Finally catching up

Wow! It has been forever since I had time to write here. I really do miss it, so maybe I can set aside some time each week. Let’s see if I can bring everyone up to date here. So much has gone on in the past few months.

We got the garden planted and had about half success with it. It rained too much this year for our watermelons. We didn’t get one watermelon. We did awesome with the lettuce, onions, spinach, green beans, and all the peppers just wouldn’t stop. I got my tomatoes too. The lima beans didn’t do too good, nor the cantaloupe. Potatoes didn’t grow either. We did learn from some of our mistakes though, and hopefully will have better luck next year. Right now we have winter onions, lettuce, spinach, and brussel sprouts.

Charles and I started taking riding lessons to determine if owning horses was something that we really wanted to do. I have always loved horses and used to ride a little bit when I was younger. Charles had never been around horses and had never ridden before. We will be buying two horses after the first part of next year. I only took a few lessons and had to stop because of my health. Charles took a few more lessons than I did. We go to the horse auction as often as we can now. They have one every Saturday night just a few blocks from our house. We have bought a few lead ropes, a few head gear and rein sets, a couple of blankets, some of the combs and stuff for grooming and one saddle so far. We also bought 18 panels to put up a round pen for a temporary place to keep the horses. We are in the process of trying to clear an area for the barns/lean-to/storage sheds and for the pastures and arena areas that we will need. Jack and Jan beat us to it by buying two horses. They are all very experienced riders, including Will, so we learn a lot from listening to them. They are our auction mates. They have just put a bid in on a house that is only about 6 miles from us and had it accepted yesterday. I am so excited to have them living so close to us. They have about 5 acres, I think. The home is beautiful. Two sides of the property are already fenced, but they will be doing fencing and cross fencing just like us here before long so that they can bring their horses to the new home also. They already have a chicken coop too, so guess they will beat us at getting chickens first also…LOL We went to the auction one Saturday night, and both ended up buying little healer puppies from the lady Charles and I were taking lessons from. We named ours Ruby, because she jumps like a kangaRU. Jan named hers Pit because she thinks she is a pit bull.

Ruby has come a long ways since we brought her home. A few weeks back, I let her out to terrorize the cats like she loves to do, and she came back with one side of her face swelled way up. I totally panicked. She looked so miserable. I couldn’t get a hold of Charles because he was in an all day meeting. I grabbed the leash and ran crying to our neighbor, Kippy. Kippy took one look at me, bawling my eyes out, and became very concerned. Then she looked down at Ruby and immediately had a huge smile on her face. “I see she found her first snake” she said. The fact that she smiled calmed me down instantly. Kippy told me not to worry, that Ruby would be just fine. She assured me that dogs aren’t really affected by snakes like humans are. I came back home and took a picture of poor little Ruby and her twice size face. She acted like nothing was wrong. She still chased the cats up the trees, still jumped up on me to get lovin, still ate food like it didn’t hurt at all. I hurt every time I looked at her. By about 3:00 in the afternoon, her whole face had swollen to about three times the size it should be and she had this swollen sack hanging below her throat. I got panicky again, and once again grabbed the leash and headed back to get reassurance from Kippy. Cliff was home this time also, and he took a look at Ruby too. He said that it looked like she had gotten bitten square on the nose. He said also that she would be fine. Just cautioned me that as Ruby learns about snakes, she will learn to turn away when they strike and may get bitten in the throat. If that happens, he said we needed to watch her and make sure that her throat doesn’t swell shut. He said just to give her some benadryl and she will be okay. Charles got some benadryl on the way home, we gave it to her that night. The next night you couldn’t even tell that she had been bitten. About a week later, Charles was taking her out to the kennel because we were getting ready to run to town. Right by the front porch, he found the snake that she had been bitten by. It was clear that she bit it’s head off for biting her. She is a little upset with us tonight. We had been letting her just run free on the property when she wanted to go out. Friday morning, Kippy called and said that she was over at their place and was headed towards 1488. I called her back home and she has been either on the leash or in the dog kennel that we bought for the most part when ever she goes out. This means that she can’t terrorize the cats like she loves to do and she gets pretty bored. I feel bad for her, but until we get the fence built, I’m not willing to take the chance that she might make it all the way to 1488 the next time. It isn’t that far away.

Around last April, my blood pressure started really messing up on me. It would drop so low after I took my meds that I was too weak to even get off the couch. So for a while, I was taking very small doses, and sometimes going without taking the meds at all. It would still be so low that I didn’t trust trying to do anything strenuous. This is when I stopped the riding lessons. Then around the end of August it went the other way. It started being so high that I had to sometimes double up on the meds just to keep it manageable. Around the same time, I started having major stomach problems. My stomach would hurt so bad that I couldn’t stand it. Different kinds of pain on different days, but always pain. Constant pain. It just wouldn’t let up no matter what I did. My General Practice doctor did everything she could think of over the next three months, but nothing helped. They did a full body CT scan and an upper GI and still couldn’t find out what was wrong. They finally gave up and told me that I needed to go to a GI specialist. By this time, I was having problems not letting depression get to me. Being in such pain for so long is not an easy thing to deal with. The GI did an EGD and a Colonoscopy. With that they did find a few problems. They finally put me on meds that seemed to be helping some and I was relieved of the pain for a couple of days. Then I had an allergic reaction to one of the new meds and developed Cankor sores all over my mouth, so I still couldn’t eat. They now finally have me on meds that seem to be working, that I don’t seem to be having too bad side effects. I am having headaches now, which I haven’t had in years, and I can’t take aspirin because of the stomach problems. So far though, the headaches aren’t that bad. So keep your fingers crossed that these meds will get rid of the stomach problems and all will be well again.

