It's always hard coming back after a vacation, but coming back after a vacation and then a work trip combo is not a great experience. I returned to the office to about 200 e-mails, of which I'm pretty sure as of 5:30 today I had only responded/dealt with about half. Seems as though I'll be doing a bit of work this weekend. Oh well, this is the first vacation I've really not checked e-mail and not felt bad about it. So, I guess this is my payback :)
The animals are back in the swing of things as well. Leia celebrated her 1st birthday today. As a treat we bought the cats one of those fancy wet cat food things. The birthday feline was very interested in smelling it, but really had no interest in actually eating it. Mishu on the other hand, who we have been concerned is being bullied out of dinner by Leia was all about it. She finished the entire plate of it that I had put out of the two of them. Either Mishu LOVES Alaskan salmon cat food or she really is getting bullied out of eating and was starving!
I was pretty good at the exercising this week - 2 runs and 1 swim. Tomorrow Brandy and I are planning to run the bridge an then I think I'll do a little stationary bike on Sunday. I'm now able to run 3 full miles without feeling like laying down and dying, so that's an improvement. Baby steps.
Well, I'm going to get back to scrapbooking for the rest of the evening - I was feeling good about myself because I got all the way to the middle of the Rainier trip last time I cropped with Brandy in May. Unfortunately when I started back up today I was at the exact same place, so I'm still a year behind in pictures. Last year was a super busy year, so I've got to get moving. Depending on how I'm feeling I may try to can some tomatoes tomorrow instead of continuing my scrapbooking obsession...we shall see...
Friday, June 27, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
On the road AGAIN
Hour number 26 of driving in the past 6 days...and still 3 more to go. I'm ready to hang up the keys!
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Replies.Sunday, June 15, 2008
Just Keep Swimming
I know that I said I was going to start exercising a while ago, but this time I really mean it! Brandy and my plans to do the Biltmore run never really materialized, which meant that the training for it never really got off the ground floor. So, we are starting again. This time with a more interesting goal - a triathlon! I, however, will only be doing two legs of said event - my dad will be handling the biking portion. And actually, if we convince Sandor to do the running part, I'll really only do the swimming, but the fact that a goal exists and that it is close enough...and small enough (500 meter swim and 3 mile run) to get my mind around I have been much more successful this week than most starting week. I actually exercised all week! I know it's amazing what happens when you only commit to waking up 3 days early instead of 5, and when you give yourself a little change in pace other than running. So Monday and Wednesday I ran with Susan before work (having someone meeting me to run was another major forcing factor), Tuesday and yesterday I swam, Thursday I did yoga and Friday I biked on the stationary bike. I think it was rather a success!
I will say, however, that they aren't kidding when they say the body ain't what it used to be! Wow, a 3 mile run never seemed so difficult before! And swimming! My arms were tired after 150 yards. Good Lord people, I used to knock out 3 miles just in the morning before going on with the rest of my day, which included a second practice. But, I'm working my way up. I swam 1200 yards on Tuesday and 1500 yesterday. I should be all set for a mile worth of swimming next week. It's amazing how well my body remembers everything though. As far as the actual swimming goes, I am glad I'm back - for some strange reason I really did miss that horrible chlorine smell :)
I will say, however, that they aren't kidding when they say the body ain't what it used to be! Wow, a 3 mile run never seemed so difficult before! And swimming! My arms were tired after 150 yards. Good Lord people, I used to knock out 3 miles just in the morning before going on with the rest of my day, which included a second practice. But, I'm working my way up. I swam 1200 yards on Tuesday and 1500 yesterday. I should be all set for a mile worth of swimming next week. It's amazing how well my body remembers everything though. As far as the actual swimming goes, I am glad I'm back - for some strange reason I really did miss that horrible chlorine smell :)
Friday, June 13, 2008
The Upgrade Update
If you remember my venting on my Office 07 upgrade, you will remember that I was less than happy with the experience. I will at this point admit that I am becoming more fond of the new program and have instead focused my displeasure with the process for upgrading. After an absolutely wonderful class one day class on 07 this week I've determined that it is another example of why if the people making the rules would just figure out how the people who have to implement the rules work, life would be a whole lot easier.
