Fun Pictures

This is Jewel E.'s favorite sleeping spot and her favorite blanket. She passed out like this the other night when she accompanied Dave, Georgia, and I on our evening walk. She was outside when we passed the house, so she followed us. We thought she would stop, but instead she just yelled for us to wait up. I had to carry her part of the way because her short, little, cat legs couldn't keep up. She jumped down once we got almost back to our street, and I "walked" her back to the house. Walking a cat is quite frustrating because they stop to sniff things just like dogs, but they aren't as eager to please so they don't necessarily hurry along when you want them to. Granted, she's the most dog-like cat I've ever had, but she's still a stubborn beast when she has her own agenda.















Snooty snout. She's a brown, brown dog with a brown rubber nose (that's a line from a song I sing to her). This beast was so tired after her play date with Lucy the Golden Retriever that she didn't bother to open her eyes while I was taking pictures of her last night.















This picture just cracks me up. For several days in a row, this is how I found Squirt lounging around.















Man of the house. While I was on vacation, I got up one morning after Dave was gone and this is what I found. :) Since Dave rearranged the furniture and moved the recliner to the sitting room, Squirt has claimed it. It was Georgia's when it was in the living room, but now she has the couch. Apparently, she just likes to be in the living room.















Gypsy has so many spots that they all blend together, but if you look closely you can see her jelly beans (those are the pads on the bottom of her toes). She looks like she's saying, "Stop taking pictures of me!"

Weekend Away

We left for our weekend at DeSoto State Park (in Fort Payne) Friday morning. The drive up was going fine, I was the DJ and Dave was suffering through my selection of music without too much complaint. I wasn't paying much attention to the road because I was picking songs, but I happened to glance up just as he merged onto I-20. That's not the way to DeSoto State Park. We drove a couple of miles and turned around to get back on 459, then merged onto 59. As we drove 59 through Trussville, we came upon a wreck that had JUST happened. No emergency vehicles were on the scene, people were stopping in the middle of the interstate and running across the road to help the people in the overturned car. This wreck had just happened. The car was lying upside down, facing the wrong direction, on the side of the road. I freaked out. I started crying and praying and crying, and I couldn't stop. It was so weird because that's not my normal behavior, then Dave said something like, "I guess it was a good thing that I went the wrong way." It occurred to me that if he hadn't inadvertently taken us 10 minutes out of the way, we probably would have been in that wreck. Wow. That's God work, people.

Anyway, it took me a while to shake that off, but we got to DeSoto and drove around for a while until check in time. Rebecca and Nathan got there right after we checked in, and just in time to watch the LSU vs. Arkansas game (Nathan is an LSU fan). That was most of Friday. We had dinner in the lodge restaurant and then we played Taboo and Phase 10. Some things I learned: my sister has memorized all the Taboo cards and Nathan is extremely competitive with a touch of unsportsman-like conduct. That's okay, Rebecca is, too. :) I had a blast playing Taboo, but I got spanked at Phase 10. We played in their room because they had an end room and no one was in the room beside them, so we didn't have to worry about being too loud. We wrapped up around 10:30 because quiet time starts at ten at the lodge.

Saturday, we showed them around DeSoto Falls and Little River Canyon. We took the scenic road to the mouth of the canyon, and it was just a little scary. That was one narrow, steep, curvy road. The canyon mouth park was really cool, and I'd love to take Georgia there one day. It would be great swimming for her. Once we got back to the lodge, we had naps. Dave and I decided to hike up the river and we ended up walking the entire length of the park, and coming out on a dirt road. We walked back on the county roads, and I couldn't believe how far we went. We walked for about an hour and a half. That night we went to Dogtown for dinner at the Mountain Parkway Grill. There were lots of jokes about people with no teeth eating there because it's in the middle of nowhere, but the food was great and it was very inexpensive. I think we'll go back. We played games in our room Saturday night, Spades and Rook and Taboo, and at 10:40 when we were cleaning up our mess, the room phone rang. I knew we were in trouble because all the people that should be calling me were in the room with me. It was the front desk. The man in the room next to ours had complained, he told the lady at the desk that he had put up with the noise the night before but he was fed up. I told the lady that it wasn't us he heard the night before because we weren't in that room. That's the first time I've ever been complained on in a hotel. It made me want to be louder. It was 10 freaking 40 and it's not like we had loud music and crowd noise, just laughter and occasional shouting. Whatever. We sat next to them at breakfast the next morning. :)

