I have been to Alaska for two weeks. One week we rented a car and toured around Alaska on our own hiking and fishing! Mainly we would hike to fish so Frank really liked that. We got to see Mt. McKinley really well which we hear is not that common so we were lucky. I feel God decided that I deserved a break!

Frank loved Alaska because there was so much fishing.

I even stopped by VP candidate's place in Juneau but she wasn't home

I tried on a few new hats to see how they fit.

There were tons of glaciers and Frank got to hold one back!

It was a trip filled with wonderful views and adventures.

Crazy Bird Lady

Now I must start with how I have become the Crazy Cat, Bird, and Dog Lady. When my son was in 8th grade some 6 years ago he worked in a pet store! He is very knowledgeable and good with animals so he some how convinced me to allow him to get two love birds. Two turned into many and even a white parakeet showed up! We gave away many and figured out how to stop the mass procreation by buying separate cages for the love birds. No one said we were bright!
Years have gone by and I am left with two love birds(in separate cages) and one white parakeet. When I was a child we had parakeets but they didn't last more then 2 or 3 years but some how our white one has last over 6 and much to my chagrin have found out that love birds live 15 years or more!
I have 8 0r 9 more years to go before I am bird less!!! I will be around retirement age according to the US government before I am bird less! Now my husband has come up with a solutions for the bird situation but just opening the cage doors while I am cleaning the cages on the back deck seems cruel. As this would work for two of the birds one has been hand raised and won't fly away. You ask how do I know this, well he sits on my shoulder and I have gone running down the street after the dog and this lady is staring at me and when I pass her on the way back she says to me "Are you aware you have a small parrot on your shoulder?" He thinks I am his mother and won't fly away!!! This is how I have become the Crazy Bird Lady!
I forgot about the 15 or so Guinea Hens that come running when I step to the backyard but that is another story

Gone Missing

I have not been abducted but just working and traveling! I have been out west visiting ALF, and college buddies! It was Nurses Week and ALF was planning a nursing fair as part of her job so of course I came out to volunteer to show what goes on in the Operating Room. I think it went well but I am the mother of the organizer so I might be bias!
After the fair ALF and I went and met two of my college buddies in one of Northern California's gold mining towns. I think we laughed from 4:30pm Saturday to 2:00pm Sunday continuously!
It is something we need to do regularly!
I now am back at work counting the weeks until my next vacation! I usually vacation every other month but we have a maximum of two weeks from Memorial Day to Labor Day so that makes the summer a long haul for me! I actually don't have a vacation for 13 weeks since my last vacation and then I will be going to Alaska for two weeks so I guess it is worth the wait! I look at work as a means to make the money to vacation. Since my job is extremely stressful it is the best way to keep your sanity

gone missing

Animal Worthy

With our latest happens I am starting to wonder if we are animal worthy! Yes Dobby is back, my husband has a broken fibula(smaller bone in your lower leg) and one of our neighbors has passed away at 61 years of age. Now one of those things is good and the other two are not.
Not that I was close to my neighbor but he and his wife have been there since we moved in our house and I guess you always expect things to stay the same until someone moves or you move.
My day goes like this: I tell my husband either go to the doctor about his leg that he hurt over a week ago playing rugby or shut up! He choose the former and when the doctor calls me to tell me what he has found(exactly what I had told him the day before when I worked with him) I am not surprised. Later when I call my husband he says his leg is fine and that he has just gotten back from the wake I say what wake? Then he tells me of the neighbor's demise!
That night when I go to bed I forget to let Lola back in so she is out for the night which is not a problem except that she is a roamer as previously told. I awake at 4:00am realizing she is gone so now we wait until day break and my husband goes out looking for her but she is gone. I call the police and animal control but no luck! Then there is a knock on the door and my widowed neighbor is there with Lola saying she had come by late last night and the family was still up after the funeral. They let her in so she was with the grieving family! Lola has many talents!

Blabbermouth

ALF is a blabbermouth because I was just waiting to get a picture of Lola with Dobby! Yes he is back just the way ALF described it. He just came walking in like nothing had happened. Lola smiled for an entire day(Lola does smile, something I will have to try to capture) and wagged her tail all day.
Now that we are a complete family again it is "Bunny Season" which is not a good thing!! The cats think catching baby bunnies and torturing them is fun and games. The ones I can rescue I have to bottle feed and very few make it!

Lola's Revenge

After my last post about Lola there were some pretty nasty comments about her size and things she does to maintain her sanity here at the "Zoo". Living with Arthur the neurotic Vizsla could drive anyone even me to chewing the remote controls!


Lola was abandoned in old barn rubble to give birth to 9 babies and she managed to feed them and keep them healthy until someone found them. She has had heart worm and Lyme's disease. Even after all these set backs she is a happy girl that enjoys walking on the beach and greeting all fellow walkers. I will admit that she has gone from almost starving to a bit overweight but she is working on it.


She now has a new problem, her cat Dobby is missing! Yes, she has her own pet and is very sad that it is missing for almost a week! We have this crazy lady that lives on the other side of the woods that is known for keeping other people's cats and that is where we think Dobby is. We have made fliers.