I don’t know why I reacted to the tests this time like I did. Through out my life, I have dealt with all kinds of medical problems and surgical procedures and never even thought twice about them. I just did whatever the doctors said to do and didn’t think twice about it. This time was different. I had such a bad feeling about all of this from the very beginning of the stomach pains. Maybe it was the fear that the cancer had come back. I don’t know. Even after they were pretty sure that it wasn’t cancer, I just had such an awful feeling. I was scared to death. When I found out that they would be putting me under for the EGD and the Colonoscopy, I was totally panicked. I was convinced that I wouldn’t live through the procedure. Even though I know they are very common procedures, I just knew something was going to go wrong and I wouldn’t live. I told Charles I was going to die every night for a week before the tests were to be done. Then the day before the tests, when I had to eat nothing but clear liquids and drink the liquid I was supposed to drink, something happened. I got up that morning and took the four pills I was supposed to take. I went all day eating only what I was supposed to eat and drink. At 6:00 I drank the first dose of the liquid. At 6:15, I could tell that my blood pressure was going up, so I took it. It was 157/99. I took another dose of my blood pressure meds and waited 10 minutes. I took my blood pressure again and it was 163/104. I was scared. The last time momma had a stroke, I took her blood pressure after I realized what had happened and the bottom number was 104. That memory has stuck with me. I called Fay (my girlfriend that works for the GI doctor that we went to) and I called my GP doctor. After talking to both of them, they both said to not take anymore of the liquid and just watch the blood pressure. By the time they called back, my B/P had started to come down a little bit. After I talked to them though, it started to go back up. My GP had told me that if that happened, I was to go to the hospital. I HATE hospitals though, so when it started to go back up, I decided to take a bath and try to relax first. If that didn’t bring the B/P down, then I would go to the hospital. While I was taking the bath, I started thinking about all that had happened and why I was feeling so awful about all of this. I thought that maybe this scare with my B/P from the liquid was the thing that I was feeling so much dread about. Now that we had stopped that, maybe all would be okay with the tests. I calmed down and went to sleep that night not feeling like I was going to die the next day. We got up and headed to the doctor’s office. We waited for three hours before they finally called me in to start the procedures. When they started to put the IV in, I totally lost it. Once again, I just knew something was going to go wrong and I was going to die. They called Charles back to the prep room to try to calm me down. Charles tried his best, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling. I cried and begged him not to make me go through with this. Some part of me was telling me that I was being foolish and that Charles was right. There was another part of me that kept reminding me that you are supposed to pay attention to your instinct. They finally decided to put me under with gas first, then put in the IV. I was being so irrational, they thought I was afraid of the IV or that I was afraid of the pain I would feel from the procedure itself. They kept telling me that I wouldn’t feel a thing because I would be under. I tried to explain to them that it was the anesthetic itself that I was afraid of. The anesthetic was not going to mix well with the meds that I take and I was going to have a reaction from it and die. The more I tried to tell them though, the more ridiculous it sounded even to me. So I just shut up and told them I was ready. I made sure I told Charles just how much I loved him and let them wheel me back to the operating room. When I woke up in the recovery room, I felt so stupid, but so relieved at the same time. I couldn’t wait to see Charles again and tell him one more time just how much I love him. Poor Charles waited for almost three more hours in the waiting room. They had told us that the operation would only take about an hour. By the third hour of waiting, Charles was worried sick that I had actually known what I was talking about when I told him something would go wrong. Doc came in to talk to us and give us the results of the tests. He said something about doing the colonoscopy again in a couple of years. He thought I was kidding when I said ‘oh no, I will never do this again’. I wasn’t kidding!

