What's up, sugarcup?

Oh not much, just the usual I suppose...

Just breathing in endless dramatic skies and ducking from the nonstop rain (this September = wettest I can remember in a long time!), trying to get enough energy to propel myself off the couch and get on with house chores and barn renovations.

Maybe I need another coffee??

Or six.

I really, really have to get out to the nearby mountains to snap the blooming leaves before the next windstorm strips the trees bare, mental note: this week, sans faute. Pinkie promise to self, weather be damned.

The butterfly winked to seal the deal:

This is our house, sandwiched between September skies

and the horse buffet:

Big Daddy enjoys chilling out in his bunker,

all sleepy and whatnot:

Ever so curious: Mom? Whatchoo doing?

Can I eat it?

Bah, back to the nap since there are no treats today...

*sulk*

Big doofus! LOL!

Thursday is my annual GP visit and I've got a list for her... Must talk about/evaluate my high blood pressure, get a reference to see an allergy specialist, renew some prescriptions and maybe get some blood tests done, although I got a full panel last year and she never called me back about it, which means everything was in the norms. Huh.

Aging sucks body-wise, but spirit-wise we're doing A-OK ;-)

Wow, the rains have stopped - yippee!

*launches self outside to do farm stuff*

/end of What Day Are We? post/

Books:

Medicine for the soul. 

~Inscription over the door of the Library at Thebes

Giddy!

Autumn has entrenched itself sooner than expected this year...

The nearby mountains are a'bloom with dazzling reds, ochres, yellows - nary a green leaf in sight, it's breathtaking and also way early in the year for this display... I wish I had brought my camera with me this morning when I went to fetch my new hens (long story, please see my chicken diaries for the info).

I'll try to go back tomorrow because if I miss this I'll regret it until next autumn.

A few weeks ago I spotted this clan of wild turkeys up the street,

I had to stop the car to snap a photo:

(pic clicks bigger for details that blogger snipped off)

How cool is that? :-)

There were a good 30 birds of all sizes and ages in that flock - I hope they've not been hunted, there are a lot of blood-hungry guys roaming the woods this time of year. Boo.

I'm off to work in the barn, winter is fast approaching and I need to get a move-on with the renos.

Hope your weekend is being sweet to you, my peeps!

/end of Crisp post/

Last night's movie

I don't remember laughing this hard

since "The Hangover":

Two thumbs way up!

Quick quick!

Goodness, look at the time!

Vegas and guest are home in an hour and I've got to finish up dinner...

Let's see, the bread is baking, the pork roast and chicken breasts are in the slow cooker, carrots are peeled, julienned and ready to steam, the potatoes are ready to boil to later be mashed and the butternut squash is baked and ready to puree with butter and honey. Oh and the chocolate cake with 'nilla frosting and sprinkles is on the counter, ready to serve.

The house has been vacuumed and dusted from top to bottom, the guest room is ready with fresh linens on the bed, the laundry's done, trash is out, dishwasher empty, dogs exercised and fed...

And! I'm dressed up, hair is curled and nails shiny - somedays farm life is pretty fun! :-D

We got a lovely chinook today, a most unexpected and welcomed gift from crazy mom nature and wow, really trippy - the critters are all basking in happiness and me, well, I did take 20 minutes to read my book on the deck in a t-shirt... in the shade...

Life, she's beautiful eh?

Happy weekend, peeps!

/end of Tomorrow = Apple Picking Day! post/

Woo!

[N]o party is any fun unless seasoned with folly. 

~Desiderius Erasmus

A project, in photos

Life at the farm is busy these days as winter is just around the corner - must hurry to get the old barn ready to house both birds and horses, aiiiiiiieeeeee!

That's what happens when you inherit decrepit old crap on your property... the renos take up all your time, suck your meager savings into a black hole and pepper your hair with sawdust, cobwebs and regrets.

Regrets that I didn't wear a face mask for the first two hours of demo today...

Thank goodness for ventolin inhaler pumps!

I snapped a few pics along the way with our old point-and-shoot so excuse photo quality, but I wasn't going to bring my new camera into a dust-choked hazardous demo area. Shaking hands and poor light also add to the mix but hey, it was what it was.

