tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-204441852024-03-14T04:14:46.345-05:00Fylara's HoldFylarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04649275611526201917noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20444185.post-61058531869274104032008-01-27T22:29:00.000-06:002008-01-27T22:30:26.802-06:00catching up<p class="MsoNormal">Again, a couple of months have gone by again.<span style=""> </span>It has been a rough couple of months.<span style=""> </span>My stomach has been giving me hell again, I have been fighting off depression for the first time in decades, and have been sick on top of all that.<span style=""> </span>I am finally feeling a bit better this weekend and got quite a bit done around here.<span style=""> </span>I still have a lot more to do, but I am feeling good about it.<span style=""> </span><o:p><br /></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The puppies are getting bigger by the day.<span style=""> </span>Squiggy is getting really fat.<span style=""> </span>Gigi has decided to do Snoopy impersonations by sitting on top of the dog house.<span style=""> </span>Of course , Ruby is still the princess of the property.<span style=""> </span>Mickey is talking a lot now.<span style=""> </span>He says ‘come ‘ere, come ‘ere’, ‘come on, come on’ “Jennifer’, two forms of ‘hello’,<span style=""> </span>‘oh my God’, he has a noise that sounds like Ruby’s squeak toy, a noise that sounds like a little yappy dog barking, and several different whistles.<span style=""> </span>He enjoys running around on the floor in the evenings now too.<span style=""> </span>We got another stand built for two more rabbit cages and one more cage built.<span style=""> </span>We got another doe from Jan today to put in the cage.<span style=""> </span>Haven’t decided what to name her yet though.<span style=""> </span>We did finally get all the roosters butchered, so now we just have the hens left.<span style=""> </span>They are still laying an average of a dozen eggs a day and we are now having problems getting rid of them.<span style=""> </span>We took the price up to 2.00 a dozen, and no one wants to pay that.<span style=""> </span>We got about half of the fence put up in the back of the property and another 80 ft. of the three rail across the front of the property.<span style=""> </span>We moved the burn pit to the back of the property and got three piles of the cleared trees torn down completely and a good start on one of the piles in the back.<span style=""> </span>It is all moving along slowly, but surely.<span style=""> </span>We figured out that we got screwed on the farm truck that we bought.<span style=""> </span>We have decided that I need to go back to work again for a bit so we can pay off some of our bills.<span style=""> </span>We needed to turn the ‘farm truck’ into a vehicle I could drive to a job.<span style=""> </span>It will not pass inspection because the previous owners took off all the emissions stuff.<span style=""> </span>It will cost way too much to replace the stuff that was taken off.<span style=""> </span>I am not sure what we will do now.<span style=""> </span>The winter garden is going pretty well this year.<span style=""> </span>We have cabbage, broccoli, and romaine lettuce.<span style=""> </span>I didn’t get the brussel sprouts planted in time.<span style=""> </span>We still have to plant the onions soon.<span style=""> </span>We butchered the tom turkey for the Winter Solstice meal.<span style=""> </span>He weighed 41 pounds dressed.<span style=""> </span>The turkey pen was turned back into the puppies pen and we moved them out of the end of the garden.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">That’s what has been happening around the growing farm.<span style=""> </span>On the net front, I am way behind on the site.<span style=""> </span>I am working on getting the Boston Legal site ready to go public, but not moving at near the speed I want to.<span style=""> </span>I am hoping to finish getting caught up with cleaning the house and getting things organized again this week, and getting the Boston Legal site public by next weekend.<span style=""> </span>Jan turned me onto a really cool blog spot.<span style=""> </span>The Pioneer Woman, (http://thepioneerwoman.com/) and her cooking site (http://thepioneerwomancooks.com/).<span style=""> </span>I have become addicted to her blog.<span style=""> </span>She is so funny.<span style=""> </span>You have to check her out.</p><p class="MsoNormal">More recent musings.<span style=""> </span>I never tire of ‘people watching’.<span style=""> </span>Friday, we did our bi-weekly shopping.<span style=""> </span>We stopped at a sandwich shop to get something to eat when we had finished.<span style=""> </span>It was one of those places that gives you a number when you order and they call your number when your order is ready.<span style=""> </span>Hubby and I were the only customers in the place when we got our sandwiches.<span style=""> </span>Two ladies came in and placed their order, then took their seat while they waited for the order to be ready.<span style=""> </span>Did I tell you that hubby and I were the only other customers in the place?<span style=""> </span>Did I also mention that we had already gotten our order and were chowing down?<span style=""> </span>The worker called out ‘Number 160 and 161’.<span style=""> </span>Both ladies sat as if they hadn’t heard the announcement.<span style=""> </span>When the worker called the numbers again, they both dug in their purses and fished out their receipts while saying things like, ‘Is that our number?’, ‘Do you remember the number he gave us?’.<span style=""> </span>Once they both looked at their receipts and figured out that it was indeed their number, they approached the worker and asked, ‘Is this ours?’.<span style=""> </span>I’m watching the whole thing and looking around the place and thinking ‘WTF?’<span style=""> </span>I couldn’t help bursting out laughing.<span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Speaking of strange:<span style=""> </span>Tonight we did a bit of channel surfing after Extreme Home Makeover and came across the last hour of the Guinness World Book of Records thing.<span style=""> </span>I just want to ask WHY?<span style=""> </span>Why do these people do the things they do, just to ‘hold a record’?<span style=""> </span>The longest piece of spaghetti sucked through one’s nose?<span style=""> </span>Kicking one’s self in the head the most during a given period of time?<span style=""> </span>Squirting milk out of the eye?<span style=""> </span>The most body piercings in one setting?<span style=""> </span>WHY????</p><p class="MsoNormal">Again, I make ANOTHER resolution to update this blog more often.<span style=""> </span>We will see how that goes. </p>Fylarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04649275611526201917noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20444185.post-19390736567838841992007-12-03T14:39:00.001-06:002007-12-07T10:58:18.069-06:00December 3, 2007<p class="MsoNormal">Well, here we are a full seven months later.<span style=""> </span>I'm just not good at this blog thing at all.<span style=""> </span>I will try to bring you up to date.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I am still having the same problems with my stomach, although it isn't as bad lately.<span style=""> </span>They ran every test in the books, and found nothing wrong.<span style=""> </span>Well, nothing that would cause the kind of pain that I experience.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The garden was hit and miss this year.<span style=""> </span>We are not sure that we are going to keep the raised beds.