Results and a reflection...

Okay so I'll start with the results...I broke down and went to the doc today. I have what is called Vertigo. I go through spells of dizzyness, some worse than others. I'm feeling a bit better after taking the meds she gave me the only problem is that I can't drive on them and they make me sleepy. On the other note...she said that I need to refrain from making sudden movements. YEAH RIGHT!!! I live with two toddlers and work at a fast food restaurant. She gave me a pass for today and if I'm not feeling great I'll have to get another for tomorrow. My speech is still slurred and when I try to move or refocus on something my eyes will bounce and try to stop and focus. I did make it to the meeting tonight, about half way through I started to feel a bit better but standing and walking to the car was well...tough. It's crazy, it takes me two or three times as long to do simple tasks because I have to concentrate so hard on trying to stay focused and not fall. I hope that the medicine works, I really don't like feeling like this. On a side note I've gotten a month's worth of sleep in the past three days. I'm so tired of being so tired.

I read another's blog today and though it was a good idea to give a reflection over the past decade...let me see if I can remember that far back.

2000 - Moved out of my apartment after I bought my first house, stopped using drugs, fell in love with my furture husband. Oh and best of all I made the step to reunite with my father.

2001 - Very boring year, I left fastfood for a desk job which I loved and then at the end of the year we had 9/11.

2002 - In feb I was dian. with a heart condition, actually 3. I turned 21, other than that..noting significant.

2003 - Went through heart surgery in April, got married in June, buried Duck's Dad in August, found out we were pregnant the day we buried him, buried his uncle in Sept, buried Samantha and Amanda on the same day in Dec. Overall it was a life and death year. Then I was laid off in Dec.

2004 - Duck made 9,000 in Jan selling cars :). I found a job that I didn't care for a great deal in Feb. Sunshine was born in April, diagn. with Asthma in Oct. He took up most of our year.

2005 - Was called back to R&K, bought new house in Sept, Duck moved in and we followed in Oct. Had a rough start, but we were making it.

2006 - Started working at the pallet company, Sunshine was hospitalized for a week after a long stint of being sick and I was pregnant again for the second time a month later, and was delivered in November.

2007 - I had to quit working and become a stay at home mom due to finances and Sunshine being diagnoised with Autism and needing special education services. We started to think about becoming more self sufficient and frugal. Grew as a family.

2008 - I started studying the bible, I never realized how much was in there nor the depth of it. Smiley was hospitalized for asthma at a month old. Duck got laid off from his job and I went back to work part time. I was able to run a business for 7 months successfully until the economy dropped. We also put in a windmill.

2009 - A rocky year, Duck is in school, Sunshine is home in school. I'm still working....grrr. It's been a long year but it is over. Nothing significant.

Well it took me two hours to get to 2009 last night, so I'll post this and start a new one.

K

What is going on???

For the past two days I've felt like crap. It started yesterday morning before dad was suppose to be up here, I felt so naueous that I literally had to lay down. Then an onslaught of other symptons started showing up. Let just say, I make frequent potty visits. I just wish I'd throw up already so I can get the junk out and get better. I'm now so dizzy that it is taking a consciencous effort to stay sitting up and not leaning. I cerainly hope this passes tonight, there is no way I can work like this. If I'm not better in the morning I will have to go into the doc, I can't function very well like this.

Gotta go.
me.

wanna read something disappointing???

http://www.rd.com/make-it-matter-make-a-difference/slideshow-13-things-your-childs-teacher-wont-tell-you/article165082-12.html#slide

Oh...my! If teachers really hate their job that much..find another one. Infact, let's trade places. The only positive statements that I found was the one about turing off kids texting abilities during school hours....great idea...why not limit it anyway..a little more often than just during school hours. And the one about children telling everyone your family secrets...how very true. Other than that it is just teachers complaining about their jobs...the afterall, chose to be teachers. Change jobs or stop complaining...I hear a lot of local fast food joints are hiring...how does 7.25 per hour sound vs the 51,000 per year you are making now?

Okay....that was annoying...

Got a few things done...

I've started a new blanket...this one is different, I'm doing it:

Darker baby Blue row
darker baby blue row
darker baby blue row
multi color row
burgandy row
burgandy row
burgandy row
multi color row
brown row (chocolate)
brown row
brown row
multi color row
hunter green row
hunter green row
hunter green row
multi color row
and repeat until finished....

It looks really nice, I will keep this up in the future as opposed to my same old pattern although I like them both.

I bought new curtains for the livingroom and will move our bedroom curtains to the boys room and put new ones in ours...they are redish and not really a boyish color. I'm looking forward to getting them up until I can sew new ones for the boys.

I'm pretty sure at this point that I'm going to have to break down and see the doc about my shoulder....it is really starting to hurt again, and pop everytime I move it. I need to work on the biggest loser thing for work...that's less than a week away.

I also want to start getting my seed order ready for my spring garden. I also need to find some quality compost. Well that's something that I will think about doing...I also read that roma tomatoes are amongst the best for the fact that they have a low water content, which would be perfect for the sauces that I like to make and the canned tomatoes and salsa.

Okay gotta run, want to get some laundry folded before bed...toddles.
Me.

Good thing....

Duck wasn't awake to see that...Mandee just pulled two keys off my laptop trying to jump up on my lap. Grrrr. Silly girl! She is still trying to get used to us and finally using her box again..thank GOD. She decided that she didn't want to climb the stairs anymore so we moved it down stairs. I will say that the pine litter is really nice, you NEVER smell the cat dropping. My fott is still killing me from when I stepped on the megablock the other day..ouch..then lastnight I got something stuck in my eye and I think I now have it infected. It was oozing and pussing last night...I know TMI. I nearly overslept this morning, apparently no one heard my alarm which has been going off for over an hour. I must have been really tired. Smiley slept on the top bunk last night, he didn't wake up until I asked Duck where the baby was, he must have heard me. I work until 4 today which is a much different shift for me, but I'm really looking forward to it. I do like working Thursdays with the acception of the few bad apples that try to spoil it for everyone it usually makes for a really nice day. I certainly hope that today is no different. I kinda think that it will be busy since people are going to be out shopping for the secular holiday. I had a long discussion with my dad about this holiday. The sad thing is that he agrees with me except for the fact that he thinks no matter what we should celebrate Jesus Christ's birthday, I gotta figure out how to show him that the bible doesn't approve. He knows that it is a false god worship day (the sun god) but he says that it is too hard to changes since everyone else does it. He seemed kinda peeved that we don't celebrate. In due time he'll understand, even if it takes me to the end of this system to show him. Well I need to scoot, I have to get ready for work...toodles!

What happens when....

you change a blind mans living room around? Okay..so we've all heard that joke before, but what happens when you move an autistic kids room around? Today was rough to say the least. Sunshine was so beside himself, it has been unreal. I'm praying we don't end up with a seizure. Then not thinking he wouldn't let Smiley on the top bunk (which is Sunshine's bed) to play I removed all Sunshine's Buzz Lightyear bedding and put them on the bottom bunk and move the Cars bedding to the top. I was trying to prove a point at the end of my wits, it was a split second decision. Why didn't I just throw myself to the lions? Right now he is not allowed upstairs unless we are up there since they can't play nice, they can't play up there. We'll let them play downstairs and we will work on letting them go back up there later. We have rearranged the upstairs, I'm washing the 2 load of dishes, I hate the new dishwasher and can't wait to get our tax check, then I can buy a new one. Today has been short, rough and trying...but as a mother you will have those days.

I've gotta run, it's time to change the clothes over and wipe down the kitchen.

Toodles.
Me.

Vaccine...

So after talking to one of the people at work, she was contact multiple times by the school in regards to getting her 6 yr old girl vaccinated with the H1N1 shot. I found it interesting that the schools are harrassing parents to get this shots for their children, I would not have put up with it at all..thank goodness I kept Sunshine home this year. I read at a local new station that they have recalled 800,000 doses of the vaccine for children. Siting that they believe they aren't even potent enough to protect children from the virus. SO let's look at they cycle here...child unwillingly gets stuck with a needle, full of a concoxation that is not believe won't prevent them from getting sick, they still run the risk of getting sick due to the vaccine, get stuck again since most kids need two shots and still wind up sick with the flu. HUM...where is the logic here? None the fact that it hasn't been tested enough. The most alarming fact of this virus is the range of people that it is attacking, and most that it is very deadly for pregnant woman. All the same...I'm really glad that I don't have to worry about my children who are being presurred into getting this vaccine.

I'm off to rearrange my upstairs. I want to get the boys new special beds made tonight and on top of what happened yesterday I'm ready to get my home clean and NOT leave. We got stranded in the local town about 25 minutes away. We were stuck in our cold car with only blankets and waiting for 30 min for a wonderful brother from the Hall to come and rescue us. He spent most of the evening with us, we had to stop 2 times to charge the car battery enough to just get us home. The alternater is going out....and the worst part is that a remanufactured one is 125.00 OUCH. We will pull one off the parts car and replace it at tax time. We are going to be putting 15-20 fuel cells in it and try to run it soley off of water...I wanted to get it hooked up for solar/electric but Duck wants to try the cells first since we'll have to pull parts off for the electic anyhow.

The semester ended today, we'll get him set up for classes for next semester today. He'll be set up for 12-15 hrs this time. He should graduate next summer. I'm not sure if he is going to transfer his credits over but I can't wait for him to get a job. I long for the time when I can aux pioneer and pioneer fulltime. I've been going out a lot more recently and the joy it brings me is amazing. Well I need to get working on the boys room, I'm working a lot tomorrow and won't be able to do anything else.

Katy

It's been a while...

Brown recluse...I think that's how you spell it. I'm nearly certain that I found one in my house the other morning. I killed it and in the care of trying to identify it it got lose and squished all over my work shoes. We are working on the house. Dad is going to come up, I can't wait. I haven't seen him in so long.
Last night when we were writing Duck's final speech we decided to write his eulogy. It is a way to have fun with it and hopefully it will have the shock and awe that the teacher thinks it will have. It was something! Life has been busy and not a lot has gotten accomplished around the house...so it's time to get up and get it done!

me.

A week of tantrums, little sleep and insanity...