Quick recap of the project:

I bought some new (ok old, very old antique but they're new to us!) windows for the barn as what's there now, on four sides, is falling apart: old, cracked single panes on the outside, plastic on the inside, a graveyard of flies and other various bodies in the middle. In some places sheets of plywood cover holes where windows used to be.

Our neighbor is doing the job in a couple of weeks but I wanted to prep the areas as much as possible since I can do some of the work myself to save paid hours.

I actually like carpentry work - HGTV is real life, you know :-D

While toiling away I decided to see what was behind some rotting wall particle boards as we need to insulate as much as possible and fill in foundation/siding cracks - not that any of that will keep rodents away but it gets drafty in there, specially at floor level where the chickens will be, so that has to be sealed.

The walls on three sides of the barn look like this -
see the rotten, chewed, wet bottom bits
from a decade of horse pee and poop?

This is what you get when you pull it off the wall...
Yeah, not much for insulation eh?

That's like 30years' worth of vermin bedding and poop right there,
you bet your arse it's disgusting!

Now the area is ready for new pink insulation,
a new vapor barrier and new fitted plywood on top,
all cracks sealed:

It just kept going and going,
like some crazy Pandora's box:

The glass panes have, for the most part,
missing quarter-inch round and caulking -
I don't know why they haven't shattered yet!

Some bits made me gag, like this section here...
there was more rodent shit than insulation-

I managed to prep about half the work space today,
it took about 4 hours in all:

This one was the very worst of all,
I had no mask at this point and inhaled too much dust -
well not dust, more like disintegrated insulation
and mountains of moldy rat poo:

Here I am, exhausted and red eyes and all -
Notice the full wheelbarrows in the back
as I ran out of big trash bags...
I still have to empty all of that and haul it to the dump!

And that's how I spend my days, folks...

It sure beats being stuck in an office eight hours a day, plugging away at a soul-sucking job. The way I figure it, we either have to pay someone to do the renos and to get that money I have to get a job I hate, or I do it myself and we manage with what we have.

I've been selling a bunch of stuff around the house that we don't need or want anymore (yey for online classifieds!) so it helps offset the cost of building supplies and material.

I'm all about recycling :-)

And to think... I used to spend my days coordinating sales teams, planning events, building sales projection charts and entering business expenses, dealing with irate customers and designing marketing plans, not to mention the travel to trade shows, heels, painted nails and all that things that used to define my life.

*sits in awe*

/end of Time For A Hot Bubble Bath post/

what is it about a full moon?

They say legends are based on truth, so maybe this thing about full moons and werewolves started when people were sick and tired of being kept awake all night by the monthly lunar cycle so they started screaming and howling out of frustation, some of them running in the fields to try and tire themselves out, scaring deer and other beasties in the way...

Well that's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

Bleddy insomnia and stiff throbbing necks.

*munches on more ibuprofen*

'Tis a glorious autumn day (yes! it's officially autumn now!), sunny and mild and breezy - hope it stays that way as I have a few outside projects slated for today.

If only I could peel myself off the couch.

I still haven't bought the crown molding for the living/dining room I painted last month. We still haven't shopped for a new couch, carpet, drapes, nothing. The walls are still bare.

I wish I cared, you know?

Maybe that'll come later, with the first snows...

I used to LOVE decorating so much and took great pride in creating a warm, beautiful, cozy home environment - what happened? I mean I keep this place clean and the bones of the house make up for the lack of decoration and style - but still. It's like my focus has been drawn to outside life now, critter care and all that.

Never been happier :-)

Have your lives changed as you've grown older?

/end of Totally Random And Then Some post/

And this is how it goes

For my non-Facebook friends, in case you were dying for a Big Daddy update here you go... we all know a photo is worth a thousand words :-)

(pic clicks bigger):

Pretty amazing what two months of pastured grazing can do, eh?

Of course to that you add lots of love, cuddles, coat brushings and a few carrots and apples ;-) Big Daddy isn't getting any grain yet, that'll come later this winter once the greens are buried under snow. I'll post more updates along the journey as he still has about 500 lbs to gain.

Speaking of winter, we've had frost on the ground the past two nights.

Welcome autumn! :-D

Time for apple picking, pie baking and drinking through the stash of tea - suits me fine.

