Hal and Dani!!!

Pepper

2010-12-23T15:11:00.004-06:00

We got a kitten at the end of May (on the 20th) that I've been meaning to blog about. She's really cute!
Not particularly nice, but cute.
When we got her, I called her Moo Kitty, or Cow Cat, because she has black and white spots and reminds me of a cow... Hal didn't like either name! I told him he should name her then.

Meet our new baby Pepper (born April 3rd). She's not exactly new anymore, but you've never met her! :)
This is our favorite way she sits. We call the back leg her kick stand. She sits all weird all the time, lopsided with one leg sticking out the side. She's not really crooked! :)

All our animals love my pink fluffy chair! It's a favorite place to sleep.

Another of my favorite pictures. She sat up there for hours (the second time she got up) before I got her down. She was afraid to jump.

Trying to decide if it's safe to jump the 6 feet to the floor... She's such a chicken!

For some reason we don't have any pictures of her as a baby, just video, so here ya'll go! Our baby pictures! We loved how her white hairs stuck out past her black hair. She was such a little fluffy kitten!

This video was taken a few days after we got her, so she's still a tiny little baby! She was so fun! And boy did she grow up fast! She hated the cat in the mirror!

This one was taken a week later.

And this one was at the end of June (a month after we got her). She's so much bigger already! They grow up so fast!

I've got so many other videos to share! :) But not today. I don't want to over do this re-blogging thing! :)

We're just moving

2010-07-14T07:15:00.004-05:00

Last month, we realized that our year lease on the house we've been living in was up (on June 30th). And we discussed our choices: we could keep living here, about 45 minutes from Hal's work; we could pack up, Hal could quit his job, and we could just move home to Idaho; or we could pack up and move closer to work. We decided that the third option is probably the best plan.

After looking for a new place for a bit, I found one! And was super excited 'cause it was going to be super cheap (especially compared to what we pay now)... And then I stopped in at the Sheriff's office store front that is right across the road to ask them how safe it is over there. The lady working the desk in the Sheriff's office trailer told me she'd just finished processing the report for the second armed robbery in the last 24 hours at that apartment complex.
So, we changed our minds. We don't actually want to be help up at gun point getting out of our car! (One of them was in the middle of the day, too! Scary!)

I found a different place - (that's hopefully much safer). And we signed a lease (7 month lease) at the beginning of July. Then when I was inspecting it, I found roaches living along the ceiling. So we had to wait for them to have the place fumigated. This is Texas, all apartment buildings have roaches. But they don't usually live in the ceiling! Yuck! Nasty! Anyways, hopefully they're all poisoned out now!

I've been working on packing up my house, but it's really slow going this time for some reason! I do have to get it finished today, though, 'cause the movers are coming tomorrow morning to haul all my stuff over there. Whew!

In other news, I started taking Topamax for my migraines again last month. It seems to be helping with the headaches (hip hip hooray!), but I run slower (not actual running, brain function). It's like my brain functions at part capacity. Really annoying. I already have a hard time accomplishing anything I try to do in a reasonable amount of time, but now it's almost worse. It may be getting better though...
For example... if I'm cooking dinner and I think it'll take me 1/2 hour, ordinarily it'll really take 45-50 minutes. On my Topamax, it'll take 65-75 minutes. Just 'cause.
My only other complaint is that my attention span seems to be even shorter than usual, too. When I first started the Topamax again I could focus on one thing for like 5 minutes and then I'd just walk away... ugh! But maybe as I continue to get used to the drug that'll keep getting better, too? I sure hope so!
So between the drug issues and the moving, I've been having a hard time finishing my craft projects. *sigh* Which is really a bummer, 'cause I really had some things I wanted to make! (Like a baby blanket for my new nephew, a toy for a niece who just turned 1, and something for another niece who's turning 8 in a couple of weeks.) However, it's just not working! It makes me very sad! But such is life! Maybe I'll be able to focus on things for Christmas!

Garret is sick...

2010-06-18T14:23:00.001-05:00

There are two versions of this post here, the long one and the short one.

The short one is this:
Garret (my oldest ferret - the one who was always the chubby one) has cancer. He's dying.

The longer version goes like this:
About 2 months ago, Garret started making a wheezing sound when he breathed. He stopped eating. And he wasn't drinking water.
I decided he might have a cold (ferrets get human colds).

Because he wasn't eating his hard crunchy ferret food, I started feeding him chicken flavored baby food, by hand. It's one of the things you can feed sick ferrets, if they'll eat it. He eats it OK. I started out feeding him store bought chicken flavor baby food (Gerber, he didn't like the texture of other brands.) But, as this has gone on, I've started making my own chicken "glop"... time consuming, but a whole lot cheaper!

After a week or so, and he wasn't getting any better - (I'm still not sure if he was getting worse or not), I decided I had to take him to the vet.
The vet decided it wasn't a cold. Nor was it pneumonia (phew!). But what is it?

She thought that something seemed to be obstructing his throat when he breathes, so either he: has some infection, he inhaled/swallowed something that got stuck, or he's got cancer.

She did an x-ray, and could see something around his larynx. She put him on oxygen and sedated him. And his wheezy raspy breathing cleared up. (Weird! But when he's all drugged up on Children's Benadryl he breathes a little better, too.) She looked down his throat for an obstruction. There wasn't an obstruction. When he woke up from the anesthesia, and started breathing on his own again, the wheezing started right back up again. Hmm...

We tested his blood for a rare fungus, (the test was called Cryptococcosis Titer, so I'm assuming the fungus is Cryptococcocis), which came back negative.

Then we did 2 kinds of antibiotics, hoping it would be a bacterial infection, and clear right up...

It wasn't.

So... it's not an obstruction, it's not a rare fungus, it's not a bacterial infection, ferrets are incredibly prone to cancer... We're guessing cancer.
He's got something in his throat partially blocking his airway. He's getting enough air that the pads of his feet and his gums aren't discolored, but his tongue is purple sometimes. (From lack of air.)

We tried a cortizone shot, hoping it would help his raspy breathing. For about a day, he breathed better, and was acting like his normal self. And then he was back to his sickly wheezy ferret self... That apparently helped re-affirm the cancer guess. *Sigh*

Ferrets, apparently, get ulcers when their bodies get stressed with a sickness or something, one of the signs is them grinding their teeth like crazy, which Garret is doing, so he's on Sucralfate- also called carafate (which coats his stomach, protecting it from the acids). That does seem to be helping with the teeth grinding... Yay! Something is getting better! :)

However, since the last batch of antibiotics we waited a couple of weeks before trying to put him on Prednizone (I don't know that I actually want to feed him steroids every day...), and now he seems to have a intestinal tract bacterial infection. So, he's on antibiotics - again (different kinds this time) to try to clear that up, before we put him on Prednizone.

Next week, after the antibiotics are done, I get to start his steroids to help with his pain, & hopefully help him breathe easier!

So, 2 months after he all of a sudden just stopped eating, drinking, started wheezing, he still doesn't drink water. And he doesn't eat food. Well, he does eat, but it has to be liquid. I think that he can't take the time to chew his food, since breathing is so hard for him.

I feel so bad for my little sick confused baby. He doesn't understand why he doesn't feel good, and why I keep forcing yucky gooey medicine into his mouth for him to swallow! He's starting to grimace and run the other way everytime he sees me. *sigh*...

My ferret is sick! And he's dying!

It seems like some days he's losing control over the muscles in his left back legs.
All I can hope is that the steroids make his pain less. He's in pain. I can see it. I can't just let him die! He's my ferret!

And poor Rocket! He worries about his friend! Rocket saves Garret portions of their food out of the food bowl. As long as we've had Rocket and Garret, they've always slept together, if we try to separate them, they freak out... If I try to put Garret in his own cage to sleep, neither Garret or Rocket sleep. They just lay there. Staring out of their cages. Looking for their friends... It's sad... So I don't know what Rocket will do when Garret does die. Hopefully he'll just adapt? He will still have Cocoa... whatever comfort that is...

That's my story. Garret has cancer. He wheezes when he breathes. I get to feed him by hand 3-4 times a day. And I get to force medicines down him, too! (Currently 3 kinds, two are twice a day, one is three times a day. Bbut I'm not sure how many he'll get to take starting next week.)

Andy's campfire story

2010-04-29T07:05:00.001-05:00

While we were in Idaho for Christmas, we had the chance (with our video camera) to record various things at Christmas.
One of the treasures we caught on tape was Dad Bradbury (Andy) telling us all a story about an experience at Cedar Badge last summer, and I wanted to share it with you all.

If you've got 3 1/2 minutes, take the time to watch this. It's fairly hilarious! I love Dad's stories! They're always so colorful and interesting! For those of you who don't know, Kime is Andy's brother-in-law, married to his sister Care. And Cedar Badge is a Boy Scout youth leadership training program.

Please excuse the rest of us laughing and interrupting... Although I think it adds to the feel of being there...

Another yuck!

2010-04-28T15:00:00.002-05:00

As a little note, I finally got the rest of our pictures from Christmas sorted through and put up! Whew!

We did have a wonderful time with our families! See you all another time! :)

Onto this other yuck...
The other morning, (according to the data in the camera, it was April 5th) Hal went to go out the door to go to work. And came back in asking me for a stick. I'm like "what?" But I got him a broom and asked him what he was upto. He opened the door to show me this giant spider web stretched across our front walkway. On our porch was a huge spiderweb! And all I could think was with web, comes spider! And that's one big web!
No this isn't a real picture of the web, but the green lines are an approximation of what the web looked like, size-wise. The color is probably wrong, since I'm pretty sure the web wasn't fluorescent green.

Anyways, I turned and ran back in for the Raid. I was thinking that as Hal gathered up the web onto the stick, the spider would probably be nearby and we would see it and could spray it with the bug killer spray. What I wasn't counting on was quite how large and vicious looking this spider would be! The instant Hal started disconnecting the web from the posts - which broke with a small pop sound, kind of like snapping thread does - the spider dropped. I shot at it with the Raid and missed. It dropped to the ground, and then I had to find it! Luckily it was just right there and not a hard search, and I drowned the poor sucker in poison...
Then after it was sufficiently poisoned, I got the camera for Hal, and he tried to take a couple of pictures, but he was already late for work. After Hal went off to work, I got back out the camera, and got a couple of sticks to try and pose the spider with. That bugger was still alive and wiggly! So I poisoned it again. Maybe overkill, he was probably in the last moments of dying, but I don't take chances with ugly spiders. After he's stopped wiggling, I took this picture of him...
Isn't he ferocious looking?! I swear they always look bigger when they're alive and wiggly, too!
Ugh! Spiders!
Anybody know if this bugger would have killed us if he'd managed to lure us into his web? ;)

We think he liked our front door because the mosquito hawks (apparently also known as a crane fly) swarm our front door at night. Mosquito hawks look like great big mosquitoes, but they're not mosquitoes. They don't drink blood (although I've been told --falsely, I might add-- that they eat mosquitoes). According to Wikipedia, they apparently eat nectar "if they eat at all." While they're not harmful, they really are irritating to me (and they creep me out), so I'd be happy to have the spider eat them, but NOT ON THE FRONT OF MY HOUSE!!!

Ugh! Spiders!

Vacation all I ever wanted....

2010-04-28T14:06:00.007-05:00

On Christmas Eve, after opening presents with Dani's parents and siblings in Victor, we headed to Rexburg to be with Hal's parents and siblings. When we arrived at the new house in Rexburg, we got to tour the house, since we hadn't seen it yet. (It seems like every time we visit Hal's parents we get to see their new house. Crazy, huh? They were remodeling their house in Blackfoot a few years ago, so it really was different every time we went. Then after we moved to Texas, they moved to Rexburg. So, yeah, it always is a new house!) Anyways, it seems to be a great house! It's big and gorgeous!
This isn't the best picture of the house, but it's the only shot I've got, so it'll have to do! :) I do love the trees! Icy trees are gorgeous!

And they are just around the corner from the Rexburg LDS temple! Hal's Dad (Andy) walks to work at the BYU-I student health clinic everyday, and he gets to walk by the temple. He says it's always gorgeous!
One morning when Hal and I were up before everyone else, he went out to walk around and take some pictures. Both of these last two are from that early morning walk.

On Christmas Day after we were all up, Ryan found the pickle (brief explanation: for some reason, at the Bradbury house, Santa hide a pickle ornament on the tree somewhere, and whoever finds it gets a special prize!), we got to open Santa presents, eat yummy crepes (made by Holly and Mary) for breakfast, open the family presents (the Bradbury family got a Wii), then get ready for the day, pack up, and head to Blackfoot to spend Christmas afternoon with Cindy, Kelly, and kids and open more presents!
Ryan got these from Santa... Hmmm... I love it!

Mary gave Holly the most fantastic book I've ever seen! It was huge!! It was like 16 pages long and all about squirrels. Seriously, an amazing book!

Hal's parents gave all of us adult children living on on our own gift cards to "Emergency Essentials" so we could built up our food storage/72 hour kits/emergency preparedness stuff. Hal and I now have over $200 of (mostly food) emergency preparedness stuff sitting in our living room needing to be assembled into back packs. But we have it purchased! That's a step in the right direction!

And I just have to say: Holly gave me the most fantastic shoe laces EVER for my new shoes! Bright pink! Yay! Seriously like the best present ever! :)

This is Jell-O (the hamster, not the people). Mom was trying to intimidate Jell-O with the cow, pulled from her toy box (full of zoo animals). I believe she's mooing in this shot. Not incredibly flattering, but it was absolutely hilarious, so I had to share! (Between you and me, Jell-O isn't praying, she's washing her face.)

In Blackfoot, we got to hang out with Cindy (who, unfortunately, due to her pregnancy felt awful!) and family at the Blackfoot house - they moved into Hal's parents house in Blackfoot when Mom and Dad moved to Rexburg. We got to talk/hang out -which is always my favorite part of any family get together! Just chatting and laughing!
We also played the Lancaster's Wii (they got one for Christmas from Kelly's Dad), played Snorta, (which I find an awesome game! It's got animals!), exchanged our presents to each other, ate dinner, and played Curses (which was absolutely hilarious! I tried to get it on video, but the microphone wasn't turned on, so... sorry! Nothing to see here! But Hal was some sort of Elmer Fud, French, pirate or something...) It was a lot of fun!

Cindy and Kelly gave Dad B a Snuggie and he promptly wrapped it around himself and tried to fall asleep on their love sac. It was cute!
Hal's nephew (who's 4) got some transformers for Christmas, and Ryan (who was almost 19) spent a while trying to figure out how to do them all. I think he found them frustrating. And a little hard, but that was probably because he was afraid he was going to break it if he forced the pieces together...

Kelly had to work on the 26th, so Cindy and the kids came up to Rexburg for the day and we got to hang out some more! We got to play "Ticket to Ride," played the Wii, Mom and Dad went for a walk with Cindy's kids (while I would have loved to walk, it was soooo cold outside! Amazing how cold it is in Idaho after being in Houston!), and we made ice cream! Mary got an ice cream ball for Christmas, and we made two batches of ice cream with it. It was tons of fun rolling back and forth!
Hurray for homemade ice cream!

On Sunday we went to church, and then I have no idea what everyone did all afternoon. (I had a migraine, so I slept. And woke up with a headache still. *Sigh*) But I expect that they played Wii some more! I think it was Sunday night that we watched "Stalking Santa." It was hilarious! Strange, but funny!

On Monday Hal, Mary, Ryan, and Holly all went snowboarding up at Targhee. They had a lot of fun, it sounds like! Hal took lots of pictures of the beauty of it all! But I'll leave it up to him to edit and share them!
This was a picture they stopped to take on the way into Teton Valley... *Sigh* makes me homesick!

I went down to Pocatello for the morning to see my nieces (and their mom) for a bit more. (I didn't feel like 2 hours the week before was enough!) We played, and giggled. I got to watch E, who had just turned one at the beginning of December, walking all over the house - she wasn't walking the week before when I'd seen her briefly! Wow, kids grow up fast! Skyler (my brother) came home for lunch so I got to spend some time with him, too. :)

Note: Can I just say Hal and I have adorable nieces and a nephew? I may be biased, but...they are!

After I got back from Pocatello, Becky and I went shopping! Yeah! Craft stores! :)

Dad and Mom decided it would be fun to take us all out for dinner before Hal and I flew home, so we all went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner after the "kids" got back from snowboarding.

It was super yummy! We had a blast, laughing and talking!

As an additional bit of information, I have a love of fry sauce... so before we left, on Tuesday, we stopped by Arctic Circle so I could have some fry sauce. Well, I guess I had a few french fries with my fry sauce.

And then we flew home, where our ferrets were waiting...

It was wonderful to see and talk to our families! We've missed everybody tons! Can't wait 'til next time!

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T21:57:00.005-05:00

We were hoping to have our photo shoot and get these posted before Easter, but we didn't get around to it before, so we did it today!

Happy Easter!!!
Our bunny rabbits and hatching chicks say Happy Easter, too!
Doesn't this one of Cocoa look like something you'd see advertising a pet costume? Perfect!

And just for good measure, a few more of our favorites:

I know it may look a little mean to hang Rocket upside down, but he actually likes to hang looking at the floor. (We keep a good hold on him, don't worry!) Not sure why he likes it, but he does... Silly boy!

Believe it or not, our wiggly ferrets didn't actually want to hold still for their photo shoot! They kept trying to wiggle away from/out of/shake off their outfits. *Sigh* Ferrets will be wiggly animals I guess...

But me being much bigger and tougher (and having already decided it wouldn't hurt them and also might be amusing for me) they had to pose anyways!

Note: Just for your information, there's something fairly thrilling about cutting the sides and ripping the stuffing out of stuffed animals... Who knew?!
And if you already knew that... why didn't you tell me?!

Oh no!

2010-03-11T11:46:00.003-06:00

I still haven't posted my other part of Christmas visit/vacation! I work on putting in some pictures today, so I can put it up!

But in other news, I just called the dentist office to make an appointment, and after I've explained I haven't been to the dentist in about a year and a half, and I suspect I may have a cavity. I'd like to schedule an appointment please. The kind Hispanic lady on the other end of the phone says to me...
"Would you like to see the doctor or have your teeth cleaned?"

I froze.
My first thought was "I only get to do one?!"
And then I thought well, she does have an accent, and I do frequently mis-answer questions... So to be thorough, and make sure I'm understood, I say back. "Both. I'd like have a checkup and have my teeth cleaned." Thinking this will have cleared it all up.

She says back. "You can only do one. We don't have a big enough slot for two."

*Sigh*

Then I got to suggest to her that maybe I could come in for a check up and see the doctor, and do a teeth cleaning in a second appointment.

And the answer? "Course-course-course. We do it."

Now, if Hal hadn't already been to this dentist, and said he's good, I think I'd be re-thinking my plan to visit this office! As it is, I'm guessing this is just one of the instances of "hiring a receptionist, minimum wage, must be bilingual" gone stupidly. I HATE that about Houston!
Anyways, I just had to share!

My question I've got, and maybe Nickie would have the best insight into an answer, is this:
Do most dentist offices have a check-up and doctor visit one day, and have a cleaning a different day? Or is it possible to have them both on the same day?
From my limited researched about dentists here in Houston, and my experience in Wichita Falls, they seem to want to do 2 different appointments. And then if you have a tooth problem, it's yet another visit!
Hmmm... silly people! :) Clever, too! That way you can get at least 2 office visits out of people, and you always know exactly why they're there! :)

Course-course-course!

Failed already!

2010-02-12T07:19:00.002-06:00

We have the most amazing sister-in-law (you know who you are! Love you!) who always remembers to send us birthday cards for our birthdays. It makes us feel loved and special. Amazing what a little card can do, huh?

I love that she does this! And I've decided I want to be like her when I grow up. :)

I do... awful... at it. Not because I don't remember everyone's birthdays - 'cause I always know when they are. (I'm clever like that.) Or because I don't have the card. (Two years ago, I went out and got cards for everyone's birthdays in the next 4 months - there were I think 11, and mailed I think 3 of them...)
But because I always forget to put a card in the mailbox. How hard is that really? Well, apparently very difficult! At least for me! I always think "I'll mail it closer to their birthday" and then the day before, or of, I'm like "oh no! I haven't mailed that card yet!"

Anyways, I started the year off with a bang... as in, I was late for Hal's sister Mary's birthday, which is Jan 1st. But in all fairness, I did mail it when we got back from Christmas... on the 30th.
So at least I mailed it before her birthday, right? And I mailed something!

Tomorrow is my brother's birthday (happy 19th birthday Ben!) and the day after that is Hal's brother's birthday (happy 19th birthday Ryan!) and I have yet to mail either card. So, once again... FAIL!!!

*Sigh*

Maybe I'll do better next month for Holly's birthday?

I'm hoping I can successfully do at least half of the year's birthdays on time! We'll see how it goes! But now that I've told all of you what my plan is.. I'll have to send cards, right?

So, just for my own calculations, I've got:
1 in Jan: Mary
2 in Feb: Ben(19), Ryan(19)
1 in March: Holly(13)
3 in April: "A"(3), Dad A, Michelle
1 in May: Cindy
4 (5 if I count me) in June: Hal, Lacey, Mom A, David, Dani
2 in July: "C"(1), "S"(8)
3 in August: Dad B, Kelly, Skyler
4 in Sept: "L"(3), "I"(5), Zac(11), Jake(13)
2 in Oct: Nick, Blaine
3 in Nov: Mem, Nickie, Mom B
1 in Dec: "E"(2)

That's 26 cards to mail out this year! (I'm not mailing one to myself or Hal.) Plus the card I'll send when Cindy has her baby in June. Then that'll be 27! Holly crap! That's a lot of birthday cards! One month at a time...

If you'll excuse me, I need to go mail Ben & Ryan's cards! :)

I had an epiphany!

2010-02-08T12:55:00.002-06:00

This morning I woke up super excited! And rushed to find Hal to tell him what I'd learned in my sleep. (Yes, I periodically learn in my sleep. Like this time!)

People bet (as in gamble money) on things like football games so they can say "Hurray! We won!" and cheer and be excited... for they truly have won something.
Ta Da!!!! Epiphany!

Apparently I was still pondering my question of why it is people say "we" won, when they had nothing to do with it.
I can grasp why people say "we" sometimes... almost.
Say the High School football team wins a game. Technically the players who played (and the coach, I guess) are the only ones who win. But all of the players on the side line are part of the team, so they can all say "we" won.
I can even grasp the whole student body saying "we" won, it was the school's team.
I can even grasp the city saying "we" won. The school is in the city. (Or in the case of small schools that encompass a lot of area, the whole area can win.)

