Bewildering Balderdash

Not that Fridays really matter much any more - LOL

The creeping crud or whatever it is that I have is still with me. Thankfully I had just bought 4 boxes of tissues and have lots of cough drops in the house.

Tucker is having a what I call a "Needy Am Staff Day". He is very clingy to me, with lots of laying his head on my lap and long sighs. His head is really heavy! He knows when I need comforting.

The ex liked this last batch of stewed tomatoes the best. I am glad that he enjoys them but I wish I would have discovered this sooner because it is much easier to make stewed tomatoes than tomato sauce.

The ex is off to the doctor today since he has been out for three days - the County requires a note.

If I was feeling well, I would be so tempted to hit MDRF again - I had a really nice time last weekend.

After trying dreamtigress 's suggestion of clearing my cache, it seems my friends page is still awol. I will use this issue as a handy excuse to reboot and do some system maintenance. I certainly hope there is a lot of news for me to catch up on!

The ex called me from work today to tell me about a guy that had stopped to ask him for directions to the local animal shelter. Seems he was bringing his dog in because he was moving to an apartment & could not keep her any longer. Sounds like the ex fell for her hard; she's a 3 year old American Bulldog.

Since we could not make any other arrangements that fast, she is going to the shelter, but I have feeling that this story is not over.

I have an alarm clock. It works. It is set. However, this morning I was rudely woken up at 6:45 AM by a BRAYING Beagle. Braying! Seems the ex let Cooper out before he left for work & when the poor kid across the street was standing out by the road for his school bus, Cooper started braying at him non-stop. LOUDLY.

Braying Beagle [TM] aside, I did wake up to a few other things that were much nicer, such as...

• The smell of tomato sauce. With approximately 413 tomatoes in my kitchen & more due soon, I had to start doing something more creative with them. My very first pot is cooking now in the crock pot. While I've made sauce from canned tomatoes before, I have not made truly "from scratch" sauce before. Wish me luck!
• Having the ex put an extra quilt on me before he left & tucking me in to boot.
• Another stellar morning that is crisp & cool.

Yesterday's visit with Dr. Truong went well. She says I am doing so well that she decided not give me the cortisone injection (WHEW) she had planned on. Instead she will "save" the injection for the cooler weather; she feels I may have some issues once the cold sets in. She said the muscles in my lower back were very tight & cramped; the trigger point injections did their magic. The next step is that I see a chiropractor she works with to get my back aligned.

To combat the issues that I am having with the Voltaren, she suggested that I take a Xantac with it to see if that helps. The ex takes Xantac on a regular basis so we already have it in the house.

In other news, I learned yesterday that the property next to us is going to be sold on the courthouse steps next week. Now we are scrambling to see what it would take to make such a purchase. 10% percent of winning bid is required.

Another Sunday morning trip to the garden plot with grocery shopping & furniture buying thrown in for good measure.

Aldi's has a special buy this week on some Mission (type) living room furniture that looked decent for the price. 2 of the 3 pieces are ones we need (TV & end tables) with some pretty good pricing.

Somehow I managed to get the ex to come along with me & after scoping out the furniture, we decided to go ahead & buy one end table & the TV stand.

As a side note, I've given up on getting fruit from Aldi ... seems we end up with fruit flies every time.

Next stop was Wal-Mart (bleh) for some grocery shopping. While I am not a fan of Wal-Mart by any means, there are some things that are just cheaper there or can't get elsewhere. Big jars of Skippy Natural Peanut Butter is one such item & at the alarming rate of which the ex goes through the stuff, it's the only way to keep the pantry stocked.

Grocery shopping with the ex is very much like what I imagine it must be like to shop with a small child. Why are you buying that? Can I get this? How did this get in the cart? No, honey, we buy this brand of ; etc. LOL

Even though a shopping trip always costs more when he comes with me, I am really glad that the ex accompanied me today.

Last stop was at the garden plot. Since we had groceries in the Endeavor, I stayed in the AC while the ex went harvesting. He came back with two watermelons & a very heavy bucket of tomatoes & carrots. The ex's carrots have done really well & it was fun to see how proud he was of them.

Not surprisingly, we had tomato sammiches for lunch & cooked carrots with our dinner. (The ex made the yummiest sauteed carrots!)

Sadly the watermelon we cut into was not yet ripe (it had to be picked through as the vine was dying & one end was mushy). Maybe the other one will be better.