Random convo:

I again had that weird dream last night where I'm in a public building (I think it was a university or a big school) and I have to pee, when I finally find the restroom I keep opening the stalls to find one filthy toilet after another, completely disgusting, only these ones were waist-high so there was no way to squat, you had to get up on them via tippy-toe - ugghh! Of course I didn't use any of them and my last thought before waking up was "how the hell do short people use these things?" -

I told you it was random!

/end of Rainy Day post/

Home

The light is what guides you home,
the warmth is what keeps you there.
~Ellie Rodriguez

Polls, frozen fingers and cheap carrots

There you go, my whole blog post in one title:

-there's a new poll up, please go cast your votes if not already done 'cuz I love seeing where my readers stand on certain issues (that, and I'm nosey) :-D

-there is a frost warning in effect for tonight, as if that was big news... it froze last night too, as evidenced by my icy extremities despite two layers of socks and stuff. I refuse to heat the house just yet, the coldest it has gone down to is 17C and most of the time it's 20C so really, it's psychosomatic. I sleep naked and kick off the covers in the middle of the night cuz I'm too warm.

-at least the days are sunny and warm... for a few more bits.

-carrots are at an all-time cheap these days, woo! I love our local produce store... This week 2lb bags of big fresh carrots are $0.50 and older ones (for the horse) are $0.35 so guess what we're all eating for the next few weeks, LOL!

I have more to blog about but it didn't fit in my post title so it'll be for another time.

Devious, innit?

Anybody scoring some great sales on local end-of-season produce? How do you keep warm with the dropping temps, not you Busy Bee - we know you're still boiling in Florida, LOL!

/end of Happy Monday, Peeps! post/

Come walk with us!

The beanies love it when they get to walk around the neighborhood (as opposed to roaming the fields and woods), something about an abundance of brightly-painted pee posts and new stomping grounds?

Not impressed, mom -
This is old news!

OooOOo that one, we want that one
in the middle of nowhere!

Gratuitous bum shot :-D

News outpost for long dogs only -
so they had to improvise...

Youths up to no good in one of the local parks-
trading drugs and you think we don't know?
*rolls eyes*

Moving along, things to see
and stuff to pee on...

This is the street that borders our property,
the houses on the right side
back out to our fields.
Sweet deal for them: they see horses,
we see their houses' arses.

Now tree art in the world can
camouflage fugly sparkly pink bricks!

View of our stables from said street,
our house is behind there somewhere...

Most days our neighborhood is awesome and we're lucky not to be out in the boonies surrounded by pig farms. However yesterday one of the jerks across the street decided to burn a mountain of trash/scrap wood in his back yard (which is not permitted, btw) and smoked everybody up to hacking coughs, gasps and burning eyes... all. effing. afternoon. long. On a warm sunny Saturday! Asshole! Thick acrid smoke that danced in the wind and invaded every corner of our property and even our house, we couldn't breathe - oh man, if he starts another fire today I'm calling the cops on him, the inconsiderate jackass!

*end rant*

Wishing you all a great rest of weekend - anyone else having a good time? :-)

/end of Mister Rogers post/

On BFFs

A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they're not so good,
and sympathizes with your problems when they're not so bad.
~Arnold H. Glasgow

...and the man comes home

Vegas is home soon and I have to get this place cleaned up - the dogs shed soooo much after their baths you can hardly see the floors, lol!

*swish swish swish*

Things a girl (maybe me, maybe not me) does when her man's away:

• wear no bra nor makeup
• snack all day (no fixed meals)
• pee with the bathroom door open
• sport bits of chicken bedding in her hair
• have the TV channel set on HGTV from morning 'til night

Now, it may seem like all fun and games but really, does a person want to live like that all her life? The not having a car during this time is a bummer but on the other hand there is no money being spent by shopping so the deep debt ditch is stable... Um. Wait. Online bill payments. Sumbitch!

*pause to hoover the house and stuff*

I need a haircut, I look like a frazzled witch
even after attempting some sort of taming with the curling iron:

You can't win all the battles, I suppose.

OK, time to go bake a batch of blueberry muffins (doo dah, doo dah) and tidy up the house since I have an hour or so left before Vegas arrives, all tired and man-hungry.

Sigh. All I want to do is go cuddle my horse and pet the chickens.

I must have a sickness?!

/end of Tumbleweed post/

The sleep demons

When you have insomnia,
you're never really asleep,
and you're never really awake.
~Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk

Autumn light

Mother Nature has been mighty capricious the past week, if you don't like what she's offering at the moment just wait ten minutes because it's going to change!