But much bigger than that and you can not possibly think you had anything to do with the win, 0r loss as the case may be. It's just delusional! You had no influence, no connection, no nothing!

So I'm back to my epiphany. You bet on the team, so you can win, too. Makes sense, almost, huh? :) I'm so proud of myself! I figured it out!

And if any of you feel like bashing on my discovery, keep it to yourself! I'm hoping I won't have to dream about crazy neighbors anymore! Ugh!

Guess what?

2010-02-07T21:04:00.002-06:00

The Saints won the super bowl. Guess how I know?

My neighbors are screaming loudly in front of my house:
"We did it!"
"Wahoo! We f-ing did it!"
"The f-ing Saints won the f-ing Super Bowl!" (This is said with happiness, not displeasure...)
(Sorry, without the expletives it loses some of it's ... "charm." And I'm editing, not them.)

And then they dance to the music being played from the cars with all their doors wide open ...
The little kids all have balloons, running up and down the street...
There's a man (who's like 35 or something) strutting up and down the street in his tank top yelling "we did it! We did it!" over and over...
There's people calling others on their cell phones, shouting to be heard over the other people shouting...

We find it funny.
We just snuck to the window and video taped it. We'll try and post some of it tomorrow. It'll give you a taste of our neighborhood.

All I can think is... Wow... people sure get attached to their football team!
Is a team winning a game hundreds of miles away something "we" did? Or was it just "them" who did it?
Anyways, good night, ya'll!

We fixed it!

2010-02-02T09:04:00.004-06:00

Hal helped me dye my hair last night, in an effort to fix the missed spot... (isn't he a nice guy?! While he didn't want to help me, he did anyways! I sure do like him!)
It worked! Mostly. We used a brown dye I had, and the bright red is now a darker brownish red (more what I wanted in the first place), and the blond spot in the back of my head is just brown. Hmmm... well, at least it's harder to see brown in the middle of the red-ish brown, than blond in the middle of the bright red! Yay!
And so far, my hair hasn't started breaking off, or falling out. It does feel a bit... dead. (Think old ratty stuffed animal fur dead.) Not pleasant! But I'll just condition well, and we'll see if I can get it softer again.
So, now I know. I can dye my hair twice in one day without it all falling out, it just doesn't feel real great! And I probably shouldn't try dying my hair again all by myself, unless I'm really OK with my old color showing through! Hey! Now I know why they say "go within three shades of your old shade!" :)
I know, I've got a goofy grin... At least I wasn't yawning!
Which color is better? Can you actually see a difference?

Hair pictures & oops!

2010-02-01T19:12:00.006-06:00

When Hal got home, I had him help me take a picture of my hair.
Pretty color, huh?
Hal says it actually looks more natural looking in the picture than it does in real life. It's kind of... florescent...

So, after I dyed it, I was all excited! I was sitting here thinking about how good it looks, and remarking to myself (yes, I do talk to myself all the time) that I can dye it all by myself!

And then I heard a knock on my door. It was my friends - the missionaries! The elders stop by about once a week to chat with me for a while and share a message. They claim I'm a fun person to chat with in the middle of the day. I enjoy talking with them! Even if I do get cold sometimes! (Due to policy - either just this mission, or churchwide, I'm not sure - they can't come into my house unless there's a man here, like my husband. So we sit on my front porch to talk.)

Anyways, their first comment was that I'd dyed my hair! I was like "yup. Just barely. I did it myself." One of them (Elder Lewis, he's from Boise) paused... and then asked "what's the back look like?" I told him that I thought I did a good job, and asked him his opinion. And I turned around. And he laughed. And informed me it wasn't good. *sigh*
Well, at least he told me the truth! It's not good!
Somehow, I seem to have missed an entire section of my head! It's either that or for some reason this section didn't "take" the color, which I guess might be possible, but not likely.

Teach me to not go back and look at my hair again after it has dried! My hair - the blond part - is darker when wet. So it actually looked really good after I rinsed it, conditioned it, and combed it.

Total bummer! When Hal got home, after I showed him the front (that does look good, even if a little bright), I showed him the back. He tried really hard to not laugh. And suggested we dye it again.

So, that's the plan. We're going to dye it again. Tonight. He's going to help me make sure I get the back this time.

And before anyone says anything else: I know that I'm supposed to wait a while before dying again! I'm just not going to, OK? I'm going to dye it again now, so I'm not self concious when going out into the world. :)

This time, I'm going to use a brown dye (also purchased on clearance for 75¢), rather than the red. I'm a little afraid that it'll turn the section that I missed brown and the rest will be a different shade of red, but I guess we'll see! I think brown would blend in better than yellow... *sigh*
Here goes!

I did it! All by myself!

2010-02-01T13:38:00.004-06:00

Periodically I think back to before Hal and I got married, to when I was living with "the girls" as my roommates. I had roommates for 2 years of college before Hal and I got married. Whether I wanted things to change or not, they did.

I think the two biggest things I reflect back on and miss are:
Our middle of the night talks... occasionally, we'd feel the need to chatter late at night, while falling asleep... Hal's not such a big fan of me chattering away late at night. He thinks he needs his sleep or something. *Pish!* Surely not! ;)
(I'm just kidding, he really does need his sleep to be functional at work!)

And having someone who was willing to dye my hair... My first semester at college I had a roommate (April) who loved dying hair. I'd always thought about dying my hair, but never actually did it; I was too much of a chicken. She convinced me it would be OK... And made an addict of me!

We started out with just one color of streaks (blue, I think). Over time I got more adventurous in my streaking, until I had tons of colors to choose from: Pink, blue, purple, green, orange, red, another shade of red, a different green, etc.) It was so much fun! We'd put them in, and within a few weeks the colors would be faded enough that we'd put in a different color (or 2 or 3).

I don't remember the first time we dyed my whole hair, but it might have been the time we tried to dye it black, but didn't leave the temporary black dye in long enough. (We're not sure if it was the temporary dye, or the not long enough that did it...) My hair went purple. Grape juice purple. After the first day or so of being in complete shock, I LOVED it! It was so much fun! It slowly faded to silver, and then went away.

Later, we tried black again. It worked this time! But we did permanent dye this time... After I had somewhere around 2 inches of my blond roots grown out (it looked so bizarre!), I asked a friend (she's a friend of my Mom's who has cosmetology experience, Deanne W.) to help me bleach it. She did a wonderful job! :)

Anyways, while I still lived in Pocatello, periodically I'd get together with the girls (Sheena and Maria) and we'd dye my hair. I've had brown hair, red, black, lots of streaks, all sorts of colors! It was super fun!

And then we moved to Texas. I haven't dyed my hair since. Hal hasn't wanted to help me! (Something about the smell or the responsibility or time it takes or something.) While I might have been able to ask one of my friends from relief society to help me dye my hair, I always changed my mind at the last minute...

But I had some dye (that I found on clearance at Wal-mart on day for 75 cents - I had to buy it!) just sitting in my closet, begging to be used! ...

Today, I dyed my hair. All by myself. It went remarkably well, I think. I'm not completely sure. I was aiming for a brown with a red tinge, but... well... maybe there's a brown tinge? I have bright copper colored hair! I seem to have some lighter patches and some darker patches. (Apparently I didn't shake up the dye good enough.) But I'm of the opinion that it looks more "natural" this way. I'll have to ask Hal when he gets home. :)

Anyways, today I dyed my hair. All by myself! :)
I'm so proud of me!

I went home for Christmas...

2010-01-28T20:45:00.003-06:00

Well, we went home... and it WAS AWESOME!!! We loved seeing everyone and hanging out! We miss everyone so much! But we're so glad we got to see everybody! (Well, everybody who lives in Idaho. Two of Hal's brothers (and wives/kids) don't live in Idaho, so we didn't get to see them...)

We showed up in Idaho (we flew from Houston to Idaho Falls) on Monday, the 21st, and were there until the next Tuesday. We got to spend time with both of our families: in Idaho Falls, Victor, Pocatello, Rexburg, and Blackfoot.

While hanging with the Allen family, we went to Pocatello (where Sky and Lacey live with their 2 girls) and had a family dinner with all of us: Dad, Mom, seven kids, 2 spouses, 1 girlfriend, and 3 small children (Sky and Lacey's 2 girls and a little boy Lacey tends during the day). Sadly, I don't have a picture of it... *cry* :( But there were lots of us! And it was super fun!

Sky and Lacey (mostly Lacey, but Sky helped pick fabric and provided encouragement) made Hal and I the most awesome-est blanket EVER for our bed! It's all pretty and WOW and has my favorite colors: hot pink, lime green, and yellow! And it made me want to cry (happy tears) when I saw it. Thanks Lacey!!! You're the bestest! I love it! It's the most gorgeous blanket ever! :)I copied this picture from Lacey's blog. She took this of us when we opened it. (I'm the girl in the middle of the couch... just in case you didn't know! Hal's sitting on my left. Seated on my other side is my brother Zac, he's 10. Standing on the right side of the picture is Ben, he's 18, and my 2 year old niece.)
It is a huge blanket! We have a California King size bed, and it totally drowns it! (That's how blankets should be, but still!) Anyways, pictures doesn't do the quilt justice... it's way prettier in person! And for some reason we can't get the cameras to show what I think looks like the real red, hot pink, orange, and lime green in the same shot! It's frustrating! But such is life! At least I can take pictures of it! :)

At the Allen house, in Victor, we did lots of stuffs! First off we got to talk and talk and talk. That's the best part about going home to see family: just talking! But we also played games: Kings in the Corner, Phase 10, Five Crowns, and Buzzword... I think that was it, maybe? Who knows! I get all mixed up!
Unfortunately my oldest brothers seem to have "stolen" their copies of Risk from my parents house, so we couldn't play Risk with my 'little' brother, Jake (he's 12) - total bummer! It's the only game he really wanted to play!

We also got to go for a snow machine ride up Pole Canyon. (It's a road that's right by my parents house, it runs right up into Targhee National Forest. Hal took lots of pictures. It was gorgeous!
I picked a lovely "flower bouquet" for my mother from the woods. (Shh!!! Don't tell on me! Although, I don't think they'd actually mind, since everything was dead!...) It consisted of frozen weeds. It actually was quite pretty!
Here's me, picking my flowers. Sadly enough, this expression (or one similar) is fairly common in our pictures of me... *sigh*... Apparently I walk around with weird-o looks all day...
One of my flowers... it's pretty, huh?
Because Hal is always behind the camera, we have very few pictures of him. However, we did take this one of him, while up there...

And this next picture...
Anyone know what we're looking at here? Right in the center of the picture... Guesses?
I'll tell you at the end of the post! :)

We also went for a sleigh ride. On this:
My parents, if you don't know, live (and own jointly with my Dad's brother) on a dairy farm. The farm has a sleigh which is pulled by horses, that they use to haul hay to the cattle that winter in the field behind the farm.
Jake, riding on a sled pulled behind the sleigh.
My Dad, and brothers David, Ben, Jake, and Zac "accompanied" us on our cold outing. They worked, I played!
Ben, David, and Zac. Dad is in the background.
That's me! Playing! One of my favorite things to do as a kid, was ride behind the sleigh.

Hal took this from inside the house, after we went back inside and they had to do another run...

We also got to help make a Christmas present for ourselves, from my mom... it's something that apparently she's been wanting to make for the last couple of years, and hasn't gotten to it. Mom had my Dad and brother cut some blocks that were like 4 inches square.
There was some uneven edges, so Dad got out his hacksaw to cut them off... it was kind of funny. I love how my Mom is holding the block so my Dad can saw one edge off. Sounds safe, doesn't it? Then Mom and Mem sanded them smooth with the electric sander (after Mom, Mem, Hal, and I had spent over an hour sanding by hand - and not getting very much sanded, one of my brothers came in and said "why aren't you using the electric sander?" Hmmm... So Mem used that for a while. It was a lot faster!)
After they were all smooth, Hal and I got to paint them!
I actually love painting so this was no hardship for me. Except the stencils. I had my first run-in with stencils. It went awful! Ugh! Stencils!
So, you take your blocks, sand them smooth, paint them red, and then stencil on letters to spell things like
and We made it so that one side said one, and the other side said the other, so you can put it in the window and read one word from the outside and another word from the inside.
Cute, huh? We had fun making them!

My mom had to work on Christmas Day, so they did Christmas presents and stuff on Christmas Eve. It was fun to be there for that! Good times, good times! I love how excited everyone gets, and how happy everyone is! It was hilarious to watch the antics of my family! Zac (he's 10) had David (he's 26) for Christmas this year, and he made David Chex mix. (Well, to be fair Mom helped... a lot...) And then Memorie (she's 22) "helped" Zac make up a treasure hunt for David to find his Chex mix. It was hilarious! David was finding notes, and Zac's trying to help him find the container of Chex mix, but he doesn't actually know where the clues are pointing to, since Mem made up the clues. It was really funny!

After we did the present thing at my parents house, we packed up and headed to Rexburg to Hal's parents house for Christmas with them.
Bradbury family adventures will be its own post.

While we were at the Bradbury house, I took a morning and went down to Pocatello again to see Lacey and the girls. It was super to see them again and spend a few hours with them. I got to see the 1 year old walk! She wasn't walking when we were down there on the 21st, but the next week she was walking all over the place! It was super fun! Boy kids do grow up fast! :)

Anyways, that's half of Christmas vacation! Wow! More on the other half later... after I get it written...
Back to this picture:
What are we looking at here?

It's my parents house! Right in the middle! This was taken when we went up into the forest (Targhee National Forest) while at my parents house.

Grrr!!!!

2010-01-28T15:50:00.003-06:00

I am sooo mad!

A few weeks ago, our car started making a noise while we were driving it. It a thudding noise. So, we took it in to get it fixed. They decided that the noise was coming from a bearing. So they replaced the bearing. And once the got the bearing out, they decided they needed to replace the hub. So they did that too. A few days later, we had a car back.

And it still made noise. So, we took it back in. They claim two things: First that they could hear something, but couldn't figure out what it was. (Okay, is it coming from the wheel you just messed around with? Yes? Please fix it!) Second: That even though they couldn't hear anything, they replaced the bearing they'd just replaced again. (Does that even make any sense? If you can't hear the noise we're talking about, why just re-do what you just did? Obviously you suspected something!) So, we got the car back again.

Yesterday, Hal came home from work (it's a fairly long drive, somewhere just over 20 miles, or about 30 minutes) and announced our car now sounds like a podracer. From Star Wars. You know, the ones Anakin drives. They go whub whub whub-whub-whub faster and faster and change pitch...

It was bad. And kind of scary! It sounded and FELT like the wheels were just going to jump off the car! Talk about frightening!
So, I took it in to try to get it fixed today. I took it to a different shop, 'cause obviously the first guys are morons. Side note: I do understand that sometimes you do get a fluky part, but do you have to come up with multiple stories to explain what happened? Just tell me the truth! Either you hear something, or you don't. Either you can fix it, or you just can't and I'll take it somewhere else!
The guy I took it to (who was a very nice man) asked me to explain what's going on, so I started at the beginning. And told him how it was making a noise, we took it in to some place (yes, I told him which place) and they replaced the bearings, then it was making noise again, and they replaced the bearings again "just in case we got a bad one", and now it's making the noise again - worse than last time. So, we went for a little drive and he told me that noise... is a bearing noise. He doesn't think our bearings are installed correctly.
He recommended that I take our car back to the place that did the bearings before, and have them hear the noise. And give them 2 choices: Either they can actually fix it this time, or they give us our money back. While he would love to fix it for us, he doesn't want me to have to pay both places for our bearings to be fixed. (Nice guy, huh?)
So, I did that. The moron guy says "Well, I'll be able to fix it this time, I can actually hear the noise." I was like "did you not hear it the first time? This is the same noise, just maybe a little louder." He's like "nyump." Not sure what that means, but I'll give the moron one more chance. I doubt I'll get my money back without a huge fight, and while I am mad, I don't relish the thought of fighting with these fellows.
However, next week, when it's making this noise again... I may just go a bit nutty on these guys.

Now I want ice cream!

2010-01-13T16:09:00.003-06:00

I was just sitting here working on my blog (about Christmas in Idaho) and the ice cream truck drove up my street playing his music. It always makes me want ice cream when he comes by! Yummy! And then there's that song: Ta-da ta-da ta-da ta ta ta da-ta-da-ta ta-da daaaa... it gets stuck in my head!

Brrr...

2010-01-11T20:34:00.002-06:00

It's been cold here for like the last week. Really cold! As in 24 degrees outside when Hal went to work this morning at 7 am. This might not seem really cold to some of you, but for Houston? BRRR!!!

So, this morning, as I was scraping Hal's car windows... no, unfortunately for him, I don't usually do this, but I took out the trash this morning, and thought, "today's the day I do something helpful!" So, I scraped the ice off. And it was cold.
Anyways, as I was scraping Hal's car windows, I noticed my neighbor come out of his house with a pail of water, and fling the water onto the side of his car. And it made me think... I bet that works! No scraper needed! Genius!
But... wouldn't the water run down below the seals on the windows, and as cold as it is, freeze again, inside the car door? That seems slightly unsmart! You don't want inside the car door to freeze! Right? Or would it run down? I know when it rains a lot, water will go down in the door, but just a little water? Would that go down? Hmmm...
Dousing your icy windows in water to get the ice off... Good idea? Bad idea? I've been thinking about it all day, and have yet to come up my answer. Anybody?

Hopefully it'll warm up again soon. I really thought I was done with this freezing weather when we got back from Idaho! Brrrr!

Hal moose!

2009-12-14T19:26:00.010-06:00

This weekend, Hal and I were walking through the mall looking for Christmas inspiration, and we came across the Build-a-Bear Workshop in our mall. Guess what they have? A moose!!!
... Guess what his name is??? Hal!!! Isn't he cute?

He's apparently from a cartoon that aired on ABC called "Holly and Hal Moose: Our Uplifting Christmas Adventure." (It's also a book, I guess.) We haven't seen it (yet), or know much about it really, but we do know it's about a moose called Hal (and his sister Holly)!!!

Just in case anybody wants to watch this show, you can watch it here until Dec 24th. I intend to watch it shortly! (After I'm done watching "The Easter Bunny is Coming to Town.")

It's snowing!!!!

2009-12-04T12:17:00.002-06:00

Bobbing for Goldfish

2009-11-03T03:15:00.002-06:00

A long time ago, Hal and I found a video of a fennec fox fishing for fish on YouTube. We decided sometime we should try it with our ferrets! We finally did it!

A while ago, when I was buying fishes for Archimedes, we decided to see what the ferrets would do with goldfish...
Hal put up some pictures of it here, on his blog. It was absolutely hilarious! I wish we'd had a video camera to record it!

The funniest thing is Rocket hates water! When I give him a bath, you'd think I was murdering him! But give him a bowl full of water with things moving in it and he'll dive right in! He's hilarious! Garrett seriously thought about it, but he decided it was not a game for him! Cocoa looked like she wanted to, but couldn't figure out how it was done... (It wasn't that complicated!) Maybe next time they'll play, too!

When Rocket would catch a fish, he'd shake it good (to make sure it's dead, then run off and stash it in some corner somewhere. (Yuck.) So I'd have to go pick up tiny dead fish. It did occur to me he might have been saving them for later, but I decided the my ewww outweighed his plans.

Hal kept trying to get a picture of him with a fish in his mouth, but he moves so darn fast!

Fishing

2009-11-03T02:15:00.003-06:00

I have a red eared slider turtle, Archimedes, who likes to eat little fishes. For a little while I was buying them at the pet store, but then we moved into this house where we are now, and there is a drainage ditch that runs right behind our house. It occured to me one day that there were probably little minnows in the living the in the ditch water.
The water level goes up and down, depending on if it's rained recently or not. In this picture it had been raining off and on for a couple of days, so the water level was kind of high. During a break in the storms, I walked up and snapped a picture. (Our house is the last gray one, right before the green one on the end.)

One day, I decided to try my luck at "fishing." So, with my butterfly net (purchased for this specific purpose), and my handy pickle jar (also used for catching frogs) I headed on down. I caught a whole bunch of little fishes and ghost shrimp! Archimedes loved the ghost shrimp!

I carefully crouch on the concrete sides and scoop with my net in the water. I say carefully 'cause it's actually fairly steep, I think to discourage people from playing on it, and I don't want to fall in! It looks slimy and gross!

A little while later, after a few more big storms, I went to go down a fish again, 'cause Archimedes was getting low on fishes. Everything was going so well! I had caught lots of fishes, I was having fun, and contemplating maybe puddling in the water to scare up a frog or two... When I happened to notice that there was a brown dead puppy floating in the water coming towards me! So, I went home. And didn't go back again for quite some time... Ewwww!

I like the fish that live in the water. And the turtles. And the frogs (lots and lots of frogs!).
I can deal with the funky smells that come from the ditch. And the moss. And the mosquitoes.
But I draw the line at dead animals!
The sad thing is the puppy looked just like some puppies that my neighbor had and was trying to get rid of... I'm not suggesting anything, just mentioning... It's either a tragic accident or a cruel person... It makes me sad just thinking of it...

He does stairs!

2009-11-02T20:37:00.000-06:00

Ferrets, we've read, have no depth perception (because their eyes are on the sides of their heads), consequently, they don't judge distance well.

Rocket loves to explore our house. And me, being the indulgent ferret owner I am, sometimes let him. One of the days he was exploring the upstairs, he encountered this really scary thing... A drop off! After much deliberation -- about 2 seconds of walking back and forth at the top of precipice, he decided to try hopping off it, just to see where it went I guess. He repeated this process again and again...
...the whole way to the bottom of the staircase. I scooped him up at the bottom and took him back up. After I carried him back up, a bit later he tore down the stairs again. Apparently in taking him back up so quickly, I'd reassured him he NEEDED to be down there! There must be something great!

Almost any chance he gets he darts down the stairs...

He goes down a bit like this:
He hops down by the wall with the railing, the whole way to the bottom of the last strait stair, where he walks across to the other wall, and goes down.
It's funny 'cause I walk down by the railing and step over (but only to the center) when I get to the bottom of the straight stair, too! I do it so I don't miss the triangle stair. His reason? Insanity?
This is a rough diagram of his steps on the bottom stairs. After switching walls to follow on the last strait stair and hopping down, he follows the wall 'til he hits the corner, and realizes he can't step down there, walks over to the center of the stair and hops down, then back to the wall, and for some reason then has to walk back to the center of the stair to hop down to the floor. Where he is then free to walk over to the wall by the door OR dart off straight across the floor trying to make it to the kitchen before I can catch him!

