I’ve been gone for awhile and resting my writer’s brain.  Maybe a vacation did me some good.  I’m starting to feel the writing bug again, so who knows?  Perhaps I’ll be spending more time here again. 

So much has happened… I had back surgery again.  That was unexpected and not at all fun, but I’m feeling better now.  I’m told (as of 7am this morning) that my ‘range of motion’ is good and I’m progressing well.  I’ll keep up the good work!  What else?  I have a new boss.  I went to Louisville.  Wade got in a car accident (he is fine, but the truck… not so much).  I’m beginning to feel like the world is having babies and I didn’t receive that memo (which is a good thing!). There appears to be a squirrel living behind my stove.  I started a book league (it’s a club with a fancier name).

Lots of stuff. Lots to discuss.  Not tonight though, because I”m pretty tired.  But I made the first step by returning to write something. 

See ya soon.

It’s been awhile since I’ve written here.  Some have noticed and I’ve been asked when I was going to come back.  I was feeling like I had nothing to write.  Not that my life is so boring I have nothing to share, but I was starting to experience what other fellow bloggers have written about: How much is too much?  I’m not one to get real personal and I try my best to be vague so no one is real sure who I am or where I am. 

I guess after two years of writing and sharing it is bound to become difficult to hide those things.  It was floating about in my head and then it was brought to my attention today.  Now my colleagues at work know about the blog.  Which, really, is FINE, but it was addressed that I need to be aware that with the powers of Google and a bit of common sense it wouldn’t take much for one to figure out where I work.  That has always been something that I was conscience of, so I think that it is safe to say I’ve been careful.  But I don’t want there to be any concerns about it.

So I’ve changed some things. Some of my posts are now private. No biggie.  I have them and I know they are there.  I want this blog to continue…at least when I feel like I have more to share.  And in the meantime, I’m starting another blog… in another style.  When it get that established, I’ll let you know!

Codybear was talking about dreams yesterday and that brings to mind two that I had while I was vacation.  The two are unrelated – at least on the surface.  I’ve looked it up in my handy-dandy dream book & fortune telling through dream book and I’m not getting  much help.  So my lovely readers, analyze me!

DREAM #1:

I am sitting in our breakroom at work with many co-workers.  We are all at one table, sitting very close together.  I have grapes as part of my lunch, but the grapes are “past their prime” and I have to cull out the ones that have the soggy-on-my-way-to-being-a-raisin parts.  My co-worker sitting right next to me also has grapes and hers are the large, crisp ones.  For some reason she is eating my culled grapes, however. 

She gets very upset with me because my grapes are bad.  In retaliation, she grabs me and flings me over the table and into the corner by the garbage can.  I lie on the floor (’cause it hurt!!) and while there I am visited by a porcupine.  The porcupine is brown and waddles over to me.  I’m told that if I pet it, it will be soft and won’t poke me with quills.  I do so and it is soft.  The porcupine arranges himself under my head as a pillow.  He smells like coffee.

DREAM #2:

I am at a carwash.  It is the type of carwash where you pay at a pay-station, put your car in neutral and then glide through the carwash.  Before I approach, Wade gets out of the car and stands off to the side and watches.  I cannot, for the life of me, find the right button to pay, but there are HUNDREDS of buttons and games to play. 

My car continues to roll through the carwash but remains unwashed because I cannot find the right button to pay.  I look back around and can see that Wade is getting incredibly frustrated with me for not getting the car washed.  This repeats several times. 

Then I see a game where you are given a baseball.  You through the baseball into the carwash in some convaluted pattern and based on your percentage of accuracy you get a credit towards your carwash.  I got 4%.  Not good.  As I am pulling back around to try again, I see an ambulance going through the wash and they too have not figured out how to pay.

I wake before getting the car washed.

One of the jaunts we took on our mini-vaca was to the big LLBean in Freeport, ME. This was on Tuesday and the weather was HOT.  We’re talking 90+ degrees.  In April. In Maine.  We are good parents so we explored the many options on how to keep Mabel & Alex comfortable while on our journeys.

We have found that Mabel frowns upon being left alone – all the treats, fresh air, water and promises of a quick and speedy return will not appease our little pup.  I’m talking about leaving her in the car.  Alex is fine with this (although probably less so when her little sister won’t stop yapping).  But, again, we are good parents and we would NEVER leave the pups hanging in the car when it is hot out.

But Wade got a brilliant idea!  Leave the car running with the A/C on high, remove the remote from the key ring and head off to adventure. 

But the smart car people evidently don’t design it so you can leave your dogs with A/C.  It is not possible to lock the car with the remote when the car is running. 

You can, however, manually lock the doors behind you and they’ll stay locked. 