On top of the medical problems, my puter has been giving me hell. At first, it was just because it was so old. We usually rotate between updating my computer and Charles computer, but Charles has had some really bad luck with his for the past year or so. So the need to fix his over took my wanting to upgrade mine. Mine got put on hold about three times while we fixed his. Mine was still working fine, so no need to really worry about it. I did buy a 160 gig hard drive during this time. It became my main drive and I put in a little 40 gig hard drive to store all the stuff I do for MegaSite. We got hacked into a few years ago and lost a lot of stuff. Since then, I have saved everything that has been sent to me, and everything I have done. Just in case of another emergency. I had about 3 years worth of transcripts, best lines, updates, recaps, screen caps, banners, wallpapers, etc on that drive. When my computer finally did give out about 2 months after we bought the 160 gig drive, we bought me a brand new one that had a 200 gig hard drive in it. So, I decided to transfer everything I had on the MegaSite drive to the 160 drive and put it in as my secondary drive. The 200 gig drive that came with the computer became my main drive, and the 160 gig drive became my MegaSite drive. Everything worked fine for about 2 months. Then last week the 160 gig drive just completely crashed on me. I opened a graphic file, worked with it, saved it and tried to open another graphic file. It gave me the ‘this drive has not been formatted, would you like to format now’ message. It was late at night, the night before the EGD and Colonoscopy and I was in no mood to mess with it. I just shut down and went to bed, thinking Charles could fix it later when the tests were out of the way and my medical problems were taken care of. Well, I did defy death and was back at my computer a couple of days later, and it started sinking in all that I lost. Charles found a program on the net that claimed to recover files from crashed hard drives, even if you had already formatted the drive. He downloaded that and started a scan of the 160 drive. It ran all night and still wasn’t finished. It did show that all the files were still there though. When it finished running, he started the restore procedure. We stopped it after about 5 hours so I could work on the site a little and run the transcripts for the day. After I ran the transcripts, I decided to look at some of the files that had been recovered. I couldn’t open any of them at all. They were already corrupted. We figured we had been scammed and the software really couldn’t do what it claimed. I remembered the 40 gig drive that I had copied to the 160 drive two months before. Charles found it and plugged it into a media machine that he is building for me to use solely for running transcripts for the site. We discovered that I hadn’t just copied the files from that drive to the 160 drive, I had moved them. They weren’t on the 40 gig at all anymore. Then we remembered that the software was supposed to be able to recover even after formatting so we tried it. Wah Lah!!!! All the files were there. So I only lost about 2 months worth of stuff. Most things I can get back from the site and sent emails though. A few things I can’t get back, but I will just have to live with that.

Sometime this summer, we were talking to our neighbors, Cliff and Kippy and realized that the deed restrictions for our sub-division expired right before we bought the house. There aren’t many restrictions, but the ones that were in place were good ones. No junk cars in our yards, no trashy yards, and no trailers. Kippy organized a couple of meetings for the whole sub division and we all voted to re-instate the deed restrictions. Kippy has a lawyer friend that has agreed to file the paperwork for us. He is a bit backed up right now though and it will be after the first of the year before he can get them filed. We recently learned that Mr. Faulkner will not be around much longer. Kippy said that he has cancer. He owns 22 acres that are right next to ours. We have wanted to ask him about buying a couple more acres of land from him, but were lead to believe that he is firm on not selling anymore of the land. His fence is about 10 yards onto our property and we had intended on talking to him about moving the fence also. A tree has fallen on part of the fence and it needs to be repaired anyway. I think we will move it when we repair it. Kippy said that his sons have wanted to bring trailers on to his property before to start a trailer park. I hope that we get the deed restrictions filed before he dies and his sons take over his property.

I have told you before about the cat that we adopted when we first moved out here. His name is Schizzy. A few nights ago, we had a cold front blow in and it was supposed to get below freezing. During the day, Charles and I had gotten the kitty litter box and food dishes set up in the garage again for the cats so that they could be inside by the space heater we have out there. Ebony and Whiskers are the two wild cats that have adopted us. Ebony will let us pet her and has even been in the house a few times. Whiskers is very willing to take the offerings of cat food that we put out, but other than that, wants nothing to do with the humans, or Ruby. I started to go out that evening to try and gather the three cats up and was shocked to find Schizzy sitting at the front door with a kitten that looked just like him. He is wild, like Whiskers, but has chosen to stick around for a while. I call him Mini-me because he looks so much like Schizzy.

Well, that pretty much catches you all up on the goings on around here. We put the tree up last night and decorated it. I bought the cards yesterday too. Will be trying to get those sent out sometime this week. I have a lot of catching up to do on the site this week also. I still need to finish copying the files from the 40 gig drive back to my new computer. I don’t know what I will do with the 160 gig drive. I am tempted to format it and try using it again, but I am afraid to really trust it. Along with the MegaSite stuff that I lost, I also lost all my downloads and saved games for my Sims games. I hadn’t installed it on this computer yet, and so hadn’t copied the user folders over. That is very upsetting also because I am sure I won’t be able to get most of it back..:(

For now, I am tired of typing and you all are probably tired of reading. I will try to keep posting weekly again now. We will see how that goes. Now I just have to try to remember how to post this on blogspot. 360 is easier..:)

Boo

Things have been really crazy around here. I took a week off from the site two weeks ago. I needed to have some 'me' time. I did some reading, some cross-stitching, working in the garden, a little bit of sewing. It was really nice. I didn't even watch the soaps all that week. I watched talk shows and court shows, or just listened to music. Last week, I came back to the site fully refreshed and ready to work. This week I am having problems with my system (I think due to an update to Windows) and can't even get in the site. My email is just building and building. It will take me a week to catch up. We have found someone to be my assistant though, so that should help a lot.