Case in point - the upgrade when viewed by itself (as was done during the class) is in fact a good thing. There are a lot of new features that are really nice - one of my favorites being that you can live preview what things will look like before you actually change them, a VERY handy improvement. The problem was not the upgrade, the problem was with how the upgrade was handled. I think it's common knowledge that people don't like change. Change is scary. It causes stress. And everyone knows stress is bad. Now this is not to say we don't change, it is to say when you know a change is coming (and specifically when you are the one causing the change in others) you should at the very least acknowledge that people are not going to like it, and if there is anything you can do to assist in the change process do it. For instance, a one day class on the changes between Microsoft 03 and 07. That is a very easy and feasible way to ease the change stress. And if DNR IT had offered this class last year before everyone was changed over people would have been begging to be upgraded. Instead, the upgraded us (sometimes without our foreknowledge) and then months later gave us a class on what has changed. So instead of preparing people for change and then changing, they changed and then prepared people for it. Not very logical.
All IT needed to do was sit down and think about the fact that people have developed very specific ways to deal with their very busy schedules. As the staff numbers dwindle and the workload stays the same, more people are being required to do more work just to get their job done. The only way to do this is to become efficient at what it is you do. And if at any time a wrench is thrown in the gears of that efficiency life if not good. When I (and every other person that was upgraded) lost 2-3 weeks of productivity we had about 10 wrenches thrown in our gears, and the best we got out of it was a meager 'well it's got to be done' response. If the class was offered before we upgraded, there would have been 1 wrench instead of 10 and even though we would still have had a loss in productivity, it would have been far less devastating because we would have at the very least been prepared for it. Oh yeah, along with offering the class beforehand, they should tell you when you are going to be upgraded ahead of time (and not 10 minutes before the upgrade is finished). It seems to be that the thought process behind that is not all that difficult and it's based on an extremely well known fact - people don't like change.
Oh well, at least me and my productivity are back on course. And Office 07 is becoming less scary every day. Now off to a glorious weekend away from Office 07 and all things work!
Case in point - the upgrade when viewed by itself (as was done during the class) is in fact a good thing. There are a lot of new features that are really nice - one of my favorites being that you can live preview what things will look like before you actually change them, a VERY handy improvement. The problem was not the upgrade, the problem was with how the upgrade was handled. I think it's common knowledge that people don't like change. Change is scary. It causes stress. And everyone knows stress is bad. Now this is not to say we don't change, it is to say when you know a change is coming (and specifically when you are the one causing the change in others) you should at the very least acknowledge that people are not going to like it, and if there is anything you can do to assist in the change process do it. For instance, a one day class on the changes between Microsoft 03 and 07. That is a very easy and feasible way to ease the change stress. And if DNR IT had offered this class last year before everyone was changed over people would have been begging to be upgraded. Instead, the upgraded us (sometimes without our foreknowledge) and then months later gave us a class on what has changed. So instead of preparing people for change and then changing, they changed and then prepared people for it. Not very logical.
All IT needed to do was sit down and think about the fact that people have developed very specific ways to deal with their very busy schedules. As the staff numbers dwindle and the workload stays the same, more people are being required to do more work just to get their job done. The only way to do this is to become efficient at what it is you do. And if at any time a wrench is thrown in the gears of that efficiency life if not good. When I (and every other person that was upgraded) lost 2-3 weeks of productivity we had about 10 wrenches thrown in our gears, and the best we got out of it was a meager 'well it's got to be done' response. If the class was offered before we upgraded, there would have been 1 wrench instead of 10 and even though we would still have had a loss in productivity, it would have been far less devastating because we would have at the very least been prepared for it. Oh yeah, along with offering the class beforehand, they should tell you when you are going to be upgraded ahead of time (and not 10 minutes before the upgrade is finished). It seems to be that the thought process behind that is not all that difficult and it's based on an extremely well known fact - people don't like change.