It has been rough at work for a while. I'm doing as best as I can at work. I would have never thought it would be possible for a 40 year old to throw a bigger tantrum than my two year old...but I saw it with my own eyes. All in all it was hilarious. I need to remember that it isn' nice to laugh in people's faces when they are acting stupid. I'm try to work on that...it has always been a weakness that I've had. We are trying to work on getting all of our policies in line, I know that while every restaurant can do it, I also know that they don't. So what is the harm in working on it? It is a work in progress, not something that can get changed in one day, one lunch or 3 hours. Enough said...it was a funny day...and worse than that some people have nothing better to do with their lives than to try to make other people misearable. How sad for them that they feel they need to do such things.

The assembly today was rough to say the least. Duck started getting very nauseous, I think it was a mixture of heartburn, heat and greasy breakfast. Poor guy! Sunshine was beside himself, he has actually started sniffing his food which indicates that he thinks I'm hiding medicine, which means that he is sick or getting sick. He has had two breathing treatments tonight so....it seems he needs to go into the doc. Smiley on the other hand has moved from terrible twos to totally terrible three's. His attitude needs to be put into check. He's learning so much and he's so adorable, but I can't let him get away with everything...he'll start walking all over me if that happens. All in all he's a bright young boy.

I'm thinking about asking for a few days off of work. I need to get some things done when Duck is on break. I also need to remember to find out if Sunshine has a skin condition that I can't even spell. If so I'm needing to find him a particular soap.

Okay, well I've got a lot to get done tomorrow, so I need to get off of here and get some rest.

Katy

Kicking myself in the butt.

So Today I was suppose to be at work at 4 and I never heard the alarm go off. I feel awful, I can't believe this happened, I'm so mad at myself. I got up a little after 6:30 and called in first thing praying that someone was reached, mortified at the amount of trouble I'm in. CRAP. I can't believe this. There aren't enough words to say how sorry I am, this is not my character and I can't believe this happened. DARN IT. So I'm picking up one of the managers shifts that came in early today to help cover. I haven't been in yet to see the extent of the damage that I created nor the amount of trouble I'm in. Considering I don't have a running vehicle when Duck takes his to school. I'm beside myself...I laid back down to try to calm my very racing heart back down after I called in this morning and laid there for about an hour before I finally dosed back off. This is not going to be good, but I will accept any dicipline given, I have no other choice, I made the mistake. I'm still really ticked at myself. GRRRRRRR.

Going to be another long week..

So the other day I found out that my theory about why everyone is mad at me is correct. I could really care less, I was doing my job and I'm quite frankly tired of feeling like I have to defend myself. The point was made to me that they felt it wasn't fair since they always joke inapproiately and this was the first time anything was done about it. Okay..he physically touched another employee inapproiately and nearly did it to another who would not have welcomed such an inapporiate gesture. So is this why it's quiet all the time? It is because they don't feel comfortable joking like that around me? HELLO!! This is work, not a bar. And this person made the choice to leave the job which is something that I found out today, it wasn't that he was fired, while I new they quit, I didn't know it was their decision. I am easy to get along with, I just want people to do their job, that's it! I was told today that my performace was appreicated and good, that I should keep it up. That was a boost.

The meeting was great tonight, I can't wait for the special assembly. I have no idea how I'm going to get Sunshine dressed for it, but I've gotta do something, I have to figure this out.

I almost looked up receipes for cat today. I may have no other choice but to build a large cage for Mandy if she doesn't quit peeing. This is getting so old I can't imagine going another couple of days like this. The very next time she will put in the bathroom at night and I don't know where during the day. We may just put a door on the laundry room and put her in there. I'm at a loss....I can't wait until she can go home...I'm sure that she would be happier there. She does come out when the boys are asleep and cuddle with me and let me pet her.

I'm going to bed, I have to be up early.

night,
me.

Productive day..and painful.

I cleaned all the carpets upstairs and the beds and stairs. WOW, that was a lot of work. My shoulder was killing me and popping a ton, we'll see how if feels tomorrow. I'm going to rearrange things tomorrow night if I can move. We also have a meeting tomorrow night since the CO is in town. We have decided to leave the boys in the bunk beds for now, and get them moved to their own room. Since this will be a work in progress and it is cheaper to heat one room than 2 at night we will move our bed temporarily into their room and go from there. We are going to insist they sleep in their own beds, we have even gotten them new cool bed spreads. I will need to pick up one more plastic sheet for Smiley's bed. Since he is still in diapers and doesn't leak it isn't a rush, but I need to try to do it in the next couple of weeks. We are also going to buy everyone in the house new pillows, it's time. I'm going to set up my sewing table in the other room and ban the children from being in there. We will put up a door and a gate at the tops of the stairs. Well I need to get to bed, but find my phone first, it's been missing for 2 days now...how peaceful.

loosing momentum

I've been so tired, so incredibly tired. I took a 4 hour nap today and could've slept all night. Yesterday I posted a wanted for the hooked on phonics system. So someone told me that they saw one at Goodwill the day before and recommend I check there, so we did that today, we got the whole system for $5.99. WOW!! We also picked up two or three suits for Duck and a couple of pants and sport coats. I love deals..now I just have to get them dry cleaned. Sunshine is ready to start reading, I want to get him into it. He can do all his Pre-K and K stuff so the next thing is the to teach him to read. We will then start picking out parts of the bible and giving him assignments for the Watchtower Study so he can speak. We are working on our schedule and getting him set up. I am going to call to see if I can get him into the doc, he needs to be checked I think he may have an ear infection or something, he is acting funny. Well I got a carpet cleaner so I need to get things started tonight so I can go over them again in the morning.

How to get rid of the cat pee smell...

So the cat peed on Sunshine's jacket and of all places...inside the dryer..AHHH. Okay, it's an animal...should be thrilled it is alive, but it's an animal. I racked my brain all day as to what to try and I found some ideas on the net..one mentioned, febreeze. Okay, so I'm thinking that febreeze, vinegar and soap is going to do the trick...guess what it worked so incredibly well. Not a hint of the smell is left and the cat is saying it's prayers.

Well I've gotta be up at the crack of dawn...oh wait, it won't crack dawn until I'm at work for a few hours...anyhow gotta take a shower and go to bed.
Night
Me.

What is we could....

Save 80% on our home energy usage?....and still run the dryer? Would you do it? It's going to take some work, but we are going to give it a try. I could not imagine spending only 20-30 dollars a month for our utility bill. That would save us so much money..better yet if we could run a electric furnace and only pay 50-75 dollar a month and never pay a gas payment again. That would save us about 250 dollar a month during the winter. Wow....what a though. Our monthly electricity bill is down to about 100, just under a month as it is. If it is true and we can build solar panels for $100.00 each, we are looking to put up about35-50 units. It would then only make sense that we would pay for them in about 60 months. Since they will last 25 years, that will be a good return on our investment. The return is about 20,000. That is worth it. Then if 6 windmills can provide about about another 3000 watts per hour, that will allow us to bank what we aren't using for months that we may use more like summer or winter.

Okay, well I've got a lot to get done, I need to get the laundry finished up so we can move the washer and dryer and hopefully we can move the deep freezer...we'll see.

Toodles.

What's good for the garden???

So I did a research part today on what to compost. So I found out that in Britian they pee on their compost piles. Yummy. Can't say that I plan on doing that anytime soon...too public.

So I've worked the past two days, infact the past 4 have been really nice considering. There have been a few minor unhappy points, but overall, it's been good. I'm really happy to see everyone starting to pull together. It's about time we real team work going. Sat was great and today we wonderful as well. I've been so overly happy at how well things have been going.

Anyhow, things are chugging along, not nearly as I'd like but I've gotten a bit of an eye opening thought. What if, and the way the economy has been, it got a bit better and then went so much worse...like the great depression. A sister today made a comment that some analysists are predicting that to happen and happen within the next year. So what can be done? On an individual basis and on a group/global basis?

Well I'm going to try to get the boys up really early to possibly go into FSM.

Toodles.

Me.

Oh happy days....

Okay, so first of all..work...you could cut the tension with a knife. While people are starting to follow one policy it makes me happy to see that it is really starting to work, but there are those who still blame me for what happened. First of all I want to say this: Sexual Harassment is against the law, and it absolutely can't be tolorated in any work enviroment, allowing such horse play and harrassment go on leads to lawsuits frivilious or not. Second..it wasn't my decision to let said individual go, I liked that this person worked, said person seemed to work well, and it was sad that the uppper managment had to take the steps that they did, but said individual left, they weren't terminated. By not reporting this event it would set me up for all kinds of potention trouble. The other manager who didn't report it would have faced the same blame. I did what I was suppose to and I'm again getting cut down for it...how is this right? Horse play has no room in the restaurant period. I want to have fun while I work, I want to have a good time, but I don't want to put my job at jeopardy doing so. It is time for everyone to just move on, do their jobs and either have fun and not make others miserable. I refuse to be miserable at work because of any of this. I'm serious about getting the job done right, but I can have fun doing it. I think that others take me wrong, they seem not to care to get to know me, otherwise things might be different. I so tired of getting critized for things that others do, I won't ask someone to do something that I wouldn't or don't do. I'm not going to be leaving any time soon, I won't be forced into leaving, if others are that unhappy that is very unfortunate. I want everyone to be happy at work, what else can I do?

We got new phones, I'm really happy with the phones but not so sure about the plan. I'm nervous signing contracts but the plans seems like it is going to fit. All in all, I think it is going to work out fine for us. We dropped the home phone to practically nothing and the cells will have 550 plus our extra.

Tomorrow I'm going to enjoy the day off with the boys. I'm going to have a good time getting their bedrooms ready for remodel and getting things moved around. I want to make sure that I get all the windows taken care of as well. We've pretty much given upon the idea of the wood stove, we were misled into thinking this would work with our current system, although I kept saying mixing gas fumes and potention fire particles doesn't make much sense.

Well I need to scoot, computer is about to die and I want to get a head start.

Thanks to everyone who did a good job today and who tried to do a good job. I notice things, even when I don't say anything...I notice.

K

Call out the dogs....

And light the fires, change is in the air. It's time to make a difference in life.

The past two days have been interesting. I've been in an unbelieveable amount of pain, tonight I'm pretty sure that I've taken care of most of it, I relocated my shoulder. I simply finally found the spot and pushed. It was releiving, I still have minor pain but feel better.