Around here there has been more working in the garden and yard work for Charles. We have started our horseback riding lessons. We have had two so far. We are really enjoying it. The garden has taken off really well, along with the weeds in it. It is an un-ending battle to get the weeds. We were able to have a wonderful salad tonight with our homegrown lettuce and spinach. My first husband's step mother was an awesome cook. Everything she made was mouth watering. I had my first wilted spinach salad at her house. I remember watching her go out to the garden and cut the spinach fresh. It was soooo good. That will be my next project. I wish I had paid more attention to what she put in it and how she made it.

Charles got the french drain dug and finished out. It looks good. We will just have to wait for a good rain to see if it will work like we want it to. Charles got a picture of the racoon that likes our cat food last night. Sucker is HUGE. I will be updating our personal web page with the new pictures in the next week or so. We bought a new light fixture for the kitchen that has the same leafy theme the light in the dinning room has. I am so much happier with it than with the old lighting. The people that lived here before didn't like 'light'. All the fixtures and lighting in the house was sooooooo dark. We are gradually fixing that.

Bentley came to town last weekend and we missed him. We were out running errands all day and weren't able to hook up with him. Hopefully he will be able to come back to visit again soon.

I haven't seen Jan for a couple of weeks now. I have talked to her on the phone. I really miss her. There is a re-enactment of the Battle of San Jacinto this weekend in Houston. We are going. I am hoping that Jack and Jan can go too. I love things like this. I know we need to work in the garden again, and we really need to get the rye grass tilled up and the bermuda grass planted, but we also really need a weekend off to do something fun too.

We celebrated our 10 year anniversary on the 13th. I can't believe we have been married for 10 years. In some ways it seems like 30, in other ways it seems like 1. I know I look forward to the next 10 years though. I have never been happier in my life.

Oh!! I forgot to tell you. We finally had to break down and buy a new camera. A couple of nights after we got it, Charles was trying to learn all the features and took a picture at night out in the front yard just to see how the lighting feature worked. About a week later, we were looking at the pictures on the computers. We were surprised to see what looked like orbs, so we went out and took more pictures and looked again, after cleaning the lense off really well. (Okay, I can see Suzanne going 'Oh Good Lord!!!!' right now..LOL) Anyway, we have tons of orbs out here. Only some areas of the property though. Some shots had NONE, some had a few, one shot had a TON of them. I will get those pictures posted this next week too.

For now, I think I will go vent on 360 again. I love this country, but sometimes I wonder why.

Country livin!!

I absolutely love living out here. We have been so busy and loving every minute of it. Last weekend we did a lot of shopping on Saturday. On Sunday, Charles started working on the French drain and I worked in the garden all day. The previous owners had just kind of let the water dig their own ditches out here. Because of the garden, we are trying to direct the water to go where we want it to go. Charles dug out the first drain by the garage and put in a real drain instead of the bricks that were there. He also dug out the one closest to the house and got the pipe that was under the side walk out so that he can put that one a little bit deeper. He is putting all the pipes a lot deeper than the ditch was because it will all be running under our patio. I have been weeding the garden a little bit every day this whole last week. I still have a long way to go though. The garden is big, and it was nothing but weeds before we tilled it up. This weekend we continued what we were doing last weekend. Friday we worked in the yard until the transcripts were done running, then went price shopping for the filter and water softner for the house. We did a little shopping at WalMart also. Saturday we got up and Charles went to Home Depot and rented a stump grinder. Jack was going to come out and help for the day, but he got side tracked when he found someone to help him move there trailer. The stump grinder was so heavy, I couldn't help Charles get it off the truck. I had seen Cliff and Kippy out working in their yard, so I asked Cliff he could help. He was happy to come over and help Charles get it off the truck. Charles worked on four stumps that we had in the main yard that really needed to go. That machine is amazing. It turned the stumps into almost sawdust. I worked in the garden all day again and did some laundry and cleaning. By the last stump, Charles was really worked out. I had to make him stop and rest for a while. He scares me to death when he pushes himself too hard like that. When he was done with the stumps, he stared gathering all the sawdust up with the wheelbarrow and added it to the compost pile; which is doing great now. Cliff came over and helped him load the stump grinder back in the truck and we chatted a little bit. Jack finally made it out about then and Cliff headed home. Jack and Charles talked about different ways we could install the filter and water softner. We had a nice visit and then headed to town to have some dinner at our favorite diner. Jan had gone to a class yesterday and had decided not to make the long drive out here, but we still had a good visit with Jack and we all agreed that Jack and Jan would come out today and we would do the charcoal then. After we ate, Jack headed home and we went to Home Depot to return the stump grinder.

This morning we got up and went at it again. Charles working on the french drain all day and me in the garden. We worked till about 3:00 and then stopped and got cleaned up before Jack and Jan got here. Charles got the camera out and tripod and set up to try to catch some pictures of the birds, but we didn't get any. I worked on the cross-stitch a little bit sitting on the porch. The phone company came out this week and marked where the phone lines are for when we put up the fences. They marked it with a bright neon orange, which Charles can't see at all; so we went back over them with white paint. Jack and Jan got here and Charles fired up the grill. We had chicken and fried potatoes. Jack and Jan brought desert and some beautiful mums that I plan on putting in my long flower pot on the front porch. My step dad loved mums, so I am happy to have them out here to remember him by. We had a wonderful evening with Jack and Jan so it is the perfect ending to the weekend. Nice hard work all weekend, and great friends to wind it down with. I am still praying that they will decide to move out here closer to us so that we can do more stuff together. It would be great to have them close enough to have a Friday or Saturday night card game or something every week.