<span style=""> </span>I have most of my winter garden planted now.<span style=""> </span>The spinach died right away, and I haven't been able to find anymore.<span style=""> </span>I still need to plant my Brussels sprouts, carrots and onions in January.<span style=""> </span>The cabbage, lettuce and squash are doing well so far.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Cliff was finally able to get the acre cleared that we were waiting on, and the weather has cooled down enough for us to work outside again.<span style=""> </span>Charles ran over a nest of land hornets this summer and got stung about 18 times.<span style=""> </span>It was pretty bad.<span style=""> </span>The next weekend our neighbor ran over one and got stung about 22 times.<span style=""> </span>We watch very carefully now when we are working in the yard.<span style=""> </span>I threw my back out really bad this summer too.<span style=""> </span>Doing something really stupid, like trying to lift the tractor..:(<span style=""> </span>It is doing much better now though.<span style=""> </span>We bought a thing called a 'garage in a box' and finally got it put up a couple of weeks ago.<span style=""> </span>We have moved the tractor and a bunch of the yard tools, the wheel barrow, the trailer, etc. in there so that we have more room to work in the garage.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ruby is doing great.<span style=""> </span>She loves being outside with us when we work on the yard.<span style=""> </span>She loves to help also.<span style=""> </span>When she sees us pull the vines down out of the trees, she will jump up and grab some too and try to pull them down.<span style=""> </span>When she sees us pulling limbs and stuff from the wood piles left from the clearing, she tries to pull limbs out too and carry them to the burn area.<span style=""> </span>When Charles occasionally leaves her in the house when he is mowing or something, Ruby lays on the couch watching daddy out the window and sighs heavily.<span style=""> </span>Our little farm is starting to grow a bit.<span style=""> </span>We had the two rabbits that we had bought from Jan until last weekend.<span style=""> </span>The female was dead when we came home from <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Oklahoma</st1:place></st1:state>.<span style=""> </span>We also still have the two pet rabbits that we bought and now have two babies that will be ready to sell in a week or two. <span style=""> </span>We bought two turkeys, Thanksgiving and Christmas.<span style=""> </span>We went to butcher Thanksgiving that morning, and found that a raccoon had gotten to her first.<span style=""> </span>Ruby's dog run had been turned into the turkey run.<span style=""> </span>We now have wire over the top of it also so the raccoon’s can't get to Christmas.<span style=""> </span>We have five roosters that run the property during the day.<span style=""> </span>We lock them up in their own little 'stud row' building at night.<span style=""> </span>When they get too far from their area, I turn Ruby loose and tell her to 'take them home' and she runs them back to the animal area.<span style=""> </span>She has started to be bored with that little game now and I sometimes have to help her with that.<span style=""> </span>We have 17 hens, which include Jan's last two hens.<span style=""> </span>We have Barred Rocks, Black Astroloups, Rhode Island Reds, New Hampshire Reds, and Buff Orpingtons.<span style=""> </span>The ladies are kept separate from the roosters.<span style=""> </span>We plan on butchering the roosters soon.<span style=""> </span>The ladies laid really good for us all summer.<span style=""> </span>They have slowed down a bit now that the weather has cooled off.<span style=""> </span>Next year, we plan on building a bigger coup and run and getting 50 layers and 25 meat hens that we will butcher when they are about 6 months old so that they are still tender.<span style=""> </span>We are hoping that 25 will last us through the year and that the 50 layers will keep ourselves and the few customers that we have found this summer in eggs almost all year anyway.<span style=""> </span>We have started looking for a few more meat rabbits now.<span style=""> </span>We would like to find a couple Californians and a couple <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">New Zealands</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<span style=""> </span>We have two cages that Charles built that we use for the momma and baby rabbits and then we have bought the rest.<span style=""> </span>We found that we can buy them for cheaper than we can make them.<span style=""> </span>We are once again working on the fences, now that the weather is not too hot to be out there working.<span style=""> </span>We have about 90 feet left on the front three rail.<span style=""> </span>We have decided where the horses will be, where the pigs and goats will be also.<span style=""> </span>We just have to get the cross fencing done and the barn and out buildings built.<span style=""> </span>I still don't have my flower gardens planted yet, or my seating area or hammock area done.<span style=""> </span>The outdoor kitchen hasn't even been really planned out yet.<span style=""> </span>We are making progress though.<span style=""> </span>I still wish I could just twinkle my nose and have it all done.<span style=""> </span>We also have an African Grey parrot named Mickey that was given to us.<span style=""> </span>He is starting to get used to us and we work with him every night.<span style=""> </span>He is starting to talk again too.<span style=""> </span>His previous owner had him for 15 years, but recently got a divorce and had to go back to work.<span style=""> </span>She didn't have time to spend with Mickey anymore and he was getting some bad habits going from being neglected.<span style=""> </span>He was biting, pulling all his feathers out and just being a big brat when we got him.<span style=""> </span>He now will sit on our hands and play on the back of the couch a bit.<span style=""> </span>Him and Ruby are learning to respect each others space and he is starting to talk and whistle pretty little tunes.<span style=""> </span>He says the funniest things.<span style=""> </span>He still calls for his previous owners daughter now and then.<span style=""> </span>Her name is Jennifer.<span style=""> </span>He says 'Oh my god!', 'come 'ere', 'you brat' and silly little things like that.<span style=""> </span>He makes noises that sound like Ruby's squeak toys too.<span style=""> </span>If he thinks we are ignoring him too much, he lifts the floor of his cage and lets it fall loudly back into place.<span style=""> </span>We also still have the main three cats, Schizzy, Ebony, and Whiskers.<span style=""> </span>Whiskers hurt her back leg (we have recently decided that Whiskers is a she) and has stayed in the garage for a little over a month now.<span style=""> </span>She still won't let us touch her, so we just put food and water and a litter box out there for her and hope that she heals well.<span style=""> </span>I saw her moving around yesterday and she didn't seem to be limping anymore, but she is still afraid to leave the garage.<span style=""> </span>Ebony comes into heat regularly and sometimes seems to be pregnant, but in the two years we have lived here, I have yet to find any kittens.<span style=""> </span>I don't know what she does with them.<span style=""> </span>I am really starting to miss having an inside kitty, so I wouldn't be surprised if we add another inside animal soon.<span style=""> </span>We also have two new puppies.<span style=""> </span>They are about 8 weeks old now.