BOB

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixMvFdeo-F0&feature=related

Got about 3 min? Check out this video on youTube...I LOVE IT. It lists the book of the bible in order to a song. I even went to this guys website and he has so many more. www.bigsbyshow.com

Just thought I'd share it.


Me.

Another day.

I had to be at work at 4 am this morning. Then I answer the phone, the opener in the kitchen called off. Okay, so for most this isn't a big deal, but let's face it, I've only opened kitchen once, and I still have a bum shoulder. This was not going to be fun. I did as much as I could and we got the store opened on time. I had to leave at nine as much as I didn't want to, I had to. Duck had to go to school. I had my final bible study today, now it is up to me to make the adjustments to continue to study. I've started reading one of th books I got from Sister T. Smiley really seemed to like it he sat there while I read an entire chapter, Sunshine joined in through the middle of the chapter.

Later we went to pick up my check. I was happy with it, I had a LOT of hours on it. I had to cash it today at the local store since the banks were closed. We then went into town and picked up a few things. I now need to go up and fold the clothes. I'm trying to get them all put away so I can get them completely purged and see what the boys have and don't have for winter.

Boy it's cold in here, it was 65 when I got home this morning, but it feels colder than that now, I may have to turn on the heater.

Night.
Me.

How do you...

teach an old dog new tricks? Work was yet again rough. We need so people who know what they are doing, and are willing to do the job that they are bing paid to do with very little to no lip. I will be looking into policies to see what I need to brush up on myself. There are some things that I've been taught how to do the wrong way.

Smiley is sick, he's running a fever again. I will need to call the nurse tomorro and see what they want to do about it. This isn't a huge concern yet, but I found out that he has been exposed to three people who have had and recovered from h1n1. I'm not going to freak out about this, I must protect Sunshine though. He is unable to take any of the flu meds as they either aren't for people with breathing problems or they are penicillin dirivatives. (not sure if I spelled that correctly)

I'm really tired today and if my arm isn't any better by Friday I will see if I can get into the doc myself. I wonder if I've torn my shoulder. The pain isn't always intense, but it isn't going away.

Well I need to go, I want to I want to wash a couple loads of laundry tonight so I can hang it out first thing in the morning.

Toodles.

Wild day..

I was hoping to get off ealy so I could go to the get together tonight. I got a phone call at 9:15ish and it was S asking me to come in early so I could leave early. SURE THING. Even if I had to wear damp clothes, which I did, it would have made a wonderful day. It was busy today, so busy, but for the most part good. A few try to spoil a good day, but I won't let it spoil mine. After work I had so much fun, we got smores and hung out with friends. I think I've found a couple to take the boys when we need a couple of hours to get some things done.

I need to get going, I want to get a few things done before bed.

Toodles...

Crappy day...

I feel like my shoulder is dislocated. It hurts, not as bad as it did last night, but it still aches. The rice pad worked really well, it feels better with rest. I have to work tomorrow and certainly hope that it is more fun that it was today. I certainly wish that I could drop a few packages of midol in the stores water supply. Some days the employees are more rude than the customers. And for the record, I don't want anyone's job, if I did, they'd know it. I'm happy in my current position and I don't intending on making this job a life long adventure. I'm happy that right now I'm getting as many hours as I'd like and happy that I can get the days off that I really need.

Gotta run!

Toodles.

Odd day.

Today seemed to be an odd day. Work was odd, people are cranky, but I'm sure they will get over it. Came home, got the boys ready, Sunshine didn't fight as much as he usually does and at the meeting they wouldn't stop talking, so we went to the back room. After the meeting we stopped for our treat at work and our order was so messed it it wasn't even funny. I had to end up going back in to get a partial refund since we were overcharged and still didn't get the food we were even rang up for. Hum... When we came home we hung out as a family and now I'm cleaning and Duck is doing homework.

On another note the tv ran for 3 days without interruption soley on the power provided by the sun and wind. It is obvious that we need more batteries and need to set the windmill up on a pully system. The solar panel isn't producing as much as I'd like to see, but we have to reset it as well. MJ had it set to power his batteries a different way, since we use the box with it, it needs a blocking diode which will stop the drain on the batteries when there is no sun. We are also working on the solar heaters, I hope that we can get those done soon. I still didn't get the carpet cleaner, I want the wide one and I'm willing to wait.

This is the plans for the next week.

Get the dryer reverted
Get the water system hooked back up
Get the rain barrels delivered
Get the plastic up on the windows
Get the curtains put up.
Get garden pulled and tilled
Get the wood to the basement and the heater
Get JM solar heater built.
Get the wood cut for the beds
Get the carpets cleaned.

Okay well that's a lot for one week, so here goes. I'd like to at least get 1/2 of it done.

Toodles.

a lot done today.

I finished going through the clothes for the most part upstairs. Gave 2.5 bags away to a lady for her son today. I am going through all of our shoes and purging. We need to get the beds taken care of so we can get the boys in them. I've washed and folded all Smiley's new clothes and will put them away. I have a couple loads on my bed to fold and put away tonight. Tomorrow we will get the carpet cleaner and clean the beds, floors, stairs, truck and then the floors again. I wish that we could wait until the last Thur as the local store is closed and usually they let me rent it for free for the second day. All in all....it was a productive day. I need to go through the boys toys and get them purged as well. I think I may try to do it with the boys. I will give them a box and let them pick what they want, then I'll go through them again without them. They have far too many toys and quite frankly, they only really play with the ones downstairs.

Well gotta hop to, I have work tomorrow and want to get this stuff done.

Toodles...
Me.

Drama, drama, drama...

We are never in short of McDrama. I just love to hear the rumors that float around that aren't true. If people can't say tell the truth....they need to keep their mouth shut. All in all while I dropped the ball at the beginning, I learned a very important lesson today, two actually. One is to act quicker and don't forget to ask the questions that no one else is asking. All in all, what go handled must be handled.

Tomorrow I plan on finishing up the laundry, finish changing out the clothes for winter and get the rooms moved around.

I also want to get the wood moved and the heater put in the basement. We want to cut about 30 - 50 cords of wood next summer. That is an obscene amount of wood that will take about 3 or 4 years to season. This should help us a bunch, and we will only need to cut about 5 cords a year to get what we need.

Anyhow, I need to fold some clothes and get ready for tomorrow.

Me.

I'm just trying to see if that worked, that is my Sunshine. He's bigger now, but still looks the same.

I made out a menu for this month. This will hopefully help us eat the food we have and spend less money on eating out. This is in prep to losing and income that helps a lot. Yesterday we spent $15.90 eating out.

Today I've found were the stupid fleas are coming from....time to eliminate the problem. I'm going to steam clean the carpets on Wed, today and tomorrow I'll pepper the area and vacuum a few times. I found out some really gross stats on fleas. They can live for sever weeks or a few months. everday a female flea can lay 50-60 and between 500-600 roughly in her lifetime. They hatch within a week or two depending upon conditions they are in. In my cleaning rage today I found 3 bags of clothes to pass on to others, two to a lady at work and one to a single mom who asked. I also found another bag of clothes for my baby. He's got far too many clothes and I need to make sure I'm pulling out the ones that don't fit. I have been working on laundry and hope to have it all done and put away by Wed. This way we can see what we have and what we need to get rid of. For a family of 4 to have this many clothes is crazy and selfish. Okay gotta run, I need to get some wood cutting done and get some wood done.

Toodles

Eating out costs: 15.90
Grocery costs:$0

Full day...

This morning, we went to the meeting, my husband shaved most of his beard off and looked so nice in his suit. I was so impressed. Then during the meeting, the boys had had enough so we went back to the other room to listen and Sunshine had to go potty. While in there we heard my husband, who has NEVER commented comment. I was so proud. I'm sure that I don't tell him enough how much I appreciate him but I do. I left work early, labor was high and we were dead...so time for me to go. I get home and we are going to work on the house, and hang out. We just got back in from playing outside and surveying the work that needs to be done. Duck was throwing the ball to Sunshine and he was hitting it with the bat, he was doing really well. Well gotta get to it, I want to get some things done before I go to bed tonight which hopefully is earlier than later.

I must remember to get a salad ready for dinner tomorrow, we are going to friends. This is going to be cool!.

Katy

Have you ever????

Had one of those days that is okay? When you have to go to work when you'd rather be home playing with the kids, but you at least try to make the best out of it? That's how my day started. I still work with people who can't follow simple procedures, come on folks, it isn't that hard. And no, every single procedure isn't followed so saying you are going to do it when so and so does it is redicilus. Why not start the chain? Why not set the good example? Why not do what you are suppose to do? Anyhow, I didn't let any of that bother me today, I just consider the mentality of those who refuse.

Then I come home, Duck isn't ready to go to the meeting and the baby is asleep, I decide to take Sunshine and I have to FIGHT with him to get him into the building. This is something that is very important that he starts making part of his routine. Then we sit down and BK says, "Welcome friends!" And then of course Sunshine says something. Instead of his usual, hi or cute saying (being a retorical statement there is never a need to comment) he, boos. And just incase no one heard it the first time, he did it again. I was mortified, humiliated beyond all belief. I got up, grabbed his arm and we went to correct his attitude. I could not believe that he did that. I was sitting there trying to figure out where that came from, where he picked it up as he had never done it before. I later took him back to the bathroom and we sat in a rest area part and discussed why it wasn't okay to do that. That he really had to say he was sorry, it is really mean to do that and he hurt BK's feelings and mommys too. After the meeting was over I made him go up to BK and say he was sorry he was almost in tears and I was already in tears. It is hard to admit when you are wrong and say your sorry, worse yet when you child is wrong it not only makes you feel guilty but makes you feel helpless since you know or may not know that this is something you child has picked up from you. All in all it was rough! So then I went to the local store and picked up a few things like diapers and such and we ran into a sister who didn't hear him, I'm praying that is the case with most but that horrible dead silence moment would lead one to believe that the whole 50 or so of us heard it. And then we ran into a guy that I recently worked with.

This has been a really taxing day, I'm spent!

Night,
Me.