He's such a hoot! He has this thing with following the walls. He'll only walk across the center of a strange room when he gets really excited! He seems to forget he likes the walls. When he stops hopping around, he runs back to the wall...

As a little note: I feel it's important to know that my ferrets do have their own room in our three bedroom house where they get to get out of their cage to play. I block off the doorway (or close the door) so they can't escape, and they get to play for hours. (In a perfect world they'd be supervised at all times out of their cage. They are. Sometimes.)

Ouch!

2009-10-20T19:14:00.005-05:00

Last month, on Sept 8th to be precise ( I blame this for being late on all my September birthdays!), I had a slight accident.
I was wandering around my house. I wasn't wearing shoes, 'cause I don't like shoes. But I was wearing socks, apparently slick socks. I was upstairs, and about 3:15 I decided I should go check the mail. So, I jumped up, and went to go down the stairs...
I somehow slipped on the edge of the first "triangle stair" on the bottom two stairs... And landed on the linoleum (not tile) on my foot. My entire body fell two stairs and landed solidly on the outside of my left foot. I was in a LOT of pain. So, I laid there on the floor and cried. As soon as I was thinking more clearly, I realized I needed to get ice. And ibuprofen. So I crawled across the floor to our kitchen and got ice and pills, crawled back to the living room and put my foot up and iced it, while crying. I wasn't sure if I had broken it, or just sprained it, but it definitely was painful and swollen...

By bedtime, I could almost hobble around a bit. But I couldn't flex or extend my foot, curl my toes, or anything. But I called my nurse sister (and she gave me sympathy and listened to me cry for a while) and then later my mother, and they both said the same thing: See if it gets any better by tomorrow, but if you still have circulation to your toes it's not an emergency. :)

The next day I could almost walk on it. It would hold my weight, but not bend, so I hobbled... luckily, I had a doctors appointment that day, (convenient, huh?) so I just talked to the doctor about my foot then. She said that while she could have my foot x-rayed if I wanted, she didn't think it was broken. I wasn't in terrible pain when she touched it, except for one tiny spot, and I could put pressure on it. But there apparently wasn't enough bruising and what bruising there was, wasn't in the right place.
(This is not my foot, but a foot picture I found online. I forgot to take a picture of mine.) The orange "circle" is where my foot was bruised, and the blue is where the doctor said the bruising would be "more likely" to be if my foot was broken.

However, she couldn't tell me for sure that it wasn't broken without an x-ray. I opted to not do an x-ray and just wait and see.

By my logic, it already felt a little better the next day, and if it wasn't broken it would continue to get better. If it was broken it would still hurt in the next few days.
By the next week, I could walk normally, but slowly. The week after that I felt just fine. Fine enough I decided to mow the lawn. BIG mistake. I stepped in a hole and torked it again. So I was back to limping around for a few days.

Anyways, that's my foot story... I fell, hurt my foot, but I'm better now! Stupid dangerous stairs!
I never did make it to the mailbox that day...

PS: I'm a bit paranoid about going down my stairs now, so I'm much more careful! Except when I'm not!

House pictures...

2009-10-18T15:57:00.006-05:00

I've heard that some people like to see where other people are living, to be able to picture them in their environment better...
That said, my environment is typically fairly cluttered. I'm a messy kind of girl and while I am working on it, the "tidy up goal" is still a work in progress. One day, I'll have everything in my house in a place of it's own... (Yeah right, but it sounds good!)
A while ago, I said I'd take some pictures of our house:
Front of the house...
Back of the house... We have since removed the window air conditioner units and the foil from the window. Apparently it was violating the homeowners association rules... For the sake of not complaining about it (today anyways), I'll just say HOAs (for the most part) are evil, rude, and invasive.
Our view out our back, this was me standing in my back door, on my step stool, so I could see over the back fence. There's a park back there, in the next neighborhood over. Just past this fence is a drainage canal with lovely smells and animals in it. (Some animals are actually lovely, others... not so much! Story for a different day.)
This is our living room. Couch, bookshelves, TV, and speakers. I'm sitting on the stairs, on the right side of the picture is the front door... It opens right against the bottom stair. Makes it hard to move stuff in and up the stairs, too!
This is our living room. As you can see, we don't have a dining room table.
And to answer a question that people seem to want to know... We don't usually use either the weight set or the elliptical. But we wouldn't ever use them if they were in the garage, so this IS a step in the right direction, right?
This is the kitchen. Through the door frame across the way is the laundry room and a door to the garage. And I'm thinking of it just now... There is a half bath down stairs, it's located just to the left of where this picture ends (does that make any sense?), tucked under the stairs.
Here's the bottom of the stairs... This is the dangerous part! But I'll save that story for a different post!
This is the view of the stairs from the top. (I've got a ferret story about this...)
This is the view of the upstairs from the big room at the top of the stairs. On starting from the left: We have our bedroom (with our bed, dresser, and a closet with Hal's shirts in it), the next "door" just above the vent is the AC/furnace blower closet door. The next room is our computer room (with a door to the bathroom and a big closet with my shirts, pants, etc, in it!). Then ther's the staircase. The last door you can see is the door to the ferrets/frogs/turtle (and fish) room. There's another bathroom right by the ferret room.

I'm afraid ya'll don't actually get to see the contents of any of these rooms at this time... it's too embarrassing... (as I mentioned I'm kind of a slob... working on that... I'll get things tidied up and post upstairs pictures soon!)

There's some of the pictures of our house. And what do you know?! I came up with three stories to post about just from looking at the pictures!

Hal's new blog

2009-10-02T09:29:00.001-05:00

I've been posting for about a week on a new blog, so it looks like I'm serious this time. The new format is less restrictive for me. I don't feel like I have to have a whole set of pictures before I can post. Also, being on blogger means the process is simpler and faster. Check it out if you want, and leave a comment over there so I'll know if I've got an audience. It's not just pictures this time. This blog is also going to have my musings sometimes, current events I want to comment on, things I find funny, etc. Also, when I post pictures they'll be right on the front page instead of in a Flash program. Here's the link:

hatchingchickens.blogspot.com

I've established a separate blog so that I don't make a habit of posting on halanddani. I don't want to muck up Dani's blog with my own stuff, and you can ignore one of us or the other as you please.

Hmmm...

2009-09-28T10:30:00.003-05:00

This morning I decided to do something I never do (at just before 7 am. I'll do it sometimes at like 9 or 10, but never 7!)... I made breakfast. Now, my thought was rather than holler at Hal in the shower "Would you like me to make you breakfast? How do eggs sound?," I'd just make some. If he wanted it when he was done showering, he could have it, otherwise, I'd just claim it was all for me! :)
I was thinking maybe some scrambled eggs would be yummy...

So I went downstairs and got out the eggs... and my impromptu breakfast rapidly turned itself into something yummier! (This is about as close to retracing my thoughts as I can get...)
I thought runny yolk eggs sound better than scrambled, with maybe some toast to go with it? So I got out the potato bread (Hal likes potato bread) that we got Saturday and made a couple of pieces of toast to go with the couple of cooking eggs.
And then I thought... I'd like some cheese! I LOVE cheese!
So I got into my cheese drawer to get the cheese to cut myself a piece, and saw the sandwich ham I have in there. And I thought "I wonder if that's still good?" So I got it out to check (it was).
and then it occurred to me...
Instead of just eggs and toast, I should make something better! I've got toast (well, mostly bread 'cause my toaster seems to be dying), eggs, cheese, and ham! (Hal came in about this time and said he'd like one.)
I flipped the eggs over, added a cheese slice to each, a piece of ham, and then when the cheese was melted, slid the egg onto my bread slathered with mayo...

Maybe I'll make myself another for lunch... it was pretty good!

It really surprised Hal that I'd made breakfast. He said that he could tell I made it for myself, and not actually for him, as I seemed too happy to have actually made it for him. "??"
Apparently I only get that excited to cook something when it talks to me... Boy does that sound nuts. I just mean that when I get started and whatever I'm making evolves into something else, something yummy! I enjoy cooking more.

And yet I don't actually cook like that for Hal, because well... it doesn't always evolve into something yummy... I have funky tastes (in shoes, clothes, decor, pets, and apparently food) and Hal doesn't always agree with my culinary tastes... So, rather than subject him to forcing down something rather distasteful I just don't get carried away. I follow a recipe. Except when I don't...

Example:
I was making meatloaf. Following my mom's "recipe" (I'm sure she actually does have one, but I just make it like I remember her making it. Unfortunately, hers always turns out better 'causes she's better at it than me... I NEED to measure!) Anyways, it went like this. Some defrosted hamburger (I had just under a pound I think), a handful of rolled oats, some bread crumbs (I had some stuffing filling), a small handful of dried onions, an egg, some salt and pepper, (so far so good) and about half a can of tomato sauce. Now I didn't have tomato sauce so I substituted... tomato paste. They're both red! And gooey! And tomato! My meatloaf ended up a bit sweet. Hal said that it probably would have been better if I'd used ketchup instead of the tomato paste. Anyways, I liked it! I thought it was yummy! Hal ate it. But did not want seconds...

Another example (of my funky tastes, and why I don't "assemble" food for Hal):
(typed up into almost recipe form for added fun... If you have a sensitive stomach, don't think about it too hard...)
One of my favorite things to eat when I was very first out on my own, fending for my own food, was (probably still is delicious) this:
Combine in a bowl (or on a plate, but it stays together better in a bowl):
A cooked hot dog or two (the Bar S kind is the best here... and the cheapest), cut it into bite sized pieces,
some pineapple (chunks are best, but crushed works too),
some corn (I always used the kernel kind, because I don't like cream style, so I don't know how that would be),
add some salsa to add some color and more flavor,
And ta da! yummy! You can also add cubed cheese for extra yummy.
Additional notes: Green beans go well in this "dish" as well as, or instead of, corn. Mandarin oranges do not mix well with the salsa. Nor does ranch dressing. Canned chili (or just kidney beans) does mix in quite well.

Anyways, Hal always seems a bit leery when he comes into the kitchen and I'm grinning from ear to ear and say "do you want some?" Understandable? I think so...

Hmm...
I seems to have gotten distracted...
I made breakfast today, and it was yummy!!!

A new toy!

2009-09-26T11:49:00.002-05:00

This is a post I meant to blog about like a month ago, and just didn't, so I'm writing it down now!

When we moved into this house, our lawn was almost dead. (Which, while it may be ugly, at least means we don't have to worry about mowing it or hiring someone to mow it.) Shortly thereafter, it started raining. And raining. And raining. I like to say it's either hot or pouring rain. Which while not being strictly true -- it's like 78 degrees right now and almost noon, not really hot -- does seem to convey how I feel.
Consequently the lawn grew and grew...
We arranged to have someone come mow it, and I told them to cut it really short. When they were done, and it was, in my opinion, too tall still, they told me that that's as short as they could cut it with all the holes and uneven ground I have. Apparently I have "rocks" (I have to tell you, I've looked and there's not so many rocks!)
Anyways, a couple of weeks later when the jungle effect was going again, I tried to hire someone to come mow again... I had multiple people look and got quotes from $35 to $50 ("$50 at least maybe more, we'll figure it when we're done") ... And I thought... Um "no"...
So, we decided I could mow it! My wonderful husband got me a new mower!

It's a self propelled mower and you know what? It's seriously like the coolest toy ever! It's even better than the weed wacker! (And that's saying something, 'cause boy, is that thing fun!) I went out to try it out after we got it, and mowed the whole front lawn having a blast! I think my neighbors thought I was a little nuts... I was grinning and laughing...
By the time I done with the back as well, the novelty had worn off a bit, but it's still awesome! It makes me feel so TOUGH!!! I just squeeze the trigger and off it goes! Vroom!!! How wonderful! :)

I'm back!

2009-08-10T15:03:00.003-05:00

Ok, so I'm a terrible slacker at this blogging thing! (And most other things, but we won't talk about those!)

I'm been meaning to post forever! And just haven't... Sorry for all of you who have been wanting to read my ramblings... :) I'll try to to better!

So, when we last left off...
We've moved from Wichita Falls to Houston, and were trying to sell our house in Wichita Falls. And were trying to buy a house in Houston.

Well, after forever (like 4 1/2 months) of having our house for sale, we finally got an offer! So, we've managed to sell our house in Wichita Falls! Hurray! So that's gone! We no longer own a house!

And after getting frustrated and failing miserably at trying to find a house to buy here in Houston, we gave up, and found a big house to rent. It's bigger than our house was in Wichita Falls, and much bigger than the apartment we were renting. BUT it does have stairs! Which as we're learning, might not be such a good idea for us, since we both have "bad knees" that creak and snap and crackle as we go up and down the stairs.
It is nice to have our stuff with us again, not locked away in storage... and BOY do we have LOTS of stuff!!!
One of these days I'll take pictures of our house so people who like to see where we live (Nickie!) can see us and picture us here. (I really will do it sometime Nickie! I keep meaning to, I just keep thinking "I just need to organize this and put this stuff somewhere else first...")

So, no house buying for us. Which is probably for the best, since we're not sure that we really want to stay in Houston, and selling houses is almost as stressful as buying houses! (For us anyways...)

So, we moved into our rental house (here after referred to as our house) at the beginning of July, and a couple of weeks later (July 25th to be exact) left to go on our somewhat regular trip to California. We really like San Diego area, such wonderful weather! And happy people! The first summer we went there, it felt so warm and wonderful... Which coming from Pocatello, ID, where it's either too cold or too hot all summer, never a nice wonderful 75 degrees, was a great change. And this time, coming from Houston, TX, it was so cool and wonderful. 75 to 80 degrees feels fabulous after 100 degree days with 75 to 90% humidity... (Apparently we're having an extraordinarily hot summer here in Houston. At least that's what we've been told...)

In southern CA, we got to see one of Hal's friends from high school Tanner, his sweet wife Chandra, and their energetic hilarious son Parker. Tanner picked us up at the airport and we got to hang out with them all afternoon! It was great to see them again! And I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with Chan and playing with Parker! He's a fabulous little kid!

We visited the beach & played in the ocean and got lovely sunburns.

And we went to Seaworld twice (two visits for the price of one special) and got lovely sunburns.

...Seeing a pattern here?...

We visited old downtown San Diego and visited our favorite shops there -- a candy shop and a rock shop -- and ate disappointing Mexican food. We picked wrongly I guess... but by the time the plate is sitting in front of you and you see it and go "this isn't what I wanted!" it's kind of too late!

We visited Balboa Park and went to the botanical gardens to take pictures of flowers and went to a photographic gallery that had an Ansel Adams display, which was wonderful!

We went to Claim Jumpers for dinner and gorged ourselves on their fantastically huge slice of chocolate cake... Mmmmm...

We went to the farmers maker in Oceanside and got some yummy produce (green beans and grapes... mmmm...)

We went to this little Mexican place in Carlsbad Village (at least I think that's where it was at) called Cessy's taco shop, and had a delicious burrito. Hal said it was very similar to the burritos we used to get at Rolberto's in Pocatello... mmmm.... (The little bit I ate was good but very cilantro covered, hence why I only ate a little!) Now we know why we haven't been able to find those same kind of burritos here in TX... its a California style Mexican burrito (in Idaho)... And we had some of that delicious soft serve ice cream (for really cheap too!)

What else did we do? Hmmm... that's all that's coming to mind right now... but we had a blast! It was great to go away from home (and our computer games!) together for a little while.

We did have to be careful how long we were in the sun though, even slathering ourselves up with sunscreen we kept burning! Which led us to our discovery... Even though its warm and sunny here in Houston, nobody ever goes outside. Why? It's too hot! Verses in so CA, it was wonderful and everyone is always outside... I can't wait until fall when I get to be outside again! :)

That mostly more or less is what we've been up to...
Hopefully I'll do better at blogging! And I'll post a few pictures of our trip and our house soon!

In pet news...
For those of you who care, a while ago (like June or something) my mouse, Tilly, who I got last spring, has died. I was a bit sad and bummed. She had seizures or something like that all day. It made for a very sad tearful day for me. I don't watch animals suffer well at all! Tragically and luckily she didn't suffer for very long. My wonderful husband gave her a proper city burial for me, so that I didn't have to. (I zipped her a a plastic baggie and he carried her out the dumpster...)

In other animal news...
Yesterday it rained. And the baby frogs and lizards hatched! We caught two little tiny brown baby frogs (at least I assume they were babies). They were like the size of my little fingernails! They were so cute!
And I caught tiny green lizard that was on the front of our house. I kept them for a few minutes and then decided I wouldn't be able to find bugs to feed them, so I let them go... But we caught them! :)

I think that's all the news I've got for now!

Tilly

2009-04-28T07:46:00.003-05:00

So, while I was living in Wichita Falls (without Hal) working on our house, for the first while, I had our ferrets with us there. Then when we moved all of our belongings down to Houston into our apartment, they were moved down here...
Then I was all alone! So, I went out and bought myself a friend that I could talk to...

Meet Tilly, the cow...
...mouse, that is.
I know most people find mice creepy, and truthfully, I kind of do too, but she is CUTE! I love her little ears! and little feet! I do feel kind of bad, 'cause after I came back to Houston where my ferrets are she doesn't get out much anymore, but I still find her adorable!

So now I've got my three ferrets, a turtle, a frog, and a mouse. Next up is a cat... or a hedgehog... :)

What is it?

2009-04-20T09:54:00.003-05:00

So!...
I was driving along a road, just outside the city, while looking around at houses. And I was driving by this pond (wildlife reserve?) alongside the road. When I saw something I just had to stop to take a picture of. Just so you know, Hal is really the photographer, I usually end up with blurry stuff... I have a hard time holding still...

But I took this:
You may want to click on it to blow it up bigger. See if you can see what's in the middle of the picture...

Just in case you can't tell, here's an zoomed in shot...

I came home absolutely ecstatic and dragged Hal out with me to see if it was still there. And we found this sign nearby: Great, huh?
I think its hilarious that they have to post things like this! How many people had to "annoy" an alligator before they decided to post a sign warning them not to? Hmmm...

I'm totally excited about this gator! I've always wanted to see one in the wild! I'd love to get up close and personal with one, but... somehow that doesn't seem quite safe... You know?

What we've been up to...

2009-04-17T13:46:00.002-05:00

Well... I'll have to come right out and say that it hard for me to remember what all we've been doing... Luckily Hal has taken pictures and blogged about some of the things, on his photo blog (which is awesome!) http://halbradbury.oxyhost.com/

First of all, finding a house...
It's going very frustrating! We found a house we wanted (3 bed, 2 1/2 bath, awesome kitchen and master suite, in a good area, everything!) and were told by the bank that they wouldn't finance it. Because... it is in a neighborhood where all the houses have a paved driveway, and it only has a gravel driveway... (the like 30 feet from the road to the garage)...
So, we found another one we liked, and made an offer on that one, and were out bid, so we didn't get that one either.
And once again, I'm off to find another house! 3rd times a charm, right?

And on the weekends, rather than just sitting in our sad little apartment, we go out and play tourist! There's TONS of things to do here in Houston! (Most of them cost money, but *sigh* sometimes we get to do things for free!) Last fall when we came down to interview for the job, we went to the zoo. (Hal has pictures from it on his photo blog, post Houston Zoo.) We went to the zoo again last weekend. I love the zoo! It makes me dream of a day when I'll own my own zoo! (I'm well on my way already!)

We've also been to the Houston Space Center (NASA). It was not quite as fun as we were hoping for and super crowded, but we went!

We've been to museums (the Holocaust Museum and an art gallery museum).

We've driven out to Galveston to go to the beach and ridden a ferry. (Galveston ferry)

We went to see the USS Texas Battleship and some other monument, and rode another ferry... (Monument State Park)
I really like the ferry rides! :)

And Mom and Dad Bradbury came down for an Army medical conference thing -- is it bad that I'm not entirely sure what Dad was doing? Hmmm... -- and we got to see them, and go to Moody Gardens, which I really enjoyed, and would like to go again after they're back up and running all the way! (Obnoxious hurricane anyways! Just closed everything down! Breaking things! Jeesh!) I'm sure we did other things, but that's the only one that comes to mind right this moment... It was really wonderful to see them again though!

On April 1st, we got to go see Les Miserables performed here in Houston (at the Hobby Center). It was awesome! Hal absolutely loves Les Mis and has always wanted to see it live! So, we jumped on the chance! Funny thing about that... Hal's so familiar with the music from Les Mis that he's been dreaming it... I'll wake up in the night to find him sort of singing-humming in his sleep... Less now that right after we went, but still... "Do... hear... people sing... angry men... music... slaves again..." Cracks me up every time!
We'll be going to see Rent at the end of the month, and I'm really excited for that one! I love Rent!

We go take walks in parks and Hal takes pictures with his newly acquired cameras... I'd say new, but the one is most definitely NOT new! He's been taking pictures with film lately, and loving it! The whole manual focus lens thing, and the waiting to get them developed... it's a lot of fun for him, and he's been enjoying it!

What else have we been up to.... hmmm... I know there's more, but there's a small sampling!

House in Wichita Falls pictures...

2009-04-15T15:27:00.006-05:00

So, I'm going to try to get back to blogging! Slowly but surely I'll get caught up to what's current...

I mentioned working on our house in Wichita Falls...
You can see more pictures of our house in previous posts, like this one: Pictures of our house.
I'll be posting a few of them here, anyways, but just in case! (I apparently don't do well with before and after pictures, or even actually have the pictures that I think I do! So, I apologize, I'll try to do better next time!)

Starting with the outside... when we bought it, it had a giant, huge, stinky in-the-way bush by the front door... it would prevent the door from opening, "knock" on the window in the wind, and be stinky!
So, we ripped it out. (Well, I cut it to bits and then the missionaries ripped it out for us, but... it was gone!)
I painted the overhang and part of the front of the house... it's not a great job, but it looks better! It might be more obvious in person, but I was proud! :)

When my brother, David, came down to help us with our house, he did the most amazing things!
This is what the bathroom looked like before...
He made my bathroom look oh, so pretty!
Granted, it's still (re-painted) white, but I've read houses sell better painted plain colors, like tan, white, off-white... And it just so happened, I had white paint! :)
He replaced the tub, tiled the floor, fixed the leaky toilet (which unfortunatly, sprung another leak later, so I took the tank off again and fixed it... hopefully for good!). And he removed the old sink & counter and put in a new one, and removed the old ugly mirror & lights, fixed the wall, and hung new ones! (Sorry, no before picture of this one!)
When we bought the house, the dining room had carpet, which I didn't really care for...
And the kitchen had this wall oven and counter top range, that we removed.