<span style=""> </span>One is a lab/blue healer mix that we named Gigi.<span style=""> </span>She is such a cutie and really innocent.<span style=""> </span>Her paws are huge though, so she promises to be a pretty good size girl when she is full grown.<span style=""> </span>The other is a red healer/blue healer mix.<span style=""> </span>He is such a cutie too.<span style=""> </span>We named him Squiggy because when you try to hold him, he squiggles around so much.<span style=""> </span>He is a little piggy and is getting really fat.<span style=""> </span>I'm not too worried about it right now though, since they are still puppies.<span style=""> </span>I am sure he will thin down.<span style=""> </span>For the time being, we fenced off the 8 foot add on to the garden to give them a place to stay.<span style=""> </span>Once we get the main fence up, they will have the run of the yard.<span style=""> </span>We bring them in one at a time now to try to house break them in case we need to bring them in for bad weather or something, but they are mostly outside dogs.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Lets see, what else can I tell you before I get to the sad stuff?<span style=""> </span>I am still rolling my own smokes and still making jerky.<span style=""> </span>I got a laptop this summer so that I don't have to go upstairs to work on the computer, so I am able to spend a lot more time working on the TV MegaSite again.<span style=""> </span>Gisele took over the daytime manager job and Thane took over the volunteer manager job, so I am just operations manager now.<span style=""> </span>I work a lot more on the primetime side of the site now and am trying to put together our Boston Legal section.<span style=""> </span>Hopefully, I will have that ready to go public soon.<span style=""> </span>I still haven't quite figured out how to mess with 'myspace' yet, so Rene went in and did a bit of touch up for me.<span style=""> </span>I hope to be able to work more with it pretty soon.<span style=""> </span>At least I know how to put the blog stuff up.<span style=""> </span>I will also post this on 360 and my other blogspot, if I can remember how to do that one.<span style=""> </span>I am still doing my crochet, sewing, and needlepoint.<span style=""> </span>I also started getting into making jewelry.<span style=""> </span>Wire and beads stuff.<span style=""> </span>It is interesting and I am having fun.<span style=""> </span>I want to get back into the candles, oils, and learn how to do the soaps and stuff too.<span style=""> </span>Of course, I also plan on doing all the canning and stuff, and want to learn to make butter and cheese once we get a milk cow.<span style=""> </span>Charles is trying to rebuild our server, so we should have our websites back on line before long.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We went to Ren Fair and the Civil War thing again this year.<span style=""> </span>I got me a bonnet and a couple of snoods.<span style=""> </span>Charles thinks I look 10 years older in the snoods, but I don't care.<span style=""> </span>I really like them.<span style=""> </span>I also love my bonnet.<span style=""> </span>I put my hair up in a bun when I work out in the yard.<span style=""> </span>When it is up in a bun, I can't wear my hat to keep the sun off my head.<span style=""> </span>The bonnet solves that problem.<span style=""> </span>It has the sun visor thing, and is big enough in the back to fit over the bun.<span style=""> </span>It might look silly as all get up in this day and age, but it is very practical and I like it.<span style=""> </span>I know this last weekend I looked utterly ridiculous.<span style=""> </span>I had on jeans, a t-shirt, my boots, a tool-belt full of nails, hammers, levels, pencil, and measuring tape, and my bonnet.<span style=""> </span>We were building the fence.<span style=""> </span>Our neighbor, Scott, drove by and stopped and had to comment on how 'cute' the bonnet was.<span style=""> </span>LOL.<span style=""> </span>I know he was thinking how 'stupid' I looked, but I don't care.<span style=""> </span>Looking 'pretty' just doesn't mix with building fences.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Okay, I guess I have put this off as long as I can.<span style=""> </span>Most of you know that I found my birth family a few years ago.<span style=""> </span>We were lucky enough to visit with them a few times since then and I have gotten to know them all a little bit.<span style=""> </span>Mom and dad came and stayed a week with me when Charles went to <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Singapore</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<span style=""> </span>It was the week we closed on this house, so I am very thankful that they got to see our place and spend a bit of time here with me.<span style=""> </span>We didn't move in until they went home and Charles was back, but they were here with me a few times.<span style=""> </span>We got to go to <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Oklahoma</st1:place></st1:state> and spend time with them and my siblings a few times also in the past few years.<span style=""> </span>This last July we were lucky enough to pull off a surprise 40 year anniversary for mom and dad.<span style=""> </span>It was totally awesome.<span style=""> </span>We had so many people show up that they hadn't seen in a long time, plus closer relatives and friends of theirs.<span style=""> </span>We were able to all keep it a secret and mom and dad were so surprised.<span style=""> </span>Then in September, Joe and Bridget were able to come home and surprise mom with a birthday party for mom, Peg, and me since our birthdays are so close.<span style=""> </span>I am so very thankful for all the time that I got to spend with mom.<span style=""> </span>I found out that mom's health wasn't doing so well about the middle of October.<span style=""> </span>I knew she wasn't doing 'good', but I guess I just didn't realize how bad it was.<span style=""> </span>She passed away the day before Thanksgiving.<span style=""> </span>I have such a roller coaster of feelings on this.<span style=""> </span>Some of them I know what they are.<span style=""> </span>I cry a lot.<span style=""> </span>I recognize that, I know it is sadness.<span style=""> </span>I am really angry a lot.<span style=""> </span>I feel jipped, twice.<span style=""> </span>I recognize that feeling too though.<span style=""> </span>I know what it is, and most of the time I know how to deal with it.<span style=""> </span>I'm not angry at any one person.<span style=""> </span>Just life!<span style=""> </span>That is what I have a hard time dealing with the anger though.<span style=""> </span>I am not used to being angry at anything, let alone something that I know there is nothing I can do to change.<span style=""> </span>There are other feelings too though, that I don't recognize.<span style=""> </span>I don't know what they are, and I don't know what to do with them.<span style=""> </span>Gisele told me the other day that people are wrong when they say that 'you can't miss what you never had'.<span style=""> </span>Oh man, is she so right about that.<span style=""> </span>There are parts of me that still feel so empty.<span style=""> </span>So void.<span style=""> </span>I also feel a little bit of guilt I guess.<span style=""> </span>My adoptive parents were so good to me.<span style=""> </span>They loved me so much and gave me everything my selfish little heart desired.<span style=""> </span>I am such a 'daddy's girl' still to this day when it comes to my adoptive father.<span style=""> </span>I can't imagine him not being here.