Oh well, at least me and my productivity are back on course. And Office 07 is becoming less scary every day. Now off to a glorious weekend away from Office 07 and all things work!
Double Dog Duty
We are dog sitting this week. It's an interesting process watching someone else's dog for an extended period of time. You don't realize how many quirks a dog has until you need to deal with the quirks of a dog you don't love like your own child. It's kinda like your family. You don't really think about how many quirks your family has until you get married and have to start dealing with the quirks of a whole new family. What I find funny is that with both dogs and family it's the quirks that make you love them when they are yours, yet it's the very same quirks that make you crazy when it's someone else's. And thus poor Gracie has reached the point of driving me crazy. Only one more day to go so we are good, but wow, I will know from this point forward to never agree to a 2 week dog sitting stint.
Gracie is a Pomeranian who we are pretty sure was abused when she was a baby because she is very wary of new people. So when Cynthia dropped her off we were a little concerned that she may not take to the whole new family for a week experience. She dropped her off Saturday night, so Sunday morning was the first time I need to get her out and take her outside. Now, I am an animal person. I am comfortable with animals, and they are generally comfortable with me. Gracie, however, was most definitely not. She was fine with the idea that I would let her out, but she was definitely not fine with the idea that I needed to grab the collar around her neck and put a leash on it. And thus for an entire hour of my life I sat on the floor trying desperately for Gracie to agree to the leashing process. Finally, after three bites (she's small so the bite doesn't hurt that bad, but in my world a bite is a bite, and it's not ok, even if you are scared) we needed to exert some alpha dog vibes. And thus, I took a blanket, threw it over the dog, pushed her against a wall, and put the leash on. It was a very non-invasive, low pain way to get the much needed leash on the much stressed dog so that she could go out and use the bathroom. She was (as can be imagined) not very excited about this experience, but she apparently realized just what I was trying to teach her - I'm not going to hurt you, but I am in charge. And so, suddenly Gracie was much nicer to be around. I didn't take the leash off for the next two days just to make sure we didn't need to reenact the alpha dog experience, but by the end of Wednesday she was letting both Sandor and I pet her, playing with Kaylinn, listening to me when I called her and following me around like a doting dog.
And thus enters the quirks. Once she felt at home with us, she decided that she was safe enough to start running under our feet, circling us with the leash in the morning because she was excited, running under our feet, jumping up and down to get us to look at her, running under our feet, barking to get us to let her out of the crate at 6am, and did I mention running under our feet? Now, Kaylinn loves to be in the same room as us, but this is out of control. Gracie is literally UNDER your feet - as in you stepping on her when you walk from the sink to the stove. It's infuriating when you have a hot pot of dinner and you are trying desperately to both not spill it and not step on a dog.
However, I am happy that Gracie decided that we were in fact not all that scary in the end, and has let us be her friend. She is in total love with Leia. Every time she sees her she gets excited and runs over to her. Leia is not quite as excited with Gracie, but she allows her to sniff her paws as she bats at her. Kaylinn has also realized that Gracie is now comfortable enough to play with her, and so has taken to trying to wrestle with her. It's is really quite cute to watch because Kaylinn realizes that she can't play with her as rough as she does with Dudley and so she does this funny bumping her with her body thing instead of leaping on top and pushing her over. It's quite entertaining, and Gracie seems to love the playing.