Snapped from our back deck after dinner last night -
Big Daddy snacking in the background:

This is straight from camera, no photo alterations -
it was just beautiful after a dark cold day!

In a few weeks those trees will be dressed in carnival colors so stick around for more evidence of the fast approaching winter!

Speaking of cold, we're soon getting near-freezing temps at night so one of my projects today includes winterizing the small coop where our banties sleep -

Remember the re-purposed ice fishing shack?

The windows have gaps all around them so they need sheeting with plastic to cut the drafts - I also need to clean up all the cobwebs near the tin roof and try to plug the gaps there with pink insulation fiber. That will allow me to use the 175W heating lamp during the night so the wee ones don't freeze when the temps dip below zero.

By end of October the flocks' new winter quarters should be all ready (I'm fixing up part of the stables for them), it will be sad to not see them free-range outside during the day but what can you do - it's gonna be cold, dark and full of snow until next spring so we have to adapt.

Farm life - gotta love it!

Maybe I should have put this post on the Chicken Diaries... OoooOooops. Ah well, it will be a double post. Deal with it :-D

In other news... My youngest brother and his girlfriend finally found their dream house, we're going to be neighbors! OK not really but it's only a 20 minute drive, how cool is that?

Gotta run, I've got a million things to do today - cheerios!

/end of I Miss My Husband post/

Marge

That awful high-pitched buzzing sound.

She swatted at the mosquito hovering near her ear as she wiped the sweat pearling on her brow - it was a humdinger of a muggy day, overcast sky and all. She had to finish the job before the rains moved in, nobody liked mucking about on a day like this.

Snippets of the previous evening's banter flitted about in her subconscious as she slammed the heavy shovel into the soft earth over and over again, focused on her mission:

"You fucking idiot - can't you do anything right? Three times I've asked you today and you still forgot! What's wrong with you?!"

There's nothing wrong with me, she thought, whistling tunelessly as she swatted more bugs from her face. I'll show you wrong. I'll show you all.

Fat droplets of rain splattered on her dirty t-shirt, dampening the fabric until it clung to her pendulous breasts. She worked on, muttering and shoveling, never noticing how dark it had gotten until she climbed out of the deep muddy hole to catch her breath.

Merry Christmas! Happy Birthday! Amen! she chuckled to herself, quintessential portrait of a mad woman.

Was is wrong to murder your asshole of an ingrate ex-boyfriend who refused to move out of your house, who stalked and threatened you and made your life a living hell, who forced you to clean his shitty underwear and endure his endless belching and farting while he stole your welfare checks and screwed your sister behind your back?

Probably.

But who was going to find out?

A booming voice snapped her out of her reverie - "Marge! Where the fuck are you? Get your goddamn ass in the house, there's nothing to eat! I'm starving here!"

She eyed her handiwork, smiled and leaned the shovel against the back porch. She would be back in a few hours, oh yes she would.

After dinner.

On being

If only we'd stop trying to be happy
we could have a pretty good time.
~Edith Wharton

Floating teeth

No, there are no dentures wafting around in the sky - lol!

Floating a horse's teeth simply means filing them down. Since equine teeth continue to grow throughout their lifetime it's important to make sure they all wear down evenly to allow proper chewing, otherwise some sides and ridges will grow uneven and sharp, cause pain and gulping of food since the grinding surface isn't functional anymore.

And boy, did Big Daddy ever need his teeth floated :-o

Poor baby... We think this may have been the cause of his recent colics - we'll see if things improve now.

Here is what the vet's device looks like
(this is a google'd photo, it is not Big Daddy):

Looks proper medieval, eh?

Basically the hinged metal apparatus cranks the horse's mouth open and holds it in position to allow access to the back teeth. There is a light in the front metal plates that shines into the mouth and it's still difficult to see way back there with a big tongue in the way (the vet pulls it out of the mouth and twists it up on the side to allow for tools, it's not a pretty sight).

Differently textured long metal files are used on most of the teeth and a motorized grinding tool completes the work on longer points.

It took the vet and her team over an hour to file down his teeth and even then they could only get 75% of the job done, they had to stop as it's not a comfortable situation for the horse.

Big Daddy needed three doses of sedation during the procedure, he's just that big..!

He passed his physical with flying colors though, so that's good.