LOST CAT

DOBBY

GRAY TIGER STRIPE

OWNER SHOWN IN PICTURE

HEART BROKEN

The crazy lady called and said that she saw our cat a few days ago down the street and the new people might have the cat. She has one that looks just like it but it never goes out! So now my husband is going to ask to see it but one of the ladies I work with says I can have animal control get the cat to see if it is mine! Why Why me!

Time to rest?

The kids are grown and gone, well sort of, so you think things should be peaceful and a good night's sleep should be a sure thing!!!! Forget it. Having a job that has you on call, ready to work for 24 hours straight, requires you to cherish sleep when you can get it. You can ask my daughter, ALF, how important it is not to wake Mom if she is sleeping.
Given the above I found myself on call one Sunday but home by 7:00pm so when I went to sleep at 11:00pm I thought this was a good call!
Lola, our rescued Vizsla, awakens me at 2:15am crying to go out so I figure she needs to relieve herself and I get up to let her out! Our backyard is sort of fenced in but the dogs can get out if they walk in the stream to the neighbor's yard, so that is what I guess Lola decided to do. I start calling her but to no avail! I am on call so I can't leave the house to go driving around in case they call me. I have to wake my husband to see if he can find her! Mind you it is now 2:50am and he is driving around the neighborhood calling the dog! We live on a country road with only a few other houses so I start to figure someone is going to call the police saying there is a truck driving around casing the houses. This could get ugly! Finally at around 3:30am after two runs around the neighborhood Lola is found walking down the street like it is 10 in the morning and nothing is wrong in the world!
Back in bed at 3:35am my husband says to me do you think you are going to get back to sleep? I just lay there with my eyes wide open praying!

Dating

I haven't blogged in awhile but life has been in the way.
An interesting thing has been happening to me lately, I am lining up dates for after my husband expires not like the milk but more like pushing up daisies. Yes like the pact that many young people make that if they aren't married by 30 or 40 they will marry one of their college buddies, I have been lining up dates for after our respective spouses are no longer around for what ever reason. This is with people I work with who have no intention of this ever coming to fruition but there is some comfort in just the meer fact that someone else would want to spend time with you later on in life. I have three such dates lined up just in case one doesn't work out I would move on to the next. Does this seem odd to anyone? It doesn't make any difference because I will continue to accumulate my future dates because it is fun and something to laugh about and laughing is what it is all about.

Friends

I have been visiting my best friend in Florida for the last few days and have been laughing so much my sides ache because we are very real with each other! An example would be when she tried on one of those 70 style tent dresses in a satin print that was 4 inches above her knee I asked "Do you want people to laugh directly in your face or behind your back?" Now don't get me wrong she has a great shape and the dress looked fine but on someone in their 20's or 30's not us! We laughed and kept trying on clothes!
In the same vein (I don't mean the ones on our legs) we have been using some creams that tout that "they decrease the appearance of the lines around your eyes". Did you notice the word appearance of lines! What that means is the skin is so shiny that you can't see your reflection so hence the decrease in the appearance of lines, not that they are gone! I told my friend that if we keep this up I will have to tell my husband what I am wearing on my return home so he can recognize me at the airport!
It is good to have a friend that you can laugh at yourself with and also at others with!

Oh My God!

Now hold on to your hats!! I am trying to teach my friend in Florida how to create a blog! This from someone who begged someone to tell her how to find spell check and took 3 hours to download songs to her ipod! I am now going to show her to put pictures on her postings! Ha!Ha!

Oh My God I did it! This is my best friend Linda! And she needs a date! Now I just need to figure out how to get my computer to hook up to her wireless network and I will feel good about myself! I will take suggestions from anyone!

Another Milestone

Last year when everyone was making New Year's resolutions I told one of the doctors I work with that once my wallet stopped bleeding from my daughter's wedding(that is ALF's wedding) I was going to treat myself to two things: Lasix eye surgery and an ipod!!! He did point out that one only costs a couple of hundred dollars and the other thousands but I assured him I was worth it! Of course I took the less challenging one to do first, Lasix eye surgery and in that it has it's draw backs it was worth every penny and I would do it again in a flash!
Now the second item! I had talked to everyone who has an ipod and they told me their 5 year old could get it to work and on several occasions I actually had one in my cart at Costco but not until last Friday I was unable to bring myself to buy one! I had ipod "fear"!!! I also purchased a car adapter so when I travel I can use it in the rental cars! I purchased a 8GB nano because all I want to do with it is to download my CD's on to it so when I travel I can use it! Sounds simple! Well you can ask ALF because she accidentally called during the process and was privy to my ranting and raving about how I was going to throw this piece of sh..!! out the back door! I did put it down for awhile and then returned to finally get itunes to rip and sync my CD's! Get the lingo!

I then had to get the adapter in the car to work which wasn't straight forward either but after making several truck drivers blush as they passed it worked on the way to work yesterday but on the way home all I got was static!! I kept the windows up because it was going out any minute!
You know you are old when a 5 year old can do it easily and it takes you over 2 hours to get the "thing" to work

Thinking Positive

My life has had many ups and downs and lately more downs then ups! I am not looking for sympathy so save it! Just an observation! I was talking to one of my dearest friends to night about my latest downs and we both decided it was best not to dwell on the bad things but on the positive and that is when I said My teeth are really in good condition and straight!
She was speechless and then I made my second announcement that I still had all my hair! Now this is what I think you would call finding something positive at any cost!