I think, however, above all things I will be most excited to not be back in the mode of wondering at any moment if someone is peeing on my floor. It really hasn't been that long since Kaylinn was a puppy, but she is definitely to the point where you can let her run free and know she won't randomly pee on something. It's not that safe when you have a dog you aren't sure how they will act. I don't know if we'll be getting another puppy anytime soon...although I'm likely to forget how crazy it was seeing as how I already have and this is just a reminder :)
Gracie is a Pomeranian who we are pretty sure was abused when she was a baby because she is very wary of new people. So when Cynthia dropped her off we were a little concerned that she may not take to the whole new family for a week experience. She dropped her off Saturday night, so Sunday morning was the first time I need to get her out and take her outside. Now, I am an animal person. I am comfortable with animals, and they are generally comfortable with me. Gracie, however, was most definitely not. She was fine with the idea that I would let her out, but she was definitely not fine with the idea that I needed to grab the collar around her neck and put a leash on it. And thus for an entire hour of my life I sat on the floor trying desperately for Gracie to agree to the leashing process. Finally, after three bites (she's small so the bite doesn't hurt that bad, but in my world a bite is a bite, and it's not ok, even if you are scared) we needed to exert some alpha dog vibes. And thus, I took a blanket, threw it over the dog, pushed her against a wall, and put the leash on. It was a very non-invasive, low pain way to get the much needed leash on the much stressed dog so that she could go out and use the bathroom. She was (as can be imagined) not very excited about this experience, but she apparently realized just what I was trying to teach her - I'm not going to hurt you, but I am in charge. And so, suddenly Gracie was much nicer to be around. I didn't take the leash off for the next two days just to make sure we didn't need to reenact the alpha dog experience, but by the end of Wednesday she was letting both Sandor and I pet her, playing with Kaylinn, listening to me when I called her and following me around like a doting dog.
And thus enters the quirks. Once she felt at home with us, she decided that she was safe enough to start running under our feet, circling us with the leash in the morning because she was excited, running under our feet, jumping up and down to get us to look at her, running under our feet, barking to get us to let her out of the crate at 6am, and did I mention running under our feet? Now, Kaylinn loves to be in the same room as us, but this is out of control. Gracie is literally UNDER your feet - as in you stepping on her when you walk from the sink to the stove. It's infuriating when you have a hot pot of dinner and you are trying desperately to both not spill it and not step on a dog.
However, I am happy that Gracie decided that we were in fact not all that scary in the end, and has let us be her friend. She is in total love with Leia. Every time she sees her she gets excited and runs over to her. Leia is not quite as excited with Gracie, but she allows her to sniff her paws as she bats at her. Kaylinn has also realized that Gracie is now comfortable enough to play with her, and so has taken to trying to wrestle with her. It's is really quite cute to watch because Kaylinn realizes that she can't play with her as rough as she does with Dudley and so she does this funny bumping her with her body thing instead of leaping on top and pushing her over. It's quite entertaining, and Gracie seems to love the playing.
I think, however, above all things I will be most excited to not be back in the mode of wondering at any moment if someone is peeing on my floor. It really hasn't been that long since Kaylinn was a puppy, but she is definitely to the point where you can let her run free and know she won't randomly pee on something. It's not that safe when you have a dog you aren't sure how they will act. I don't know if we'll be getting another puppy anytime soon...although I'm likely to forget how crazy it was seeing as how I already have and this is just a reminder :)
Gracie and Kaylinn before I left for work this morning (yes, Kaylinn is in the process of learning how to stay out all day...we still check on her at lunch just to make sure all is well!)
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Gado Gado
And the cooking disasters continue... With the new vegetables coming every week I'm trying to branch out and try new recipes. We are also getting vegetables that I would not necessarily have bought were I walking through a grocery store, so I'm trying to branch into the recipes that I never would have looked at otherwise and see if there is something we've been missing out there. Well...I'll tell you one thing we were not missing...gado gado. For the last 45 minutes I've been chopping and measuring and mixing. Unfortunately to no avail. We just sat down to try it out and let me sum it up by saying there is a pizza in the oven as we speak (well type). We tried really hard to pretend it was good, but half way through the plate we both determined we had vegetabled ourselves up enough and were ready for some actual sustenance. Let's hope the other two new recipes I'll be making this week turn out a lot better!