<span style=""> </span>Even though he is miles away from me now, I know he is there if I need him.<span style=""> </span>What right do I have to want more than what they gave me?<span style=""> </span>I have no right.<span style=""> </span>Some people don't have that.<span style=""> </span>Yet I DO want more.<span style=""> </span>I want more time to get to know my birth mother.<span style=""> </span>I want to not miss the holidays that they all spent together when my siblings were growing up.<span style=""> </span>I want to not miss the every day life of having my siblings beside me at the playground.<span style=""> </span>I want to not hurt inside from missing being there when those little shoes were supposed to make one of them run faster.<span style=""> </span>I want not to wonder what it was like sitting on that curb waiting to meet my step-dad for the first time.<span style=""> </span>I want not to wish I had been there when my sister was born, or when my brother was brought home for the first time.<span style=""> </span>I have so much to be thankful and grateful for.<span style=""> </span>I have a whole huge adoptive family that loved me, raised me and give me so much happiness.<span style=""> </span>I have the most awesome husband in the world that breaks his back to give me the things I want, I have awesome kids and grandkids that make me swell with pride every time I lay these eyes on them. I have a best friend that anyone would be proud to stand next to, and many other friends on line and off that are just awesome. Now I have a whole new birth family to be thankful for.<span style=""> </span>But I am still such a selfish spoiled brat that I want more.<span style=""> </span>I want so much more.<span style=""> </span>That makes me feel guilty as hell.<span style=""> </span>I also feel a little guilty when I morn what I missed, and now when I morn my birth mothers death.<span style=""> </span>I want to somehow take away the burdening guilt that my birth mother felt for giving me up.<span style=""> </span>I want her to know that I understand.<span style=""> </span>Does that betray my adoptive family that love me so much?<span style=""> </span>Does it hurt them that I still want so much more?<span style=""> </span>I don't want to hurt them at all.<span style=""> </span>I don't want to hurt anyone.<span style=""> </span>I just don't know what to do with some of these feelings.<span style=""> </span>Hell, I don't even know what to call some of them.<span style=""> </span>How do I learn to deal with them if I don't know what they are?<span style=""> </span>I plan on going back to <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Oklahoma</st1:place></st1:state> in January and spending some time with my dad.<span style=""> </span>He seems to be handling momma's death pretty well, everything considered.<span style=""> </span>My youngest sister is staying on with him for a little while now, and Peggy and John are always close by.<span style=""> </span>Joe was able to stay until this last Saturday before he had to go home to <st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:state>.<span style=""> </span>I wish I lived a bit closer so I could spend more time with all of them.<span style=""> </span>Actually though, I am doing much better all in all than I thought I would.<span style=""> </span>The weekends are the easiest because Charles is home and he is really good at keeping my mind busy with all the projects we have going on around here.<span style=""> </span>Weekdays are a bit harder.<span style=""> </span>Without Charles here to push me, I tend to sit and stare and think.<span style=""> </span>Thinking leads to tears.<span style=""> </span>I'm not so good at motivating myself here lately.<span style=""> </span>Which I need to do now.<span style=""> </span>I have two weeks worth of ironing and folding to do, just sitting over there staring at me.<span style=""> </span>I also have tons of stuff that needs to be done for the Boston Legal site to go public, and a craft room that sorely needs organizing so that I can get all of mom's jewelry making stuff set up and I can start learning how to use all of it.<span style=""> </span><o:p><br /></o:p><br />Yep, there is enough here to keep my mind busy this week anyway.<span style=""> </span>One day at a time, right?<span style=""> </span>For all that read this, as John Edward always says at the end of his show.<span style=""> </span>Be sure to validate those that you love.<span style=""> </span>Tell everyone that you hold close to you just how much they mean to you.<span style=""> </span>Don't put it off.<span style=""> </span>Sometimes, we don't have more time.</p>Fylarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04649275611526201917noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20444185.post-48912395134671289562007-05-08T21:59:00.001-05:002007-05-08T21:59:55.675-05:00New critters for our growing familyTake a peek for some pics:<br />http://www.metamorphosites.com/livestock.htmFylarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04649275611526201917noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20444185.post-67099994283515956982007-04-24T21:44:00.000-05:002007-04-24T21:45:31.568-05:00April 24, 2007Well, here we are again. A good two months plus since I updated the blog. Things have been so crazy busy around here. My stomach is still messed up and we are still taking tests. The last one was another blood test to check for Celiac Disease. I have good days and bad days. <br /><br />Well, let me think. Since the last time I updated we decided to go with a raised garden this year. We built all the boxes 4 x 8. We have two boxes of onions, two boxes of potatoes, one box with spinach and lettuce, one box with carrots and okra, one box of green beans, one box of lima beans, one box with zucchini and brussel sprouts, one box with blackeyed peas and pinto beans, and one box with cantalope and cabbage. We also have a 4 x 4 box with my herbs in it. We planted four rows of corn and a row of cucumbers in the ground instead of in boxes. We also have our tomatoe plants and pepper plants in old tires instead of boxes. We moved the watermelon out of the garden and put them in tires also. They are next to the garage. We almost lost half the garden when we had a late frost. April in South Texas, and we get a cold front that dropped the temperature to about 34. Not freezing, but cold enough to hurt the garden. Jan saved hers by using the Miracle Gro food, so we have tried that too. It looks like most of it is going to pull out of it and do just fine. We extended the garden about 8 feet this year also. When we did that, we came across a pile of concrete that was buried in the back yard. I think it must have been the 'trash pile' while they were building the house. The slab was HUGE. It was about 6' x 10' x 2' deep. The hole we had to dig to get it out was awful! We had to buy a sledge hammer to break it up. We didn't even dig the whole thing up. What was beyond the garden, we just left and filled in the hole. Now I have a pile of broken cement in the back yard that I have no idea what to do with. <br /><br />Ruby used to run free in the yard when she needed to go out. She loved terrorizing the cats and chasing them all over the property. Then she started to explore outside of the property. Kippy (our neighbor) called one day and told me that Ruby was headed for the highway. She has been pretty much grounded to her pen and the leash since then. She went through her first 'heat' and was under total house arrest for that. We decided it was time to get a fence up so that she could run free again. We marked out an acre immediately around the house and decided to put up a three rail with field fence across the front and one