My blood pressure has been playing hell with me again lately. I have no idea what is causing it to do this. I have never been happier in my life, or felt more relaxed. I am going to talk to the doc again about it and see if maybe we need to switch meds or something.

I plan on working in the garden again all week. It still needs so much weeding done. I swear it will take me at least three years to get it all gone. The weather got a bit chilly again and it looks like it got to the garden just a little bit. I don't think it will do any permanent damage though. Charles got the solar powered electric fence to put around the garden, but he forgot a couple of things that we need to go with it so he hasn't put it up yet. Next weekend we are going to work on getting the permanent grass planted. We have decided on Bermuda grass. It is what daddy always used on our yards when I was young and I love it.

We were finally able to get a few pictures of the possum that likes to steal the outdoor kitties food. Not very good pictures as we were trying to take them through the window. It has been a long weekend, but I have so enjoyed every bit of it. I dread when the Texas summer hits and we are stuck with the humidity. We did finally get the portable a/c unit we were looking for to use in the office. It works really well. At least for the two warm days we had before it cooled down again. I so wish the summers weren't so hot down here.

For now, I think I will play one of my games for a bit, and maybe work on the cross-stitch some more. It is turning out beautifully this time..:)

Wow!!! What a couple of weeks we have had. Our weekends have been so busy. Last weekend we both did a lot of clearing of underbrush. Charles worked on the area around the front gate, trying to get it ready for the entrance we plan on putting out there. There will be a much better gate than we have now, with a column on each side that will have a dragon on it. Dragons Weyr will go over the top between the two dragons. I worked on an area in the side yard where we have three trees that are perfect for two hammocks. I got about 2/3 of it cleared. We both got about 1/2 of what I cut down, cut into small enough pieces to throw on the burn pit and burn it. I still have a huge pile of stuff out there that needs to be burned. Charles has about 1/4 of what he cleared that still needs to be burned.

Last Saturday night we went to our first horse auction. We met Jack, Jan, and Will there and really had a good time. We got there too late to see what the tack was going for, but it was very interesting and we learned a lot. I yearn for the day that I can talk to them with 1/2 the knowledge they have about horses, farms, .. hell .. country livin in general.
Sunday we spent the day planting the garden. We were able to plant about 3/4 of all that we wanted to plant; thinking it would take a couple of weeks before things really started growing so we could get the fence up.

During the week, the garden just took off!! We had no idea that all would sprout and go to town like it did. This weekend we realized we HAD to get the fence up. Friday we spent the day running errands and going to our eye doctor appointments. (We both have to go to tri-focals now). Saturday we got up and went to the hardware store and got everything we needed for the fence. Charles got all four corner posts put in and one side of the fence put up. I helped with all I could and weeded the garden when he didn't need my help. The day went pretty well and we were both exhausted by the end of the day. We decided to try out a different Mexican restaurant in Egypt that one of Charles co-workers told him about. It was okay. Still haven't found a 'good' Mexican restaurant around here though. Since we were already in Egypt, we decided to stop by the horse auction again. This time we were early enough to see what the tach and stuff were going for. Kevin, Charles' boss, was there again. This time with his wife and daughter. I got to meet them and chat a little bit before we left. They have some really nice purses there that run about 35.00 to 40.00. I am going to get one of them soon. Just wanted to think about which one I want for a bit.

Sunday we got up and went to work on the fence again. We have a few small problems with the posts. The one in the back right corner is in mostly sand, and didn't hold just right when we went to tighten the fence. It is leaning a little bit, but not really a problem. Then, when Charles was digging the holes for the two gate posts, he hit water at 4'. Only about 2" of water, but it still kind of freaked us out. He had to put support posts on those two because they weren't holding right either when we tightened the fence down. My role was pretty much the same Sunday as it was Saturday. I helped with the fence when Charles needed me and weeded and planted the rest of the time. I got the potatoes, tomatoes, and peppers all planted along with the raspberry and grape vines that we bought. Charles really did push himself too hard on Sunday and I got really worried about him. Once he had to come in and lay down on the floor and then took a shower to cool down. I had to keep reminding him to take it easy. We finally got the fence up and took a break to run to town and get some laundry detergent so I could do some laundry and pick up something for supper. When we got back, Charles went to work in the garage making the gate, I started a load of laundry and started cleaning the house up. We finally both got done about 9:30, with Charles using the flood light to get the gate put up. He still needs to put a latch on it, but it is done.