An interesting day at work...yesterday

Since I've been back from class and we've had the inspection that we passed, I've been really trying to keep everyone in the same mind set that following the rules and doing their job is important. It's really sad when I can't get a employee who has worked there for quite some time who is a adult to do what I ask them to do. Heck, I got a teenager to do it, why can't they? I can only ask people to do the right thing when I'm there, I can't control how others do things when they are there. Is it my fault that they don't look at the job the same way. It really makes me wonder with some of these people, the short cuts they take at work where they are paid to do the things that they are "suppose" to be doing and aren't, how do the treat the rest of the world, their family and their home??? I'm not asking them to do more then they should already be doing, it's their job. It's fast food, not rocket science. I did have the pleasure last night to let two of the employees who actually did a really good job know it, and everyone else. If someone doesn't want to do the job they are paid to do, then perhaps it is time to find a new job, if your that unhappy, why would you stay? I hope that I can apply some of the things that I learned at school to boost moral and get people wanting to do their job right. Why do we feel the need to always have to do it only when we get shopped? We are suppose to be having another insp in less than 60 days.

We had a good bible study today, we visited with a lady who's been a Witness for years who has an autistic son and a daughter with ASP. She was able to give me a bunch of ideas to try with Sunshine. I look forward to getting him into service next Spring.

I need to get up and fold some laundry, I've been doing my best to keep up on it while I'm gone.

Toodles...

Today's treat

Today I treated myself to a Mocha! Yup, eight shots of chocolate instead of 4 in a 22 oz glass full of ice....yummy! So much better than reg coffee it is unreal! It gave me the boost that I needed at 2 pm today and I'm just now coming down. I also made some tea today which was really good. I even made chili with too much meat, it was a bit too much, usually I put 1-2 pound in and this time I cooked 3 pounds at once and forgot to pull some out. So, I made it all into the chili. Tomorrow I will make potato soup as well. Soup is so easy to serve especially the ability to serve a fast meal with a quick sandwich if necessary. I also used my own tomatoes in this one. Smiley took a 3 hour nap...wow! I was able to get a ton of laundry out on the line, infact, I washed all the bedsheets, and blankets and got all on the line, now if I can just get up before it rains and pull them off, I'm going to check the weather tonight and if it is going to rain overnight, we'll pull them off before we go to bed. Tomorrow I'm going to finish the kitchen and clothes hopefully. I need to get the clothes purged, we have too many and we know to many people who need them.

We've also decided how to paint the boys room, we are going to use three colors, a teal, soft blue and a yellow. The yellow will be in their cubby holes, blue and green will be on opposite walls with a double yellow stripe around the top. We'll put a double or thick single blue stripe around the top of one yellow cubby and the same the other except the teal. Then we are going to buy the peal and stick stickers in their favorite characters and put them up on separate walls.

I'm really trying to remember the name of that movie we watched that was so sad and then happy in the end. The Deep End of the Ocean....if you've never seen it...grab a box of clean next and shut the ringer off on the phone. It will make you cry your eyes out if your a parent and remind us how scary it is to turn your head for a few moments.

I want to learn how to make skirts, I have a couple ppl at work who want some and I need to make some warm ones for this winter. I also need to remember to request Dec the 6th off at work so I can go to the the special assembly in Indy. We also need to get down to Evv to see AS and GG.

Okay I need to look a couple of things up before bed and I want to fold some laundry and put it away up stairs.

Night!
Katy

I'm exhausted.

I have NO idea what is going on. I've been sleeping for nearly 2 days. I can't seem to stay awake. Now I feel sickly. This isn't cool! I think it could be in part becuase of the lack of caffine. I stopped drinking pop again, in efforts to reduce the water retention. So I finally made me some tea, but it may be a bit too late for today. I also want to start excersing regularly again. I felt better and had more energy. We are going to start a strict schedule with the kids, this should help on so many levels.

Tonight we are having potatoes and beans for dinner, yup starchy here I come! I need to make some chili again, we are out, this time I'm going to cook it before I can it.

Last night Sunshine went all night without wetting and he woke up and went straight down and went potty! Score one for him! Smiley successfully spilled 3 drinks in less than 5 minutes. It was not fun. Today we did lay more bricks on the drive way. I also got to take out some compost stuff. We are going to pull all the garden tomorrow and pull all the ac units out so we can put up the solar heaters and window plastic.

Gotta go mash potatoes.

Me.

What is leadership?

What does it mean to you?

I'm not totally sure what it means to me.

After attending class I have to figure out how to be a positive leader and still have fun but provide quality service. This will take some evaluation.

The garden plot

I now have my garden plot idea set.

I will start off with 14 tomatoes and one cherry 3 rows of 5
(six in a row will not work, it sufficated.)

Then I will do rows of peppers: 2 x 6, 2-red, 2-orange, 2-yellow, 1-green, 2-merlot, 1-chili jalepeno, 2-pepper chinnies

The next three rows will be mostly green bean. 2 rows of 6 and the third will have
3, on the last three we will put kidney beans, and a full row of 6 of kidney behind that.

Next will be 1 row of lettuce, 3-romaine and 3-head

One row of 6 spinach

One row of 5 cucumbers

The next 3 rows will be broccoli and cauliflower, first will be 4-cauliflower, then two broccoli. The next two rows will be broccoli at 6 per rows.

Cabbage will be the final row of 5 since they have to be put further apart.

Corn will be put on the other side of the garage 120 seeds
Pumpkins will be put ONLY ONE PLANT THIS TIME, off to the side.
Two bags of potatoes
4 loofah plants
1 grape
15 sunflowers.

That should do it. I will replace the spring crops with more beans and tomoatoes as they die off. Shucks, I forgot zuchinni and squash, I need to root them in somewhere. For now I think I should pull two lettuce and two zuchinni. I'm also going try some melons outside the garden.

No carrots or peas this time, they are a waste of time for the space that I have available.

My strawberry plants look like they may do something more than one next year.

Going to class.

While I really never thought that this would happen I'm anxious to go and get it over with. We have many friends who will be driving by the house and a neighbor who will be looking after things. I'm more worried about Manders being in the house alone for that long, but she might like the peace and kick back and relax on the couch without being hasseled by two children. I'm looking for a meeting so we won't miss one. Today we got up really late, I think that it has something to do with the rain, it was so peaceful to listen to it.

Sunshine has been asking about school since Duck is going, we are casually working with him, but we are setting up a strict regiment. For the next 28 weeks starting on the 19th, we are going to 6 day a week school. I'm going to sit down with Duck later and we are going to taking about the way we are going to work this out.

Gotta get running, I have some things to get done.

Me.

Not as productive today.

It was kinda a blah day, I'm really tired and I don't really know why. I didn't get as much done today as I would have liked, but I did get some. I canned 13 quarts of veggie soup In one I tried to put rice in it just to see how it would taste. I put three teaspoons in with one cup of mix and the rest juice, maybe next time I should only put in one teaspoon. Then I made a huge pot of potatoe soup, we have been enjoying the new receipe, tweeking it a bit. This time it is very spice hot. It was really good! I also cleaned out the deep freezer, I don't think I was very happy doing it. There were so many times where, just for a short bit of time, the boys had opened the freezer door and it had partially defrosted. Apparently the popsickles had defrosted and it all fell to the bottom. I had spent at least 30 minutes in the bottom with a hair dryer. It wasn't pretty!. I threw away a bunch of food. And I found that I probably have enough meat to last us until the end of the year. This is very good news for us, this means that I can focus on the veggies that we need, I'm going to start stocking up on frozen vegtables. I will be working on uniforms tonight as well as garden plot and schedules.

Night!
Katy

productive two days...

after work yesterday I didn't do the right thing. I feel asleep for about 30 min on the couch and woke up too late to drive to the afternoon meeting. So we started cleaning, I scoured one side of the kitchen and we ran into town to buy a new part for the dishwasher. It didn't work...surprise surprise. We put in this new expensive faucet, that was given to us, which don't get me wrong, we are very greatful, it is awsome, but you can't use a portable dishwasher with it. So the solution....we hook it up to the bathroom sink. Okay, so it's kooky, but hey it is working! This winter as we do every winter we will seal the back door up and keep the dishwasher back there. I'm going to be caulking all the window seals and trying to learn how to using my sewing machine. I've gotten quite a few of my 45 to do list things done, I still have quite a few, but I will work on them. Duck had to go back to school to see about getting into a lab tonight. This has been a touch semester, I thought it was going to be better, but it infact has been so much worse. I'm going to go get some soup started so that I can can it tomorrow after service. I'm also going to make some potatoe soup and take some to Sister Mil.

We used our broken new chainsaw that isn't broken, the owner just never put chain oil in it apparently. It works so good, I'm SOOOOOO happy. We cut up so much wood so far we have about 2 ricks, I figure we will go through a rick every week or every week and a half. Using that info, I think that we should have about 20-25 ricks of wood ready for this winter. We will also cut extra to sell next year. This should help supliment any income that we don't have. I bet we have another 4 or 5 ricks here to cut, and another 3-5 down the street to pick up. This is going to be a wonderful start! This means that we will only have to cut about 10 ricks which is about 4 or 5 trips to our friends. Then it will be back out early spring.

I'm also really starting to work on plans for my garden next year. I found out that the cups from work that have the dome lid will make perfect for incubators, I will start bringing them home when I use one. I felt terrible, I told B to call me if she needed me and never heard the phone ring, I feel like jerk. I'm so sorry, I feel bad, it has been rough all week, and I was hoping to make it easier for her and I failed her.

Today we hooked up a solar panel, it will be interesting, it should really starting helping our battery back up really well, and hopefully we can run the tv and dvd player off of it 3 or 4 days week, if not more. This will help us reduce the amount of power we use, which would be cool, we are really trying to get our electricity bill down below 100 a month. In fact I'm looking at how to tips on how to reduce the energy you use and I ran across this tip, which doesn't make sense...

Consider setting your water heater temperature at 120 degrees. Take short showers instead of baths. You can use 15 to 25 gallons of hot water for a bath. Showers use 3 to 5 gallons per minute.

Using the median of this theory, lets say the shower uses 4 gallons of water a minute...how long does it take for you to take a shower? Now, I know that most would consider me a freak, but I can literally take a shower from water on to water off in about 3 minutes if I hurry, longer if I'm taking my time and the kids aren't beating the door down. Now, I know for fact that my shower head only uses 2.5 gallons since we have a special one that is energy efficient. Okay..but back to the point, if I took a 3 minute shower at 4 gallons, that would be 12 gallons, good job, but let's face the fact, most people take at least a 5 minute shower if not 10. So at 5 minutes you will be using 20 gallons of water, at 10 you will be using 40. WOW, that's a lot more than 15-25, even if they only used 3 gallons, that's 30 gallons of water. Okay, enough with this pshychotic rant.