David also laid some flooring in my kitchen and dining room.
We were planning on just replacing the kitchen sink and counter, BUT the sink wouldn't fit into the existing cabinets, so we had to replace those too! Ugh! It looks mighty pretty if I do say so myself!

After Christmas, Hal came up from Houston with a friend from work, Anita and her husband Nino, for the weekend, and Nino trimmed (around the floor) in the dining room and kitchen, and they helped us pack up the house and drive it all to Houston! They were life savers!

One of the other things I did (after Christmas) was work on the half bath... which involved removing the tank from the existing toilet, removing the water-saver device that didn't work properly and prevented the toilet from flushing, re-assembling the toilet (my first one ever!). I did not remove the bowl from the floor, though! 'Cause there's no way I was going to mess with that if I didn't have to!
I replaced the faucet for the sink, and the valves that ran the water to it, because they leaked! And in the process of working under the sink, knocked it off the wall onto myself (we were both fine!) But I did have to re-attach the sink to the wall! Whew! And I re-attached it properly! Grrr!
This is the before/after shot of the half-bath... Everything you can see in it look exactly the same... sorry, I didn't take pictures of the faucet! (You're not missing much!)

I do like to tell stories!
Funny story about our old bathtub... One day in October or sometime right around there, I climbed into our bathtub to take a shower. And I'd swear, I felt it move! Well, it apparently DID move at some point, because it appeared to be sinking, in comparison to the floor and the wall... big cracks appeared around it, where the caulk around the tub had pulled away from the sheetrock surrounding it... Hmmm...
As scary as it is to have your tub drop an inch or two, I wasn't actually all that worried... it's not like it could go anywhere! Our house was built on a slab foundation, which just means it's sitting on a concrete floor. (Think of your garage or basement... imagine a tub sitting on the floor... not really anywhere to go, just a little obnoxious and scary when it moves!)
Anyways, when my brother removed the tub, he discovered why it had dropped. (And I'm really sorry to say I didn't take pictures of it!) We had a metal tub, probably the tub that was dropped in in 1961 when the house was built, anyways, there were bars running along the bottom of the tub to support it. And they had just rusted up and partially crumbled away! And the tub slowly dropped down... Tee hee... Not entirely certain HOW metal bars on the bottom of a bathtub rust off, but such is life! It amused me!

Stupid Dani story!
While David was laying tile in the bathroom, I was watching him smear the adhesive glop on the floor, before setting the tiles on it, and I decided that the gray goop looked a bit like clay! Okay, so it looks a LOT like clay! I wanted to play in it...
My brother, being the nice guy that he is told me that he didn't think it was such a good idea to play with it. It is cement after all... This "cement" word didn't scare me though! And I pestered and bugged him 'til he said "Look! Play with it if you want, but it's not a good idea!"
So, I proceded to smear it all over my hands and squish it and play with it... It was a blast! I had so much fun! Until it started drying and hurting... At which point I asked my brother what was going on, why it hurts...
He looked at me (in the typical you're being an idiot fashion) and informed me IT'S CEMENT!!! Cement has lye and sand in it. The lye was burning me and the sand was probably imbedding itself in my pores. Ummm... Oh...
So I went to wash, and lucky me, my hands hurt and itched for weeks! I had some really terrible looking red bumps all over my hands (I concerned the people at work. They thought maybe I'd gotten some horrible disease...)
Lesson learned: Cement is not a good idea to play with bare handed! Maybe next time I should wear gloves... ;) OK!! OK!! I won't play with it again!

Whew! So that was just lots of information! Sorry! I tend to get a little long winded! :)
I'll try to post again soon!

Checking in...

2009-03-10T07:21:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone!
Boy, it's been a while, huh? (Sorry about that... we're alive and well! I'm just a slacker!)

Hal started his job in Houston on Dec 1st. He came down for a week, then drove 6 1/2 hours home for the weekend, then came back down for 2 weeks (staying in a hotel this whole time). Then we went home for Christmas.
In the meantime, I was working my job in Wichita Falls, and working with my brother David on my house. (He did a most fabulous job of re-doing my bathroom! And I love the floor and counter in my kitchen!) Thanks David! I'm awfully sad to move out of my "brand new" house!

Christmas in Idaho... was COLD! Suddenly I remember why it is we moved to Texas... To get far far away from the *brrrr* cold snow! It was wonderful to see our families! We love you all! We had lots of fun hanging out, talking & laughing, playing games, and enjoying the children and animals! (We've got some adorable nieces and nephew!)

Once we got back to Texas in January, Hal headed back to Houston, and I followed a day later, after taking care of some business (picking up accumulated mail, etc...) in Wichita Falls. I was here for a week, finding us an apartment and getting us moved in (not much stuff to move in, just what we had in our hotel room.) Then I left Hal here in Houston, again, and headed back to pack and work on the house a bit more. Two weeks later, we rented a giant (26 ft) rental truck, Hal came up for the weekend with some friends from Houston (a wonderful lady he works with, Anita, and her awesome husband Nino) to help pack the truck, hang trim around the newly renovated rooms, and drive back to Houston, where we unloaded our giant truck. Boy, we've got lots of stuff! *Sigh* One of these times we move, I'll just leave it all behind, I swear! :) Ok, probably not...

I stayed in Houston for a couple of weeks, lazing around, hanging out with Hal, dreading going back to finish up the house... Then I went back to Wichita Falls, where I spent two weeks working on my house and being sick. Amazingly enough, I finally finished and got the house listed "for sale."
On impulse, after another long day of working, I packed up the remainder of my belongings and started my drive back to Houston at 6 pm... It's a six hour drive, in good traffic... I gotta say, I was a bit loopy and tired when I made it - safely, I should add!

So, for anyone keeping track, Hal and I have, since the beginning of December, lived apart for 3 weeks, together for 3, apart for 2, together for 2, apart for 2 and now we're back together again! We decided we'd rather be living together, than six hours apart. It's awful!

It's kind of sad to be leaving our pretty house! (It wasn't pretty before, but now it sure is!) But we're excited to move again, and start a new chapter in our lives. That's my grand ol' summary of what's happened in our lives lately!

I'll post pictures of my pretty house soon!

Surprise!

2008-11-22T23:21:00.000-06:00

We're moving!

To Houston!

Hal has been offered a job as a design engineer with Oil States in Houston, TX. And he/we have taken it. So, we're going to be moving to Houston! It sounds like it will be an awesome job, actually designing things! (Which is good!) We're excited!

He starts next week...

So, I guess that means we're going to try to sell our house in Wichita Falls, and head on off to Houston! Well, we're heading off to Houston either way, so hopefully it'll sell! Whew!

Pieces of news and adventures

2008-11-01T07:47:00.002-05:00

So, I never feel like anything much is going on here... and then I start rambling and come up with all sorts of stuff to say!

I don't know that I've ever mentioned it, but I started working (as a temp) as a receptionist at a company called Burk Royalty back in June. Anyways, I've been there ever since. They offered me a "full time" job (which I find a funny term 'cause I was already doing 40 hours a week, but now I'm on their payroll, not the temp agency's) about a month ago. Neat, huh? Anyways, they're "in oil", which apparently to some people means a whole lot, but to me... not so much... it seems to be that they manage oil things. They find the fields where they think there might be money to be made by drilling for oil or minerals, take care of buying/leasing it, hire someone to drill a well, and then proceed to manage the resources (oil and money) we get out of it. Anyways, I'm slowly learning all about the oil industry. It's a pretty good job. Fairly relaxed and mostly very slow paced...

We've both gotten new callings at church. I've been released from my calling in Young Womens and I've been called to be on the enrichment committee. (Hurray! I get to got to Relief Society!) Hal's been called to be in the choir. I'd heard a rumor that if they didn't get some people to start coming regularly, they'd starting making callings, but I thought it was kind of a joke...

We did go on a couple of "outings" with our new camera last weekend. We took our ferrets to the park. As I'm sure ya'll can probably imagine, we've got hundreds of pictures of our wonderful ferrets, these two are my favorites from our latest excursion. The top one captures the ferrets perfectly. I can almost hear them thinking what is it? To chew? To hide? To play? And bonus! All three are in it! And this bottom one... well, I was following Rocket, who had to wander away, and Cocoa was stalking me! It was too cute!

And we went to Sikes Lake or Midwestern pond or whatever it's called and saw some ducks, geese, and swans. We saw a yoga texas goose. (My very favorite!)
And I attempted to chase them...
*sigh* Sadly, I'm not very committed to it, and they can tell. They don't even budge! They hiss at me though...

Also, and kind of my biggest news, I've started taking a new drug (well, new for me) for my migraines. It's called Topamax. It's... entertaining, to say the least. The side effects are WOW! But I haven't had a migraine this week... or maybe I did and I just didn't care? Not really sure what's been happening... Hmmm... jury is still out. More about that a different day, just wanted to share!

Alien brains

2008-10-21T08:15:00.001-05:00

On Saturday, we were out running errands and drove by the waterfall and noticed the bright red color. Of course, we had to go home and get the camera! Usually when the river is muddy, they turn off the waterfall. (It's a man-made waterfall to replace the waterfall that used to be around here before it was washed out a really long time ago!) The dirt/clay is red here, and when it rains, the red sediment rushes into the river... coloring it red, not just murky brown. (Hence the reason the Red River is called the Red River... it's red!) It's really gorgeous!
Anyways, Hal posted a whole bunch of pictures about the day on his photo site, and it seems silly to repeat all the photos, so I'm going to focus on my favorite parts of our walk by the river!

First of all, I was walking out to a bank on the river while Hal was taking pictures of a spider web, spider included, with dew on it. It was a really pretty web! As I was walking out, this little brown leaf in front of me started fluttering along the ground. And then I realized it wasn't a leaf. It was a little tiny frog! He lept over the edge and landed down below. I thought he'd went in the water, but I still looked and looked for him on the river bank. I finally found him and Hal took a picture of him. Can you see him?
I wanted so bad to climb on down there to try to catch him. But Hal pointed out it was probably a bad idea. Slick river mud, gross water... bad combination! So I didn't get to try to catch him.

A little later, I was checking out the river (again) and I saw the most wonderful thing! This green brain!
And then I climbed out (onto the rocks) and fished it out of the river. Isn't it cute?

I'd never seen anything so green alien-like and lovely! So, of course, being me, I wanted to do two things with it. (1) Take it home and (2) break it open and get out the dinosaur egg or alien baby or whatever was in it!

Hal said he'd really rather I didn't take it home. And he didn't really want to break it open with me.

So, I conceeded. I didn't take it home and I broke it open myself, right there on the river walk. My wonderful husband took pictures of the whole occassion.

Sadly, there was no dinosaur egg. And there was no alien baby in it. Bummer, huh?
But it did look kind of like an alien brain!
I totally looked like it should be edible! It had this pineapple-like texture and I think it smelled really good! Faintly familiar...like I'd smelled it before!And I'm kind of embarrased to admit this... but if it hadn't been soaking in the river, I might have tried to taste it! It looked totally edible! (Even if slightly brain-like.)
I had a blast tearing it apart! It was super fun! And it made my hands smell totally yummy!

The only draw back was that it made my hands sticky! I was so confused by that! The outside wasn't sticky before I started tearing it apart. And the inside wasn't very sticky, either! Hmmm... My hands felt kind sticky like I'd been trying to climb a very pine-gummy pine tree. (Done that before!) At least this stuff washed off! Unlike pine gum...

When we got back to the car, I was just standing there minding my own business, smelling my hands, when Hal decided to take a self-portrait, reflected in the car windows. Hence, this: Here we are all distorted by the reflection with me sniffing my fingers. Hal laughed really hard after he took this one. (Here's a picture of both of us Nickie! Your wish has been granted! ...probably not quite what you had in mind, but...)

After we got home, I researched what in the world this green brain fruit was (I googled "green fruits" and immediately came up with a picture of it! Weird, huh?! I never have such good searching luck!)

"Whether it is known locally as Osage orange, mock orange, Osage apple, hedge, hedge apple, naranjo chino, bois d'arc, bodark or bow wood, it is the same distinctive tree." - Jim W. Grace

Wikipedia (love that wikipedia!) says: "The fruit... is roughly spherical, but bumpy, and 7-15 cm in diameter, and it is filled with a sticky white latex sap. In fall, its color turns a bright yellow-green and it has a faint odor similar to that of oranges." Hmmm... fruit! And filled with latex sap! That's why I was all sticky! And it has an odor similar to oranges! That's why it was so familiar!

"The fruits have a pleasant and mild odor, but are inedible for the most part. Although not strongly poisonous, eating it may cause vomiting." Good thing I didn't eat it, huh? My inclination to taste something that smells good is probably one best repressed.

I'm totally fascinated by this tree! Apparently, they come in male and female trees (weird, huh?) and only the female trees can bear fruit.

And I'm sure the squirrels in that area, who apparently love the seeds from this hedge apple/osage orange fruit thingy, are very grateful to me for breaking it open and leaving it on the sidewalk for them! Yes, I left it smack in the middle of the sidewalk. So everyone else could see it, too!

Look at all this information gleaned just because I found an alien brain in the river! And now all of you get to hear it, too! Lucky people!

BRRRRR!!!!

2008-10-15T16:18:00.005-05:00

I just have to share...
It's so incredibly cold outside today! 55 degrees! Holy Moo!! (He he he! That cracks me up every time! Moo!) & I know some of you are going to look at that and go, "so what are you complaining about?" But it's just downright cold feeling! I feel like I should bust out my coat! (Just FYI, it's colder here in Wichita Falls right now than it is in Victor, Blackfoot, or Pocatello. According to Wunderground, we're all in the 50's but we're colder than all ya'll! Does that make us the winner or the looser?)

On the bright side, it's warm in my office today, so that's good!

Pictures and more pictures!

2008-10-14T21:38:00.001-05:00

Now that it's cooled off a bit (you know, 85, not 105) we've started going outside during the day again. And we got Hal (well, us, but Hal's the photographer) a new camera, so we have to try it out!

Here's some of the fun things we've done:
By the way, these are just some of the tons of pictures Hal's taken. More of them are posted on his photo blog. These are just some of my favorites out of the bunch! He's so good! I'm always so impressed! If you have time, I'd recommend clicking the pictures to view them large size, there's lots more detail that way!

1. Visited our friends the camels. They weren't quite as happy to see us as last time. Only one came to the "door" to greet us.
(Nice teeth, huh? I think he needs a dentist!)

2. Drove up to Lawton to visit the buffalo on the Wichita Wildlife Reserve. We successfully spotted 2. But we saw some prairie dogs...
(They're so cute! I want one! Hal said if I can catch one, I could have one. 2 problems: 1. That would be illegal. 2. I can't really catch them. They're too sneaky!)
And we went up Mt. Scott (tallest point around! 2,464 ft.) and took some pictures off of that.
(There were so many birds circling! It was kinda creepy!)

3. Drove up to the Wildlife Reserve again, to try to see more buffalo. First we stopped in Medicine Park (a little town outside of the park, Oklahoma's first Cobblestone community). We saw Bathlake and lots of other fun stuffs!
(Both pictures of the "lake", but in the bottom one see the cute squirrel? He was trying to run away from Hal, and found me on the other side of the grass. Poor guy! )
(Cute praying mantis, huh? I had some of these once.)

(These three statues were all in and around Medicine Park. We loved them!)

(This top one is only important to show you where this bottom one is... It's some sort of water treatment dam thing. BUT I found the perfect place to go sliding! Look! (below) You could just slide on the moss! You would have to lower yourself over the guard rail down like 20 feet and slam into the junk at the bottom, but, hey! I've known people who would do it!)Then we headed into the park, where we spent hours trying to find some wildlife! We saw prairie dogs,
(Awwww! Below: He's eating some bread that some kind family was feeding them. Cute, huh? It's what drew the coyotes, too.)
coyotes,
grasshoppers,
some longhorn cows (not pictured), and finally on the way out, a buffalo.
If you haven't noticed, we go to the park to see buffalo, and end up seeing... well, not buffalo. Lots and lots of prairie dogs, though!

4. Went to a couple of parks and picked a few pecans (for bringing up at Christmas for show and tell) and hunted for some "huge" acorns one of the ladies I work with said are there. I didn't have luck with the big acorns, but I found some "regular" sized ones. I love acorns! They're so cute! I've got a whole collection, but I'm not sure what to do with them now...
(Above: This was actually taken up by Medicine Park, but it fits better here. These particular acorns are small ones and have STRIPES! Cute! And I'm in a picture Nickie! Tee hee...)

And we saw more animals and such!
(Aren't they just too cute? I love that both of them have the same foot off the ground.)

(What is it? I think it's some sort of cross between a goose and a turkey. We've seen him before, or one like him. Eeeewww, huh?)

(Don't look now, but he's in goose territory. Notice how he's very leery? All the trees right around there have tons of nuts on the ground around them, and the rest of the trees in the park have zero to be found. Coincidence? I think not!)
(How many pictures do you have to take to get a squirrel blinking? Lots! But isn't he cute?)

5. Trips to other parks at other times to take random pictures. One of my favorite is this:
(It's a bunny! In the dark! Cool, huh?!)

All in all, we've been enjoying the slightly cooler weather!

Hal's new photo blog

2008-10-11T18:40:00.006-05:00

This is Hal posting. I just finished putting up a new blog website. The link is also over on the right hand column.

Also, I plan to upload .zip files with photo collections, and flash applets that aren't compatible with Blogger, so the photoblog is going up on this website:

halbradbury.oxyhost.com

I will be trying to implement comments, subscriptions, RSS-feed and other components so that I can blend in with all the Blogger accounts.

PIctures!

2008-10-03T21:52:00.007-05:00

Hi, everyone! This is Hal today. Dani never posts new pictures, so I've got a couple for you. This is the rubber chicken that she was so excited about:
And this is poor Cocoa's stump where she lost her fingernail:

Ferret stories!

2008-09-26T22:23:00.005-05:00

Cocoa's nail troubles
So, do ya'll remember a while ago I said that I was a horrible ferret mommy? Just a refresher, Cocoa got her nails stuck into her hammock and was stuck there for who knows how long before we realized she was firmly attached? She'd ended up pooping right in her hammock and was laying in it. We cut her out of the hammock and since then we haven't let her nails get that long again. (And I did throw away that hammock, in case anyone wondered.)

We'll apparently she learned from that experience...

Hal was looking at Cocoa the other day, and noticed that it looked like one of her claws was missing! (Ferrets have claws more like dogs than cats. Their nails aren't retractable and are always out there to get caught on stuff.) There is absolutely no nail in one of her little toes! And the hole where it should be looked like it had dried blood on it! I could have just cried! I was like when did that happen? Do you think it hurt? Did it bleed? How hard does a ferret have to struggle and pull to get a nail to come right out of the socket?

So I looked through her t-shirt bedding until I found a little (it really was little, so I don't think she bled much) brown spot. And firmly attached to the cloth was a ferret nail. Including the base of it! (With hairs, it's called a follicle, what's it called with nails?)

My poor baby got stuck... again! And instead of staying stuck and waiting for me to rescue her, she freed herself. By pulling on her foot until the nail came right out! Ouchy! I feel so incredibly awful!!! I'm feeling a little unfit for pet ownership! How can I let her get hurt like that? How does that happen?! I feel like I'm such a neglectful awful ferret owner! I leave her in her cage for hours while I'm at work and hours while I sleep. She only gets out for a little while a day, and to top it all off, she gets hurt while she's stuck in her cage!

And then, just to make myself feel slightly less awful, I'll think about how I was holding her and snuggling her just a couple of hours ago. And she bit my chin. That little snot!

Rubber chicken! Boo-yah!
On another, still ferrety, note. We were at Dollar General the other day, and they had this squawky rubber chicken. You squeeze the belly and the squeak comes out of the mouth a few inches away. Genius!

Rocket goes, well, a little nuts at a squeaky toy. We like to squeak it high enough off the floor that he can't get it and he jumps and jumps and jumps for it. It's too funny! And then we let him get it. And he runs off to his cage with it, where he proceeds to kill it. He shows that squeaker just who is in charge of this whole operation! He'll squeeze the squeaker until he gets sick of it. And then shake it a bit, just to make sure it's dead. And sets it down very gently in a corner. And runs away. At which point we reach in and take the toy back and squeak it again. Oh, the joys of squeaky toys...

Anyways, we HAD to get the rubber chicken. We can squeeze the squeaker and Rocket won't bite us in his frenzy to get it. (It must die, you know.) It totally rocks! The most awesomest part is that it's just the right pitch that it drives not only Rocket crazy but Garret and Cocoa, too. It's totally hilarious! One of these days maybe we can get a video. (If the stupid camera will work right! It keeps glitching and corrupting the videos we take. Grrr!!!! Not funny!)

Anyways, my ferret world is as entertaining as ever!

And Cindy, I too have heard of people walking their ferrets, but I can't figure out how they'd get their ferrets to actually walk somewhere! We've tried to take our ferrets for a walk on a leash. (Yes, we have leashes for our ferrets.) They don't... how shall we say it... walk correctly? It seems to be more about the journey than the destination, if you even reach the destination! They get distracted very easily, and don't ever go where you want them to go! Mine just go in circles & go here & then there & then run around my feet & tangle up the leash, etc.

Tag!

2008-09-20T10:25:00.009-05:00

So, I've been tagged! And like always, I seem to like them to pile up before I do them! (We'll, I've gotten them both since the last time I posted...)

Michelle's tag (http://joshandmichellebell.blogspot.com):
Quirks:
The Rules:
Link the Person who Tagged you.
Mention rules on your blog.
Tell about 6 quirks of yours.
Tag 6 fellow bloggers to do the same.
Leave a comment to let them know.

1. I LOVE to collect animals. The more the merrier! Right now, I'm up to 3 ferrets, a frog, and a turtle. I'd love a kitten, but I'm really not up to scooping more poop! 3 ferrets make lots of poo! And I really want fish. I big ol' aquarium of them. (I want a snail, one of those sucker fish, maybe a nemo fish or a shark fish, maybe one of those crabs that go on the bottom, etc, etc, etc.) I've been thinking lately about hermit crabs. Anyone know if those are fun?

2. I'll usually be "in the middle" of several books at once. I start one and then forget I was reading that, or loose interest, and start another one. And then I finish them off one at a time, until I'm back to zero, then it all starts again! Note: This is NOT the same multiple books at once as Clyde Ricks (Maria's dad).