side. The back and the other side will just be the field fence. About the time we were ready to buy the materials, Home Depot had a big sale on landscape timbers. We decided to use those to build the three rail and the boxes for the raised garden, so we bought three pallets of them (231 timbers). We got the three rail done all the way down the one side, and about 1/3 of the way across the front of the property. Then we decided to get our neighbor (Cliff, who is Kippy's hubby and clears for a living) to clear an acre and redo the driveway. We stopped working on the fence until he can get that done for us so he doesn't have to work around the fence. It has been raining so much here that we haven't been able to get the clearing done because the ground is so soft. We still want the coverage around the house so that we are isolated though, so we plan on planting honeysuckle bushes all along the front fence, down the driveway and around my sitting area. In the front of the driveway is where we will put the fruit trees. We haven't quite decided WHAT fruit we want yet. We will probably also plant some nut trees out there. I want to get one or two Weeping Willow trees for the main front yard too. I still need to plant my flower gardens also. We have decided on three different perennial flowers for the flower beds in front of the house. We are going to put a strawberry pyramid in the middle of the circle drive. I also want to have a nice cactus garden in each end of the main flower beds in front of the house. I found a wonderful arrangement of perennial plants and flowers that do well in shade that I am going to put around one of the trees in the side yard. I saw in a magazine some molds to make your own stepping stones and edging blocks. One of them had a really nice set for both with an awesome celtic design on it. I have been thinking about using the stepping stones instead of doing another flagstone sidewalk in the front yard. Then I would use the matching edge stones for the flower beds. I haven't really decided on that yet. I am just so anxious to get it all done so that we can relax and enjoy it. Cliff came by this morning to let us know that he hasn't forgotten about us at all. We just need to wait till the weather dries up a bit.<br /><br />On the critter front, things are growing rapidly. Sadly though, Mini Me has gone missing. We haven't seen him around for about 3 weeks now. He was just getting to the point that we thought he might let us pet him before he went missing. I don't know if something got him or he just decided to move on to a different home. Tabby has started coming around again a little bit and lately this grundgy looking gray cat has started coming around. Ebony went into heat again and cats started crawling out from under all the rocks. Schizzy, Ebony, and Whiskers (Whisky) are still our main cats though. Ruby is doing great. She is such a loving little thing. Very smart and very eager to please. About a month ago, we went to one of the feed stores in Conroe and saw that they had baby rabbits for the Easter season. I called Jan and told her we were going to get a couple. She had us pick up a couple for her too. They were too young to tell the sex, so we just picked four that we liked and hoped that one of us would end up with at least one male. Neither of us has ever raised rabbits before, so we weren't sure what to look for. Since we got them, we have done a bit of research about them. I think one of the rabbits we have is a Satin. The other one is a chinchilla mix I think. Last week we saw an ad at the feed store for a man that was selling all his rabbits and the hutches. I told Jan about it and she ended up buying all of them. She got 6 hutches that have four cages each and 24 rabbits with 6 of them being male. Out of the females she got, 2 and possibly 3 of them are pregnant. We are going to build another cage and buy one of the males from her and possibly a female. Jan's are mostly the New Zeland rabbits that are all white with red eyes. She has one black one and a couple red ones. Jan already had a small chicken coup on her place when she bought it, so they bought 6 chicks a while back. Charles went out and found some plans for a chicken coup for us. We got it put up last weekend. He has the nesting boxes built but we haven't installed them yet. We got it painted with a coat of fence and barn paint, but plan on going over it again with regular exterior paint. I think the rabbits will be moved out close to the chickens once the clearing is done. Also after the clearing we will finish the fence up and get our round pen panels back from Jack and Jan and buy the first horse. Which means we will be needing to build a barn. We both have our saddles now and quite a bit of the tach. We will wait to buy the bits and the cinches until after we have bought the horse. We still need to buy the feed buckets and water trough. We will probably buy a hay feeder also. Things are starting to come together. Just not quick enough for me. I want to just twitch my nose and have it all done. We also still need to build the well house and the storage shed.<br /><br />Since Texas put the new tax on cigarettes the first of the year, we tried buying smokes on line. That didn't work out too well, so I have gone back to rolling my own. They have this really cool machine that pretty much rolls them for me. Doing it this way, my smokes only cost me about .67 a pack. Very nice..:) <br /><br />Charles was talking to his mom one night and mentioned to her that we had talked about getting a dehydrator so that we could have other choices on how to keep the vegies we are now growing, like the onions and peppers and stuff. She said that she had one we could have as she didn't use it anymore. We have now fallen in love with this thing. We make beef jerky regularly and really love it. I tried to make fruit rolls, but it was a total disaster. I won't give up though..:)<br /><br />Our neighbor Mr. Faulkner passed away a few months ago. We had talked to his son about buying 4 acres of the land, but at the estate sale he told us that they are really wanting to sell the whole property together without splitting it up. He said he would keep us in mind though. We went to the estate sale and got quite a bit of stuff. Chalres got some tools for really cheap. I got a whole set of China for 30.00. It is really nice. I have no idea what I will do with it, as I already have the set that mom gave me. I just couldn't pass them up though. Now I have a whole set to give to Shawn and a whole set to give to Jeff and Maggie. <br /><br />We have been so busy on the weekends I don't have time to do the laundry, so laundry day has now moved to Mondays. Which means I usually have a horrible day on Mondays since doing the laundry usually sets my back off. I am really behind on the site too. I plan on spending the whole day working on the site today and trying to get caught up on the screencaps. I have about 25 tapes to get screencaps off of. Which means I need to stop messing around here and get to work..:)Fylarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04649275611526201917noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20444185.post-1170703717827913762007-02-05T13:27:00.000-06:002007-02-05T13:28:37.840-06:00Waving helloI have had quite a few good days now and I am starting to be very hopeful that they have finally figured out what is wrong with me. It took me a couple of days to get the house cleaned up since I hadn't really done any cleaning for about a month. The dust was at least an inch thick. I still am not caught up with all the filing, but I hope to be done with that sometime this week. I am finally able to work on the site again. Suzanne has found some people