What a morning!

He's such an awesome boy though, everyone was impressed with how docile, gentle and trusting he is - he better be, at that size! I cannot imagine controlling a bucking aggro horse in such a situation, holy cow.

I had him measured: 17.2hh (hands high) :-o

They guessimated his weight to be around 1,300 lbs right now (they do this with different measurements) so once he's all filled out and has gained his muscle back he should weigh around 1,800 lbs. Yep, he has at least 500 lbs to gain... and this is after eating and gaining weight the past 4.5 months.

Can you imagine what he must have looked like when the SPCA seized him last spring??

A little flashback...
remember what he looked like
the day we brought him home two months ago?

(that's not me in the photo
but it shows how thin he was)

Here he is today,
slowly getting there!

It looks like he's pooping a horse here - he he!

He wouldn't stand still for pics,
always curious to smell my camera
aka "hi mom!"

It's funny how a couple of hours after the procedure
he was super cuddly and affectionate, much more than usual -
it's like he knows we are caring for him
and he appreciates it:

Gratuitous bum shot :-D

I can only imagine how amazing he will look
with 500 lbs more muscle on him!

I'm so pooped. The weekend was très busy/stressful and you read all about yesterday... and this morning was no better. Just glad it's all over now. Vegas left for a business trip a couple of hours ago so I'm on my own (with no car) until Friday night - that will either force me to relax a bit or all the farm-and-animal work will drive me to the ground, LOL.

Stick around to find out :-D

/end of I Love My Horse post/

On war

Men like war: they do not hold much sway over birth,
so they make up for it with death.
Unlike women, men menstruate by shedding other people's blood.
~Lucy Ellman

Edit to the below post

After I let some steam off by writing, I went to run some errands. Car gas tank was empty, orange warning light on.

But I had enough to exchange some hardware at the co-op store and in return I got two salt block holders - with salt blocks - for the horse's stalls, the last bag in stock of cracked corn for the chickens, three bags of flock food... and they gave me a free bag because it has been torn open and taped shut (clumsy shipment).

With the hardware credit it cost me $1.68 :-D

Then on my way to the grocery store I hit green lights all the way AND scored the best parking spot near the exit door.

My favorite cookies were on sale :-D

The hens laid more eggs today than they had the past three weeks, the sun came out and warmed everything up, Big Daddy was game for a nice cuddle and our long-lost contractor stopped by for a visit on his way home, we hadn't seen him in ages -

Life balances out.

Sweeeet!

How to get shagged by technology

I used "shagged" to be polite.

*ahem*

I had to get my four new layer hens this morning, the farm was just two towns over and the whole round-trip should have taken me an hour and a half - if I had followed paper map instructions, that is.

Instead I opted for the Stupid Choice, allowing the GPS to get me royally lost in buttfuck nowhere not even close to where I was supposed to be going.

GPS: Giant Piece o'Shite.

That piece of technology tacked on an extra hour to my trip and shorted my life by a week with the spike in blood pressure and verbal diarrhea/screaming in the car.

I mean, seriously: the address it brought me to?

Two towns away from my destination!

I got sooo lost on winding dirt country roads, the sky was about to burst open and the gas tank was getting low - I needed help! Luckily I spotted a farmer tending to his cows and stopped at his farm to ask for help, he was kind enough to point me in the right direction and sure 'nuff, he was bang on.

Only when I finally got there, the entrance to the road I needed to turn on was blocked: there was construction (aka a giant hole in the middle of the road) and everyone was being forced into a loooooong detour...

I could SEE the place I needed to get to but no, I could not pass through. I had to detour 15 minutes to get there (imagine driving a rectangle to get back to your departure point? yeah, like that). These country roads are long and far apart, my friend.

My bladder was bursting.

I almost cried.

Finally got to destination, got my hens, got different directions from the farmer to get back home.

Programmed the GPS to "home", for a test.

It again tried to bring me god knows where, like the opposite direction of where I needed to go.

I think it hates me.

Oh, did I mention it then started to rain so hard the car wipers were on max and I still couldn't see the road? My cellphone battery was dead so I couldn't call Vegas to ask him to bring the birds in - another worry on my plate, soaking birds catching pneumonia.

Rain, rain, rain, sounds like a waterfall... full bladder...

You get the pic.