3. If I can't sleep (at night) I do some repetitive motion, over and over and over until I fall asleep, like: scratching the wall or my pillow or the sheet (that drives Hal crazy!), flicking things with my finger nail (tooth, wall, etc), petting my nose, or ... well, I'm out of examples.

4. I say "might could" in casual conversation, periodically. As in, "could we go to the store?" "We might could." I always have and I'm not sure where I picked it up at. Apparently I like it better than "maybe." I don't usually realize I'm saying it either. It just... slips out... But it fits right in here in Wichita Falls, TX! I hear it ALL THE TIME!

5. Since moving to Texas, I've learned to say a few words wrong... vowels are "pronunciated" different here, and it's a drawl. I'll, occasionally, say a word like "baseball" and it comes out sounding like "Bays-bull." I'm not sure WHY I speak funny now, but I do. Sadly, I suspect I'm not the only one who's noticed. I have NOT adapted "fixin' da" yet. (As in "I'm fixin'da bring you that.") And I hope I never hear it come out of my mouth.

6. I have a tendency to isolate myself from the rest of the world, just 'cause I'm like that. I'll just stop answering my phone, I don't call anyone back, I usually don't email people, or blog, or visit anyone, or go anywhere. I just don't deal with people. It's really kind of... pleasant... for a while. And then it gets boring and depressing. Ah, well, such is the life of the recluse!

I tag: anyone who wants to do it! Claim I tagged you and go with it! (Or you can just post some quirky things about yourself.)

Cindy's tag:
The Five
Rules: Each player answers the question themselves. At the end of the post the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blog and leaves them a comment letting them know that they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person that tagged you know when you've answered the questions on your blog.

10 years ago I:
1. Was just starting 8th grade.
2. Was helping take care of my adorable baby brother (he was 1 that September) and having a blast... mostly. (He was colicky that fall and winter, and when Mom was at work I would sit outside on the front porch with him. Forever! Until he'd stop crying!)
3. Was TRYING my hardest to irritate one of my teachers. (Mr. Gaylord) And I think I succeeded very well, if the number of times I got yelled at was ANY indication!
4. Was doing my best to befriend some boys. I was sick of the stupid girl fights all the time!
5. Had the biggest crush (again? still?) on Seth Woolstenhulme. He was totally the cutest goofiest boy ever.

5 things on my "to-do" list:
1. Make a Dr. appointment.
2. Work on Christmas presents! Buying, making, etc.
3. Change Archimedes' water.
4. Buy crickets for Froggy.
5. Find a stupid ferret cage for Cocoa! I need one that's in between giant, like the one that Rocket and Garret are in, and little, like the "big" travel cage that she's in now. She doesn't seem to be able to figure out that you poop in a litter box and not on a shelf. So, she's in "time out" somewhat permanently. Sad, but true!

5 snacks I enjoy:
1. Chocolate!!!
2. Milkshakes! (Ok, not a snack, but... YUMMY!)
3. Frozen grapes.
4. Did I mentions chocolate?
5. Chips. Almost any variety.

5 things I would do if I were a millionaire:
(What did I do to earn that? and how do I really be a millionaire?!) Just a 1 million or like 100 million? 'cause that matters! But if it were unlimited and I could do anything...
I'd start by being smart and investing and stuff like that. And then...
1. I'd do whatever I want!
2. Travel. A lot.
3. Maybe buy a zoo. Or something.
4. I would have the most awesomest house in the world!
5. And have the most laziest most pleasant life I could possibly imagine!

5 places I've lived:
1. Victor, ID
2. Driggs, ID
3. Pocatello, ID
4. Wichita Falls, TX
5. ??? Something will come, I swear! I find it depressing that if I really reach for it I can only come up with 4 places I've lived! (Victor and Driggs? Come on!)

5 jobs I've had:
1. Babysitter & Nanny
2. Farm labor (move pipe, drive tractors, break stuff, etc.)
3. Front desk at hotel
4. Receptionist at gym
5. Receptionist at an oil company/royalty company/or something like that... is it important to know what exactly I do?

I tag: Anyone who wants to play this! Even if you don't type it, you should really consider some of these things! Some are very thought provoking! (Like my favorite snacks. Now I want a brownie. Thanks!)

That's it folks! That's all the tags I've gotten... unless I want to do some of Lacey Joy's... Maybe I'll work on that and post them later! Like next time I post! :)

Oh! And I've misplaced the questions that people sent me to answer! (Lacey and Nickie (I think, maybe?) both emailed me some ideas and I can't find them!) So, if ya'll would like to send me more questions, or post them as a comment, I'll try to answer them! (If I can. Sometimes I just don't know the answers!)
I'd probably blog more regularly if I felt I had anything to say!

And Cindy and Nickie: I didn't take pictures of Cocoa outside 'cause it was raining. Sorry. And once I came inside, she just wasn't being as cute! I'm really regretting that we didn't just brave the rain anyways, 'cause now I don't have any pictures of it! Bummer! :( Maybe another time...

2008-09-09T20:42:00.002-05:00

Once again, I don't really have much to say again...
It's raining... again. No it does not always rain, but when it's not raining it's "hotter 'n hell" and that's not exciting!

Here's a fun thing! I took Cocoa outside to play (for the first time EVER in her short little life) yesterday in the rain. She loved it! Ferrets are adorable when they're discovering new things! She kept running her nose through the grass feeling/sniffing and just having fun! She was SOOO wet! She found a worm and mud and weeds and a giant puddle (that strangely enough she felt inclined to walk through. Whatever!) and lots of wet grass! It was too cute! She was so dirty when she was done.

And then, me being the meanie I am, I gave her a bath. AND didn't take Rocket and Garrett outside, too. I think they felt slighted.
I just hope she didn't "catch" chiggers! Whatever they are!
Later!

LOTS of rain = floods! (and new records!)

2008-08-19T17:35:00.002-05:00

Ok, so I know I just said I don't know what to post about... But I've got something!
This last weekend and the last couple days, it's been... how shall I say it... COLD & WET!

I know it won't sound cold to all of you people from Idaho, but for us, who have just gotten (sorta) used to the above 100 degrees, 70 is super COLD! It is currently 71.4, according to wunderground.com, as opposed to the 84 degrees it says it is in Victor, ID, today! How is it possible that it's warmer at my parents house in Idaho than it is in the middle of the desert in Texas?!

And in other weather related news... remember a while ago I posted about being woken up in the night by a big old thunderstorm that ended up lighting our neighbors house on fire? (See my post on June 22, called "Wow")...
We had a killer awesome (unless you wanted to be sleeping, that is) loud thunderstorm last night. It poured rain all night long! And, consequently, today, we have flooding in Wichita Falls. This morning some of the roads in and out of the city (highways and such) were all flooded over!

I heard two neat stories at work this morning:
The first one is: one of the ladies I work with has horses. Apparently her pasture is kind of lower than the surrounding area. It was flooded last night. Bad enough that some of the horses were STUCK in it this morning! She stayed home from work today to try to rescue some of their animals!
The second one is: another of the ladies I work with has this son-in-law... who went to go get in his brand new car (he's had it almost 2 months) this morning. And found that it was surrounded by a lake. The water was about halfway up his car doors. (Teach him to park in the middle of a parking lot, huh?)

We more than doubled our previous rainfall record! According to the statistics that I found, on Sheppard Air Force Base (a couple miles from our house), the previous record daily rainfall was set in 1961 (on this day). It was 1.26 inches. Today, so far, we've gotten 2.67 inches. Cool, huh?!

Please help me!

2008-08-17T16:50:00.002-05:00

I've been curious, but only today feel inclined to TRY to find out, as to how many people read my blog. Regularly or occasionally.

So, I'm going to try something. If you read this, would you mind letting me know?
Leave a comment! Telling me you read it, just saying your name, if you'd like me to answer some questions in future posts ask me those, or if you'd like me to add you to my "blog link" list, let me know that too!

If you don't know how to leave a comment, I'll explain!
If you don't have a "google/blogger identity" IT'S OK!!! You can still comment on my blog! (Even if you can't comment on some other blogs.)

Here's how: (in very descriptive terms for people like my wonderful Mom, who doesn't know how to comment... or at least didn't before I tried to show her while I was up there... I love you, Mom!)

Right below this post (but before the next one) there's a line that says "Brought to you by Hal and Dani at 4:50 PM" (followed by) "__ Comments"
CLICK ON the "Comments" word.
It will bring up a new screen, which has on the right hand side a box that says "Leave your comment" above it. Click on the box and type what you want to say. Then right below the box, it says (in orange) "choose an identity." If you DON'T have an identity click the "button" in front of "ANONYMOUS". Then click the "Publish your comment button". (Just to be kind, I've copied these instructions to the comments section, too. So if you get there and get lost, just read the first comment!)
Easy cheesy! *BIG SMILE* :)

Thank you for playing along, everyone!!!

Ummm...

2008-08-16T16:17:00.000-05:00

So, I don't really feel like anything exciting is happening to blog about... (Well, not that most people would be interested in, anyways.)

Cocoa (our "new" little girl ferret) has decided punish me, or something. She's decided she has no use for litter boxes, and can poop anywhere in her cage she wants. That human girl (that's me) will clean it up for her... Grrrr....

And I've caught two geckos lately. I opened my front door and some little tiny critter ran it. So, I chased it and stepped on it. (It was a little tiny gecko.) No, I did not squish it. I was able to pick it up (with a paper towel of course! Ewww!!!) and throw it back outside. I think I pulled off it's tail somehow, though... hmmm.... And then the other gecko suddenly appeared on my wall. So Hal helped me corner him (we snuck up from both sides) and I caught him and flushed him away. I've also caught a few more in my sticky traps, but that's not very exciting.

And it's been nice and cool the last few days! Downright pleasant! Under 100 degrees! Wahoo! It's actually like 83 today! Talk about "cold"!

Anyways, that's all I've got to say today... Have a great one!

My trip...

2008-08-06T07:12:00.005-05:00

I've been back in Wichita Falls for two weeks now, and I'm finally getting around to posting about my trip! I'm such a slacker!

One of my old roommates, Sheena, got married July 18th, in Idaho Falls. I had promised that I'd come back for her wedding before we moved... so I had to go! :) (I did want to go, too!) And I really wanted to see my family! So, I got to go home for a week. Wa Hoo!!!!
The plan was to fly from Wichita Falls, TX to Jackson Hole, WY, by way of Dallas and Denver. 3 flights each way. Wichita Falls to Dallas, Dallas to Denver, Denver to Jackson Hole.

The trip there was OK... until the end, when it got really frustrating!
In Dallas, my plane was delayed because, apparently, there were "some mechanical failures" (wonderful thing to tell a bunch of potential passengers, huh?) that they were trying to work out before we got into the air. Hmmm... thanks? We finally took off 1/2 hour late, and made it to Denver late, of course. (But it's OK 'cause I had an 1 1/2 hour layover in Denver.)

When I got to Denver, I read the departure board and found, much to my horror, that my plane was delayed. By 2 hours! And then a little later, found out that the departure time had been bumped up an hour. So it's only 1 hour delayed. And then the gate changed, so we all (there were a lot of people waiting for this plane!) headed on down to the other gate. And then it was delayed again. And the gate was changed again. And then the flight was bumped back up again. And then it was delayed again.
Apparently the pilot was in the air circling the Denver airport. He couldn't get permission to land... (What? How does that happen? And where had he been for the last hour and a half?) I finally made it to Jackson 2 hours later than I had planned. (My little brothers, Jake & Zac, were just in heaven! It meant they got to swim at the Rec center in Jackson for even longer! Yay!) I was so relieved to finally be done traveling to get there! It was so great to see my family!

Anyways, I had a blast! I went to Pocatello, where I hung out with my old roommates (Sheena and Maria) all afternoon Wednesday. We got our kids meals (that's what we do for fun. This time Artic Cirlce had fish shaped squirt guns! Sadly, I seem to have misplaced my green shark somewhere in my travels... I hope whoever finds it enjoys it!) and talked and shopped and talked! It was awesome! I miss my girls!

While in Poky, I stayed with my brother and his wife (Skyler & Lacey). And played with my adorable niece, Abigail Joy, every chance I got! (All day Thursday!) She's just too cute! My brother and his wife sure make a cute kid! (And soon to be kids!) I'm so excited for this next one! I don't think I can say here what their expecting, but lets just say I'm super excited!

On Friday, Sheena got married, in the Idaho Falls temple. (That's where Hal & I were married.) And I just have to admit... It's awfully sad to go to a wedding without my husband! During the sealing, I cried. It could have been that it was so beautiful watching Sheena and Travis get married. Or it could have been that it made me miss Hal. But either way, I cried. Sheena was so pretty & Travis adores her. (At least, it looked that way to me!) It was really sweet!

Then we did 'girl pictures' (Mom, Lacey, Me, Memorie, and Abigail) and played for a couple hours together before Sheena's wedding reception. I made Abigail giggle so hard and so much that I gave her hick-ups! I felt so bad!!! I hope when we come up for Christmas, she remembers how fun her Aunt Banani is! :)

After the reception in Pocatello, and dinner with Sky, Lacey, and Abi, Mom & I (and Mem and Maria) all drove back to Idaho Falls, where we dropped Maria & Mem off at their cars. And Mom and I went shopping! (It was almost midnight, but so?!) Anyways, we finally got home to Victor at about 2 (or was it 2:30? I forget...) And stayed up talking 'til all hours of the morning. I think we finally fell asleep at like 4 or 4:30 or something...
Whew! Big day!

The rest of the time I was there was a lot slower paced and more relaxed!

Saturday, I was feeling ambitious! And did yard work... It was a great day for it! All nice and cool! (Read 75-80 degrees.) Poor Mom came out with me... I think I about roasted her alive! Then we went to a bridal shower for Serenity Woolstenhulme. (Yay, Seri!) I was so tired! But it was fun and cute and yummy! :)

Sunday was church and we played games as a family. It was fun!

Monday... well, I don't remember... But I'm sure it was full of talking, laughing, and games!

Tuesday Mom and I (and Jake for a while, and Ben for a while) made beads. They were gorgeous! Until they dried... And then all the colors went all yucky and weird! Grrrr!!!!
And we invited Ben's girlfriend Chelsea over to play with us. (She's great! We all love her to pieces!) We tried to weed the garden... and got hailed out! We had hailstones - no exaggeration - the size of quarters. Neat! (Luckily, I don't think it ruined Dad's grain!) It was so cool!
And we made more beads. And played games. It was super fun! It's great to have whole crowds of people who will play card games with me!
By Tuesday night, I'd developed a migraine. (Surprise! I didn't have one all week! So, it was about time...) So, I'm not sure how nice or fun I was, but I have fond memories of it...

Wednesday morning Mom had to take me back to the airport. It was hard to say goodbye, but I was excited to come back home to see Hal again! I'd missed him like crazy!!

This time all my flights were on time, so I got home OK, but...
The flight from Jackson to Denver was uneventful. Denver to Dallas was OK...kind of bouncy! (turbulence filled) They did change the gate on me -twice- before my flight. Two gate changes in 1 1/2 seems like a lot to me... Anyone agree? The most eventful part for sure was when we were going to for a landing. The pilot must have been dropping too fast, or something, 'cause he hit the "gas" just before we went in for a touchdown. I don't think I've ever landed going that fast before! What a rush!!! Wow! We were flying down the runway so fast! ...for far enough that I seemed like we'd end up taking off again...

When I got Dallas, I was waiting for the plane... and one of the cleaning crew came in and told the lady running the ticket counter/boarding that they were cleaning some vomit from the back of the plane, and to verify that they were finished before sending people out to board. Ewww! Anyways, by the time we landed in Wichita Falls, the entire plane of people were sick. I actually heard someone say "if that last flight was anything like this one, no wonder the person threw up!" No kidding! Wow!

Anyways, I was wonderful to visit, and it's wonderful to be back home. I'm so excited for Christmas to come visit again! I never knew I'd be some homesick... *sigh*
I wasn't sure where to fit this in at, so it's just here at the end. Huge, huh? I don't think I've ever seen such big hail! After the hail stopped, everyone (Jake, Zac, & Chelsea were all running around gathering up the big hail pieces. They were all melting! :( So we had to get pictures quick!

Phew!

2008-07-12T13:47:00.005-05:00

Hi all!
I'm sorry I've had the same post up forever Lac! I'll try to remedy that now...

So, I've been a little more busy than normal the last few weeks. I've got a job. I'm a receptionist at a very slow paced oil company. Neat, huh? I like it. It's right up my alley! I've been stuffing envelopes, typing up information, and helping them "upgrade" their record system (in accounting) to all digital (this last involved scanning old invoices and saving them in as a pdf). Oh, and I answer the phones. Roughly 3-5 times an hour. Sounds tough, huh? Super cool!

Anyways, I've been getting super excited to get on an airplane (3 of them! Each way!) and fly to see my Mommy. And the rest of my family. And Sheena's wedding. YAY!!! It's just now hit me that I'm probably going to miss Hal like crazy though... It's a sad though... I might just cry!

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OK, so story time! A few weeks ago, we got our electricity bill. It was an incredible almost $300! (Like $286.) Well, golly gee why don't you just hit me with a baseball bat?! Anyways, once we got over the shock and anger, we seriously decided it's way past time to get someone to spray insulation into our attic. (We had like 3 inches... way lower than the recommended 12 inches!)
So, Hal made arrangements for someone to come do that for us.

And then we decided that before they come, we should pull out the heater (installed in the house in 1961, they have been unofficially declared a fire hazard) in the bathroom ceiling. (It's turned off and on by a light switch beside the regular light switch.)

Hal got to work trying to get this thing out of the ceiling. One of the biggest problems being that when we flipped the breaker to the bathroom, it turned off the bathroom light, and also turned off the hall light. And then he couldn't see. So we made the decision to leave the breaker on, and he'd just be really carefull with those wires.
During the whole removal event, he shocked himself! He hollered and dropped his tools! Scared me halfway to death! But he was OK. Apparently it just scared him, mostly.

Then we decided to replace the light switch in the bathroom with an electrical outlet. 'Cause, well, everyone needs an outlet in their bathroom! It gets really old stringing an extension chord along the hallway to the bathroom every time I wanted to blow dry my hair.

So I did my part and replaced the socket (I've successfully replaced all but 2 electrical outlets and 2 light switches in my house). I DID turn off the breaker that goes to the bathroom and used my headlamp to see. Everything was going so well! I was trimming the last wire with my wire cutters... And there was this "POP" noise! And the sparks flew! I got zapped! Hard! I yelped so loud! I scared Hal half to death! (Revenge!!! OK, so it wasn't on purpose, but...)

Anyways, I was so super confused! And furious! (Once I got past the scare of thinking I'd been electrocuted!) I turned off the breaker and everything! How did that happen?!?!?! GRRR!!! Bad word!!!

Wow! Hal went into the bedroom and looked at the breaker box to see if he could figure out what had happened. And noticed that there were two breakers turned off. The one I had turned off for the bathroom, and... the one labeled "heater"... Ta da!
Guess what?! If we'd used our noggins and GUESSED we might have saved us both a good zapping! Anyways, we pulled out our circuit tester (yes, we did have one, I just assumed that I had the breaker off and didn't need to test the wires to make sure they weren't live. Bad assumption! I'll never assume that again!) and tested a few wires. We learned that indeed there are two breakers that go into our bathroom. The one for the light and the one for the heater! (Hal could have worked on removing the heater from the ceiling with the bathroom light ON and the heater breaker OFF, and he wouldn't have gotten shocked! And I could have turned them BOTH off and I wouldn't have gotten shocked! GRRRR!!!)

Turns out that Hal's friend Jake was right. (He's an electrician.) He told Hal one time that as long as you have a breaker box, you won't die if you get zapped by live wires. It'll just flip the breaker.

The neatest part of the whole thing was seeing the singed wire insulation! The wire and insulation were totally burned by the electricity! I had to trim the wire back past the burned part. I kept it and I've got it sitting on my desk by the computer. The insulation was totally burned off! Neat!

And just for all of you who want to know what getting zapped by a wire in the house feels like... Go grab an electric fence! The feeling of getting shocked by an electrical wire in my house was... wait for it... just like getting zapped by an electric fence! The same muscle clenching, terror striking, awful, painful feeling! Ugh!

And that's my story of the zapping...

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Oh! And last night I was on my way to bed and I saw this little tiny pink thing stuck to my wall. So I walked closer to see what it was. (I knew it wasn't a spider. Spiders aren't pink!) It was like an inch long, pink, and it had legs and a tail. It looked like one of those little sticky toys you can get out of the quarter machines at stores... know what I'm talking about?
And then it moved. And I knew what it was! It was a gecko!!! The same kind that are getting stuck to my sticky traps! What is it doing on my WALL!!!!! They can live in my kitchen and eat my kitchen bugs, BUT STAY OUT OF MY BEDROOM!!! EEWWW!!!!
At the same time though, I kinda want to catch it! It was a little baby lizard! Ohhh!!! Too cute! I don't have one of those! Are leopard geckos reptiles or amphibians? Hmmm....
Eeewww!!!

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And I've been meaning to say this for just forever! I have the sweetest husband ever! For my birthday he got me a keyboard! 'Cause I've been missing playing the piano! (I'm not very good, but I enjoy it.) Isn't he just the sweetest?!

Archimedes!!!

2008-06-28T20:28:00.003-05:00

"Something tells me you're all wet, Archimedes!" That's my thought of today!

He's a little camera shy... Can you tell? I love his little toes! His little back claws are too cute!

I named my turtle! I've finally picked a name! My brother Skyler and his wife Lacey were brainstorming ideas for me, and they came up with Archimedes! It's the name of the owl in "The Sword in the Stone", which Lacey and Abi had just watched. (And also just so happens to be one of my favorite movies ever!)

Well, needless to say, I love the name. So thanks for naming my turtle Sky and Lac! I'm so excited! I'm not entirely certain he knows I'm talking to him when I yell "Archimedes" at him, though...

I do have to say... I told a couple of the Laurels (I'm in Young Womens at church) that I'd named my turtle Archimedes. And I quote "That's the stupidest name for a turtle I've ever heard!"

So, I totally picked a good name!!! :)

20 things...

2008-06-25T20:31:00.002-05:00

Thanks for tagging me Lacey Joy! This looks fun!