to take over some of the stuff I was doing on the site in order to help me out and to free up some of my time. I have a lot to catch up on, but I am really looking forward to having help. <br /><br />Our weekend didn't go quite as planned, but still a good weekend. As of the 1st of January, Texas put into effect a new cigarette tax that adds 10.00 to a carton of smokes. Charles started doing some searching on the net and found a place we can still get smokes for what we used to pay for them without the tax. He ordered four cartons. They came Friday. Since we will be getting those in the mail regularly, and because Suzanne and I frequently send packages back and forth, we decided that our little bitty mailbox wasn't near what it should be. We decided to get a big one. <br /><br />We left Friday when Charles got home to go and do our shopping and headed to Tomball. We went to the tractor supply store and picked up some new toys for Ruby and found Charles a new stocking cap and a couple pairs of work gloves for the both of us. Then stopped at the liquor store to pick up something for the weekend. We made it to WallMart and did all the shopping there. We weren't done with that until about 9:30, so we decided to wait to go to Brookshire Brothers. I won't buy my meat and produce at WallMart, so we always buy that stuff at Brookshire Brothers here in Magnolia. Home Depo is the opposite direction of WallMart in Tomball. It is in a little town called Egypt. We decided to wait to go there also. <br />Saturday, when we were supposed to go to the Clinton Anderson thing (the horse guy from Australia) I realized it was the first Saturday of the month. We have a roaming vet that comes to town once a month, always on the first Saturday of the month. He is a lot cheaper than the other vets around here. I Really wanted to take Ruby to get her shots. It worries me a lot out here when she is out running the property and all the other critters we have around here. I always worry about Porvo too. So I called Jan and asked if they could stop and pick up Charles on the way to the show. She said they could, so I decided to stay home and do some errand running while they went to the show. Jan and Will stopped to pick up Charles about 6:00 Saturday morning. I went back to bed. When I got up, I messed around cleaning a bit more and then loaded Ruby up in the car. I was worried about taking her to town because she normally gets car sick as soon as she gets in a vehicle. I put her in the front seat and rolled the window down a little bit and just talked to her all the way to town. She did pretty good. We got her shots and I brought her back home then went back to town to go to the library. Spent some time there, then stopped at Popeyes to pick me up some lunch. Came back home and got to working in the yard. I have a couple of areas around about 3 trees that I want to clear out and put flower beds around them. I started clearing out from one of them. Time went by so fast. Charles called a couple of times from the show and told me all that he was learning. He said they were all freezing to death because no one had expected it to be cold and they didn't dress for cold weather. When they got home, we fixed supper and then headed to Brookshire Brothers to finish up the shopping. <br /><br />Sunday, we got up and started working in the yard again. I started laundry also. I was having trouble digging up some of these stupid little weed trees and had called Charles over to help. He started digging while I was trying to clear some of the dirt away with the hoe and the silly shovel broke. It was about 30 years old, so I guess we got our money out of it..LOL. We loaded up and headed to the feed store to see if they had a shovel. We wanted to check if they had the 1015 onion in yet and seed potatoes also. They didn't have the kind of shovel we wanted, so we just bought the onions, the seed potatoes, and a bail of hay. We brought that stuff home and decided it was time to make it to Home Depot. We got the mailbox and found the right shovel. I also found some stuff that was supposed to clean pergo floors really well. By the time we got back home, it was time to gather up all the tools and start the grill up for the evening meal. We had stuffed pork chops and purple hull peas. Good meal..:) <br /><br />I got most of the laundry done yesterday, but washing bedding and blankets and stuff today. I tried the pergo floor cleaner this morning also. It cleans okay I guess, but I had hoped it would make the floors shine. They don't really shine like I wanted them to. I will have to keep trying different cleaners I guess. <br /><br />I am thinking of having the MRI done on Friday, since Charles will be off. I am feeling much better which makes getting the test done anyway a bit hard. I am tempted to put it off now. We have spent so much money on these damn tests and gotten so far behind. Charles had wanted to start putting up the fence this weekend. His company bought off some of the vacation time that he has been carrying over year to year. We thought it would be enough to start the fence. After paying some bills that we have been putting off paying though, we still don't have the money for the fence. Poor Ruby will just have to wait a bit longer. <br /><br />I am posting some picutres today too. Just random recent pictures. It is such a beautiful day out. I think I may go sit on the front porch for a little bit and do some reading here in a bit. I have so much to do to catch up on the site, but it is such a shame to waste such a beautiful day being inside. I think I may try to do a bit more clearing for my flower gardens also. I also need to clear out the hammock area. Or where the hammock area will be anyway. Till next time. With love to all.Fylarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04649275611526201917noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20444185.post-1169069432958486042007-01-17T15:30:00.000-06:002007-01-19T19:48:16.413-06:00Well, I didn’t keep my promise again. Things have gotten so much worse with my stomach problems. The meds they put me on didn’t help at all. The pain has steadily gotten worse and is constant now. About a week before Christmas, I started hurting so bad I couldn’t breath. It was hurting in my stomach, but also traveled around to my back. I kind of thought that maybe I had some how pulled a muscle in my back. I came down and lay on the couch with the heating pad and it eased up and went away after a couple of hours. I didn’t think it has anything to do with my stomach problems at that point. A few days later, it started hurting like that again, only this time it didn’t go away. I called the GI doctor and was told that it sounded like I was having a gallbladder attack. They told me to get straight to the hospital and to expect emergency surgery. I had to wait for Charles to get home from work before I could go though. Charles got home and we headed back to the Memorial Hospital in the Woodlands. So many people had warned us to never go to the hospital in Tomball, so we went to the Woodlands. Jan and Will met us at the hospital expecting me to go into surgery. They had came to keep Charles company while I was in surgery. When we got there, the admitting nurse took one look at me and also thought it was the gallbladder. They hooked me up to an I.V. right away and gave me a massive dose of liquid Protonix. That is a new acid reflux drug. They also gave me something light for the pain. Then they took me in for an ultrasound of the gallbladder and brought me back to the stall in the emergency room. We waited about 20 minutes for the doc to look at the ultrasound. The pain meds they gave me were helping a little bit, but I still was in so much pain