Let's not mention the two other detours I had to endure along the way.

Why does it feel like a Monday?

/end of Lord Jesus In Techno Hell post/

Yeppers

If I were personally to define religion,
I would say that it is a bandage that man has invented
to protect a soul made bloody by circumstances.
~Theodore Dreiser, 1941

Friday in point form

• I promise to catch up on your blogs this weekend!
• Pinkie promise :)
• My dad's coming over for dinner tonight
• He had a funeral to go to not far from here this afternoon
• His last living auntie died :(
• So it was a rush to clean the house for an overnight guest today
• All done though
• Got up early, drove to get some stall mats
• They were free, I'll get up early for free stuff anytime

Bonus material:

• Big Daddy colicked again yesterday afternoon, it was hell
• The vet is coming over Tuesday morning to give him a full physical
• He could die if he keeps getting colics :(

Extra bonus material:

• My new toy arrived this morning!
• Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
• Free one-day shipping, how about that?
• The battery's all charged up now, lenses on...
• I'm testing it, like, NOW!
• Byeeeee!
  

On love

Remember, we all stumble, every one of us.
That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand.
~Emily Kimbrough

Error 503

Blogger's been misbehaving the past few days, giving me a blank page with "Error 503 - service unavailable" messages - gooaaah!

So annoying!

Plus it's slow as molasses despite us having super-duper high speed innernets - anyone else experiencing blogger doldrums lately?

I'm still ages behind in reading everyone's blogs. Dunno why... I'm rarely online during the day and I'm busy editing photos and playing spider solitaire in the evenings, diving into facebook and researching cameras and all that nonsense...

OK, let me break this down a bit:

More Norton...
Still lots of pics to edit but it's fun!

I love me a good photo shoot :)

Editing the pics made me take a hard look at the main areas I need to address in getting a new camera that's adapted to my shooting style - current areas of contention that need fixing, what I can afford vs what I have that I can keep, etc.

It hit me like a ton of bricks while researching options: duh, the whole time it was staring at me in the face and I never saw it, LOL!

So I placed my order today... my new toy will be shipped this week - SO EXCITED!

I got me this:

The Nikon D90 - isn't she beautiful? :-)

I only needed to order the body since I have 3 expensive lenses that fit, plus external flash and everything - it would have been dumb (not to mention unaffordable) to move over to a new brand and start from scratch. This way I get my cake and eat it too before I'm too old to enjoy it, LOL!

This is a big upgrade from my D40x, which I'll have had for 5 years now come Christmas. Everything I've been bitching about (slow auto-focus, poor performance in low light, lens dust, no white balance, etc) should be fixed with this baby. It even records movies, woo!

I just need a couple more photo gigs and it will be paid off in no time.

Happy, happy me :)

Wishing you all a great Thursday!

/end of I Promise To Visit! post/

On aging

There is absolutely nothing to be said in favour of growing old.
There ought to be leglislation against it.
-Patrick Moore

A fresh new Tuesday

I haven't been inspired by blogland lately, no reason or idea why - it just is.

It'll pass :-)

There isn't much drama happening in our lives, things are going well... I'm keeping busy with farm upkeep & home improvements while Vegas works his butt off doing his manly work things - gosh, how lucky am I to be able to scrape ten-year-old horse muck from the barn's bottom while he slaves over a keyboard!

I tell you, I got the sweet end of the deal!

No, the horse stalls still aren't finished but almost, almost.

Just need to put in a few more hours and voilà!

Then I start retro-fitting the rest of the barn for the chicken's winter stay... That's a whole other party in a can. More on that later.

*pause to sip a Chubby*

So last week I colored my toes as we were in the middle of a giant heat wave and I was barefoot all the time, and now we're starting a long streak of cold rain so these puppies are going into sock and boot jail until next spring... Sad, cuz I love the color:

Thank you Prin for the fab cosmetics!

What else... Um, yesterday I puttered over to the City for a long-overdue photo shoot and it was a lot of fun - I mean, look at this cute mug!

His name is Norton :-D

I took over 480 shots and have whittled it down to 213, I can't reasonably work on more photos than that during the next few days... I'm quite pleased with the results even if my camera drives me crazy, it behaved because the light was good but take the sun away and it's a battle of argh!

So I'm saving up for a new camera, pissed that everything's SO much more expensive in Canada than in the States - it makes no sense - but what can I do?