20 things that make me smile
(in no particular order, just what came to mind)

1. Garret trying to getting free when we accidentally leave a door on his cage open... (he'll climb out the doors approximately 3 and 4 feet off the floor, and drop to the floor. And head waddling off to the kitchen!) OH!!! And watching him 'run'. His little duck waddle/hop routine is super cute!
2. Rocket chasing his squeaky toy.
3. Cocoa... well, being Cocoa... she's just cute!
4. Ferrets playing with each other, chasing around the room, hopping and jumping, and quacking (it's called dooking).
5. Killer lightning/thunderstorms! But not in the middle of the night... Just when I'm supposed to be awake!
6. Worms on the sidewalk.
7. Cute kittens. And maybe or maybe not the generic 'cute' kittens... see "my" kitty Two-Two if there are any questions about that!
8. Most baby animals.
9. Zoos!!! and Aquariums!!! I love all animals!
10. Hal! (of course!)
11. Froggie croaking. And sometimes his food chirping... But sometimes it's just annoying...
12. My new turtle, who is still unnamed. I was thinking Fred (honestly), but Nickie said it might be cursed... so hmmm...
13. Looking out my new window. (That Hal put in all by himself! Well, I helped a little, but not much!)
14. Other smiles.
15. Talking to people I like (Family and friends).
16. Thinking of funny stories (like almost getting electrocuted... tee hee...).
17. Getting a kids meal.
18. Driving really fast! (But safely!)
19. Mountain Dew!!!! :) Just the thought of it makes me grin like lunatic!
20. Finishing a project (like finishing sewing something/crocheting something/cross stitching something, fixing something... etc...)

Ta da! 20 things that make me smile! In no particular order. I didn't feel like trying to re-arrange them. Phew! That was harder than I thought it'd be to come up with 20!

And now I tag... anybody else who'd like to name 20 things that make them smile!

Guess what I've got now?!

2008-06-24T06:46:00.002-05:00

I got a turtle! One of my Young Women has baby turtles and she gave me one!!! He's the cutest little ugly thing! I've always wanted a tiny turtle!!! Too bad he won't always stay this little... (Which reminds me of a question: Are turtles like goldfish? If you keep them in a small cage, they stay small and if they're in a big cage they grow bigger? Also, would that be completely inhumane?)

It's kind of a bad picture of him, but at least you can see the top shell! He was a little scared to be moved around so much... I think I could get a better picture of him now! He's a bit more well adjusted.

What should I call him?! I haven't been able to come up with a good turtle name yet... I kind of like Squirt, but that's totally straight out of Finding Nemo... hmm.... And he won't always be two inches big... Any ideas?!

Wow!

2008-06-22T13:55:00.002-05:00

Here in Wichita Falls, TX, we have the neatest thunderstorms! I love watching lightning and listening to thunder! A few weeks ago, we had one that was accompanied by lots of wind. There was a tornado warning that went with it, too! Neat! :)
Unfortunately they usually happen between the hours of 10 PM and 6 AM (when we're sleeping, of course!)

Story #1
We had another amazing thunderstorm last Wednesday night. We were woken up at about 5 AM Thursday morning by this loud thuderous BOOM!!! I'm mean it was killer loud! My eyes flew open and I watched the lightning flashing. The rumble (of the thunder and the shaking of the house!) lasted for what seemed like FOREVER, in actuality it was probably only like 45-60 seconds.

I thought my house had been hit by lightning! But there was no smoke, so probably not.

And then the firetruck came. It flew through our neighborhood the siren and lights blaring. I jumped up in bed and peered out the window... to watch it turn on the next street over! It being 5 AM, I wasn't wearing much and didn't feel inclined to follow it to see what's up...

Story #2
When we got up like an hour later, our internet (my lifeline to the world!) wasn't working! Hal messed with it for a while, and then decided it's probably AT&T's problem to fix. And he went to work. I called AT&T to report that our internet is down, and got in touch with someone in India or somewhere. 45 minutes later, I'd managed to convince her that my problem was indeed from somewhere other than my computer/modem connection, and she reported my problem.

The people investigating the problem called me back a little while later and told me, via automated voice system, that there is no problem.

When Hal got home, he called the company and did his "I know what I'm talking about! There is a problem!" routine. They scheduled an appointment for a repair man to come out the next day.

On Friday, the repair man came out to my house, hooked his little computer sensor thingy up to my internet line and SURPRISE! There's a problem! We had no signal! So he went out back to our phone line box (I'm not sure what it's called really) and there was no signal there either! So, he got his ladder off his truck and climbed my power pole... There's no signal there either! Up the row to the next pole, and the next... after climbing five poles, he finally found the problem...

The conclusion to both story #1 and #2
The telephone pole just up the block from our house was hit by lightning.

Which fused all the telephone wires together, effectively ruining all of our neighbors phone and internet connections luckily, the repair guy was able to fish out my two wires and fix my internet. (Which makes no sense to me... If the whole bundle was fused together, how was he able to pick out the yellow and green wires and make my internet work again?) However he did it, my problem was fixed! Yay!

Also, when the lightning hit the pole, the current traveled up the phone line and lit his house on fire. Hence, the firetruck! (The repair guy learned that while he was fixing my internet and the people that live around there told him all about it!) Neat, huh?

I'm so very grateful that my house wasn't lit on fire! Whew!!!

All gone...

2008-06-16T08:20:00.003-05:00

Well, Bam, Bob, and Jinx left last night. We'll miss them terribly! But who knows? Maybe they'll come visit again sometime!

Okay, so they weren't our ferrets. We were ferret-sitting for the weekend. One of the guys Hal works with has ferrets and he asked us to watch his ferrets for him. It was super fun! We all (Hal, me, Garret, Rocket, and Cocoa) had fun playing with the new guys.

...Laundry baskets and empty cereal bags... What FUN!!!

So, no we did not get three new ferrets! I don't know that we could handle having six ferrets! They're super cute and fun, but 6 ferrets makes a lot more work than just 3. (Come to think of it, 3 is a quite a bit more work than 2!) However, it was fun while it lasted!

This was my favorite game... we have this tube (it's like a dryer hose) that the ferrets play in. We tried putting (shoving) all six of them in there and holding the two ends of the hose together... they went around and around chasing each other through the tunnel! It was super fun for us! I like to think they liked it, too, but did they really?

Anyways, we had a lot of fun ferret-sitting! I had a blast watching them all play together! And playing with them!

And now it's time for....

2008-06-16T08:00:00.003-05:00

Gross things with Dani!

Last Thursday I walked into the kitchen intending to fix lunch for Hal (he comes home for lunch most days). I happened to look down at one of my sticky traps (I have them all over) and saw this black thing sticking out of it. I'm like...what is that?!

So, I cleverly looked closely and saw this big spider sticking out of it. I'm totally freaking out at the size of this thing, and then IT MOVED it's legs!
I immediately decided two things:
1) It has to DIE!!! and
2) I can't cook now! Not with that thing in my kitchen!

I (very bravely) reached under by kitchen sink for my Ant/Roach/Spider spray, and gave him a good dousing. And he continued to move for what seemed like forever!!! EEWWWWW!!!! Anyways, I couldn't even stand being in my house anymore! When Hal came home, I was sitting on our tree stump outside. (Which is kind of ironic.... I was chased out of my house by a spider stuck in a sticky trap, and went and sat on a stump that has TONS of bugs under it...) He thought I'd locked myself out again. I told him nope, I just couldn't be in there anymore.... He went in and made sure the foul thing was dead, and told me I was very brave to spray it. :-) Isn't he sweet?

By nighttime, I was finally able to go into the kitchen again (I was way creeped out all day!) and of course I had to take a picture. Have you ever noticed that spiders seem to be bigger alive than dead? I think it's because their legs are all fluffed out when they're alive...
EEWWWW!!!

I just keep thinking... what are the chances I only have one of those huge things? And where did he come from?! And WHAT IS HE DOING IN MY HOUSE?!?!
Isn't he huge? He kind of reminds me of a tarantula, only smaller...
(It's not a very good picture. I was having a really hard time holding still!)

Yes, that is an animal by him. We think it's a leopard gecko... This is like the 10th one (maybe? I've lost track.) that we've caught on our sticky traps. We have NO IDEA where they're coming from, but they can't be bad if they eat bugs, right? (Still, EEWWW!!!) I've seen them in my backyard, too. And on the side of my house. (They tuck themselves up under my siding.) Any ideas how they get in?

Thanks for viewing my lovely creepies! Hope you're not too completely grossed out!

Ferrets! And more ferrets!

2008-06-11T21:16:00.005-05:00

Our ferrets have multiplied! Well, not literally, 'cause they're all fixed...
But we do have double!

Allow me to introduce you to:
Bob. He's the "snuggler" of the bunch... or so we've been told. We haven't seen (felt?) much evidence of that yet. I think he looks a little like Rocket, only bigger, bigger ears, and more rat-face like.

Meet Jinx. He's the littlest of the three. He's very pretty and seems to be sweet! I'm not sure how old he is, but he's by far the smallest adult ferret I've ever seen!

And lastly, but not least, meet Bam. He's an albino, so yes his eyes are pink, and he's white... or he's supposed to be white, when he's clean. He's a big boy!

They're all very mischievous! (That's a very ferret like quality... But they're even more so than Rocket, Garret, and Cocoa.) They insist on climbing up as high as they can get and have figured out how to open the door on their cage, so metal clips serve to reinforce the door.

This evening, once we had them in the ferret's room, we closed the door... six ferrets are FAR more stinky than only 3! So, all six got baths, hence the bath pictures. :) And just for good measure (and bathtime safety) they got their nails clipped, too. (Think bathing a cat... you'd cut their nails off first, too!)

I'm sure all the new guys are just loving us!!! I know I'd love some stranger chopping off my toes, drenching me, slathering me up, drenching again, and roughing me up with a towel.

That's my news for today! We have 3 "new" ferrets, making a grand total of 6. Do you think that's enough? 6 can't be that much harder than 3, right?

And just for your information, 6 ferrets = 120 toes chopped off! (Hal does the chopping... go Hal!) No, we don't really cut off their toes, but they sure act like we are!! It's pretty funny...

Chop! Chop! Chop!

2008-06-11T12:35:00.006-05:00

As you may or may not know, I don't always think things through before I start. (Note, painting kitchen cupboards without proper ventilation...)

Our neighbor has these bushes/trees of some sort planted in their backyard right by the fence that separates our backyards. These lovely bushes have been allowed to grow free for who knows how long, and had effectively claimed our fence and the yard for about 4 feet in. It made it really hard to mow the lawn over by the fence (as you can imagine).

So, yesterday I decided to trim the bushes! I got out my handy dandy pruning shears and headed out. I knew that the bushes were out of control and very bushy, but I didn't really think it would take as long as it did! I figured it'd take 15-20 minutes tops, and I'd have all of the branches cut off... boy was I in for a surprise! It took me almost an hour before I'd finished! WOW!!!
I forgot to take a picture before I started, but this is what they look like today. My side (the right) looked almost exactly like the neighbors' side. The bush (tree?) at the back of the yard is next!!!
(It's a little scary! There's spiders and bunnies and probably snakes under there, too! Yuck!)

My pile of branches. Funny, it doesn't look quite as huge in pictures as it did in person...

Once I got all done, I thought I need a picture of this! So I took one, just before I loaded it all into the garbage can. I was able to cram it all into our garbage can, though! It was super hard! I'm not sure which is more of an accomplishment: cutting it all off, or cramming it in the can...

I realized after who knows how long that my hand was starting to hurt a little... perhaps I should have worn gloves, huh?
There are three blisters that you should be able to see (I can see them, but then again, they're on my hand!). There's two on my middle finger (one on each joint) and one on my ring finger. My pinkie hurts a little bit, too, but there's nothing to see there! (I could see a little tiny baby blister last night, but it's gone today.)

I learned two valuable lessons that I'll try to remember:
1) Gloves are a must when playing with pruning shears! (Hal was like "what do you have against gloves?!")
2) And long sleeves would probably be good, too! You should have seen my arms! Luckily it was only surface scratches and they look much better today!

2008-06-07T00:00:00.005-05:00

Happy Birthday, Hal!

I love you!

It works! I think...

2008-06-03T10:00:00.001-05:00

So, I have new news...
My email subscribe test worked! (This is mostly for Blaine. He told us to deliver it to him directly, and he'd read it, so...)
If anybody was wanting to subscribe to our blog and have it emailed directly to your inbox, click the link at the bottom of the side bar to the right! (Does that make sense?)
Yay! :) I did it!

By the way, how does the ferret background look on all your computers? Can you actually see ferrets? Our monitors are bigger than "normal", so I wasn't quite sure how it would look... Let me know what you think! Thanks!

Heat...

2008-06-02T10:30:00.000-05:00

I'm done working at the nursery watering plants now. I'm waiting my next assignment! (I'm working as a temp for Manpower.)

Texas is so much hotter than I was expecting! In a greenhouse especially!
I was working in a greenhouse watering plants. I'd walk around all day turning on hoses, watering flowers, turning off hoses, rearranging the plants on their display tables, re-stocking plants as needed. On a typical day, it'd be about 90 degrees outside by 10 AM... and 100 degrees in the greenhouse. IT WOULD JUST KEEP GETTING HOTTER!!! The hottest I ever checked it at was about 109 degrees. And the humidity is like 70-90%, and there's absolutely no breeze... I don't recommend working inside a greenhouse in the summer in Texas... Unless you don't "feel the heat" like some of the other workers said. "It doesn't bother me I don't feel the heat." What? How can you not feel that?!

I decided that I couldn't really handle the heat, and I told them so. When they told me Thursday that Friday would be my last day. I was ecstatic!

Friday was a good day... mostly. It was killer hot, I'd been drinking water all day (I was on my 2nd gallon by 4:00)... Are you sensing a story here?

We were told at about 4 that we could go inside the air conditioned building (yeah, they had to give us permission for that) and sit down for about 10 minutes. Well, I got off at 4:20, so they told me finish up what we're doing out here, and then you can take off a little bit early, instead of taking a break. So, I was working hard moving plants around, feeling hot and sweaty and yucky... I was just moving the last pots to the table...

And then it was like my body went nuts! My hands started shaking, I really started pouring sweat, I got really lightheaded and dizzy, and nauseated. I stumbled inside and collapsed on a chair. And my supervisor said "you don't look so good." I'm like "Really? I don't feel so good, either." So, once I'd cooled off a little, they sent me home. Where I took a cold shower and got muscle cramps-- horrible ones-- in my legs.

I think I got heat exhaustion at the very end of my last day working in horrible heat for 3 weeks. Where's the fairness?!

New truck!

2008-06-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

Hi all!
We got a new truck! Well, new to us anyways... We've been really frustrated since buying our house because we can't ever haul anything!
We bought a water heater, and Hal got one of the nice guys he works with to help us haul it home.
We borrowed a truck to go buy and bring our couch home.
We luckily crammed our new lawnmower in the back seat. And some wood... and a window... But it's always a tricky guess if things will fit in the car or not.

So, we decided now we own a house, we need a truck.
Since getting it, we've hauled home: a chair from Blaine (Thanks Blaine! We love it! It's so comfy!), and a dining room table, chairs, & cabinet set (2 trips). It's great! Nothing's too big for us... Well, sorta... I'm sure some things would be too big, but nothing we've tried yet!

Anyways, about our truck.
It's a Toyota T100 (Tacoma).
Isn't it pretty?! It's in great shape, too! It's got a bench seat thingy in back, the bed is in wonderful shape (it doesn't look like anything had ever been hauled in it!), automatic transmition, doors, and windows, 141,000 miles, and it's cute and comfy! I love it! And Hal loves it, too! What more can we ask for?

And now...
Funny story... I have been having some problems with the alarm... The remote has one button that locks/unlocks/sets of the alarm. To unlock, you push the button...
I'd push the remote button to unlock it and it would go nuts!!! The doors would start unlocking, and locking, and unlocking, and locking, and the alarm would go off, and then it would stop, and go off and stop... It was super embarrassing! It happened in front of the house a couple of times, once at work, and once in the Wal-mart parking lot... well... How embarrassing! I would just stand there mashing in the button and the alarm would turn off. And then it would turn on again... GRRRR!!! I'd just stand there feeling completely helpless while my car went nuts! I finally decided that my new truck hated me...

I told Hal about it, and he's like "It does what? Are you sure?" 'Cause he doesn't have problems with it. (Of course he doesn't! He's smarter than the stupid remote!!! Unlike me...)

Well, I finally figured out the problem. When I was pushing the button on the remote, I was pushing it in at an angle and one of the sides was getting stuck in (tucked under the plastic). That's the problem. User error! Once I figured that out: piece of cake! Works like a charm!

Tee hee... sometimes I feel like an idiot... But hey! If we can't crack ourselves up, what is there to laugh at?!
Smile!!!

some sad news and some happy news!!!

2008-05-15T21:48:00.004-05:00

I have terribly sad news... I had to let Izzy the caterpillar go. She just wasn't eating in captivity. How sad...

But Froggie is doing great! We just bought him some more crickets and it's hilarious watching him eat them! I wish I were a frog!

And I almost caught another frog at work a couple days ago. But he got away. Frogs are sure fast sometimes!

And I'm going to be an Aunt again!!! Yay!

And for all you who live in Idaho, I'm coming to visit in July for a friend's wedding. (Yay Sheena!) I'll be there about a week. I'm super excited! I love flying! And I'm more homesick than I ever guessed I would be...

New "family members"...

2008-05-12T21:31:00.005-05:00

Hi all!
So I don't want to blow your mind, but I caught a new pet!!! (Well, several, but I let some go.)

Here's the story (stories): I was at work (I have a job!) at the nursery (where I work temporarily - up to 4 weeks) watering plants, and we have toads! Big ol' ugly brown warty toads.

I was kind of bored one morning, so I decided to try my luck at catching a toad! (I'd never caught a frog before, but Hal said the worst they can do is pee on you, so... why not?!) I caught one! I snuck up all sneaky like, and just caught him! But he was ugly so I let him go.

Later, I was telling one of the other girls that I work with that I'd really like to see a green frog, not just these ugly old brown toads...

Then the next day we were watering plants and she walked over to me and said "come see what I found" very calm like. So I put down my hose and followed her to... a frog! A bright lime green frog! I caught him! And one of the owners of the nursery helped me find a container to put him in to take him home... and here he is! He's kind of changed colors since I brought him home. He's not quite as bright. I think I might have something to do with the fact that my house isn't as humid or hot as the greenhouse was...
Can you see his goosebumps? (I know it's just his skin, but it looks like he's cold, doesn't it?)

Later the same day, I was watering some other flowers and came across some caterpillars on some of the plants. Now, I figured we probably don't want to sell bug eaten flowers... call me crazy... so I picked off the caterpillars and put them in a container. One of the managers saw me and told me to just squish them, but I couldn't! They were too cute and green! I caught 4 caterpillars -- one of them was like 3 1/2 or 4 inches long and hugely fat!

So, I brought home my frog and my caterpillars. I turned all but one of the smaller (it's like 1 1/2 inches long) caterpillars loose on my neighbor's tree that's growing over my fence. (I hope they eat the whole thing!!!) And made homes for Froggie (I couldn't pick a good frog name, so that's it for now...) and Izzy the Caterpillar.
Izzy doesn't seem to be eating well in captivity, so I may have to release her... I hope not! I've always liked caterpillars!Have you ever looked under a caterpillar? They've got the coolest little suction feet and neat teeth, too!

Aren't they cute?! No offense taken if you don't think so...
I do think they are cuter than Penny was, though...
What can I say? We collect weird animals.

I'm hoping to catch another frog while I'm at the nursery. Anybody have name suggestions?

... and I have no idea why I decided the caterpillar's a girl and the frog's a boy... they just are!

News!

2008-05-06T07:43:00.000-05:00

Shocking news from Wichita Falls!
Thursday morning (May 1st), a T-38C Talon crashed on the Sheppard Air Force Base (that's right by us, we can get to the entrance to the base in like 5 minutes) killing 2 airmen. Neither of us know the men who died, but a lot of people in our ward know one or both of them. (One of them was the scoutmaster in a nearby ward & had 3 little kids.) It's pretty sad.

While Hal was watching the news Friday night, they were doing a report on the plane crash, after the report they said "the Altus Airshow will continue as scheduled." Airshow?

We immediately looked it up! There was an Airshow! On Saturday! Gates open at 10 am! We decided we had to go, of course! (For those who don't know, Hal lived in Altus, OK when he was a kid. And Altus is 1 1/2 hours from us.)

So, I went to my very first Airshow! And went on an military base for the first time! (Both were not so new and amazing to Hal.) I don't know the numbers (or are they called names?) of the planes, and even if Hal told me, I wouldn't remember! I could maybe be able to figure out what they could do: transport, refuel & transport, fighter, spy...anyways...

It was neat! Some of those planes are HUGE!!!
This one below was one of my favorites. I love the nose that lifts up over the cockpit!We were there for a few hours and saw many things including:
a cannon pulled by horses & we got to watch them fire it, too! They are dressed in historical clothing and the horses were picked and trained based on a training book from like 1920;
a Parachute jumper
who had a perfect landing, even though it was super windy! The national anthem was sung during his descent;
a Bi-Plane demonstration, this is the plane that flew around spewing smoke, I loved it!;
T-28 Trojan Phlyers Demonstration (they did all sorts of cool "Top Gun" tricks, with the song playing over the speakers for us to hear);
Some top secret plane! There's signs all around it saying Do not enter! "Use of deadly force authorized" and men carrying machine guns walking around it!

There's something INCREDIBLY intimidating about seeing soldiers everywhere carrying huge guns.

Not pictured are things like a "fight" between two planes: the pilots knew each other during the cold war -- one was Russian, one was American; lots of planes driving by on the runway, including one huge one that did a "tactical take-off" for us, meaning it took off like straight up (it looked awesome!); several formation fly-bys; a spy plane; and lots other planes!

I just have to say, for my first airshow, it was pretty neat! I loved almost every minute of it! I can't wait to go to another one! I want to see some awesome tricks!!!

We forgot to put on sunscreen before we went out on the airstrip, though and are both very sorry afterwards!

They had the roads around the base restricted, so we couldn't drive around and see where Hal went to school or where he used to play. We did see the corner where Hal used to live, but the house was torn down! And we got to drive by a ditch where he used to catch frogs.

On the way home, we were talking about how it'd been a good day and we'd had fun. And then it got even better!!!
We were like 8 miles from Wichita Falls, on a road we usually don't drive out, 'cause there's nothing out there... When we saw camels! A whole field of camels! We stopped at the rest stop to go potty (I was dying!!!), and turned around to go back and find the camels. It took us a while, but we figured out how to get to the access road beside the highway to so we could stop and visit (and take lots of pictures).
I counted at 17 camels in this part of the field. There were at least five in the next field over. I wonder how many camels this guy has?! I want a camel! They seem to thrive in the desert of Texas.