that I couldn’t hardly breath. The doc came in and asked me what was wrong with me. I told him that my GI thought I was probably having a gallbladder attack. He said that wasn’t the case as the ultrasound had came back negative. I told him about all the other tests that they had ran on me and the results. When they did the Endoscopy, they found four problems. A gastric ulcer, a sliding hernia, gastritis, and duodenitis. The GI told me that none of those would causes me to have the kind of pain I was describing to him. The emergency room doc told me that the gastric ulcer could cause the kind of pain that I was experiencing that night. I told him that I had never heard of an ulcer causing pain in the back. He informed me that the stomach is in the back, which I never knew. Anyway, they gave two more kinds of pain shots and assured me that it would knock me out for the night, then gave me a prescription for Vicodin and sent me home. I was a little upset about that, since I still didn’t know what was causing the pain. The GI doctor then told me that they wanted me to have a hydroscan done on the gall bladder. They still thought the gallbladder was the problem and explained that the ultrasound only showed that I didn’t have gall stones. The hydroscan would show them if the gallbladder was functioning like it is supposed to. It was so close to the holidays and the new year, we decided to wait until after the new year to have the hydroscan done. That way the new insurance would be in effect and it wouldn’t cost us so much. Since all the other tests I had done before this has pretty much wiped us out. Our savings are completely gone. We are once again living paycheck to paycheck, which is something neither of us is used to anymore. We went to Christmas dinner at Charles sister’s (Karen) new home, and I was scared to death that I would have another attack while there. I didn’t want to be at someone else’s house and be like that. Thank the Goddess, I didn’t have another attack and the afternoon went really well. The next day I wasn’t so lucky. I had another bad attack. I didn’t go to the hospital though, as I didn’t think there was anything else they could do for me. I just laid on the heating pad all day and took some of the Vicodin. On New Years Eve, oour neighbors had invited us over for a party. I really wanted to go since we really haven’t been able to meet very many people since we moved out here. We thought it would be a good chance to meet some new people. I felt the pain coming on strong again around 7:00. The party was supposed to start around 8:00. I thought I could handle the pain though and since we are only across the street from them, we decided to go anyway. It was a bad mistake. We were only there long enough for Charles to have a plate of food, then the pain really kicked in and I almost couldn’t make it back our house. I was so embarrassed. It seemed like we only went for the free food, and then left. I haven’t been off the couch since that night except to move the heating pad to the bedroom when we go to bed. The Vicodin help, but they don’t completely take the pain away. We set the hydroscan up for the 12th and just waited for that to be over with. I was so happy to get the hydroscan done. I was sure that would give them the proof that they needed to finally do the surgery and then I would be all better again. I haven’t even been upstairs to the office in so long, I hope I can even remember how to get to the site. Bless Suzanne and all the other volunteers that have pitched in to help her out during all of this. I was so worried about the site. Suzanne told me not to worry about the site and to just concentrate on getting myself well. After the hydroscan was done last Friday, I was disappointed to find out that it would take a couple of days to get the test results back. I ran out of the Vicodin Monday night and was so afraid of what kind of pain that would bring back on Tuesday. I was right. The pain was unbearable again. The GI didn’t want to give me any more Vicodin until he saw the test results. Fay called and asked them to rush the test results to her. She finally got them back around 4:30 yesterday afternoon and called to tell me that the hydroscan had also came back negative. At that point, I was in so much pain I couldn’t breath. I just broke down and started crying. Fay couldn’t understand why I was so upset. She thought I should be happy that everything had all turned out negative because it meant there was nothing wrong with me. I told her that was not true. There is something very obviously wrong with me if I am still in this much pain. I was so sure that this was going to be the end of it. She said that the doctor wants to see me in person. All the other times we went to his office, I only saw Andrew the PA. Dr. Fein wants to see me himself now to see if he can figure out what is wrong with me. Charles doesn’t have another day off until a week from this Friday, so I have to wait till then to go in. (He was home with me yesterday, today and maybe tomorrow because of the ice storm that we are having now, but everything is closed because of the ice storm, including Dr. Fein’s office.) They did give me enough Vicodin to carry me over till the office visit. I hate taking the damn pills though, I don’t want to end up like Dr. House and be addicted to the damn things, so I wait to take them until I just can’t stand it anymore. I just live on the heating pad. I am really trying to keep a positive outlook, but it gets hard sometimes. Charles held me most of the day yesterday. I think I must have just bawled for a whole hour yesterday after I got off the phone with Fay. I just felt so hopeless. I have been dealing with this for 6 months now. It seems endless. Taking all these stupid tests, waiting for the test results, being told that test is negative and we have to do another test. It seems like I am caught in a horrible circle. Charles has his laptop home with him today, so he set me up down here on this stupid couch so I could type up this blog entry and maybe send it to myself in mail so I can post it. I can’t sit at the computer for more than five minutes. I owe a great deal of gratitude to Charles for trying so hard to take care of me. He works all day, then comes home and fixes supper and takes care of everything around the house. He holds me when I cry and has been so supportive. I also owe Jan a bucket full of thanks for always being there for me. I know it must get old to listen to me ball bag all the time about hurting so bad. She keeps me grounded and has kept me from giving into the depression. She calms me down and reminds me that even though I am in so much pain, all the tests that have came back negative really is a good thing. I also want to thank Suzanne and all the volunteers on the site for pitching in and covering for me. You all have no idea how proud I am of all of you. It really does mean a lot to me to know that so many people out there care about me. <br /><br />Enough ball bagging. Lets move on to other things. On Christmas day when we were on our way to Karen’s for dinner, we were driving on this old two lane highway. It had been raining a lot around that time and the ground was really soft and muddy all over the place. Coming towards us in a big Chevy truck, this man let his two right tires go off the road. He swerved back onto the highway and it looked like he had straightened up pretty well. Then the weight of the truck touched back on the two right tires and the mud that he had picked up caused him to lose it again. He fishtailed back and forth across the highway a couple of times, then went off the road and slammed into the embankment. That sent the tail up over the hood. He rolled once that