We are going to be setting up a new water system in the basement for the gray water system. Thanks to the rain barrels that we found for 5 dollars each, we will need to go get a few more before winter hits, I want two for rain, Duck wants one in the garage, one for the gray water system, one for Sister H and one for Sister W. This will be interesting, this winter we will put a water system in for the dogs that will hopefully allow them to have fresh nonfrozen drinking water. We'll see how this works out. In the mean time while building all the solar heaters, we need one for Sister M and 4 for us including the one for the dogs. At night we will just use the heavy drapes that I make., this way we can use the light during the day to light the house for free and let the natural solar heat in.

We also need to start the insulating project in the basement, never enough hours in the day or days in the week. We need to block off he crawl space after we insulate the floors above the crawl space, this will hopefully keep the bathroom, hallway and laundry room floors warmer. Since we don't heat those areas because the crawl space will be blocked off and it seems to waste more heat then receive we think it will help to wrap the heat pips and insulate not only the floor but to seal it off with insulation board. We are also going to put up plastic over the escape in the basement and plastic the window down there. I'm going to go ahead and plastic the boys bedroom windows upstairs and hang the new curtains and then hallway. I also want to make a door draft buster thingy, I need to find patter on them. I did find a pattern on sungglies or how every you spell it, I'm going to try to make one for each of us, and we are going to look into buying sleeping bags for our beds during the really warm night since we kick the heat down at night real low.

Duke energy which is where I also rec'd the info above on the water says:
Lower your thermostat temperature to the lowest temperature that is comfortable to your family. You may save as much as 3 percent on your energy bill for each degree you lower your thermostat. Reduce your thermostat setting at night and/or when you are away. A 10-degree setback for eight hours each day could save up to 9 percent.

We cut our from 70 to 64 at night, and to 54, which is the lowest setting it will allow us to use. Now, I'm sure your thinking that's cruel to make the kids sleep in a really cold house, keep in mind that we have a child save heater in their bedroom, have the upstairs rooms blocked off so the heaters will only heat the upstairs to 70 at night, we also make the boys wear warm pjs and give them twice as many blankets as we use and in most cases wake up in the middle of the night with all of us in the same bed.

Okay, I'm going to go for now, I feel like I'm rambling and I'm really really really tired.

Toodles....

Sick...death

I'd been sick for the last 2.5 days, it was the oddest thing. And for the record, no I'm not pregnant. I had a stomach thing, I felt like I was going to get sick for the whole time, slept a lot, had no energy and ached. It was horrible. I'm finally starting to feel better, but I'm not 100%.
I've not been able to keep track of our food costs. Basically when we eat at home we are using between 10-15 dollars a day, that is a bit higher than I'd like, but much lower than most.

Yesterday I was due into work at 11 am, I was off to run an errand at 9:30 when I made a gruesome discovery. The dogs hadn't been seen all day so I thought I'd drive back there on my way out. Max and Buddy were cuddled up next to eachother or so it appeared. I then saw Max try to lift his head and saw the chair wrapped around his throat. I then looked at buddy and saw the blood everywhere. I was horrified. I drove quickly back up to the house and ran in to have Duck run out and help me. I could see that Buddy was seriously injured and thought he was dead. Duck and I ran outside to discover that somehow from the time that he fed them last night and we went to be, Max and Buddy somehow got tangled up in Buddy's chain. Since Buddy had not yet been nuetered, we felt it was responsible to chain him up. I had just called about getting him into the vet and got the pricing on it to take him this month. Anyhow, it showed that there was a struggle between he and Max, apparently them trying to get apart and it obviously ended up that Buddy strangled somehow by the chain and Max was just nearly saved. Our hearts are broke at this freak accident, that poor puppy, he was such a good dog, this was truly a sad day.

WOW>

When I checked the USGS website, I found out that there has been 211 earthquakes in the past week. Check it out, it's amazing and scary at the same time. I'm going to do some research from the bible and hopefully post the part I'm looking for later.

The conversation...

Yesterday I had a conversation with a mother of 3. We were discussing finances and the lack of money. I decided while I was making lunch today that it would be a good idea if we started writing down all of our money being spent, this way we see where our money is going and why I have to work!
So on my blog I'll keep a food log of our daily food and the estimated costs. I'll use a montly cost of items such as salt, pepper, ketchup and mustard. When I do things like Kool-aid and tea I'll add in the cost sugar and water. Why water you ask? Well I use it to make the stuff, but on the flip side our water is higher than I've ever seen in my life! So adding it is would be the same if I bought water at the store, but a bit cheaper. Since I won't be able to keep up on here daily, I'll keep a journal on paper and ask Duck to help me with this. So...here goes. Side note....I won't be keeping track of my free meal at work, that would not be fair since I don't spend money on it, but when we eat out I'll keep track of that money.

Lunch: (since we got up late this was our breakfast)
Smiley had a package of peanuts from McDonald's, I always ask for one when I get a Sundae becuase he likes to eat them solo.

Duck took 2 mini snickers: $.21
Andes Candies $.75
5 chicken nuggets: $.41
1 box of broccoli augratin rice $1.00 (I don't put in the butter so I don't add for that)
1 pitcher of kool-aid with about 1 cup sugar $.51
1 cup apple sauce $.31

So lunch cost roughly $2.23 and fed only 3 of us. This is good, but that is going to be over $200.00 a month eating this cheap but adding the $.96 a month daily for candy is going to have to stop. We'll see what happens. I think 1.5 jars of canned veggie soup will run us about 2.48 plus the time it took to can it.

We are also going to be looking at our energy usage, while the next few days are going to be high, we are trying to get it much lower.

Our afternoon eating was horrible

McDonald's was 10.04
snacks 1.07

Dinner was
chick nuggets $.84
apple sauce $.31
Dirty Rice $.84
Mac and Cheese with sausage $1.83
Can of veggies $.53

Wow, if we don't eat anything else that is going to cost us 17.79. That's HORRIBLE. We must do better. 17.79 a day for a month is 533.70

Okay I need to read the meter, I worked on the house today, should have done more. I will work some more tonight, I will have company on Wed, so I'd like the house to look really nice. Duck also has to work on his homework.

Katy

Have you ever seen the movie

I Am Legend?

It is a bit creepy and I won't spoil it for you, it is about a scientist who works for the US military is some fashion. A woman who is a researcher created a new drug that we suppose to cure cancer 100%. It ended up mutating humans into blood thirsty zombies of sorts. Okay, certainly not my typical movie since I can't stand zombies, but my point is...have you heard about the new HIV vaccine? I just checked out cnn.com and saw the article. I didn't get into it as I don't have the time to sit and ponder it and research it but the way things are going it looks like we are going to need a scientist to help cure us from our cures. In some cases I think that some of these doctors, while having good intentions, they could be causing more damage then good, not that I expect to see zombies wandering around.

Well on that note, I need to get ready for bible study we are going over our skit today that we will do tonight at the meeting. I am so excited to be part of the school, now I need to find more time to clean like I should both here and at the hall. The new dish washer here will certainly help lots. It doesn't work as well as my first one, but it works, that is all that matters.

Toodles...have a great day!

Life Changing day!

First we will start with Riley: The doc said that he does not have Epilepcy now, this is something that could change in the future (how ever you spell that). Okay so that's the good news. The MRI came back normal...another sign of good news. The EEG came back abnormal. It showed signs of slowing brainwaves at times. While these weren't enough to consider them seizures, they were enough to consider them abnormal. If he has more visibile or more intense silent seizures we will have to do a sleep study and a 24 hr. EEG. We are waiting on his blood test results, I will have to dig in and do a bunch of follow up, this is important at this point. Critically so. If he is dumping too many proteins in his blood to, we will have to speak with a kidney doc and a dietician. Sunshine will have to change his diet and we will have to monitor more closly what he eats. By the way..stupid fact of the day. Did you know that 5 gummy worms have 3 grams of protein in them. Good thing to know if you are ever lost in the woods for an extended amount of time and only have gummy worms to eat. I'm very happy with the help that Dr. S gave us. While we are back to square one, we know that it isn't necessarily his brain causing the problem. We are going back to diet now. We need to see what we can do. I guess it is time to look up diet and autism.

THen we went to Duck's aunt house. Everytime we are there she keeps telling me we should apply for disability for him. Why? Why is it any of your business? I can understand the first or maybe the second time, but I don't need her doing research for me telling me that I quality when I've been told by other not to waste my time, he doesn't. We don't need it anyway. While we struggle a bit when we make bad decisions, Jah takes care of us. He provides everything we need and when we seem to need a bit more he shows us how to make it. Them more money you have the more problems you have PERIOD. Granted I say that and I asked for more money at work, only because when Duck looses his unemployment we will not make enough to pay our basic montly bills. I'm only asking enough to pay my bills, everything else we will have to worry about then. Which is another reason as to why my pantry is stocked and my freezers are overflowing...literally.

We then met up with my very prego friend K who gave 3 of us hair cuts. It has been two years, she said I had a lot of breakages, but I needed to switch shampoo and conditionars every three days. Like use Suave (which has a high alcohol content) for two days and then use a better one the 3rd day. This would help, I'm going to look into this too! We had fun we first met up for lunch and then we to the salon. Sunshine didn't freak out as much as he usually does. Of course he wasn't asked to sit in the chair either. It was so nice to see her. When she has the baby I'm going to go up and see her. She did the same for me, she was one of the only ones who visited me in the hospital when I had Sunshine. Even my best friend at the time didn't come up. K has really been a good friend over the years.

Then we met up with JM, it was so much fun, I haven't seen her in 18 months. She bought us dinner and we sat at Pizza Hut for about 2 hours talking. I got to give her a wonderful witness, she asked questions and I had the pleasure of answering. It was truly moving! I love her to death, she has always been there for me through thick and thin. She is a wonderful and amazing woman.