I have to sell all my Nikon equipment to sponsor my new toy, am kinda sad to see all my awesome lenses go but realistically, I don't use them that much and they wouldn't fit on a Canon anyways. Trimming down, going lean. Yeah.

The cleansing is long overdue anyways - my ex gave me this camera many Christmases ago and that says it all.

Holy crap is my rambling ever dull -

Time to haul this ol' carcass to bed, scary high blood pressure and all...

/end of I'm Scared For My Heart post/

Observations in cartoon form

(image clicks larger)

(in case you don't get it... straight jacket... lol)

Another angel gone

Not a good day...

Posted about it on The Chicken Diaries...

Going offline now :-(

On creation

He didn't tell me how to live;
he lived, and let me watch him do it.
~Clarence Budington Kelland

This, I like

The hellish week-long heat wave finally broke overnight like an overripe zit.

It's 21C this morning, sunny, nice and breezy.

Bliss.

We can get back to our lives now!

***************

Migraine, day 2.

Vegas rubbed my neck yesterday morning and it helped relieve knots and bolts so I asked him for some more this morning. Except that something went wrong on my right side and now I'm jammed tight and can't move my head or lift my arm. Noooooo! I have so much fun stuff to do today and I can't move save for breathing! Advil isn't helping a whit - sumbitch!

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Heard the other day from said Vegas:

What do 9 out of 10 people enjoy?
Gang rape

:-o

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I know, that was a terrible, terrible joke.

I still laughed :-D

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The roosters are having a scream fest today and the hens are joining in, they must be celebrating the lovely weather. It's been very hard on them and not being able to do anything about it just sucked. My heart's at peace now :)

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It's a long weekend for many people, not that I notice anymore (amen) - wishing you all a lovely little holiday, do come by to tell me about it!

/end of Uncensored post/

Today's weather report:

Grocery shopping as an olympic sport

Event includes, but is not limited do:

• Race car driving to the grocery store
• Traffic endurance for extra points
• Jockeying the car into the closest parking spot near the store's exit doors
• Memory jogging: what was on the list you forgot at home again?
• Obstacle course: crowded aisles and your shopping cart
• Boxing the butcher, aka "why are the sale meats never in stock?"
• Bonus points: (mentally) kick boxing all those screaming brats and crying babies whose parents are too cheap for a babysitter
• Stacking the cart: space enough for everything, no tipping over
  
• Inner self-battle: no, you do not need those chips, ice cream, cookies, lardy cakes, sodas, etc
• Speed mathematics: do you have enough money to pay for this food?
• Coupon juggling at the cash
• Cashier smackdown: that item was definitely on sale, check it again!
• Smart bag packing: fresh tomatoes on top, canned tomatoes on the bottom
• Weight lifting: heavy bags to the car, then into your house
• Extra event for professionals only: Unpacking & storing purchases away in calm serenity
• Bonus points: doing all of the above in high heat and humidity

/end of Please Give Me My Gold Medal post/

Once upon a time...

There was this little ol'lady who filed her income taxes on time, as she always did every spring.

She even paid a professional accountant to handle all the paperwork, figuring she'd save herself the headache - all that messy paperwork, all that margin for error!

She happily received a nice tax refund from both governments (federal and provincial) and assumed all was done and put away until next year. After all, her former employers knew their stuff, right? As did the accountant?

Nothing to worry about!

But she was wrong.

She received a call in August from a provincial government bean counter, who said there was a mistake on the tax form on such-and-such a line - yes, they were checking just about every single tax return form this year, how about that? The little ol'lady referred the bean counter lady to the accountant, and she thought that was that.

Wrong again.

The next day, she got a phone call from the accountant who confirmed that one of her ex-employers had made a mistake on their tax form, the bean counter corrected it and that changed the integrity of the tax return itself - was the little ol'lady prepared for the bad news?

She was going to get a notice from the provincial government to pay up for taxes due.

Plus interest.

For something totally not her fault.

Yeah, the little ol'day isn't impressed.

Sumbitch!

/end of I Am The L.O.L. And I Am Not Laughing post/

Days like this....

...I wish I were a bear so I could hide in a cool cave and hibernate.

...Or a fish so I could swim lazily in the cool ocean.

...Or a popsicle so I could rest in the freezer.

That is all :-)