Sunday, we hiked another hour and half, but it wasn't as pretty as the trails we went on Saturday. We also went to Mentone and did a little shopping. I finally started my Christmas shopping at the White Elephant store and one of the little craft booths. I got some neat things, and I'm feeling a little more inspired to get my Christmas shopping done now.

We got home around 3, and I worked like a crazy person doing laundry and getting ready for the party at church that started at 7. At nine, after I cleaned up the church kitchen and my own, Dave made me take a bath and wind down. Thank goodness.

My kittens spent the weekend locked in the house, and they were READY to go outside when we got home. I left them enough food, and they didn't run out, but you could see the bottom of the bowl. Squirt yelled and yelled at me until I fixed that situation for him. He doesn't like to see the bottom of the food bowl. Food bowls are supposed to be bottomless. I left him lounging in the recliner this morning. What a life.

Georgia spent the weekend with Lucy the Golden Retriever, and she was very tired when we picked her up. Tired, and ready to go home. :) She and Dave played football with Rob for an hour, then she was done for the night. After the party at church, we let her out of the kennel and she parked herself on the couch. She was in my spot and she wasn't moving - until she decided that Dave's spot was better when he got up. She was snoring like a man.

Now I'm back at work and my email box was scary-full this morning. I better get back to it.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

It's Thanksgiving morning and I've already had two Thanksgiving dinners. There are two more to go today. The holidays are a whirlwind kind of year, especially when you have quadruple families. :) That's okay, more love for everyone.

I took the week off work because it's such a busy time, and I needed a break. I've been trying to make myself update this blog all week, but I haven't been able to convince myself to sit in front of the computer. I think I'm afraid that I will check my work email. That would be a real vacation bummer because I'm sure it's full.

I've done some shopping, got my dress for my cousin's wedding this summer (a size smaller than normal!! ), found some really fun boots that Rebecca made me buy and she picked out a skirt for me, too. Dave knew that I'd been shopping with her from the things I brought home.:) I had my first massage this week and it was glorious. I can see why that becomes addictive. It made my shoulder feel much better. The old water polo injury from my honeymoon had been bothering me, but it's good now. I also saw the chiropractor this week. That man is amazing. I think Dave needs to go to massage therapy and chiropractor school. :) Wouldn't it be great if we had a lawyer/masseuse/chiropractor in the family? Then we'd just need a veterinarian. :)

Dave is doing well with the law practice. We are coming up on the end of the year and I can see his attitude growing and changing. I'll say again that prayer works and leave it at that for now.

We've had quite a few answered prayers lately. We found out that some friends of ours from our church in Gardendale got some great news recently; some things are happening for me at work that could be really good for Dave and I (I won't elaborate just yet). It's been good. We have so much to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day.

Tomorrow, we leave for the mountains until Sunday. Sunday night I have an anniversary party to host at church and thus comes the return to my crazy life. Vacation will be over so soon. That's okay, I'm better when I have too much to do. Yes, I'm one of those people. :)

Things to Share

This is Jack the O'Lantern. We carved him so that Georgia could have the experience. He turned out a little spookier than we intended.














This is the house of a 93-year-old lady who lives down the street from us. I'll explain in a minute.