Today I am going to try to get the latch on for him, and put a couple more staples in that we missed yesterday. I still need to do a lot of weeding also, and get the cataloupe planted. We didn't get to finish cleaning up our clearing mess from last weekend and didn't get to do any burning. I am going to be putting up some pictures of the garden on the website this afternoon, so watch for them..:)

Well, it has been a really busy couple of weeks. Two weeks ago we dug a new ditch to guide the water from our french drain system to go away from the garden. We were able to get the garden tilled up again and I got a very small amount of weeding done. Then it started to rain and get cold. We had to bring all the plants in and cover the flowers for about three days. It warmed up just a bit for a couple of days, then cover the flowers again. This last weekend, we didn't get anything done. It was very depressing to not be able to work out in the yard.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw Chris Darden on Oprah and it rekindled my interest in the O.J. case. I tried to get his book from the library, but it was checked out. They did have Marcia Clark's book in though, so I got that and read it. I mentioned in one of my yahoo groups that I was reading it and one of the other ladies said she had read Chris' book. I decided to get Chris' book next. This week I found Chris' book in, and also found a book by Bugliosi about the O.J. trial, a book by Ron Goldman's family and one by Nicole's family. It is interesting to see how differently the different people looked at the same thing.

A couple of years ago, I found a really nice cross-stitch wizard that I wanted to do for Peggy. I worked on it for about 3 months and realized that I had really screwed up on parts of it. I put it up thinking I would try to fix it later. Well, I found it again when we moved and had pulled it out and tried to correct what I had done wrong, but it just wasn't fixable. Today I went to the store and bought some new cloth and some of the colors that I thought I would run out of. I am going to start it all over and make sure I pay better attention this time. It is a really complicated pattern, but very pretty. I also picked up some purple yarn to make some doilies with. The purple matches the purple in the blanket that I am using as my color pallet in the front room. It has a really deep purple, a really dark blue, a dark grey and a lighter grey. I am looking forward to working on some of these other things. I also am starting to work on the quilt that my grandmother had started for Peggy and see if I can finish it up for her.

It looks like this weather is going to continue to be wet and cold for at least another week, so I needed other things to do besides working on the site. I think I have plenty to keep me busy now.

We got alot of the seeds for the vegetable garden this week. I still can't find lima beans and peanuts yet. Those are the only two we are missing. I still need to get the grape vines and the berry vines that we want to grow. I found quite a few nice looking evergreen vines also that I want to use for our sitting and hammok areas. We haven't bought them yet though. We haven't decided yet what kind of fruit trees we are going to get, but I do know that I want a pecan tree.

I got a notebook and some dividers. Then I took the lesson from Jan and found a nice picture of a dragon and put it along with 'Dragon Weyr Gardens' on the front and side of the notebook. I have been looking up on the internet how to guides for everything we already have and everything we will have. The notebook is starting to shape up very well. I think it will be really nice to have it. I plan on continuing to add to it as we learn what does and doesn't work.

Well, it is almost bed time and I still have to clean the kitchen and write in the New Beginning journal for the week. Hope everyone has a nice week.

Friday, February 3, 2006

It's been awhile since I had some time and wasn't too tired to write. We have had a busy couple of weeks. We have done a bit more clearing of the little stuff in order to make paths. With the recent rains we got, the burn ban was lifted and we were able to burn a lot of the stuff we have been cutting down. We have realized a couple of problems with how the water flows when we have heavy rain. We need to redirect it in a couple of places. The compost pile is doing well and should be ready for the garden by the March planting.

The kitchen sink has been leaking every now and then since we moved in. This last week it started leaking badly every time we used it. Neither one of us really like the faucet that was on there to start with, so we bought a new one tonight and Charles got it all fixed up now. The new one looks really nice, and works very well. The only complaint I have is that Charles (being an idiot like most men can be at times) decided to use my good kitchen towels to help him do the job. There is a whole damn drawer of good for nothing rags right next to him. Does he bother to open the damn drawer and grab some of those?? Hell no!!! He has to use the brand new, good towels. Which now have rust and all kinds of other shit on them. I pray for his libido that they come clean. I tried not to bitch too much, since he worked so hard to change the faucet out, but if they don't come clean.... well, by the time I have another full load of whites to wash so I can see if the stains come out... the gratitude for the new sink will be long gone. It takes us about two weeks to build up a full load of whites.

We were finally able to go through all the boxes in the garage and got them sorted. All that is out there now is what will go in the garage sale. Now we just need to pick a weekend, get it all priced and have the sale.

I ordered the piece we were missing for the juicer and got it a couple of days later. We have been making orange and apple juice fresh almost every day now. I can't wait to grow our own veggies and fruit to have really fresh juice.

Tomorrow we are having friends over again. Dorothy makes really good pizza, so we decided to have a pizza party. We will make our own pizza's and just enjoy the day. Jan and Dorothy have been over before, but it has been a really long time since we have seen Cynthia and Patrice and Terry. I am really looking forward to tomorrow. It is supposed to be a beautiful day. Bud and Fay may be able to make it also. I wish I could just twinkle my nose like Samantha and instantly have everything we want to do ... just be done already. The sitting areas, the goldfish pond, the big fish pond, the garden growing nicely, the tool shed and well house built, the deck, the patio kitchen, the greenhouse built and producing, the barn and chicken coup built and already occupied, and yep, even the house painted .. inside and out.