Then we decided to meet up with my mother. We called Aunt S for the number since I forgot to write it down and quite frankly I thought we'd be leaving town well before then. So we met up with them at McDonald's she looks terrible, sounds terrible. I'm really happy she could see her grandchildren. She has osteoperious (again spelling), diabetes, emphazema and a slue of other problems. It was heart breaking to see. She kept prying as to where we lived and such. We gave a little as possible, being protective we feel at this point we must error on the side of caution.

Today when Duck gets home I'm going out to buy a big bottle of Calicum vitamins and some chewables for myself and the kids. I just can't swallow adult vitamins. We ahve to start eating better and exercising, I want to live past 55.

Well I need to get started on house work. I've got a lot of laundry to catch up and some dishes to do. I need to get things done and hopefull can some veggie soup.

Gotta scoot.

Stranger things have happened.

So after Duck got home in from his bible study with TL, we were of to the hardware to buy a new dish washer. Right before we were walking out the door I checked FC and sure enough there was a lady who was offereing one that was less than a year old. I sent her a message and left a phone number. On the way into town she called. I now have a new used dishwasher and a new microwave stand.

We'll see how it works out!

Night, off to Riley tomorrow.

Katy

Busy day...

Yesterday I didn't work as long as I was scheduled, I have also asked to be off by 7 pm. I'm always sent home early anyway, and they know I'll stay later if I need to. I ended up having to come in and work the early opening shift since R wasn't going to be there and B called off too. On top of that A couldn't be there so Ag covered for her. I opened with an inexperienced opener and learned that I need to learn more in the kitchen. This was after the fact that I couldn't get the safe since I didn't have the combo. I ended up calling S at 4:30, but I didn't realize that I should've called her home, my mistake I should have looked at the wall. Then at a few minutes before 5 I called L, no answer and finally had to call J, I felt bad but I had to wake her up. She gave me the number and it was a complex combo, I've never seen anything like it even working at the bank. I was a fun morning, I even had a minor fight with the muffin toaster, I couldn't remember how to get it hooked up right. The maintenance guy couldn't even get it, we were stumped. Then he finally got one pc in and we couldn't get it out. GRRRR. I watched him for a few mintues trying to get it out and then I started to get fustrated and said, "It's my turn and IT'S COMING OUT!" It ended up only taking me about 5 sec to get it out, when it get locked in, it has to be lifted out, not pulled. It was funny after all, we then figured it out. He actually had it in right, we just weren't looking at the bigger pic. I know now how to get it done! So that is two new things that I've done.

I want to get the cleaning done today and get some things canned. I also have to get some studying done and I want to work on the blanket that I wanted to finish two years ago. We are going to go look at a new dishwasher. I need one bad, I'm wasting more energy do dishes and far more water. I could also be cleaning something else while that is running which would save me more time and personal energy!

Well I need to go get some alcohol to rub on my arm it itches really bad and the poison ivy is showing it's ugly face again.

Me.

A couple of days.

It has been a couple of days, but that's how it goes. I've been working hard trying to keep the few hours at work I got this week and trying to hang out with the family. Duck is back in the swing of staying up till 3, this doesn't work when he needs to be getting up around 7 or 8. He still isn't in the swing of his new school schedule yet either. This semester is proving to be rough already. I think we need to sit down a make a week to week plan to get thing moving in the right direction. We go back to Riley on Tue. I'm really looking forward to the results. I know that sometimes I'm not exactly happy with results that I get from there, and that some people plan don't like Riley, but I wouldn't trust any other hospital like I do Riley. I've learned that as a parent you must not stop asking questions until you understand. No matter how irriatated someone may be, it is our jobs to ask questions and make sure that we can care for our children after we leave.

I think I'm going to take a quick nap before I leave for the meeting. It would be nice to be able to wake up and do my lesson. Right now I can't keep my eyes open.

Katy

Wow 3 posts in one day..

Ya'll must think the only thing that I do is sit on the computer and type. It has just been a long day. I've actually got a lot accomplished. I picked up my paycheck that was nearly 10 hours short. OUCH. I was hoping it was more, but darn it! My next one will be about 18 hours short. This is going to be interesting. Within the next month we have to pay 3 mortgage payment and buy a new flue liner. I'm sure that we can do it as long as the UE holds out. My husband was required to create a letter of appreciation to someone, they said it could be the George Washington or anyone, he decided to write it to me. It was so touching that I nearly cried. Sunshine is being impossible tonight, he is about ready to be sent to bed alone. Anyhow, the successful day, sorry my mind is being pulled in a million directions. We picked up a exercise thingy from someone today on FC. It wasn't what I thought but looks like fun to do. One the way home we went to WT and picked up rain barrels that we found for $5.00 each. They were horribly dirty with the corn syrup that was originally put in them. We tried to wash them at the local car wash but it didn't work. I'm going to have to bleach them and wash them out as good as I can. It will take hours, but might be worth it. We are going to use one for the gray water system in the basement, 3 for rain barrels to water the garden, one is for EW and the other we are going to experiment with hydrogen on the other one.

Tonight when we finally got home, unloaded and returned the trailer I canned 14 qrts of bean soup. The first 7 turned out mushy which is my fav and the second 7 turned out okay. We'll have to see how they taste, the last batch I used 15 kinds of beans with extra pinto, kidney, navy and great northern and a bit of ham. This time I added in some carrots and bacon. I'm interested in trying it out in the next couple of days. We were both dying for potatoe soup so I made some. I used fresh diced red potatoes, crushed red peppers, minced garlic, minced onions, skin-less smoked sausage, creme and a bit of butter. It was so yummy we both had seconds and Smiley had 3rds. Tomorrow after I take Sunshine for his blood work, I will do the veggie soup and let Duck finish it while I'm at work.

Well I should head off to bed, this has taken me about an hour to write since we are watching a movie.

Me.

Something very sad...

In works of building my own non-for-profit I've decided to collect current news articles showing the growing need to feed the hungry. Granted, the US doesn't have the "most" hungry people, but I'm small, this is local and I have to start somewhere right?

Here's an article that nearly made me cry. The most stunning comments were about the fact that we (as the world) can produce enough food to feed the world, yet there is still over a billion starving and too many to count dying from hunger, men, women and children, helpless. I was asked today how this was going to affect my lifestyle, my goals and such. Honestly...right now I don't have the time that I need to do too much with this, but I'm going to take the winter to work diligently on this and experiment with ideas to help thoes who are hungry. Anyhow, my number 1 goal is to serve Jehovah and Jesus Christ, in doing this my family of course is second as called out for in the Bible.

Okay...so here it is:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090916/sc_livescience/thescienceofhungerwhat1billionpeoplefeel

I encourage everyone to read this article. You will have to copy/paste it.

Toodles.

The call...

Yesterday I rec'd a voicemail from the lab at Riley. I returned the call late knowing that they'd have to call me back. Well this morning they called, Sunshine's genetics test showed an unusually high level of amino acids and they now need a blood test to confirm and test further. Yipee. This is NOT going to be fun at all. I'll take him to the local hospital tonight to get it done. I may have to wait until tomorrow morning depending upon when we get back. I spoke with Dr. S's nurse L yesterday, they finally took into consideration that he won't take a liquid med and called in a pill seroid for him. At this point the poison ivy is clearing up. I guess I'm wondering if the steroids in his neb would do the same as the ones he takes orally. Hum...something to question next visit. We will need to see them next week after his apt at Riley. I'm anxious to hear the results. I'm really impressed with the neuro doc that we were assigned to. Helpful and knowlegdeable beyond all belief. Now if I can just get a resp doc that will do the same. I want to know if Sunshine will always have asthma. He was diagnoised at 6 mo old and has been struggling ever since. Smiley was diagnoised at 1 month old and has only had one attack. It seems that he may have grown out of it as most kids do.

Duck is already off to school, probably pulling into the drive about now. We are going to pick up some rain barrels that we found for $5 each. I think I'm going to get 4, maybe 5. Since I'm going to plant the corn on the opposite side of the yard next year, I will need to water them too! The beans are coming up well, I picked all the pumkins the other day, I'm waiting to see if the new shoots produce anything before I pull the plant. The only thing that is producing now is the peppers. I will finish pulling the tomatoe plants and put all the corn stalks in the compost later this week. My compost bin is full, I will need to get some straw and coke, in my research, this will help the compost process work faster. I'm looking forward to canning the pumpkin, I've gotten rid of almost all of it at this point. We also made some VERY GOOD salsa the other day. I'm thinking that I'm going to can some great norther beans and rice and them pour the salsa on top. That sounds yummy for some reason. I'm going to make more beans soup tonight, I think I need to run out to S's for more canning jars. I'm nearly out and my selves are full of food, but I can't let what I have left go to waste. I will also take her some spaghetti and chili. I do wish Duck had not taken the truck, I could've done that while he was gone after my bible study. I guess that will give me time to take care of the bean soup. I still haven't gotten around to the potatoe soup, it requires a lot of time and I'm not read to sit down and do it all. I will do my best to do it on Monday.

Well I need to get off of here and get ready for company.

Toodles..
Katy

Update some things...

I picked up a few hours this morning and I'm exhaused. I should have gone to bed earlier. I think I felt a little bit of the benedryl this morning although I think the biggest crash was from drining the coffee and then stopping. I laid down on the couch this morning until the boys got up. Work seems to be going a lot easier for me.

I have a ton of things that I want to get done today that include a lot of things outside so I better get to it. I'm going to start in the laundry room, that seems to need the most amount of work right now. I'd love to get the new washer in and get it hooked up.

More later

Katy

Yummy!!!

So I tried something new. No it wasn't the soup, I still haven't made that yet. I plan on working on it while I'm cleaning and working on the house for the next 3 days. Along with everything else that I do like my bible study and so on. Anyhow, back to the yummy...I bought a bag of mixed beans, cleaned them, put them in a bowl with a raw potatoe chopped up. After letting them soak I put them in the canning jars after maybe an inch of bit size chopped ham. I only filled the jars about half way, then I filled them the rest of the way with water. And YUMMY! It was so good. I stopped myself from having another helping, but I could've eaten another jar. I'm thinking it would have tasted a bit better with crackers, but that would've been more than I needed.

I still am covered in a rash, it has now spread all over my neck in bright red splotches and a bit on my arms. I'm keeping a box of cottonballs covered in alcohol close. I'm working but very careful not to touch anything without either having gloves on or without having washed my hands first. I'm down nearly 15 hours this week. I was hoping to be able to stay until 9 tonight, but we had so many people it was horrible. So I volunteered to come in for a few hours tomorrow since we are down two people. This works out great for me, I can leave by 9 and Duck can go to school, and I can pick up 5 more hours. Things have been going much easier for me. I don't have the added stresses that I had.