We had a busy week last week. Monday night we carved Jack the O'Lantern. My main motivation for carving a pumpkin this year was to see Georgia bark at it once we finished. This was her first pumpkin carving experience, and I was disappointed. She enjoyed eating the pumpkin guts, and she was very interested in the process, but she didn't bark at him. I guess we should not have allowed her to watch us carve him. We should have just surprised her with him. Oh well. Squirt Monster had a grand time playing with the pumpkin seeds afterward. I feel quite sure that I will be finding seeds around the house for a while. We also visited Jan and Daddy to see Daddy's pumpkin because I knew it would be a neat one. He carved a treble clef and a half note in his. It looked great, and while Jack looked like he was carved by an amateur, the treble clef looked very professional. I guess so, since Daddy used a saw blade to carve it. (Note: I fully credit him for my nerdiness.)

About the picture of the taped off yard: the lady that lives there is 93, and she has lived there for a long time. She takes great pride in her yard. Over the summer, she spent quite a bit of money having new sod put down. On Halloween morning, she called Bobby (my step-dad who runs a lawn service and cares for her lawn) and she was MAD because the police would not wrap crime scene tape around her yard for her. You see, she was concerned that the trick-or-treaters would tromp through her yard. And, it wasn’t the local trick-or-treaters she was worried about, but the ones that come from all over the county to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. So, the police refused to help her, and suggested she just turn off her lights to discourage the kids from coming in her yard. Well, as it turns out, she wanted to give out candy, she just wanted them to come up the driveway to the carport. Since crime scene tape wasn’t going to happen, she called around town until she could find something like it. As it turns out, the local hardware store had construction tape. She placed another call to Bobby and had him come wrap her yard with the tape. I laughed all day thinking about this, and I had Dave take the above picture. I really expected someone to roll her yard, but apparently the kids in the neighborhood now are too young to do those things. Had this happened 10 years ago when we were in high school, there’s no way she would have escaped that fate. The kicker? She’s decided she likes the tape around her yard and she’s going to leave it that way for a while.

Tuesday we had trick-or-treaters. I was worried that Georgia would be upset by the kids in their costumes, but she did great. We had barking at the first couple of visitors, but then we were fine. Lucy the Golden Retriever was visiting that night, too, so we had a house full of dogs. I put the baby gate in the front door to keep them from running out, and they stood there most of the night greeting the kids. They were very excited about the little ones. Do you know who wasn't excited? The sweet kittens. Dave locked them in the bedroom because they were loitering at the door waiting for a chance to escape. You cannot imagine the great relief we had on November 1 when I let them back outside again.

Saturday morning I took the kittens to the vet for their annual shots. I had them in two Pet Taxis. Jewel rides by herself, and Squirt and Gypsy ride together. They get along the best, and Gypsy is small enough to fit in the box with him. While we were waiting, we watched the waiting room fill up with people and their dogs. Then a lady brought in three more cats. She had those big cats that sound like men when they howl – and they were howling. We had a cat chorus for about five minutes. Hers would howl, and then mine would howl. Squirt even gave a little growl at one point. I have to credit the dogs though, as none of them seemed to care about the very upset cats.

This was our first trip to the vet for Gypsy’s shots because she was vaccinated before we got her last year. The drill was, I held the front half of the cat while the vet stuck them in the behind three times each. This worked famously for Squirt and Jewel. When it was Gypsy’s turn, she got her first shot and decided she would pass on the next two. I was holding her front end toward me and she neatly curled her behind under her so that she was in a ball and inaccessible to the needle. When we straightened her back out again and he gave her the next shot, she tried to bite him. She got me instead. Witch.

Sunday we took Georgia on a walk around town. She got to swim in the creek and play on the elementary school playground. We let her off the leash on the playground while we were swinging, and she was studying the slides and climbing equipment. She looked at me as if to say, “Can I play on that?” So we did. She LOVES that stuff. She went down the slides and all over that equipment. She loves to jump up and down and keep up with us while we are playing on it. Dave had her running like a crazy dog because he was pretending like he was doing a military obstacle course and she was following right behind him. Crazy kids.