There were even baby camels! Aren't they adorable?!

It was better than the zoo!!! Which is saying something! I love zoos! I got to feed them and pet them!!! YAY!Their noses feel kind of like a horse's! And boy do those long lips have excellent control!

You can hear the freeway roaring by in the background, and if you really listen you can hear them chewing!

Doesn't it look like she's going to spit at us? She certainly looks annoyed! But she didn't, for good or bad... I would have liked to be able to say I got spit on by a camel! Alas, I can only say I fed them and felt their noses.

It was a good day! We had a lot of fun at the Airshow, in Altus, and seeing camels! Too cool!

Yay for parents!

2008-04-24T07:09:00.002-05:00

Hal's parents came and visited us for the weekend on the 12, 13, & 14th. It was so nice to see them and talk to them! We showed them the building where Hal works (visitors aren't ususally allowed inside, unless they're important people to the company...), and wanted to show them the Wichita Falls falls, but they were turned off! And, sadly, Mom Bradbury spent most of Saturday night feeling sick, and then she was really not feeling well Sunday! We felt bad! They flew all the way to Texas to visit us (and Hal's brother Blaine, who lives by/in Dallas), and Mom didn't feel good. Hopefully she's totally and completely healed! It was wonderful to see them though! Love you both!

OK, so the Wichita Falls falls were turned off... huh?
Here's your history lesson, courtesy of Wikipedia:
"A flood in 1886 destroyed the original falls on the Wichita River for which the city was named. After nearly 100 years of visitors wanting to visit the non-existent falls, the city built an artificial waterfall beside the river in Lucy Park. The recreated falls are 54 feet high and recirculates at 3,500 gallons per minute."

They made the falls in 1986, and apparently forgot to think about the logistics of pumping water out of the Wichita River. This cracks me up! I just love it! The lady at the Texas travel info center told me that every spring, (and almost any other time it rains) it rains enough that the red clay washes into the river and turns it "red with grit" and they have to turn off the falls. OK. So every spring, apparently, the falls turns off because the pump can't handle the amount of silt in the water.
I just think it's funny that the people here in Wichita Falls didn't think about this problem before they designed the falls. Surely it wasn't a surprise that the river gets all silty EVERY YEAR. And yet, apparently, it was a surprise to many the first year when they had to turn off the falls because the water wasn't pumping through the pump...
What's needed here? A better pump? A better filtering system?

The river is gorgeous though! It's all red and bloody looking... kinda neat! They turned the falls on for a couple hours one day last week, luckily I was driving by to see it, and it seriously looked like blood was cascading down! It was cool!

On a different note, on Tuesday I woke up with a sore throat. This really isn't all that strange to me... I get sore throats a lot. I just take decongestant and drag a little for a couple days. So, I drugged up and went and mowed the lawn.
By Tuesday afternoon, I felt AWFUL! My muscles were all achy (whether from illness or mowing, I wasn't sure), I had a fever, I was sick to my stomach, and it hurt to talk (TRAGIC!!! I live to talk!). Wednesday, I woke up feeling even worse. Today, I must be feeling a little better, cause I'm restless. But I still feel like I've been hit by a truck. Or a train. Whatever awful cold thing I've got, I hope it passes soon! I'm getting sick of being sick!!! :)

Anyways, I hope ya'll have a good week!

2008-04-14T16:30:00.000-05:00

Lacey had this on her blog and she said I had to do it too. So here goes...

44 ODD Things about you! Learn 44 things about your friends!Let them learn 44 things about you!

1. Do you like blue cheese? EWWW!!! It's very disgusting!
2. Have you ever smoked heroin? Never
3. Do you own a gun? Nope
4. What flavor do you add to your drink at Sonic'? Lime
5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments? Always! But I usually only go the the doctor if something's wrong, so its OK!
6. What do you think of hot dogs? I like them. Usually. For some reason, I like cheap ones better than the more expensive ones. (Like Bar-S vs Ballpark)
7. Favorite Christmas song? Um... Rudolph is the one that goes thru my head all season... but I love Silent Night.
8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Water
9. Can you do push ups? Some... not as many as I used to be able to!
10. What's your favorite piece of jewelry? I like earrings.
11. Favorite hobby? Gaming
12. Do you have A.D.D.? Probably, but nobody ever told me I did!
13. What's one trait that you hate about yourself? I'm very rude and have a smart mouth...
14. Middle name? Marie
15. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment.
What am I going to have for lunch?
I want to sleep.
My head hurts, and my gut, and my knees... this sucks!
16. Name 3 drinks you regularly drink? Water, milk, Mountain Dew
17. Current worry right now? I need to get a job. But I don't wanna!
18. Current hate right now? Everything. Bad day.
19. Favorite place to be? At home.
20. How did you bring in the New Year? I got a killer headache, that lasted 10 days.
21. How old are you? 22
22. Name three people who will complete this? ?, ?, ?.
23. Do you own slippers? 3 pairs. Yellow ones, paw print ones, and star ones.
24. What color shirt are you wearing? I'm in my underwear, so white.
25. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? Yes! Well, until my blankets slide off onto the floor. I have to be covered by something!
26. Can you whistle? Sort of.
27. Favorite color? Bright green.
28. Would you be a pirate? Only if I can be a VeggieTales pirate.
29. What songs do you sing in the shower? Silly Songs with Larry... The monkey song, Pirates who don't do anything, Love My Lips, Barbara Manatee...
30. Favorite girl's name? Elizabeth & Annabell
31. Favorite boy's name? Michael & William
32. What's in your pocket right now? Nothing. I just put on clean pants and haven't re-loaded yet.
32. Last thing that made you laugh? Rocket and Garret.
33. Best bed sheets as a child? I had these flannel ones, that combined with my flannel nightgown made the best lightning!!!
34. Worst injury you've ever had? Do migraines count as an injury? If not then getting my chin split open.
35. Do you love where you live? It's OK.
36. How many TVs do you have in your house? one
37. Who is your loudest friend? Me!
38. What is your favorite game to play? Right now I'm addicted to Sims...
39. Does someone have a crush on you? Hopefully.
40. What is your favorite book? I love you, Stinky Face!
41. What is your favorite candy? Skittles, unless I want chocolate, and then it changes...
42. Favorite Sports Team? I don't watch sports.
43. What were you doing 12 AM last night? sleeping.
44. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? When is it (time wise)?

Thanks Lacey! That was kinda fun! :)

Cocoa's first bath!

2008-04-07T07:35:00.001-05:00

Thursday night, we gave our baby girl a bath. Cocoa (that's what we call her) handled it beautifully! Which is great! And a nice change from Rocket and Garret. (Well, mostly Rocket. I come away from Rocket's baths with a clean ferret and scratch marks all up my arms!) We also cut her nails. She didn't hardly even wiggle! It's fabulous! She's so good!
Well, except for the biting. She has yet to really get that DANI AND HAL ARE NOT FERRETS! Ferrets have tough skin. They don't mind if you chomp down on them with your razor sharp teeth. Humans DO MIND!!! She is getting better though, which is all I can ask for, right?

Anyways, I have this thing with humiliating bath photos... 'cause they're cute! So I wanted to share some bath photos... of our ferrets of course! Rocket and Garret's pictures are a few months old, but they're still cute!
Cocoa really is too cute for a humiliating photo!

Not like Rocket... who looks like an embarrassed drowned rat! (I know this looks like a painful grip, but if I support his rear end he starts spazing out and trying to get away! The only way to get him to even resemble holding still for his bath is to grab his chest and dangle the rest of him... Oh well!)

Check me out!!!! For some reason, he likes to look at himself in the mirror when he's wet. He doesn't care to look when he's dry, though... Weird!

Garret likes to sit in the warm water. Alone! No touching!

Drowned rat... Isn't he adorable!?

And I wanted to share a video of them playing together:

If you listen closely, you can her what sounds kind of like a squeaking/clucking noise. That's Cocoa! She's very vocal. It's called "dooking" and it's super cute! They do it when they're happy and having fun. Rocket does it sometimes, but not very often.

They seem to be becoming friends. Hopefully soon they'll be friends enough that they can all sleep together!

Sick!

2008-04-04T10:41:00.002-05:00

First things first: We named our little girl Cocoa. We were trying to come up with a name that ended with a "T" like Garret and Rocket, but all we could come up with was Cricket (She does kind of look like a little black cricket when she's hopping around the room...). We decided we like Cocoa way better than Cricket, so Cocoa it is!

AND:
So I went to let the ferrets out to play on Wednesday morning and find Rocket not interested in getting out. At all. Which is very abnormal for him! He always wants to play! He wouldn't eat, wouldn't drink, was super hot but couldn't stop shivering (fever?), had glazed eyes, and just wanted to sleep. And there's this green slimy stuff in their litter box. I was so scared! My ferret could be dying!!! So, I did what I always do when something goes wrong: I cried. And then I started researching. And found out about ECE.

So, ferrets get this disease called "epizootic catarrhal enteritis" (ECE for short), also called "the greenies" sometimes. It's characterized by green slimy stinky diarrhea. Apparently, most are exposed to it when they are kits (babies) and don't really exhibit many symptoms. But later in life, if they get stressed (like meet a new baby ferret maybe?) they can re-develop it. Or if they weren't ever exposed to it as kits, they can get it from other contaminated ferrets later.
When they get this disease, they seem to lose all interest in eating or drinking. They have no energy, get cold or hot, and sleep a lot. If left untreated, ferrets can die of dehydration in about 24-48 hours. Once the green diarrhea passes, they start having "birdseedy" poop (golden poop with birdseed looking things in it), which seems to mean that their food is not digesting and they are using their stored fat. Eeewww.... There is somewhere between 1-2 % and 5% fatality, depending on where you find your info. It can linger for like 2 weeks! Once they have it they can be carriers for an unknown amount of time, possibly up to 12 months!
Treatment involves pumping fluids, like water and pedialite, into the ferret, either through an IV or force-feeding; forcing them to eat soft food, like baby food or something called "duck soup"; and possibly antibiotics to combat the other diseases that might possibly be coming (ECE seems to lower their immune systems and make them more susceptible to other diseases like the flu or a cold).

So, I put Rocket in his own cage, so Garret would stop sniffing him and nudging him to get up (which really is kind of cute...), and he could rest easier. I went and bought some pedialite, an eye dropper, and some chicken flavored baby food.
I proceeded to force Rocket to drink water, with the eye dropper. He would NOT have anything to do with the pedialite. I could even dripple it into his mouth, like the water, and he'd spew it everywhere! I tried everything! He would eat a little of the baby food, but not much, and by bedtime Wednesday night he was even more dehydrated than he was earlier that day, despite my best efforts! And he still wouldn't eat anything. I could even smear the baby food in his mouth -- the way everything says to do, and he just gags it back out! He won't swallow! Grrr!!! So I cried again and went to bed, praying he'd be alive in the morning.
I woke up in the night and decided to check on him. He was worse still, so I seriously started forcing him to eat. He was weak enough that he'd swallow whatever I got into his mouth. (Finally! My little Snake-face will eat and drink!) Thursday morning, his fever seemed to have broken and he was ready to fight the food again. By Thursday afternoon, he had progressed from "green slime" to "birdseed poop"... I guess that's good? Right? I hope...
Last night he played for like 1 hour! Yay! (Which really is pitiful, because he can usually play for like 6 hours without getting tired...) And he was eating and drinking on his own! YAY!!!! I'm still going to force feed him until his poop gets completely back to normal and he regains some of the weight he lost, but he seems to be on the mend! He's lost about 1/2 of his total like 2 1/2 pounds... But I don't have a scale that will measure that little, so I don't know for sure...

Ok, so my week so far has went like this: We got our new ferret on Monday night. I introduced the ferrets to each other Tuesday morning and let them play a little. Wednesday morning Rocket was sick. Wednesday night he seemed to be worse. Thursday morning he was a little better. Thursday night he seems to be on the mend. Friday it looks like Garret might be getting sick now...great...wonderful...NO!...Yuck!

Cocoa on the other hand, seems to feel fine!

And just so I'm prepared in case they get sick again later, I'm going to teach them to like baby food (none of them will even touch it!) and pedialite (Cocoa likes it! She seems to think it's yummy!). When we got Rocket and Garret I read that it's important to teach them to eat the baby food when they feel good, so it's easier to get them to eat it sick, but I didn't have the heart to force feed them something gross when they felt good! I will now!!! Lesson learned!

Whew what a week!

It's a girl!

2008-03-31T21:11:00.006-05:00

Hi all!
We got a ferret! She's adorable! At least, we think so. She's a dark sable and has a little black nose! I hope she always stays so dark. It's super cute!
We have yet to pick a name... right now she's just 'the baby' or 'the new ferret' or 'the girl' (Rocket and Garret are both boys). I'm sure I'll let you know what we name her! (Not that it really matters to the ferrets... they don't know their own names anyways!)

This is her when we opened the box. She had stretched herself out all across the box so she wouldn't slide around as much in the car! Cute!!

She was trying to decide if she dared venture forth or not!

She's so dark and adorable!

We haven't officially introduced her to the boys yet, but I did let them meet through the bars of their cages! We're not certain how its going to go... and I'm a little nervous! I don't want my two already established big ferrets to kick the crap out of my new baby ferret! So I might just put it off for a while...

So the story behind it is that we went into Petco on Friday night, just to look, 'cause I like to look at the cute baby ferrets...
And they were on sale! And they had 10 ferrets to choose from! Wahoo! We both thought they were so cute that we decided we should get one! (We've actually been thinking about it forever and finally decided to do it.)
So, we were trying to pick which ferret we would like to take home with us and one of the ladies who works there came over to help us. She got a couple ferrets out for us to play with, and we started talking about which one to get... then she says "and it really great for you, 'cause they're on sale right now! Wait... No they're not!" And she rips off the sale sticker! We were quite disappointed and upset! Then she went on to tell us to come back on Sunday, they'll be back on sale then. What? The sale price sticker was on the cage when we came in! Talk about mean! We should be able to get a ferret at that price!
We both took offense at her rudeness and left without our ferret. Then we decided that we really did want a baby ferret and we'd go back in on Monday to see if one of the ones we liked was still there.
So, I went back this afternoon to make sure they were still there... and they were! When Hal got off work we went and picked out our new friend. (Makes it sound like she's a pair of shoes or something, huh?) Isn't she just adorable?! She's so small compared to our other two!

Hello? Anyone think I'm cute out there?

Sorry to every disappointed person out there that it's not a human baby (Nickie, Lacey, ...). And I'm super sorry if ya'll didn't think my 'joke' was very funny!
(Tee hee. I did though... It turns out it was funnier in my head than in reality. Oh, well! I tried.)
:) Are we all still friends?

New addition...

2008-03-30T12:21:00.004-05:00

Hi all!
We have exciting news! There may soon be a new addition to our little family! We're going in tomorrow to find out for sure! We're so excited!!!
I just wanted to post briefly and let ya'll know! More info coming soon!

Rain, rain...

2008-03-18T11:30:00.000-05:00

Ahhh! I could just pull my hair out!
A couple weeks ago, we had a bad rain storm. The whole night, they wind was blowing at our house from the north, blowing the rain right into our windows! We learned a valuable lesson: our windows leak. Well, some of them anyways. We have old windows (I think they are the original 1961 windows), and as such, they are single panes. Now, apparently the solution to single paned windows is to put another window on the outside of them (TA DA instant double panes!)
We decided we'll probably have to replace the windows. We can't have a leaky house!

Let the research begin! Our windows seem to be a standard size from 1961, but not today. They are too wide. So, we'll have to remodel the window frames. "Great! That'll be fun." Maybe we can hire someone? Only if we want to shell out that much more money. So, we'll probably end up doing it ourselves. Well, Hal will. I'll watch. (And try to help! I'm just not very attentive to details...)
During my research, I read something about how most old windows can be fixed, they don't always have to be replaced. This involves: Cleaning the track, greasing the slider thingies, re-doing the insulation, and if you have storm windows on the outside (which I do) cleaning the drain with a toothpick. OK. Cleaning the track I can probably handle. Greasing I can probably also handle. Next: insulation. How am I supposed to figure out how to get my dinosaur windows off their track to re-do the insulation? Hmmm... And drain? What?! I don't see a drain!
So, not sure what to do, I didn't do anything... After all, what are the chances we'll have another storm soon with the wind blowing gustily at my windows again?

OK, so...
Yesterday, it started raining. And it rained and rained. I checked all the windows before I went to bed to make sure they weren't leaking. They weren't. In the middle of the night, when the thunder woke me up, I checked them again. They were now leaking. Turns out it doesn't matter which way the wind blows from, they still leak.
So, I put towels all along the leaky window sills. This morning, I replaced them all. And replaced them again an hour later...
At which point I got thinking... If this rain doesn't stop, It's going to be a LONG day!

So, I thought...
one of the windows isn't leaking! I wonder why? So, I got my rain jacket (it's not a raincoat, just a windbreaker that is sort of rain resistant) and my umbrella, and went outside to check it out. The window that isn't leaking has a crack the entire length of the aluminum frame bottom, (between the frame and the wooden frame), allowing the water to drain out. Which led me to come to the conclusion that I should break the rest of the window frames, too! All I'd have to do is get something and pry the aluminum away from the wooden frame around it! So, I went to get a knife, hoping it would work!

When I got back to the windows with my knife, I stopped to think: It's probably not a good idea to just start hacking away at my windows. But at the bottom of the sill, there's this little cutout... What's it for? And then I remembered: that article said something about drains... Could this be it?! So, I jammed my knife up in there, and peeled off the paint that was covering the drain hole and TA DA! Instant self draining windows.
Inside and outside of one of the windows I fixed! I'm so excited! But now I have a hole for bugs to climb in... hummm... Now what?

This is the bottom of one of the windows I fixed. Do you see the little cutout thingy in the middle? Would you have thought I bet that's supposed to be a drain? Never in a million years would I have even thought of it!

The moral of my story today is: Some RUDE IDIOT painted my drain holes closed when they painted our house! THANKS A LOT!
But, now that I know my windows have drains, all by themselves, I don't have to spend all day sopping up water. HIP HIP HOORAY!

Oh, how I love life! GRRRR!!!

Hi all!

2008-03-12T15:03:00.003-05:00

Hi! So I'm experimenting with colors today...
What do you think? Is it tolerable? Is it awful? Let me know what ya'll think! Thanks!
Smile!

Painted!

2008-03-10T08:22:00.006-05:00

OK, so I just wanted to share that I got my cupboard painted and assembled and stocked! (well, I just moved stuff from a different shelf, but...) Wahoo!

OK, so when we moved into the house, (I've told you this before) we had an in-the-wall oven, and counter-top range.
They were deemed unsafe, by us and the gas man, so Hal ripped them out. Sorry I don't have pictures of that experience!

Anyways, after he removed the counter section where the range was, we put our stove there (gas hookups), and as for the oven-hole: I proceeded to sand it, Hal made shelves (out of the cupboard he removed), and I painted it all.
Isn't my shelf thing cute? And I can reach it! I can't reach very much in my kitchen without my stool. (A foldable step-stool.)
If you look behind the stove, you can see where the counter used to be glued to the wall. I should probably paint that, too. But it's so cute!

"Funny" story about painting... I've apparently only ever painted with cheap paint (if you can call any paint cheap) that washes off with water and soap (totally the way to go!!!)...

We bought a quart of paint from Lowes (sturdy stuff!) and a paint brush. No primer (we never remember primer) or paint thinner (what do we need that for?)...
One afternoon, I started painting. I had the shelves and "hole" to paint. As I started painting, I was thinking "this paint is a little different! It seems really thick and gooey. And it's not covering the wood well. Weird! Oh, well!" So, I painted one side of the shelves (they were propped up on a chair) and went in to paint the hole in the wall.
I worked on painting all afternoon. Having a blast! I was singing and dancing and having so much fun! In my enthusiasm, I managed to get paint all over both hands. I have no idea how that happened! And on my arms, and a little in my hair, and on my clothes (I was wearing painting clothes, one of few good habits I have learned from my days spent painting)...

When I was about halfway though painting, 4:15 rolled around. (Time to go pick Hal up from work.) So, I went to wash my hands. The paint was going NO WHERE. The water didn't even have a little white color to it. The paint just smeared more, so now my hands are completely covered in paint... "How irritating!" I didn't have time to mess with it, I needed to go get Hal. Luckily, I have plastic Wal-mart bags, so I stuck my hands in some (to keep from painting the entire car) and off I went.

I informed Hal with a big grin that I'd been painting and he said "I see that..." (how could he miss it, really?)
When we got home, Hal opened the door sniffed the air and asked "Dani? Did you have the windows or doors open while you were painting?" *Scoff!* Who ventilates while painting?! No wonder I was having so much fun! So we opened the doors and windows to let some of the toxic air escape, and I continued painting. Once I got all done, I tried again to wash off the paint. It really wasn't going anywhere. I had never encountered paint that was quite so determined to stay!

Hal to the rescue. AGAIN. He always has to fix my messes!
We (I was not going to stay home) went to Wal-mart to get paint thinner. While we were there, we also got more paint (somehow I had used almost an entire quart of paint on the little area I painted), some primer, and some gloves (I used them next time).
When we got home, my wonderful husband helped clean me up. Nice guy! And dealt with me coming down off my intense paint high.

What a nightmare!

When I went to put on the second coat (which was desperately needed!) I used the other paint. Cheaper stuff. It went on so smooth and quickly and was so wonderful! It even washed off me easily. And I ventilated.

I guess to summarize, I'll share what I learned:
1. You should probably prime bare wood before painting it. Otherwise, you use a whole lot of paint on a little area. Does wood drink paint?
2. Paint thinner is very helpful when it comes to removing paint from yourself after painting. And in the future, I'll try to have it on hand before I know I need it.
3. When painting, you really should ventilate! While being high is fun, the coming down is awful! (Headaches and tears...)
4. Driving with plastic bags stuck to your hands adds another element to the whole experience.
5. I LIKE CHEAPER PAINT!!!
6. Touching things with painted hands is a blast! I should take up finger painting for real! I do feel bad that someone at Wal-mart had to go around the store cleaning up white handprints everywhere, but... :)

Sharing Time!