Monday, June 9, 2008
Cookie Catastrophe...almost
On Saturday, Holly & Jason, Maia & Ad, and Sandor & I hosted an engagement party for the lovely Julia and Joe (the Byrd-Dukes as we like to call them). I was in charge of desserts and Maia had found this delicious recipe for 'Key Lime Double Chocolate Chip Cookies', so I set off to make them on Friday night. Now, you would think that after the pudding experience last fall that I would have learned my lesson about making a recipe for the first time when you have promised to bring said results to a party...however, I have not. So, off I go Friday night to make the cookies (this of course after a necessary nap because of the crazy workload I dealt with at the end of last week...thus starting the cookie making at around 8pm). I mix them up, plop them on the cookie sheet and throw the cookie sheet in the freezer to re-freeze the butter solids (random tidbit I learned from the recipe actually, and had confirmed by my Food Network crazed parents). Then put the cookies in to bake for 11 minutes and when the timer went off looked in to see if they were browned. Well...they were browned, however, I didn't find the 'cookies' I was really looking for.
this is what the recipe said I would find after 11 minutes of baking:
this is what I actually found:
Needless to say, not an acceptable product to take to an engagement party. So, I started adding flour, and kept adding flour, and made the dough colder and colder and colder. And eventually at about midnight I found some cookies that looked like cookies, except by that time I had run through my double batch of cookies and only had about 20 acceptable ones to show for it, so I had to remix another batch and continue baking. In the end, at 1am I headed to bed with a bowlful of cookies on the table - which after seeing that first batch looked pretty good!
HOWEVER, the next morning I found out that I had really had a wonderful evening compared to the hosts of the party - Jason and Holly. They found at 10:30 that their washer had decided to blow up and start draining water all over their house. Thankfully their neighbors have 2 shop-vacs, so they ran over and grabbed them out of their garage, came back and started trying desperately to deal with the small pond that was their downstairs. As Jason was standing in a puddle of water getting ready to plug in the shop-vac, he said to Holly 'everything I've ever learned about this is wrong', and she said 'I don't care, plug it in'. Thankfully there was no electrocution - there was however, the unfortunate experience of having the shop-vac on blow instead of suck, which wet an entire extra section of the carpet that had previously been not wet. Eventually after dumping the shop-vacs over and over and over, walking over every towel they had to fill it up with water, running every fan they had and could buy, and renting a dehumidifier the next morning, by the time of the party it was actually very dry.
So, in the end the cookie (almost) catastrophe was really not all that bad. Nothing like putting things in perspective!
this is what the recipe said I would find after 11 minutes of baking:
this is what I actually found:
Needless to say, not an acceptable product to take to an engagement party. So, I started adding flour, and kept adding flour, and made the dough colder and colder and colder. And eventually at about midnight I found some cookies that looked like cookies, except by that time I had run through my double batch of cookies and only had about 20 acceptable ones to show for it, so I had to remix another batch and continue baking. In the end, at 1am I headed to bed with a bowlful of cookies on the table - which after seeing that first batch looked pretty good!
HOWEVER, the next morning I found out that I had really had a wonderful evening compared to the hosts of the party - Jason and Holly. They found at 10:30 that their washer had decided to blow up and start draining water all over their house. Thankfully their neighbors have 2 shop-vacs, so they ran over and grabbed them out of their garage, came back and started trying desperately to deal with the small pond that was their downstairs. As Jason was standing in a puddle of water getting ready to plug in the shop-vac, he said to Holly 'everything I've ever learned about this is wrong', and she said 'I don't care, plug it in'. Thankfully there was no electrocution - there was however, the unfortunate experience of having the shop-vac on blow instead of suck, which wet an entire extra section of the carpet that had previously been not wet. Eventually after dumping the shop-vacs over and over and over, walking over every towel they had to fill it up with water, running every fan they had and could buy, and renting a dehumidifier the next morning, by the time of the party it was actually very dry. So, in the end the cookie (almost) catastrophe was really not all that bad. Nothing like putting things in perspective!
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
The Fish Room
Ok, really this is the last post of the day. But the fish room at Alison's house really deserved a blog post of it's own. Check it out...
How sweet is that! It was there when they moved in and who in their right mind would change it!?
How sweet is that! It was there when they moved in and who in their right mind would change it!?
A Week Away
So, as you may have guessed, I was out of the loop for the last week. I had to travel to DC for work, so I conveniently scheduled a trip home, as well as some time to visit friends into the flight time. It is quite nice having parents that live so close to DC!
