Friday, November 20, 2009

updates from facebook


Nov. 8 - 9:10am - No sleeping in for me today. The man who sometimes mows my yard (when I've let it get away from me) was here at 8 to finish up from last week when his lawn mower died. Sammie hates strange men and spent the entire time running from window to window barking his fool head off.

Nov. 10 - 8:47pm - Breath in, breath out, breath, breath out...I'm trusting KJ with a little more independence and am now sitting here wringing my hands waiting for him to call.
Edited to add that KJ was allowed to drive to Hillsboro at 9:00 at night. He made it okay.

Nov. 13 - 8:34pm - It's been a l-o-n-g week full of tests, projects, and homework. One more busy week and then things slow down until finals. I can hardly wait until Thanksgiving.

Nov. 14 - 11:00pm - Long, but productive day today. I did some work related stuff, visited with a friend, took KJ to Guitar Center in Killeen since it was the closest place for a part that broke off his bass drum pedal, did laundry, vacuumed, sprayed for fleas, bathed Curly, actually cooked lunch and supper, showed KJ where the fuse boxes in the car and how to tell if one has blown, and did a little more work on my 3-D farm project.

Nov. 15 - 1:03pm - I'm off to work at store #2 today. Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho....

Nov. 16 - 12:21am - The farm project is done! I can now have my dining room table back.

Nov. 16 - 12:21pm - 100% on my farm project, thank you very much.

Nov. 16 - 11:00pm - Had a wonderful music-filled evening at the MCC Rock Band Concert. I had to restrain myself from standing up and yelling, "That's my baby rocking the drums!"

Nov. 17 - 1:03pm - If I top off a healthy lunch of tuna on whole wheat crackers with Schwan's Peppermint Stick ice cream, that would make it a "balanced" meal, right? Right?

Nov. 17 - 5:03pm - This is what Sammie and I do several times a day. If I don't, he is not tired enough to sleep at night.

Nov. 18 - 7:55am - I was fighting a headache yesterday evening, took a migraine pill and laid down to rest for a few minutes, and woke up 3 hours later having missed study group. Then, however, I was wide awake and stayed up late reading my animal physiology book and now, I'm sleepy. I need a better routine...

Nov. 18 - 11:08pm - Emily's new favorite spot now that's it's getting cool enough to light the heater. Please ignore the large amounts of dog hair. I'm too swamped with school stuff to sweep.



Nov. 19 - 6:52pm - I got into grad school! Woo Hoo!!! I have not been officially informed, but found out today that I'm IN!! *happy dance*



Friday, November 6, 2009

It's been so long that I don't know where to start.

Let's see, I left off with the impending test from hell. It went fine and I got a 'B,' which means I can still get an 'A' in the course. School-wise for me, things are going well. I have A's in all my other classes, did decent on the GRE, and am pretty sure I'll get into grad school for the spring. My mentor professor/advisor seems to think I won't have a problem.

School-wise for KJ, things are improving, but could still be better. After his father and I spoke to KJ's psychologist, we agreed to try KJ on a prescription med for his ADD, for this transistional time anyway. Meanwhile, KJ will work with his psychologist on organizational skills. KJ had his first dose yesterday and said it helped tremendously. He felt much more relaxed and focused.

Social-wise for KJ, he is in a new band. I believe it is "death-core metal" or something like that. It's loud and has a screamer. Thank goodness, they do not practice at my house! The other young men seem nice enough and were gracious enough to not smoke around KJ or even in their cars with the windows down. Of course, KJ had not bothered to tell them this...I finally called the main guy up after listening to KJ's cough get progressively worse. He felt bad that he had not known it was an issue for KJ and things have been fine ever since. KJ had a girl he liked be a total bitch, and say some really mean and uncalled for things to him. Seriously, I have NEVER heard of a girl treating someone this way. Times have changed. I went into mama-bear mode and it took everything I had not to call the little hussy up and take a piece out of her 17 year-old behind with my 40 year-old foot.

On the home front, the house is currently a disaster area that only seems to stay clean for an hour before the dishes start piling back up and everything becomes coated with a layer of dog hair.
Work-wise, things got nuts right after Halloween with me working a total of 11 hours last Sunday, taking down Halloween and putting up Christmas. I alternately hate and love my job depending on when you ask.

Dog-wise, I am also battling some kind of mutant fleas that refuse to die. I've just about poisoned myself along with my dogs and they just keep coming back. It would take a whole other blog post to describe putting on my bathing suit and giving Sammie and Curly a shower to try and make sure I got all the flea shampoo off. I always have a hard time getting their undersides so I held them up in the shower. Neither one liked it at all. The most recent flea battle plan is respraying the yard, the dogs got Frontline yesterday since the last topical stuff (Bio-Spot) did not work, and I've sprayed the carpet and Curly's bed with a different flea spray. I had been dusting them and the bedding with something that I've forgotten the name of, but it did not work. They both had a flea bath 3 days ago and I can't bath them again for a week to give the Frontline time to spread through their system.

A couple of weeks ago, a pit bull broke into the back yard by ripping the chain link away from the frame and pushing it up to make a dog-size hole. It attacked Sammie and charged at me. I called the police who came out and waited for animal control. The dog left while he was waiting so the officer followed him, but lost him down an alley. Animal control thinks he was trying to get to Curly. She has been spayed, but he said female dogs could still put out an odor. Who knows? A man came up as they were leaving and spoke to both officers. I think it was the dog owner. Either way, the dog has not been back. Sammie had a pretty good puncture wound on his head, but has recovered fine and the landlord fixed the hole in the fence. I still have a large walking stick and a sword by the back door in case the dog shows back up.

I have to head to class so ta-ta for now.