2008-02-25T07:30:00.008-06:00

Hi everyone!
Welcome to my sharing time!
OK, so today I'm going to tell you about some of the things we've found in our house!
If you have a sensitive stomach, this may not be for you...

You can really see a lot more detail in all of the pictures if you click on them, but especially the first and last ones!

To start of with, is my friend Bozo: I found him on the kitchen cupboard one morning.
He's sitting by a dime, and his head is pointing downwards. Cool red face on his bum, huh? I have no idea what kind of spider he is! Anyone?
He's fuzzy! At least, it looks like fuzz, I didn't touch him.
I think that I also have ones with white faces on their bums. (They were in the window tracks when I was cleaning house...)

This is what the inside of my kitchen pantry had in it: "Bug gunk!"
(Well, to be fair, it was in a couple other closets, too. But the kitchen was the worst one. )

This is what all of the corners looked like. (This was the worst corner, though!)

How do bugs (most likely roaches) poop on the ceiling?

This is what the entire garage floor looked like:
One of the previous inhabitants kept their dog in there. (The same one who made the dog run, perhaps?) They put down newspaper, which got peed on, and then very firmly stuck to the floor, along with hair and lint, and all that. And they didn't clean it up! Talk about rude!
This is the place where my dryer goes, see the vent and electrical outlet?

This is our favorite: Yummy!
I'm not sure I should tell you where we found this, but... I will!
This was in our furnace blower. We took off the air intake and scraped this out of it.
This was after Hal changed the air filter, which was old enough it pretty much fell apart as he pulled it out (Sorry I don't have a picture of it! It was gross, too!)
And after he shoved the insulation back up into the wall (above the air intake vent) so it would stop being "intaked" into our furnace and pumped out for us to breathe in!
What a delightful thing!

I just want to assure you all: things no longer look like this! We have since cleaned all these yucky areas! And hopefully we won't be finding any more! EEWWW!!!!
And these are the grossest things from the whole house, so I don't think I have anything else to share.

And that concludes my sharing time today. Thanks for coming!

Car...

2008-02-15T10:51:00.004-06:00

A couple weeks ago, I finally got the car registered here in Texas...
Hal and I think the Idaho plates are cuter.

It took so long to get it done 'cause well, I'm a giant slacker in part, and they don't make it easy! The office isn't called the DMV, nor is it at the courthouse (well, it kind of is... it's in a building called simply "the anex" which happens to be at least 10 blocks from the courthouse itself), nor is it under the government section of the phone book. I found a listing with vehicle in the title and called them and they gave me the correct phone number.

Anyways, to get a car registered in Texas you have to: get a card from your insurance company stating you meet the "state minimum liability requirements."

Then take that to the car inspection place where your car gets a check-up, including: if it's driveable, the horn honks, the wipers work, your window tinting isn't too thick, your tire tread isn't too thin (or too thick), the lights all work, and the window rolls down.

If you pass the inspection, you have to show them your proof of liability, then you can pay the inspectors and get your "green slip" (which happens to be white) and your sticker (it's the bottom one) which the inspector sticks to your window.

Then you may go to the courthouse, again show your proof of liability, give them your green slip, pay almost $100, and then you get a license plate and another sticker (the top one). Whew!
After all that rambling, I just want to say I was very frustrated and annoyed by the whole experience!

Oh, and in case you noticed (or didn't): the license plate doesn't have any expiration stickers on it. Apparently people were going around town and stealing them (isn't that a good joke?). So they started doing the expiration date on a window sticker instead.

And just to share:
1. Apparently, 38% of drivers in Texas are uninsured.
2. You have to get an inspection every year to make sure your car is still up to par.
3. You have to re-register your car every year (of course).
Now: if to register a car you have to get it inspected, wouldn't you think you wouldn't have any stinky exhaust cars on the road, or broken down pieces of trash held together with duck tape? AND (this is the best one) if you have to have insurance to pass an inspection and register your car, how is it possible that 38% of drivers are uninsured? Can anyone answer that one?!

Pictures!

2008-02-15T09:23:00.015-06:00

The inside of our house is all still painted white, there's no big changes yet... I do have some pictures hung, but it's nothing great. Looks kind of like our apartment did...

But the outside! well...
This is what the front of our house looked like before we bought it: (Nice comparison picture...)
Notice the green grass? Hopefully it'll come back. And it's supposed to rain tomorrow, so that's a good start!
And this is now.
Notice the bush is missing from beside the front door... It was cute, but it was always hitting me, the screen door couldn't open all the way, and when the wind blew it would smack my window (scaring me). So now it's gone (one day in a fit of rage, I chopped it all off). And the bald patch of ground? It was purely weeds. Evil vicious stickery weeds that cling to your shoes if you should happen to walk through them and then they come inside and OUCH! So they're gone now, too!

This is the back yard after I got done mowing (the second time) and had filled the garbage can. I did about half the back yard.
It's a jungle out here!

This is our favorite tree... well, okay, so we hate it. It's dead, and on our neighbors property, leaning on the fence, over my back yard.

Look at my pretty flowers! Yes, I do know they're both weeds...
But I do love my dandelions! The sad news is I think it's too dry from them to do well! I had a handful last week, but they were all dead yesterday. I could just cry!
I did take this picture just in case this one went away, too!
That's all the pictures of my lawn!

Lots of weeds!

2008-02-11T14:28:00.001-06:00

Okay, so this weekend we bought a lawnmower. We decided since it was almost time for "rainy season" we should mow our lawn, before it starts growing again.

Hal assembled the mower on Saturday and started it up. After he got it going, we discovered that our "grass" (it's very weedy looking) was dry enough that it literally powders as you cut it -- most unpleasant! And it's super long!
Hal went inside (so he didn't die from allergies!) and I started cutting. I filled our garbage can with the clippings. I'm shocked with how much grass there was! The most shocking thing is that I only got the front yard cut! I still have the back to do! Our front yard is probably just over a third of our grass... which means I get to fill the garbage can probably (and hopefully only) 2 more times before the grass is cut all the way... and then I'll get to start again! Luckily, our garbage man comes on Monday and Thursday, so I can fill the can twice this week.

As a side note: powdered weeds are not the best thing to be inhaling! I don't really recommend it!

Sirens!

2008-02-04T15:47:00.000-06:00

Hi ya'll!
So this morning, I was standing in my kitchen washing dishes...
And the deafening emergency sirens went off! I'm like "What?" And then it hit me... Tornado!

I, like every calm, level-headed, smart person does when unexpected sirens go off, panicked. I'm like "Oh, no! I've got to hide! Tornado! I need to grab the ferrets and hide... where?" (Yes, even in times of crisis, I think of my boys...)

"Maybe I should find out if it is a tornado!" So, I ran into the computer room to check the weather forecast... genius, I know. The weather forecast was fine. We have a fire advisory, but that's it! So then I'm like... "well, isn't it like cloudy and stormy looking if there's a tornado? The skies are completely blue." So then I went outside to see if I could see any threatening cyclones coming closer. I saw blue skies all around and my neighbors standing outside smoking, not looking worried in the least.

I'm like "hmmm... Maybe they're testing the sirens?" Yup. The Wichita Falls website says that they test the sirens once a month. I read that when we first moved here. But I've lived here for 3 1/2 months now, and this is the first siren I've heard! At least I now know what they sound like!

Oh, and bonus! Even though, theoretically, these sirens aren't supposed to be loud enough to be heard inside houses, I'm fairly certain I'll never miss the siren going off! It's so incredibly loud! I'm on top of a hill, surrounded by sirens. Wow. Loudness!

I've calmed back down now, but... it's still terrifying! I've gotta tell ya, my biggest concern about moving to Texas was the tornadoes... And now it's tornado season (roughly)! Hurray! We'll see how I do with the siren next month.

Oh and just by the way, we've achieved a new record today! Our weather did anyway... We hit a new record high today of 86. :)

Things I should have posted forever ago...

2008-01-28T08:47:00.000-06:00

So everything is fine here in Texas. Sorry ya'll haven't heard from me in a while... I just haven't known what to say! As far as I'm concerned, nothing really is going on in our lives... at least nothing interesting. But courtesy of my husband (who has threatened to start blogging himself if I'm not going to do it) and my wonderful sisters, I've got some new drive to blog! So here goes!

ALTUS, OK!!
To start off, I thought I'd go back a few months to somethings that Hal and I have been doing. Back in November (on the 11th to be exact) we went to Stake Conference in Lawton, OK. It's an hour drive from here. We decided, since we were going to Oklahoma anyway, we'd drive to Altus (Hal lived there for 4 years when he was a kid) and visit some of the old "haunts." We couldn't actually get to the house where they lived (on the air force base), but we did go by the stadium where Blaine and Cindy used to play soccer (It was locked up tight!)
The elementary school where Hal had GT (Will Rogers), also predictably locked -- it was Sunday, after all! (The school where he actually went was on the air force base, as well.)
And we went to see (and feed) the ducks.
We saw a couple of ducks that were our favorites (the white ones in the middle):
The one with the fluffy "hair" was just cute, and the swan with the funny beak couldn't actually honk, it was more like a wheeze... It's indescribable! but, oh, so funny!

Also, on our trip to Altus, we saw something that I'm just fascinated by: cotton!
I didn't know that they baled cotton! But look at that field of bales!
Does this look like "bales of sheep" to you? (Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, doesn't it?)

FERRETS...
So I thought that I'd already shared this picture with everyone, but apparently not.
While we were living in a hotel, I would let the ferrets out to play in our "ferret safe" hotel room. I would let them out to play, and just never put them back in their cage. The door was open so they would go in and eat and drink, and could fall asleep in their cage if they wanted, but they could also fall asleep anywhere they wanted in the room. Garret (the big, dark, fat one) has always just fallen asleep wherever he wants, but Rocket would rarely sleep anywhere but in his cage.
This is one of my favorite pictures of them ever. They're sleeping between our bed and a bedside table. This became their favorite place to sleep, and they would sleep here everyday.
Aren't they just precious? We adore our ferrets!

A STORY ABOUT A BUG.
This next one is just "hilarious". Okay, so now I enjoy telling the story, but at the time...
Backstory: My shower is kind of broken. The little plunger thing that you pull up to switch the water from the faucet to the shower head is stuck up, so the shower is always on. Hence, if I want a bath, or to soak anything, I have to turn on the shower head and let the water collect. (It's on the list of things to fix, but it's not really that big of a deal, so it'll just wait 'til we remodel the shower...)

Okay, so I'm in the shower... for some weird reason, I've decided that I'd like to soak my feet in the water after I get all done showering, so I'm catching the water (which turned out to be a good thing!).
I've got shampoo all over my head, and I hear this noise like a chain saw. I'm like what is that? Then it stopped, so I rinsed my head, and reached for the conditioner. As I did I looked down and saw a GIANT SIZE RED BUG swirling in the water that I'd been catching. I, not liking bugs in the least, especially ones that join me in the shower, panicked. I jumped up on the edge of the tub and considered making a run for it, but as I'm not done in there, not to mention soapy and wet, I didn't. So I sat there and watched the stupid red bug swirl around in the soapy water 'til he stopped struggling. Then I scooped him out (with a toilet paper tube -- I'm not touching him!), drained the water, and continued my shower.
After my shower, I looked at him again. He's only like and inch long (not quite so giant) and it looks like a red hornet. I put the dead hornet in an old paper cup I had to take him to show him to Hal when I picked him up for lunch.
When I showed Hal my dead hornet, he was dutifully impressed and very sympathetic to my terror. Then we realized the hornet was moving! Apparently, he didn't drown, he just got to soapy soggy to move anymore. I brought him home, filled his cup full of water so he couldn't fly away, and took pictures for future enjoyment:
This is him. He's "happily" swimming...
This one is one that I zoomed in on so ya'll could see his pretty color:
I've decided to name him The Hornet From Hell (Doesn't he look like that's where he hails from?)
After his photo soot, I took him outside and squished him. Dead. Never to return. He still gives me the creeps just thinking about it now!

The moral of my story is... well, there is no moral, just an amusing story to everyone I've told it to, and terror for me.
As a couple of side notes: apparently, hornets don't drown. Their shells just get soft enough, and so full of water, that they can't fly anymore. After they dry out: good to go!
And after telling some guys in our ward I learned this: These delightful hornets live here. They're natives! They're just as common place as golf ball size spiders and cockroaches. As a matter of fact, we have some that live in our chapel! They buzz around the ceiling all summer long during sacrament meeting. To this I say: "How lovely..."

CHRISTMAS TIME!!!!
So, I know Christmas was a month ago, but...
We had a wonderful Christmas! On Christmas Eve, some friends in from the ward invited us over to their house for dinner and games. We spent the entire evening over there eating, playing games, singing songs, and watching their kids open presents and be super excited for Santa! It was so much fun! And it made Christmas be so much... better.
For Christmas, we did stockings and opened presents, and all of that. We had a wonderful time. It was kind of lonely to just have us for Christmas, but kind of nice, too. We've never done that before.
All four of our stockings. It was so fun and cute to do this! Santa even cares about ferrets at our house! They get things like pencils (oh, the smell!), and old toothbrush's (yummy rubber-like handles!) and ping pong balls!

Our beautiful tree!
My wonderful little brothers made us these ornaments. (The little white peanuts -- sorry, Cindy, we've had peanuts in our house -- tied on with red string.) They're snowmen! They've got little faces painted on them and everything. They've got eyes, an orange "carrot" nose, and a red scarf (that's how I decided to attach them to the tree...tie them with their scarfs!). They were just so cute! I made Hal take a picture of them hanging on our tree!

After we got all done opening presents, we got a box, cut holes in the ends of it (at the bottom), and put all of our paper trash in it. And Voila! Instant ferret toy! They adored it all day, and for about a week until I stole all their paper and threw it away.

We also got our ferrets a neat toy that rattled, jingles, crinkled, and squeaked. We didn't know that Rocket responded quite so violently to a squeaker -- we've never tried one before. After we knew, we went right out and bought a clearance squeaky bone! Garret can hear it, and he'll take a turn at chasing it too, but he's not as high strung and energetic as Rocket (hence, not quite as funny).

This is our Christmas squeaky toy! Yes, it hurt quite a bit when he bit me... the hazards of working an animal into a frenzy and getting your fingers in the way...
The "bags" were another Christmas present. (I made 'em!) The red one is a fleece bag with a jingle bell and stuffing in it. The blue one was for Garret, but Rocket likes it more. It's got crinkly plastic in it. Rocket likes to hide his bags in a secure place: in his litter box... Yummy!

At the end of the video, Rocket is "killing" the toy... it always gets killed when he's hauled it off to the "cave", or hiding place. It sometimes gets squeaked to death, and sometimes shaken to death, but IT MUST DIE!!!!
We all had fun for Christmas!

And I think that more or less catches us almost up to present day fun! It's a long enough blog at any rate...

My house...

2007-12-26T14:32:00.000-06:00

Hi ya'll!
OK, so sorry I haven't said anything for practically FOREVER, but well, I've been in my house...

We closed successfully on the 30th of November, as planned. We got to the house, and everything fell into place: the electricity was on, the water and natural gas were turned on that afternoon.
Hal works with a guy who volunteered to come over and help us replace our water heater Sat. afternoon (Dec 1st). After they got it in, we almost had disaster: it wasn't venting out of the house! So we went and bought a ladder, and climbed into the attic. There was nothing we could do there, so up we climbed to the roof. After I fished a bird's nest (including the dead bird) out of the water heater vent pipe, it worked just fine.

Since then, I've been working on cleaning the walls, putting things away, and Christmas.
We had an ancient (60s -- we were told by everyone who saw it to not try to turn it on, including the professional "gas man") in the wall gas oven and counter-top range. (see the pictures) We decided to rip them out and get a free standing range. Hal spent an evening ripping them out of the wall, and removing the cupboard where the range top was-- that was fun! It was built in place with hundreds of nails... Sorry I didn't get pictures of the event!

We had a window that had been broken, and was now missing a panel. We found a glass panel for it in the house and while I was cleaning it, I broke it. So, the window is covered in plastic until we get a new panel.

I think that's all the updating I have time for right now! Hopefully we'll get internet soon, and I can do this at home again...
Later! Have wonderful days!

And I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I could just cry!!!

2007-11-26T08:00:00.000-06:00

So "funny" story:
I woke up this morning to this:
This is icy-snow... brrrr!
(These are taken in the courtyard at our hotel.)

Hal and I have both been super excited because it's been 70 to 80 the last month! (With the exception of like 2 cold days where it got down to 60.)
Last Tuesday, it was like 80 degrees... Thursday (Thanksgiving) it suddenly became like 40. We're having a "cold snap" as I was told in church yesterday.
Hopefully it'll be over soon!

Pictures of our house!

2007-11-15T11:00:00.000-06:00

Here's the front of the house again!

Here's the backyard from the alley behind our house. We're going to be removing the inside fence. (It was a dog run.)

I'm standing in the same place taking these next three...

This is the living room/front room

Dining room. The corner of the door you see goes into the backyard.

Kitchen.

These are my wonderful hall closets!

One of the three bedrooms.

Our bedroom closet...

The bathroom.

The half bath in the master bedroom (isn't it exciting? A half bath!)

As you can see, it has much the same color theme in every room. Now is when the real fun starts! I get to decorate... yay!

Wahoooo!!!!!!

2007-11-14T13:17:00.000-06:00

Hurray!!!
We are getting a house, officially!!! We have to go in today when Hal gets off work to sign the papers one more time and submit it to the Title Company! We are getting the second house!!!!! Hurray!!!!
More later....

Hi all you happy people!!!

2007-11-13T07:54:00.000-06:00

OK, so I've been neglectful. Sorry I haven't been keeping ya'll up to date on what's up!

Hal's job is fine! He seems to really like it. He's learning all sorts of fun stuff (heat exchangers and heat exchange sales). The first couple weeks were kind of annoying -- there was some conference for all Tranter's sales reps (Hal is not one) from all over the world that Hal had to go to our first week here. It was endless power point presentations, Dr. Pepper, and cookies long. Then the next week he got a new computer, which was malfunctioning. That made it hard to do his work. That got fixed though, so work is fine now! He comes home in a good mood and says he enjoys it!

House hunting is fine! We have found two that we like:

This one is cute! It's got 2 bedrooms (one of which is painted purple and yellow), 1 bathroom, a kind of funny layout (it looks like there used to be a porch on the front and back that they've enclosed and made a part of the house), it's on a corner lot with about 10 feet between the street and the fence on the side (on the left), there's a huge dying tree in the backyard that might have to be removed, and is listed with 1282 sq feet. We measured it (roughly) at 1085... there is not 200 sq ft of closets that we missed! There's maybe 60... where's the other 150 ft? And there's people living there.

This one is also cute! It's got 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 bathrooms, big closet spaces, an adorable tree stump in the front, an attached garage, it slopes from the house to the back fence (not a good thing), will have to have new heat/AC installed sometime soon, and is listed at 1090 sq feet. We measured it (roughly, again) at 920. However, there are probably 100 (+) sq ft of closets. Oh, and it's on the outskirts of town, and like 5 minutes from Hal's work. This one is vacant.

The houses seem to be about even, we may like the second one a tad bit better. So, we're planning on making an offer on the second one. If it's not accepted, we'll offer on the other one.

Hopefully I'll be "in contract" soon! And in a house soon after that!

SMILE!!!!

Happy November!!!

2007-11-01T16:07:00.000-05:00

Hi ya'll!

So today I'm way excited! I found some houses that I want to buy!! I mean some literally. There's like 4 that I'm super interested in.

AND we got pre-approved for a home loan! yay!!! So, now I just have to pick the house I really want and say "This one!" and sit back and see if it'll happen... (and go to lots of meetings... and negotiate... and sign papers... and more papers... and we'll see what else...)

But I'm totally getting a house!!! Hopefully soon. We'll see.

AND we found this awesome craft store in town called "Hobby Lobby". They've got the coolest stuff! I love craft stores! I spent like 1 1/2 hours in it the other morning (no, I didn't buy anything, just wandered all over the entire store and saw everything!)

OK, so funny story: In our bathtub here in the hotel, there's one of those plastic non-slip liners glued to the bottom. Rocket (the skinny white ferret, who is very curious and hates water!) has decided to peel it up (he's got an entire corner dug up! Bad ferret!!!). So, to prevent him digging at it, I've started filling the tub with like 3-6 inches of water to keep him out of it. He HATES water. Bathing him is awful!!!
Anyways, usually when there's water in it, he'll jump up on the ledge of the tub, see the water and get down. Today, I'm not sure what happened, he must have slipped or something...

I was sitting out on our bed cross-stitching, and I hear a "splash" I'm like "oh no", so I get up and run into the bathroom to the sound of scratching, and splashing, and in general panic!!! (He was trying to jump out but couldn't because of the water.) I walked in to see him fly (he got out!) out of the tub onto the floor. He was sooo wet! and mad and oh so cute and funny!!!
"I told you to stay out of the tub!!!"
To make the whole matter more tramatic, I decided since he's already wet, I'd give him a bath, right there in the scary tub. Then I dried him off and set him free.
As a little side note, he's now terrified of the bathroom! He went in to use his litterbox (sitting in the corner of the bathroom) like 30 minutes later, got in there, remembered, and came tearing out of there! He won't even go into the bathroom now... tee hee...

Oh the joys of ferrets...
and of house hunting...

It's done!

2007-10-25T09:19:00.000-05:00

OK! My stuff has arrived and after a LOT of aggravation, it's in my storage shed! Hurray!!!!

For all who don't know, we hired a moving company (World Moving Services) to move our stuff. We thought that it would cut down on our stress during this transition in our lives, and make the whole thing more enjoyable. Biggest mistake of my life!!! It added to the frustration and added it's own problems. I can't seem to say exactly what happened without rambling for pages and pages, so lets just say, for now, that it was a horrible experience. All of our worst fears came true.

But I have learned a valuable life lesson...
I will never again hire some twit to move my belongings. You live and learn I guess.

But all our stuff (hopefully) is now here with us.

Well, we're here!!!

2007-10-22T09:37:00.000-05:00

OK, so we made it safely to our new home (our hotel) and have settled in (mostly).

We are discovering all the things that we have forgotten to do before we came...
Like get Hal's Social Security card from his mom, or get out his passport, or, you know , something that can prove he can work here in the United States of America... (Thanks for rescuing us Mom! You're the best!)

Now I just have to wait for our truck full of belongings to get here and get it all in our storage shed (we've picked one of those already!!!) and find us a place to live and a bank and job for me and something for me to drive and... and... and... (I'm out of thoughts to list)...