We got a really bad surprise this week. When we bought the house, we saw in the contract where the sellers were paying the taxes for their portion of the year. We would only be responsible for our portion of the year. What we didn't look at close enough, was that they only credited us the money for the sellers portion of the taxes for the year. We have to pay the whole year. Not being used to paying property taxes, we didn't know exactly how it all works and didn't realize that we should have started questioning around last October when we didn't recieve a bill for the taxes. Charles just happened to hear on the radio that January 31st was the last day to pay the taxes and went out on the net to see if our taxes had been paid. They had not...:( We now have to come up with 3188.00 plus 275.00 penalty for paying late. With Charles due to get his bonus from work in March, we will be able to pay it. It is just disappointing becasue we had slotted that money for other things.

Well, MegaSite was down for a little while tonight, but it looks like it is back up now. I still need to put up a couple of things so I am off for now. Watch my 360 blog for another 'Here I Go Again'. I hope to get to that tonight while things are still fresh in my mind.

What a wonderful weekend

We got so much done this weekend. Friday morning we got up and went for our doctor appointments. I lost a bit of weight.. yea!! My cholesterol is way too high, but I did drop the triglycerides down a bit. Over all, we are both still doing well. We stopped at Katy Books on the way back because Charles had joined the book club there and was due a free book. We thought we might be able to find a book on building chicken coups. They didn't have anything like that so I checked to see if they had Todd McCaffrey's new Pern book. They did, so Charles got that for me. I am very pleasantly surprised with the book. Todd knows his mother's world well enough to write very convincingly in it. This really excites me because I now have reason to look forward to several more years of the Pern series..:)

Charles got the rest of the garden tilled up. I repotted some more of my plants and found a couple more really nice plants. Ben, who is a really good friend of ours, came down for the weekend from Austin. It had been quite a few years since we saw him. He brought us a really nice wine coaster with a matching cork, and a really cute little blackboard for the kitchen. We spent Friday evening chatting and catching up with him. Saturday, We got up around 9:00 and Charles fixed biscuits and gravy. He made the gravy really spicy, like cajun gravy. I didn't like it at all, but him and Bentley seemed to like it. Jan came over early to spend the day with us and brought some hotdogs and buns and a nice veggie tray to snack on. I made a cheese roll and some veggie dip, spinach dip with rye bread, and we had some summer sausage that I sliced up with chedder cheese and crackers to snack on for the day. Charles trimmed the tree between the house and the garage so that maybe we can get it to grow more up than out. I would like to keep it in the patio if we can. Charles and I went out and started cutting up this really huge tree that has fallen out by the gully. We got the hooks hung on the porch so I could hang my plants up. Ali called and said she wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be able to make it out. I was so dissappointed. So was Jan and Ben. We had all really been looking forward to seeing her. We snacked all day and just spent a really relaxing afternoon visiting with Jan and Ben. Jack and Will joined us for supper. We just threw the hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill. Charles made the hamburgers with bacon and onion soup mix. They were really good. There is nothing better than hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill. While we were eating, we decided to watch The Brothers Grimm since we had it on DVD and none of us had seen it yet. Dorothy came over about half way through the movie. She brought me some beautiful flowers and a bottle of wine. When the movie was over, Jack, Jan, and Will decided to head home since they were going all the way back to League City. We opened the bottle of wine and tried it out. It had a hint of blackberry taste to it. It had a bit of a bite to it though, and that isn't my taste. Charles liked it pretty much though. We decided to play a game of dominoes. We had so much fun. I haven't laughed like that in ages. My stomach was sore all day Sunday from all the laughing we did Saturday night. We played dominoes till around 3:00 in the morning I think, when Dorothy decided it was time for her to get going. She lives on the other side of Tomball, so it's not that far of a drive from here. Sunday morning we got up and ate some of the leftover hot dogs and burgers for brunch. Ben got his things together and took off to head back to Austin after a few other stops. Charles took the tractor and went and gathered up the wood we had cut the day before. He chopped that up and added it to the wood pile. We had put a big hole in the wood pile on Saturday since we kept a fire going all day and night. We then decided to attack the garage. Charles got the flooring put back up on the storage area above the garage. We had taken it down and used it to board up the windows when we thought Rita was heading our way. After the flooring was back in place, we started going through all the boxes that have been in storage for so long. We went through about half of them. Sorted out what would go upstairs in the garage to be stored, what is going to be sold in the garage sale and what came in the house. We ran out of daylight about half way through the boxes, so we stacked them all back up again and went to the store to get a few things. After supper we enjoyed our Sunday night shows; Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Desperate Housewives, and Crossing Jordan. I meant to tape Cold Case, but I forgot to hit the record button. After the news, we wound down and headed to bed. Charles was fighting a cold all weekend and got up this morning feeling like hell, so he called in for the day.