I have new goals for this week:

1. Two batches of salsa (hot and mild)
2. Potatoe soup.
3. Clean up the laundry room
4. Move the dishwasher out and the washer in.
5. Finish up bedroom
6. Finish bunkbeds
7. Steam Clean carpets upstairs.

I think that's good for now, I need to go through our family goals and update them, some have been accomplished.

By the way we were fortunate to be given a broken chainsaw, the guy said that it wouldn't start that the motor was locked up. Dad had Duck put more chain oil in to it and bingo! It works great, we will be chopping and cutting wood this week as well.

Toodles, gotta be up in 5 hours.

Katy

What a day!

Today was perfect at work, S and I were the only ones there and it was so easy going. Although we were really slow and ended up sending so many people home, it was a great day. We had fun, we did the job, we took care of the guests and it wasn't stressful in the least bit. It was a great day. I was actually able to run a shift and we even got extra cleaning done including the entire play place inside head to toe.

The poison ivy is getting so bad, it's nearly all over. I itch and I itch and I itch and I know I shouldn't scratch, but it itches! I just do my best to wash my hands an apply alcohol and caladril regularly. I think that I have this pinned down to when I brushed King out, I washed my arms and hands well afterwards (I'm allergic to dogs) the next day I had bumps on my left forearm, then two days later is spread like wildfire. I think that I may have to go back to the doc. There isn't much I can do, and I really don't want to miss anymore meetings or work. I don't think it wise to go to the meeting in the morning, I still consider myself contagious. I will see what E thinks, I really want to go, but I really don't want anyone else to suffer as I am.

Well I'm going to go, I need to do the few dishes and run a couple loads of laundry.

K

Got a few minutes?

http://www.thedailygreen.com/green-homes/latest/shipping-container-homes-460309?link=rel&dom=yah_green&src=syn&con=art&mag=tdg

If I ever came into money, I would build a small totally green community out of these!

Katy

Ronald

Well we went to see Ronald, the boys really liked it. Sunshine was so excited he too so many pics of him. We saw the owners, my co-workers and friends it was nice.

We are going to try something new with our finances, we are going to set up ebill and a separate account that will connect to another, therefore we will deposit enough money to cover our montly bills, what is left will go for whatever and groceries. That way our bills are paid and we know where the money is, where it's going and so on. It will take me a month or so to put this into action, but we are working on it.

Today wasn't all the great at work, although it was better than I thought it was going to be. My original hopes were that I would be able to go home early, my face still looks horrible and it burns really bad now. So I went in, I was going to go ahead and go, but I'm glad that I didn't. One person called off and then K was a no call no show. When I called her 30 min after her shift started, her husband said she'd be in later to talk to the manager. Okay...I knew what was coming. So now we would be screwed if I left, I had no choice but to stay. We did very well actually, it was busy, fun and ended up being a better day than I thought it was going to be.

I have to go out and pick pumpkins and tomatoes, so I can get them canned. They are dying and rotting, I hate to waste food.

I'll make Salsa and Potatoe soup tonight. I'm going to see how the Zupta comes out.

Maybe more later.
Katy

Had to do it...

I had to break down and go into the local health department. I wound up with my eye nearly swollen shut, my right eye is started to get infected and now it is spread over most my face, my chest, my stomach, my legs, my ankles, in my ears on my scalp and surrounding my neck. I had to call off, last night I talked with M, but didn't know if he'd remember to write down my message, I tried to call L since I thought she was working this morning. I ended up thinking, I will wake up in the morning and see how I feel. I got back up at midnight to try to take some more meds, I was worse, I called and spoke with AW, she said she'd put it on the schedule. So I went in the morning and I was able to rec a shot to hopefully clear this up. I think I am going to try to take a bit of a nap, I 'm exhausted and I'm really hungry.

I have to wash everything that I touched and slept on.

I went into work to give the note and they said it is obvoius that I was really having trouble, they didn't want the note because I had touched it. I laughed and understood!

Later.....

The RASH!!!!

OH MY! So I went into a local pharmacy tonight and asked where the benedryl was. The pharmisist asked me which kind I said any, he asked what I was needing it for, so I showed him the growing red mass on my neck. He said, "OH, you need tablets!", and the girl took me to them. Now I think that Sunshine has it on his face. It has spread all over my neck, up one side of my face and over my left eye. This stinks really bad! I'm beginning to think that it isn't hives anymore. I will try to call the doc in the morning to see if we can get Sunshine in if we need to, I'd rather him have a shot to get it over with. I can't afford that luxury since I don't have insurance. If it gets too bad, I'll ask him to give me a shot and well just have to pay. It's getting really bad really quick.

Oh my~!

Out of it!

I itch all over it's getting worse instead of better. I think that if I am still having problems by Thur I will have to get to a doc somehow. I have no energy and could have slept the entire day. I think that it is time to make some coffee and get moving. We have company coming over tonight and I need to make sure the house is presentable, maybe I can get Duck to go to their house, or reschedule for Friday. Sat I hope to go yardsaling again, I'm really needing to find some clothes for Sunshine. I'm also looking for an ax, maul, hatchet and chainsaw. Today my main objective is to get the clothes in the laundry room clean and upstairs, get the washers switched and get the tomatoes canned. Everything else, while still needing to get done can wait. Mon while out we found a new washer (the guy said he only used it for a year) for $20 and an older electric stove for $5. We picked them both up. We also found a treadmill for free, needs the key though. I will try to find one otherwise we will use the motor for a windmill. Okay well I need to get started, I have a lot to do!

Katy

a clean joke...but still for adults only.

An Elder's Business Card

A new Elder was visiting the homes of those in his congregation. At
one house it seemed obvious that someone was at home, but no answer came
to his repeated knocks at the door.

So, he took out one of his business cards and wrote "Revelation 3:20"
on the back of it and stuck it in the door.

When the contributions were collected at the following meeting, his
card was in the box, so the Accounts Servant brought it to the brother.
Added to his notation was this cryptic message, "Genesis 3:10."
Reaching for his Bible to check out the citation, he broke up in
gales of laughter. Revelation 3:20 begins "Behold, I stand at the door
and knock." Genesis 3:10 reads, "I heard your voice in the garden and I
was afraid for I was naked."

Remember when the funniest jokes were the clean ones?

They still are!

It's been a few days...okay, a week and some..

I'm so stressed out that I have hives ALL OVER. I itch so bad that I have a huge rash on my neck and under my chin, I have scratched so much I have bruises. Today I picked up some medicine to try to help, if this doesn't work I'll have to try to go to the health department. Which brings me to my next subject...the fact that some democrats are trying to push the plans for people like us and those who make up to 66K with a family of 4 will have to pay between 1,500 and 3,800 in fines if they don't have insurance. Okay, my place of work has insurance and it SUCKS. I've said this before and I'll say it again, they should cancel their insurance for the Indiana employees so we can get on HIP. It would be cheaper and we would get more benefits. I hate to say this, but it is the reason I started working there and if this plan goes into affect, it will be the reason that I will have to leave. I'm not going to have most of my check used for insurance that will only cover 10,000 MAX. That won't even cover an accident or anything serious, let alone a year. I'm not going to stress over it, it isn't worth it, I've got enough to stress over.

I've sorta been accused of cheating at my WT studies. Now, while I admit that this could be a misunderstanding on the sisters part as she is not "hip" on current technology. All the same, it was wrong for her to say what she did. Now, I know that Jehovah has told us not to let there be a divid among us, so I will forgive the situtation, however it has caused a futher situation that has negative results. I will discuss this with the brothers, the technology is available, why wouldn't we be allowed to use it? Especially if it is benefitting us?

I found out that for the firt time in nealy 6 years my mother has decided that she wants to meet her grandkids. How am I suppose to react to this? I'm still processing that she is going to die, she is really really sick. She slipped back into a coma Monday before last and when she woke up had a revalaiton that she wanted to see the boys. I'm nervous, quite frankly I'd rather not do this, but will I regret it? In a few years when she is gone will I have remorse? Can I say that I've done the Christian thing?

These are things that are causing the hives, life has been a roller coaster right now, I'd like to find a different ride that is a lot more fun, how about a merry-go-round or the one of those with the swings, that's always nice.

Well I need to get to eating dinner, we are having chili, fritos and chips, (chips, chili and cheese) YUMMY! Don't knock it till you try it, it's great!

Katy

What a successful start...

to this day. I help Duck type up some homework, his words my fingers. I ran an errand for A. I've done 3 loads of laundry, three loads of handwashing dishes, hung clothes out, took clothes to be folded upstairs,cleaned out the cat box and started working on the dining room. I had to sit down for breakfast (late one that is) and I'm starting to have some chest pains. Well I'll get back to work, I think I'll try to find an asprin.

Goals for tomorrow...

Here they are.

We are going to get up early say 7 or 8 at the latest. They boys can sleep in until 8or 8:30. Get breakfast ready, and then run up to work, I offered to run an errand for A, she needs something taken care of. Something simple that I can do for her, so I said I'd take care of it! She has been an excellent listener lately.

I will come back and get a lesson done with the boys. Station one will be a workbook lesson.

I plan to then get things done around the house. So here's the list.

1. Lesson for boys
2. I need to clean the livingroom
3. Kitchen counters and stove
4. Work on tomatoes for canning, I found that I don't have to can them for 90 min...thank goodness.
5. Dishes
6. Laundry, laundry and more laundry!
7. Laundry room
8. Bathroom
9. Dining Room
10. Our bedroom
11. Boys bedroom
12. Fold and put away all clothes.
13. DONE

I also have to go out at some point and pick the rest of the red tomatoes off the vines, I would love to can those too!

I will also work on my lessons tomorrow. I was switched to mids at work, I'm not thrilled, I like the mornings. This will just have to work for now. We'll see what Oct holds and then Jan. If work does come through with enough money to let us survive, I will stay until Duck is either closer to finding a suitable job or through school. I'm not sure, he is extending his time and they are offering him a new grant in Jan, although it is possible that he won't qualify.