I flew in on Friday night and was met by Dad and Nikole at the airport. Saturday morning I had a leisurely breakfast and hung out to see my grandparents who were stopping by the house before I headed a bit south to Fredrick for a day to visit Alison. Alison moved north over a year ago, but we actually talk quite regularly now that she works for the NERRS up in DC (i.e. she is part of national oversight for the program I do in the states). Problem is we always end up talking work, so we dedicated a day of no work talk into my trip. We went for a hike in the mountains, which is always nice when you are so used to flatness, and then met her husband, Larry, and his parents out to eat tapas (delicious!).
yes there is actually vertical change in the world - amazing!
The next morning we had a superb breakfast, a little walk around her cute neighborhood and I headed back up toward my parents, with a stop by my Aunt Dona's house in Westminster. We had a little picnic lunch on the porch, my dad installed some smoke detectors, picked up her extra computer for my mom to take down to NC for Brandy to use for Special Olympics, and then headed home. By the way, in case you are wondering, yes this is how I always do vacations - it just always works out that way. It's always fun to hang out with my aunt because she makes me laugh until my sides hurt with her stories. Running a horse farm has it's crazy moments, and she seems to attract them all!
Monday was Memorial Day, so my parents had a picnic at the house. Melanie, Fred, and Jack drove up from Westminster, as well as Kathleen and Jimmy from DC, plus the usual suspects a my parent's picnics (family and family friends that may as well be family because I think of them that way). It was a beautiful day, lots of fun, delicious food, and the crazy kids were swimming (in a FREEZING COLD pool) and jumping on the trampoline the whole time. Jack tried out the trampoline before he left - it took him a moment to be sure he liked it but in the end he decided it was a great little region of the world.
We ended the day with having s'mores on the grill (it really is not as hard as you may think), Nikole and I went bowling (as you may have guessed from the previous post), and then when there was a break in the rain that started during the bowling trip, my dad shot off some fireworks he got the last time he was in SC (the cool kind that shoot up, then out, and then fizzle).
The next day I had to head to DC (although not before my wonderful Mom got me a hot stone massage!!) and do some actual work for the next 3 days, but soon enough I was back home where I actually relaxed! I know it's hard to believe but my mom, dad and I went on a leisurely bike ride, then my mom and I went with her best friend and daughter who was about to get married and got our nails done, and then (after a glorious shaved ice snowball) we hung around the house and relaxed. The next morning Dad and I went for a bike ride in the rain, laid around the house, all took naps, got some crab cakes for dinner and I flew out that night!
It was an awesome trip - got to see everyone, plus have some relaxation time at the house. I always forget how nice it is to sit on the swing out in the yard and watch the birds come in and eat, the chipmunks run around, and this time we even saw a fox at one point and two deer came in to eat corn. I definitely needed some time at home - if nothing else just to force me to sit and be still and remember that without that I tend to get a little crazy!
I flew in on Friday night and was met by Dad and Nikole at the airport. Saturday morning I had a leisurely breakfast and hung out to see my grandparents who were stopping by the house before I headed a bit south to Fredrick for a day to visit Alison. Alison moved north over a year ago, but we actually talk quite regularly now that she works for the NERRS up in DC (i.e. she is part of national oversight for the program I do in the states). Problem is we always end up talking work, so we dedicated a day of no work talk into my trip. We went for a hike in the mountains, which is always nice when you are so used to flatness, and then met her husband, Larry, and his parents out to eat tapas (delicious!).
yes there is actually vertical change in the world - amazing!