I enjoyed this weekend so much. It is always wonderful to spend time with good friends. We managed to still get so much done on the property too. For now, it is back to MegaSite to get caught up on what piled up over the weekend..:)

Monday 1/9/06

This last weekend was busy, but still fun. We still didn't get everything done that we wanted to, but did get a lot done still. Most of Saturday was spent shopping. We had to go into town to do most of it. Charles got a couple of games at Half Price Books with the gift certificate that Jack and Jan gave him for the holiday. We went to three different stores trying to find ink cartridges for my printer. Finally found them at good ol' Walmart. On Sunday, Charles mowed the yard and weed whacked it. We had some really good ribs that he cooked on the grill. I got some of the replanting done that I wanted to do. I got all but one of the aloe vera plants planted that Jan brought me, two of the spider plants transferred to bigger pots, one of the big plants from mom's funeral transferred also. Still have more work to do with the plants, but I need to get some more potting soil first. Charles worked with the compost pile, and it is starting to pay off... YAY!!

Since we bought this place, Jan has been threatening to buy chickens for us and bring them out here. I keep telling Charles that we really need to get the chicken coop built. On Christmas day Jan scared the crap out of us both by bringing this huge box in the back of her truck and announcing that she had brought the chickens. We had a good laugh at our relief to find that they were chicken statues. A momma and three chicks. I got the momma painted Sunday also, and discovered with little surprise that I am no artist. LOL. It's a funny looking momma chicken, but I had a blast trying to paint it.

I spent today catching up on TV MegaSite with articles and proofread stuff sent in over the weekend. Tomorrow I need to work with the Excel sheet and check in with some of the volunteers. I also need to make out a nag list for the forum.

Ben is coming to visit this weekend so we are going to try to get ahold of everyone and have a bit of a party..:) I need to see who all I can get in touch with. Anyone reading this is welcome to come, just let me know that you are coming..:)

For now, I am off to soak..:)

Well, Suzanne is going to have to help me learn my way around here. I am going to try to get the feed to work on 360 with this blog. I think I will just post in both places till I figure it out.

We have had such a wonderful week here. The Christmas meal was a huge success. We had 23 people over. Not quite as many as I had planned on, but some plans changed at the last minute. We got all the food preparred on time and had such a wonderful afternoon visiting with everyone. The kids all had a blast running and playing all over the property. Jack and Will cut up a couple of fallen trees we had on the property and gave us some really good wood for the fireplace. I got some awesome gifts this year, and I am pretty sure everyone else was happy with what they got also. It was a year of good coincidents as far as gifts go. We got Cherri a nice little fountain. She told us that she had a fountain that had just broken right before the holidays. We got Richard a nice pen set with a matching money clip. He told us that his money clip had broken also. Kayleigh was so happy to get the computer game we got her. Cherrie told us that she had the first version of the game and totally loves it. I had no idea there even was a 'first version' of the game. Edna made us a nice new kitchen towel to hang on the oven that was made out of a cute little kitchen towel with three littel kittens on it. Shawn and Theresa got me a whole set of towels, kitchen wash clothes and pot holders with the exact same little kittens on them.

I loved all my presents this year. Jan got us a journal that she put a cute picture of a dragon breaking free from its shell, and then put "Dragon Weyr - The Beginning" on the front of the picture. It was such an awesome idea, I decided to carry it on and am now making me a "Dragon Weyr - Gardens" book. I am going to put in it everything we plant and grow out here, how to take care of them and all the information needed.

We got a few things we wanted to get done accomplished. Charles put my new hard drive in and got me hooked up to the battery we had bought for my computer. I got my new games installed and have even found a few minutes to mess with them. Charles got half the garden tilled up and the tree stump that was in the middle of it burned and dug out. I have started weeding the garden now and am starting to get a bit anxious to get things planted. That will have to wait till March though. I am pretty sure that we will be able to supply Jack and Jan with veggies from it also. I am so looking forward to making our own tomatoe sauces and canning our own veggies, making our own fresh pickles and pickled okra and jalapenos and stuff. I just can't wait. Home grown food is so much better tasting.

I have decided that I am not going to let the candies kick my ass again. I am going to find me a good candy cookbook and start practicing making candy now.

New Years was just as wonderful as Christmas. Jack, Jan anad Will came out for a bit for New Years Eve. Jack and Will showed Charles a few tips on how to safely operate his new chain saw and Jan brought me some Aloe Vera plants and a spider plant. We fixed a nice little roast and fried potatoes for supper and just enjoyed the conversation. They had to go home early as Jack had to work on New Years day..:( Charles and I just watched a couple old movies and then watched the new year ring in in New York and then again in Chicago with Regis. New Year day, Jan and Will joined us again and brought a wonderfully rich pie for dessert. Charles makes the very best cabbage and blackeyed peas in the world, so I always get the day off from cooking for the holiday. We put a brisket on the charcoal to add to the traditional meal and had a wonderful time devouring all of Charles hard work. It just gets better and better each year. We gave Jan Charles old desk and he and Will loaded it up in the truck. We spent the afternoon visiting and just relaxing. Had the pie and sent home a plate for Jack to enjoy the meal too.

Today I have a hell of a bad headache. I haven't had a headache in a little over two years. I haven't had a migrain since I left Kansas over 15 years ago, but I suspect this one is going there. The last week has been so relaxing and I enjoyed it so much, I will not allow this headache to ruin that.

Here's hoping all have a wonderful year ahead.