Back and running

I am back from our vacation and have worked a 12 hour call in the OR and still want to Blog so I guess I am a blogger at heart! Allison Tagged me http://asyouwish-allison.blogspot.com seven weird things about myself? love shoes, worry about my hair, large feet, work til I drop, love ice cream, love my animals more then the children, don't have time for lazy people, and expected more peace by this time in my life! ALF has threatened me with death if I tag her and I must admit that I don't know 7 people to tag so this stops with me. Allison needs to know that I had to make a long distance call to find out what being tagged meant and then what you are supposed to do in retaliation. The rules are as follows:1. Link to the person who tagged you2. Post the rules on your blog.3. Share seven random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog.4. Tag seven random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.5. Leave a comment on their blogs so that they know they have been tagged.

Studdabubba

Growing up with a Nanny from Russia was interesting to say the least! My Mom was the eldest of two girls and the only child with off spring! When we didn't live up to Nanny's expectations the Russian would start flying and you knew you were in trouble. In those days you didn't teach your children another language but English(you lived in America and English is what you spoke) so sad to say I know little Russian! There are a few words that I remember and Studdabubba is one of them! I remember it was used to describe women my Nanny didn't like or an outfit, shoes, or a way of thought that my Aunt didn't like. I knew what it meant and my sister and I used it too! ALF knows when I ask her if this looks too "Studdabubba" she should be honest!

Studdabubba has followed me through life and just recently I was at work and was in the Recovery Room with a Post Op patient giving report and our conversation went to something personal and I said now that I am getting Studdabubbaish(my own word) I like to watch the styles that I wear! A post op patient raises his head looks at me and says your not a Studdabbba yet you are too young!! Now the girl I was talking to had no idea what the patient was talking about but I wanted to hug that patient or at least give him another dose of pain medication!

Yet on another trip to the gift shop to buy candy at work, I was looking for something to satisfy my sweet tooth and I came upon the above picture and now I know why my patient was so kind with his comment! My 92 year old mother is a studdabubba and I am closing in!

Off and Running

My husband and I haven't vacationed together regularly for reasons like children, animals, and conflicting schedules but now we find that things have changed! So off we go to visit our daughter ALF! We arrive only 1 hour before departure time (bad travelers but it is 6:00am and we live 1 1/2 hours from the airport) so I say we need to move. We check in at the curb and move quickly to the security check in with 45 minutes to spare! All of a sudden the security people annouce in loud stern voices every leave the security area and get out of the building and proceed to either check in points a block away but you must leave the building! I was amazed everyone did not panic but moved quickly with no complaining or question asking. We later found out that there had been a suspicious package found so the bomb squad/dogs were called into action. As were a moving at a slow trot from the building and down the street my husband says we are off and running! We did make our flight and the rest of our trip was uneventful!

Our dogs vacationed in Holmdel with their Aunt Barbara and as evidenced by the picture they aren't missing us very much!

Punctuation and Paragraphs

Punctuation and Paragraphs are for those of weak stature! When I am compressing someones chest to save their sorry butt no one criticizes my grammar, punctuation, or paragraphing (if that is a word! Where is the spell check!!) Spelling is another over rated item! I do wish I was a better speller but that is what spell check is for! If anyone has the time they could tell me how to find it on this blog site I would appreciate it!
My version of the Hubcap story is true and I am sticking to it!!
I will be with ALF enjoying her new curtains this week so the battle of the blogs is on and I vow to give it a good try but remember if you need your sorry butt saved look for me!

BLOG REGULARLY

I have been informed that I must blog regularly by ALF my daughter. Blog I must!
Hubcap! where did it originate you may ask so I will tell! Many, many years ago before my children could drive, I drove the typical soccer Mom's mini-van! As it may have been a mini-van I did not have to drive it like one and I didn't. There were occasions when taking turns or cornering hard a hubcap would fly off! After my first loss I replaced it from the dealer at the cost of (hold on to your hat) $90 yes $90 for a piece of plastic with the dealer's logo! They got me once so when the next hubcap went flying I decided that it would be replaced by a road kill hubcap and the children would help me! Everyone was to keep their eyes peeled and alert me when there had been a sighting! We soon learned that hubcaps come in different sizes so we had to be selective! Some time passed before my husband informed me that for $20 I could get 4 matching hubcaps at K-Mart! This is how I became known as HUBCAP!

HOLY CRAP IN THE MOUNTAIN

Holy Crap in the Mountain is my favorite saying at work in lieu of cursing like a truck driver and it is now my trademark! People ask me what it means and where did it come from but I can only think it is an adaptation of something my 92 year old mother used to say! My mother never cursed so she would say Holy Cats in the Mountain when things weren't going right. I work in an Operating Room and that wasn't strong enough so Holy Crap in the Mountain seemed to fit! As to what it means it can mean what ever you want and I think that makes it special!