The next morning we had a superb breakfast, a little walk around her cute neighborhood and I headed back up toward my parents, with a stop by my Aunt Dona's house in Westminster. We had a little picnic lunch on the porch, my dad installed some smoke detectors, picked up her extra computer for my mom to take down to NC for Brandy to use for Special Olympics, and then headed home. By the way, in case you are wondering, yes this is how I always do vacations - it just always works out that way. It's always fun to hang out with my aunt because she makes me laugh until my sides hurt with her stories. Running a horse farm has it's crazy moments, and she seems to attract them all!Monday was Memorial Day, so my parents had a picnic at the house. Melanie, Fred, and Jack drove up from Westminster, as well as Kathleen and Jimmy from DC, plus the usual suspects a my parent's picnics (family and family friends that may as well be family because I think of them that way). It was a beautiful day, lots of fun, delicious food, and the crazy kids were swimming (in a FREEZING COLD pool) and jumping on the trampoline the whole time. Jack tried out the trampoline before he left - it took him a moment to be sure he liked it but in the end he decided it was a great little region of the world.
We ended the day with having s'mores on the grill (it really is not as hard as you may think), Nikole and I went bowling (as you may have guessed from the previous post), and then when there was a break in the rain that started during the bowling trip, my dad shot off some fireworks he got the last time he was in SC (the cool kind that shoot up, then out, and then fizzle).The next day I had to head to DC (although not before my wonderful Mom got me a hot stone massage!!) and do some actual work for the next 3 days, but soon enough I was back home where I actually relaxed! I know it's hard to believe but my mom, dad and I went on a leisurely bike ride, then my mom and I went with her best friend and daughter who was about to get married and got our nails done, and then (after a glorious shaved ice snowball) we hung around the house and relaxed. The next morning Dad and I went for a bike ride in the rain, laid around the house, all took naps, got some crab cakes for dinner and I flew out that night!
It was an awesome trip - got to see everyone, plus have some relaxation time at the house. I always forget how nice it is to sit on the swing out in the yard and watch the birds come in and eat, the chipmunks run around, and this time we even saw a fox at one point and two deer came in to eat corn. I definitely needed some time at home - if nothing else just to force me to sit and be still and remember that without that I tend to get a little crazy!
The Great Turtle Race II
Last year there was a Great Turtle Race where they tagged turtles in Costa Rica and you chose who you thought would reach the Galapagos first. It was really quite entertaining. To our surprise the Great Turtle Race is back! This time it is loggerheads racing for the International Date Line. We have all chosen our favorites - Jason has chosen Drexellina II, Maia went with J.K. Turtling, I have Stinger, and Julia decided upon Mama Tabitha. Last year Julia and my turtles didn't actually leave the beach until after the race was over (we just think they were extremely responsible turtles and wanted to make sure that everyone was off safely before they headed out), so we shall see if we do better this year. Julia says that her turtle will kick all our turtles cloacas (yes, that is butt in turtle speak), but I don't know about that!
In Other News
So, I figure I haven't posted in weeks, why not catch it all up in one day :) So, one good thing I found upon my return home is that Sandor did in fact water the plants, and to my surprise the basil has made an exceptional come-back after the hail beating it received!
The Ongoing Battle
In other dog news, we have a new technique we will be trying in order to keep Kaylinn out of the cat litter. I was tired of my nice dining room chairs being all scratched up from the cats, plus I think Kaylinn had figured out the fact that we have been to lazy to put two tall chairs up blocking her way and in fact she could jump to the small chair and still get over the one baby gate. Thus, we shall try two baby gates - the cats can fit through, but in theory the dog cannot...again wish me luck.
The Flea Experiment
My flight back to Charleston this Saturday didn't really go as planned...which explains why I didn't actually end up in Charleston until Sunday. The flight out of Baltimore was delayed to the point where there was no way to make any connecting flights to Charleston. Thankfully Brandy picked me up at the airport and I had an overnight layover at their house, which, was far superior than my general layover seeing as how it included hanging out with Brandy, John, and Dudley (who was VERY confused why Kaylinn wasn't there and kept looking for her).
Eventually, (granted after yet another delay) I did finally arrive in Charleston. Unfortunately I arrived to find out that we had developed a bit of a flea problem while I was gone. We have been fighting fleas for about 6 weeks now, but up to this point we have been winning the war. Without the dog mom home to keep it in check, however, we seemed to have lost a major battle. In an attempt to keep from having to flea bomb the house (putting poisonous materials into the house to the point that nothing living is supposed to be there for 3 hours, and then apparently all that poison is gone and you can go back just doesn't add up for me) I asked around for some ideas yesterday at work. And thus, we began the first installment of a flea offensive and conducted a bit of an experiment last night.