Yup.  They stay locked.  Even when you use the remote.  Still locked.  It doesn’t make sense… if we have the wherewithal to figure out away around your don’t-leave-your-car-running-and-walk-away loop hole, you shouldn’t punish us by making it impossible to get back in the car! 

Some positive factors to consider…I have AAA & I had the card readily available; Ben & Jerry’s was across the parking lot (note milkshakes); my cell phone was on me!; I just purchased some super cute LLBean flip-flops (not related, but a positive)
Some negative factors to consider… my cell phone had  ONE bar remaining; it is Maine and cell service is touchy; Wade was not amused

Oh, and there was a big ol’ storm rolling in.

But AAA arrived within 30 minutes and opened the door in seconds.  And now we have a moderately amusing story to share at cocktail parties.

*** A NOTE TO THOSE WHO ARE ABOUT TO REPORT ME FOR ABUSE ***

- When we got in the car it was about 40 degrees
- When we leave the pups, we check on them regularly – we don’t close the doors and wander for the day
- We both felt sufficiently guilty and horrible

HELLO!

I’m just back from a brief yet great vacation with my love and my 2 pups.  Pictures and stories to come, but before I start with it, I have a poll / questionnaire for my readers.  This is also a ploy welcoming invitation to those lurkers – come out & comment!! 

Please leave a comment with your responses.

Please rate the following on a scale of 1-10 (1 being strongly agree; 10 being oh, Hell no!!!!):

1.  When staying at a bed & breakfast, the innkeeper should be welcoming and greet me upon my arrival, show me to my room and ask if I would like suggestions of things to do in the area.

2.  The B&B innkeeper should make restaurant recommendation and set your eating schedule (i.e., eat breakfast now and then skip lunch and have an early dinner.)

3.  The B&B innkeeper should turn down my bed ever evening while I am at dinner.

4.  The B&B innkeeper should make my bed every morning.

Now for some multiple choice:

5.  The innkeeper should enter my room:
     a. 1-3 times max
     b. 1-3 times per day
     c. never

6.  The innkeepers responsibilities should include:
     a.  making breakfast
     b.  keeping the general public area of the inn clean & tidy & welcoming
     c.  cleaning my room, including picking up clothes off the floor, folding them and placing them in my suitcase or hanging them
     d. picking up discarded clothing to be washed at home (i.e., panties, socks, etc) and placing them in a Wal-mart bag and hanging them on the doorknob
     e.  re-rolling my toothpaste tub so the remaining toothpast is near the top and not at the bottom
please select all that apply

Other questions, comments, concerns (of which I have many) are most welcome. 

C’mon, de-lurk…please.  And my usual readers, I am sure you’ll not hold back on this.

I took the girls to the dog park on Sunday.  It was so gorgeous and I thought they could use some playtime with some pup friends.  In my head it always seems like this is a great idea and they will be so thrilled to have puppy playtime.  When we turn on to what we affectionately call “D-O-G Park Road” the girls know exactly where we are and much excitement ensues in the backseat.  Roooos can been heard from miles away, I’m sure. 

Once we walk in to the actual park and the initial sniffs are over the experience can got one of two ways.

A.  Both dogs tear off and frolic with much delight.
B.  Alex lays in the sun and growls at any dog that walks by her and Mabel sticks to me or Wade and is a nervous nelly.

One never knows until we get there.

Sunday it was B. 

That was until our new friend Nori arrived.  What a fascinating little pup Miss Nori is!  I have never seen a dog like this.  She is a Catahoula Leopard Dog mix.  Being a rescued dog, her mom is unsure what she is mixed with.  She has another Catahoula mixed with a Black Lab who is also quite unique. 

Three-month old Nori was more nervous than Mabel and they bonded over their mutual anxieties.  They were soon playing together and enjoying the spring sunshine, too!  Alex just sat back and watched…  she’s way too cool to play with the little ones. 

Nori taking in what is around her.

Mabel contemplating flying while Nori continues to assess.

Gearing up for a spring frolic!

Mabel & Nori decided to form a band and this is their album cover.

Thank you to S Le for hooking me up with a meme.  I have some stuff for another dog park post, but the visual aids sit at home asleep in my camera.  More on that tomorrow. 

But, I received a tag with the request to post three photos of scenes from my bedroom.  As most of the time my room is an unsightly mess because both Wade & I despise putting away laundry, the initial thought of this meme cause a surge of anxiety.  It quickly passed – no worries. 

Scene 1: What room would be complete without some art.  And art is in the eye of the beholder, no? For a more detailed view you can revisit here.