way, then started flipping over side to side about three times before coming to a stop on the side. We stopped and called 911, then ran to the truck to see if we could help. The guy was alone and was trying to get out of the truck. I tried to reach up and open the door, but it wouldn’t open. The windshield was shattered, so he tried kicking out the windshield, but it wouldn’t budge. Then he realized that he could climb out of the sliding window in the back of his truck. He seemed to be okay, but said his head hurt a bit where he hit it on the steering wheel. Another car stopped with two women in it and they wanted to see if they could also help. The man was trying to call his wife on his phone, but wasn’t getting a signal. One of the other women called his wife for him on her phone. We waited till the police and the ambulance got there, told them what we had seen, and were once again on our way to Karen’s house. It really did scare the bejeezes out of both of us though. We had no place to go to get away from this rolling truck. I had never seen a bad wreck like that before. I have driven by after a wreck has happened, but never seen one in the process. I’m just glad the man was okay. <br /><br />I got a Christmas card from Jeff and Maggie. It had a picture of them and the four boys. Things seem to be going a lot better for them. I am so happy that they are starting to get their lives together. I can’t wait to see them again. <br /><br />Shawn and Teresa have decided not to move back down here. Things are going good for them in Tennessee, so they are going to stay there. <br /><br />I got my ring from Charles that I wanted for Christmas. It is a beautiful dark blue sapphire. I can’t wait to get more rings. I don’t really like diamonds that much, but I love the gemstones and stuff. <br /><br />Really not much to talk about, since I have been a prisoner to the couch for so long. Charles has started to lay out the fence line for around the house. He has done quite a bit of clearing where the fence will be. He isn’t going to fence the whole property yet. Just a portion of it so that Ruby can have a place to run. Poor girl gets so depressed when she can’t just run and play. The pen really isn’t big enough for her to get the exercise that she needs. The winter garden was doing really well. We have lettuce, brussell sprouts, spinach, and onions growing. As I mentioned earlier, we are in the middle of a bad ice storm. I don’t know how the garden will survive. We will just have to see. I brought all my plants in that I could. We covered the garden and my aloevera plants that Jan gave me. We took pictures this morning of all the ice. My poor eucalyptus tree is so weighted down with ice, it is almost doubled over. There are a couple of other trees in the same predicament. Charles went out and tried to shake some of the ice off of them, but it didn’t help much. I kept telling Charles that he needed to go out and check our propane out. He didn’t listen until today. When he did check it, we only have about 15 gallons left, so we have turned the heater off and lit a fire to try to stay warm. We ordered more today, but they won’t be able to get it to us until tomorrow, so we are doing what we can to keep from running out. <br /><br />I got email from my sister Rene about three weeks ago saying that she had sent me a package for Christmas. I need to try to get a hold of her and see if she can have them track it or something because I never got it. I hope she sees it here. We didn’t really do Christmas this year because money was so tight. We hope to be able to make up for it in April when Charles gets his bonus. We will have to see how that works out. <br /><br />Well, I think this brings all back up to date for now. Hopefully, they will finally find out what is causing me so much pain and I will once again be able to do something. I am bored out of my mind being on the couch so much. Love out to all of you.Fylarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04649275611526201917noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20444185.post-1165865564050073142006-12-11T13:30:00.000-06:002007-01-09T08:09:48.050-06:00Finally catching upWow! 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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!<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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..:(<br /><br />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..:)<br /><br />BooFylarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04649275611526201917noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20444185.post-1145502358700895922006-04-19T21:22:00.000-05:002006-04-19T22:05:58.730-05:00Things 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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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. <br /><br />For now, I think I will go vent on 360 again. I love this country, but sometimes I wonder why.Fylarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04649275611526201917noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20444185.post-1143427137821395912006-03-26T19:41:00.000-06:002006-03-26T20:39:00.336-06:00Country 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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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..:)Fylarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04649275611526201917noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20444185.post-1142281077708826942006-03-13T14:15:00.000-06:002006-03-13T14:17:57.726-06:00Wow!!! 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.<br /><br />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.<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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..:)Fylarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04649275611526201917noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20444185.post-1140490309779147672006-02-20T20:21:00.000-06:002006-02-20T20:51:49.826-06:00Well, 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.Fylarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04649275611526201917noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20444185.post-1139027117122981842006-02-03T21:54:00.000-06:002006-02-03T22:25:17.133-06:00Friday, February 3, 2006It'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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.Fylarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04649275611526201917noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20444185.post-1137433828518321582006-01-16T11:26:00.000-06:002006-01-16T11:56:20.883-06:00What a wonderful weekendWe 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..:)<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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..:)Fylarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04649275611526201917noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20444185.post-1136864913633127072006-01-09T21:23:00.000-06:002006-01-09T21:48:33.646-06:00Monday 1/9/06This 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!!<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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..:)<br /><br />For now, I am off to soak..:)Fylarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04649275611526201917noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20444185.post-1136234980209945202006-01-02T14:23:00.000-06:002006-01-02T14:49:40.216-06:00Well, 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Here's hoping all have a wonderful year ahead.Fylarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04649275611526201917noreply@blogger.com3