Phew!

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!!!

"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...

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?!

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!

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...

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....

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!

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!

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!

Happy Birthday, Hal!

I love you!