The ex went to court today over the guy who hit his motorcycle. The guy's story was disjointed & basically malarkey. The bus driver witness & the ex gave their stories & the judge was quick to convict the other driver.

Hopefully the ex will get some $ to fix his saddlebags.

Turns out the bus driver rides as well.

Had an interview today with the newspaper for a sales rep position. We met for about 2 hours - the lady who would be the boss & the my old sales rep.

The job does have some good points - lots of freedom, a large territory, nice folks to work with, laptop & only 2-2.5 days in the office.

On down the side, the pay is horrible (low base + commission), there is NO parking at the office (seriously, no parking lot & street parking is one hour), no cell phone or allowance (for a sales job?!)

This would be a huge departure for me ... further away from the creative stuff & even further away from management. If this opportunity was coming at the end of my benefits, I would probably jump on it, but I am really not sure at this point. There is a fair amount of learning curve & I hate to invest the time (as well as the paper's) if all I am going to be doing is looking for something else.

There will be much mulling on my end if I get called back for a second interview.

The ex is off to town to get another hub thing for his truck. He just replaced one of them, now the other side is shot. His truck also needs brake shoes & his rotor turns to pass inspection. Bleh! At least he does a lot of the work himself which saves us lots of money. He's also going to swing by the garden to pick anything that is ready so we (hopefully) don't end up with any more monstrous cucumbers.

The ex is still home recuperating from his wart removal. He says it burns something awful.

We agreed that I probably should put my name in the hat for the newspaper sales job, even though it is less money & not what I want. It may help me with something more my speed with the paper down the road. Plus, in this economy who knows what will happen.

Turns out one of the guys that we play EverQuest with was in town with his daughter & we spent the afternoon with them. He turned out to be much shorter than his online character & his daughter was an absolute darling. We had lunch at the Cheesecake factory (a first for the ex & I) & then went to the mall to do a little souvenir shopping. The ex hobbled along the best he could & found places to sit as often as he could.

I'm a mommy! 


My first onions plants are poking through!


HAHA  - what the heck were you thinking?


Today - in the rain - I planted baby yellow squash & rutabaga plants.  Now to work on some tomatoes & mulch.

The ex leaves on his annual New Hampshire trek tomorrow morning.

Our day started at 0-dark-thirty for turkey hunting. Seems that no one told the turkeys to be in the woods though because we did not hear a single gobble. On the way out of the woods though we saw fresh deer & turkey sign which is encouraging.

Once we got home & changed out of camo, I did something that I do not do often ... took a nap!

Soooooo the ex got this notion that we should go on a canoe trip on the Rappahannock today. Of course we have a ton of stuff to do around the house, but you know, going fishing makes much more sense to my husband.

Over lunch we talk about the proposed canoe trek & I pointed out that it has been several years years since I have been in the canoe & that maybe - just maybe - a 5-mile trip down a river is not the best way to get my sea legs back.

The ex agreed to downsize the canoe adventure to us going to the neighbor's pond so that we could fish for bass & catfish. He made a seat with back support for me that worked really well. Captain Robertson would sit in the back of the canoe & I would be first mate up front.

We packed some ice tea, got the fishing poles ready (the ex took 4 or 5) & headed over to the pond. I really wanted to try for catfish but they only bait I had that might work was some ham strips, so what the heck, I brought it. As usual the trickiest part of any canoe trip is getting in and out of the canoe, but things went pretty well.

We fished for a few hours & did well in the canoe. The ex caught several bass (which he released) & I caught nothing but was having a lot of fun. When I suggested it was getting late, the ex said just a few more casts & wouldn't you know that is when I hooked something! By the huge amount of tug, I knew it was a good-sized fish.

The ex coached me on how to fight the fish since it was diving & pitching a fit. Really I think he was just worried that I might break his fishing pole. When it finally surfaced, we saw that I had hooked a nice catfish! On a spinner bait, no less. After many minutes, the cat grew tired & the ex got it in the canoe. We paddled for shore & quickly loaded up. Not wanting the fish to suffer, I asked the ex to dispatch it & after 3 solid blows to the head the cat was not giving up, so we went home.

The ex snapped some pics of me with the fish & then filleted it while I got things ready in the kitchen. We enjoyed FRESH fried catfish & salad dinner. Yummy!

The ex & I are home safe from our trip. We are exhausted but we had a good time. The ex is off to fetch the dogs from Mom's (Thanks, Mom!).