Okay I'm going to get started on stuff tonight. I want to be in bed in a few hours and I need to get things going so I have a little less to do tomorrow.

AHHHHHHHH.....

Okay, so today at work was rough. I was put into a position that forced me to give a couple of orders that I would have rather not had to give, but did. Since the changes didn't hurt anyone and was suppose to help things go more smoothly, I was hoping for the best. Unfortunately that didn't work out. I ended up having to swap people around because the load was too much for some. I'm working on the news letter, I'm sure that some will just be thrilled! Policies need to be followed for the one millionth time, so these are some of the things we are going to start addressing. I also have some fun ideas to do with it. Then after work, I went out to the farm, and the goats had knocked over the milk, I'm SOOOO FUSTRATED. While there is a machine that does most of the work, I usually made sure that I got any extra by hand milking, this way there might be a little bit extra milk and relief for the goats. So this is fustrating. Then one of the billy goats head butted Smiley and nearly knocked him over. Smiley was just walking past them and they he turned, I'm sure that he thought Smiley was going to eat his hay, but HEY, that's my kid (and I don't mean a goat kid!) Duck threatened to make him dinner a bit sooner if he tried to hurt the baby again. We found a chicken multilated, then the other chickens were eating it. Gross! Both rabbits needed water, the female let me pet her for quite a while. Flora looked really really bad tonight, her eyes were weaping so bad that it was dripping off of her face. They were gooey and gross. I felt so sorry for her. She doesn't look well at all.

On a better note today, we pulled on of the tomato plants today, it wasn't steaked up and the tomatoes were rotten. We threw it into the compost pile. I also collected all the red cherry and regular tomatoes. Oh my goodness, I filled, over flowing, three 2.5 gallon buckets. Now I need to wash and blanch them so I can peel and can them. I also got some more peppers, one green, one purple and one yellow. I sprayed the pumpkins, they have potato bugs all over them. On final count after Sunshine pulled a green one we have 15 orange nearly ready pumpkins. I think I'll pull one Mon to see if it is ready. The earlier you pull them the less seeds you have. I can can them and use them for pumpkin fluff for my WW receipe. I hope to get at least 20 or 30 more gallons of tomatoes, we'll see what happens. I do have a bunch that are red, but not quite ready to pick. I also planted pole snap beans and Mon I will plant Spinach and romain since the weather is nice it should grow well. I also pulled my potatoes, I think I only got about 10 or so, some big some little. I also only got one onion. Lessons for next year. Well I need to get my Watchtower Study done, the tomatoes done, dishes done and some laundry ran. Duck is working hard in the garage so I will have a bit of time with the munchkins alone. I'm really excited I'm off on Monday, it feels like it has been a month since I've had a day off.

On a funny note, since I scare easily, I screamed bloody murder at my neighbor today. I had my back turned towards the kids so that I could see what they were doing and she came up from behind and spoke ever so softly, I'm sure that I made a few neighbors over their curtains to see what the crazy lady was screaming about. I apologized of course, and we began to talk for a bit. It was good to see her. Our husbands talk often, but he husband had surgery about 2 months ago and we haven't seen him at all. I'm going to try to make a bunch of bread on Monday since I have lots who want some. I'm even going to try a batch with Splenda instead of Sugar.

Recently we bought 2 BIG containers of Applesauce at a local wholesaler. I have plans for the metal containers. I always heard that you could keep one of those with holes poked in it, candles and a plate to put it on in your car. That way if you ever get stuck without heat you can heat your car. So why can't we use the same idea to heat a certain room? I'm going to look for a fire shield to put it on of course.

Well I need to scoot, I have things to do!

Me.

What a mess...

Today was just a mess from the time I work up. Work was different, the new restaurant opened for 1.5 hours this afternoon and then was closed for 1.5. It was crazy. There were so many customers coming over cussing at the new place. Then we went out to take care of the animals. I was up to my ankles in mud and dung. The rabbit's door was open again and this time his bottle was outside. I have filled it up everyday, this is the second time it was open when I got there. I'm 100% certain that I locked it, I make sure everytime. When we got there someone had been there, the kids were in the milking stall, the door was half off, the bottom hinge was all the way off. Then I milked, it was great, I even finished off by hand milking to hopefully increase any supply that may have been lost. Frenchy gave me tons of milk, it too FOREVER. Then after I was done with everything including checking on Flora, giving her water, trying to get her out to milk her, moving a syringe that the kids nearly grabbed, moved the other dirty ones from away from Flora's stall, she had already gotten ahold of the bag, I got all I could find out of her stall. After all that, I spilled the milk, I was SOOOO MAD. Then I spent a while looking for what I could use to clean it up. I tried to use some of the feed bags, I couldn't find anything...giving up I left it there. I will try to take my mop tomorrow. I'm sure that I'll hear about this one too. What else am I suppose to do? Yesterday when I was out there the goats had knocked over the fence in one spot, I had to get Frenchy out of the field, then another one jumped over, I had to get them back too. I pick up the post and propped it up as good as I could and tried to fix the fence, I'm just not a fence builder. It looked as if they didn't try it again. I still haven't found any eggs besides the two the other day. So all in all I did my what I could today and still lost all the milk.

I need to go, I have to be up at the crack of dawn.

Night,
Me.

Riley

Yesterday we were at Riley all day. Two apts took FOREVER. The nuerologists office never called us for give instructions so Sunshine wasn't sleep deprived as he should have been. All in all he once again proved how smart he actually is. He was briefly watching House of Mouse which he had never seen before as we don't have cable or satelite. While watch it he figured out how they were doing things, so he said, "Hey Mom, watch this!" He proceeded to pretend to pull letters out of his shirt, counting the, "One, two, three, four, five" the he said look it's ..... and he spelled his name. (For safety purposes, I won't spell it out) He didn't care for being put out for the MRI, took too long to wake up from the anesthesia and bounced back faster then expected.

So after we got done, we went to take care of the goats and animals. I tell you, I wonder if I get hazard pay or worker's comp. Last night I got horned in the arm and today I got head butted, head to head. Star isn't giving me much milk, and Fenchy while giving me more, doesn't seem to be producing much either. Although I did finish by hand milking her. By the way, K if you read this, Flora looks like she has milk, what do you want me to do? I'm going to try to call you later tonight, incase I forget.

cool short video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3U9jQBcjpI&feature=channel_page

Possibly some good came out of this day...

I harvested a lot today. The boys helped me it was really cute. Sunshine felt like it was one of the greatest things he had done. Smiley couldn't help but eat a few along the way. Overall we nearly filled an 30 quart tote full of tomatoes, squash, red peppers, yellow peppers and green peppers. I still need to harvest the potatoes, onions, pumpkins (in time) and more and more and more tomatoes. I will be pulling one tomato plant after I pick all the green ones, unless I can brace it. I'm losing all my red ones to rot. I want to design a new tomato cake, but it will either require welding or soldering. I will use these for tomatoes, green beans and peppers. I need to put in a raised bed for the onions next year. I will harvest them when I get back. Potatoes I will put into a bag. I was able to pull all the corn and weeds from that area, I will plant green beans in the wholes of the corn, now I just have to build the poles.

I have a lot of work to do for a fall crop, however as cold as it was today, I'm not sure they will make it that long as it was pretty chilly.

Katy

What the heck?

Okay, now I'm really starting to get confused. Today was rough at work. It wasn't a fun day, it was hard and stressful, it was a day and now it is over. That being said, now I come home to surf the net for a bit and find that a conversation I had today has in my opinion been blown out of porportion. K~ What is going on? Now I'm supposidly your friend? I simply called you to ask if you had her number. If she didn't have a phone, I wouldn't have called you so obviously she has a phone. You talk to people there that I don't, even after hours. I thought that perhaps you might have her number as in maybe she contacted you or gave it to you one day for work related purposes. It isn't like I think you two hang out or have cocktails, I know that isn't you. I know her husband died, we wanted to make sure she has what she needs right now. Someone couldn't find her number and wanted to make sure she is okay. Her husband was young, for this to happen at any age is horrible to imagine, but especially at such a young age. And for the recond, I called you when no one else was looking, if anyone knew I was on the phone they wouldn't have known it was you, nor did anyone pickup the phone as I would've heard it, why do you think that I would set you up like that? As far as my comment about proving a point, you are the one that said that you weren't going to come back until after your conference. I don't know what all happened that day in the office, I was trying to take orders and trying to, as much as possible, prevent customers from hearing the yelling. I have been working hard to help get to the bottom of this, trying to tell everyone that this is outside of your character, that in all the time I have known you, you have never done anything like this. I thought that your point was that you were coming back after conference, was that you were standing firm on your statments of what you said, and that you aren't going to back down and let anyone treat you like crap. I know that this is out of the circumstances of normal day to day we are short, we need someone to fill in. Someone had to replace you on the schedule for last night and tonight due to the situtation and circumstances, which had already been taken care of before I even knew which way was up after all the drama. I told you going into working there, that it would be very possible that you wouldn't like it. We are different, bullies pick on people who are different. If you felt cut off in the conversation we had today, it was simply because someone probably walked in, not that I cared if they knew we were talking, cutting you off was not the intentions. The only reason anyone knew that I talked to you was because they saw me talking to you and then overheard the tail end of our conversation, which I then had to explain. You can remain less than impressed if you feel you must, I've tried to stick up for you, and was waiting to be able to call you tonight or talk to you on Monday about the progress I've made, but I feel that point may be mute. Bottom line, I apologize I inconvenienced you, it was my mistake. I guess the question is now, do you feel so little impressed of me that you feel you need to find someone else to take care of your animals while you are away? I'm hoping that your remarks are simply that you misunderstood what I was trying to get at today and that you are having a rough week with everything going on at work, the stress of your construction at home and getting ready for your conference. I guess all in all, this is getting out of control.

At the beginning to the end of this day, I have my arms held up saying, "What the heck?" The day was so rough, and so busy at work. I tried to do something to help someone and now I'm being slammed for it. It seems that I can't do anything right for anyone anymore, what is going on? Time to re-evaluate things in my life. This SUCKS, I'm going to go out in my garden and see if I can pull up some things that have died, perhaps I can plant some more food for my family I'm sure they will appreciate any effort that I put into helping and loving them. Perhaps the day isn't a total loss, perhaps I can please someone afterall...we'll see.

Sadly,
K