Apparently, if you fill a shallow dish with water and dish soap, and then set said dish under a lamp in a dark room the fleas will jump into the water and drown. I have been working under the hypothesis that the flea problem is originating in the living room - I'm not really sure why I have been working under that assumption, but I have. So, I decided to test said hypothesis last night. I put the dish and lamp in the bedroom at 5:00 when I got home from work and shut the door with instructions to keep lights off and dogs out. When Sandor was getting ready for bed at 11:00 we found we had drowned 7 fleas. So I took the dish and lamp into the livingroom and locked the dog in the bedroom with us for the night. Interestingly enough when I got up this morning at 5:30 because I couldn't handle the poor dog scratching any longer and felt the need to bathe the poor thing, there were still only 7 fleas in the dish. I have therefore determined that I feel my hypothesis is incorrect - I think the bedroom may be the problem area.
So, with that knowledge I did a few things... Last night I had washed the sheets and bedspread just as a precaution and before we went to bed sprayed Kaylinn with this stuff that is supposedly to kill fleas (I'm not sure if I believe it, but it's worth a try). Oh and by the way, in case you were unsure, yes we do give her monthly flea drops, this is all in addition to that! So anyway, then this morning I got up and bathed her in flea shampoo and then based on our experiment results, cleared out the stuff on the floor of the bedroom, put the carpet flea killing stuff all over the bedroom floor, shut the door to keep out cats and the like, washed the blankets that are in Kaylinn's crate (which for the time being is now in the livingroom), and left the poison to do it's thing for the next 12 hours...
We shall see what results. Wish me luck!
Eventually, (granted after yet another delay) I did finally arrive in Charleston. Unfortunately I arrived to find out that we had developed a bit of a flea problem while I was gone. We have been fighting fleas for about 6 weeks now, but up to this point we have been winning the war. Without the dog mom home to keep it in check, however, we seemed to have lost a major battle. In an attempt to keep from having to flea bomb the house (putting poisonous materials into the house to the point that nothing living is supposed to be there for 3 hours, and then apparently all that poison is gone and you can go back just doesn't add up for me) I asked around for some ideas yesterday at work. And thus, we began the first installment of a flea offensive and conducted a bit of an experiment last night.
Apparently, if you fill a shallow dish with water and dish soap, and then set said dish under a lamp in a dark room the fleas will jump into the water and drown. I have been working under the hypothesis that the flea problem is originating in the living room - I'm not really sure why I have been working under that assumption, but I have. So, I decided to test said hypothesis last night. I put the dish and lamp in the bedroom at 5:00 when I got home from work and shut the door with instructions to keep lights off and dogs out. When Sandor was getting ready for bed at 11:00 we found we had drowned 7 fleas. So I took the dish and lamp into the livingroom and locked the dog in the bedroom with us for the night. Interestingly enough when I got up this morning at 5:30 because I couldn't handle the poor dog scratching any longer and felt the need to bathe the poor thing, there were still only 7 fleas in the dish. I have therefore determined that I feel my hypothesis is incorrect - I think the bedroom may be the problem area.
here's a look at our science fair experiement
So, with that knowledge I did a few things... Last night I had washed the sheets and bedspread just as a precaution and before we went to bed sprayed Kaylinn with this stuff that is supposedly to kill fleas (I'm not sure if I believe it, but it's worth a try). Oh and by the way, in case you were unsure, yes we do give her monthly flea drops, this is all in addition to that! So anyway, then this morning I got up and bathed her in flea shampoo and then based on our experiment results, cleared out the stuff on the floor of the bedroom, put the carpet flea killing stuff all over the bedroom floor, shut the door to keep out cats and the like, washed the blankets that are in Kaylinn's crate (which for the time being is now in the livingroom), and left the poison to do it's thing for the next 12 hours...
We shall see what results. Wish me luck!
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