Scene 2:
This is the view of my bed when I aim the camera directly to the foot of the bed. She is my own personal electric blanket, minus the electric part. I’m sure you’re concerned that we are cramping her style.  Don’t worry, she growls at us if we move or disturb her sleep in any way at all.

Scene 3: 
This is what you see if you were to be in my spot on the bed and turn to the left.  We wouldn’t want her to be cold, so she gets whatever blankets she requires.  She sleeps under covers all year…to the point where she gets so hot in the summer she gets sick.  She’s not right, that one…but she sure is cute. And yes, that’s Wade in the background…he gets a small portion of the bed too. Sometimes.

Consider yourself tagged…

Here are some tidbits that you may want to know if you are waiting until the very, very, very last possibly moment to hit “send” on your e-file or rush to the post office:

1.  If you e-file and you owe, you do have the option to pay with a credit card.  However, not until you get to step 7 2/3 will you learn that there is a “convenience fee” of $220. 
2.  After step #1, you may think, “hey, I can still pay with credit card, but I’ll just transfer the $$ to my checking account.”  Again, no.  As this will result in you incurring a 20% finance charge plus an additional charge the bank throws in just for kicks.
3.  Finally, you may give up on the credit card thing and just go back to being a grown-up and pay with a check like the rest of the world.  This is fine and strongly recommended.
4.  Now you’ll almost get to the end of this dreadful process and you’ll be under the impression that all necessary forms have been completed.  Then, for some reason the IRS will suddenly need to know what your AGI is (because they can’t look it up themselves??). Of course you’ll not have that paperwork in front of you because it is sitting in its file at home (where your Internet crashed at 1 AM so you were unable to file the taxes last night) and you’ll have to dive deep into the black hole of password storage in your brain to find the username and password for the tax program you used last year that is different from this year because that tax program was wrong so they shouldn’t be used again.  At which point you realize that sometime within the past year or two, both you and your spouse have changed your email address and there are several variations on usernames and passwords that could have been selected, depending on which one of you actually set up the account so you have to start checking various email accounts (and remember all those passwords, too!!!).  When you finally figure it out you’ll be asked to answer the security question to allow you to access the info that is located in a box within a box within a treasure chest with a key that has been swallowed by your cousins’ next door neighbor’s pet pot-bellied pig and the question is “What is the name of your first pet?”  As this account is (of course!!!) set up in your spouse’s name then you will have to delve back into that black hole of information that was filed under “Crap I Will Never Be Required To Know” and you’ll find a selection ranging from Willis to Julio to Annie and you’ll inevitably choose the wrong one.  At this point, you’ll see in the lower right hand corner in fine print and backwards that you can call the IRS and get the info from them (duh!).  You’ll call and get a computer and think “Ahhhhh!!!!!” and then the computer will start playing the Nutcracker Suitewhile you wait for an agent to pick up and despite it being minutes before the deadline an agent will actually pick up and start the grilling process.  Be prepared, they need: You SSN, your spouse’s SSN, your address, the name of your 2nd grade Science teacher and his/her current phone number, your birthday, your Uncle Marty’s IQ and your spouse’s birthday all divided by pi.  Then they’ll give you the info you need. 

Then, and only then, can you hit send.  And now you’re on to filing the state taxes…

As the end of last week approached, I was secretly giddy just thinking about all the material I’d have to write about this week since I was to attend a sit down dinner with The Crazy One.  I had some dread going into the weekend, but kept the hope of good stories in the back of my mind. 

Well, I’m certainly glad I didn’t offer coming attractions, because what a disappointment that would have been! 

There was zero drama.  Nothin’!  She was normal…like an adult.  We had an awesome dinner together.  Granted there were 20 people there and we were seated at complete opposite ends of the table, but these were huge strides from where we have come from. 

The dinner was for Wade’s (and my) friend’s 40th birthday.  His amazing wife threw him an Asian themed dinner – complete with make-your-own sushi roll and spectacular sushi from a local restaurant.  She made Kung Pow everything.  Sapporo was stocked, as was pear-flavored saki.  And no party at their home is complete without proper attire being encouraged (these are the same peeps who threw the mullet party).

Wade and I took the costume portion very seriously:

This is me showing off my very own sushi roll. 

And Wade with his sushi roll…Clearly trying to show up everyone else.  He took the presentation very seriously.

And a moment to brag about my love… Look at the sushi boat.  Gorgeous, no?  Wade made it.  He’s the coolest.  I think it is sea-worthy. 
He never ceases to amaze me…

“If a mockingbird can change its song a dozen times
over the course of a few moments,
surely you can find
a new song to sing.”

- The Falcon, Apologize! Apologize!

Take the above and do with it what you will.

And have a great weekend!