August

August is over… Where, oh where, did the summer go????

 

• I set the trap for a couple more weekends and haven’t had any takers, so I think that any raccoons that have been visiting me are gone.  For now anyway.

 

• Doctors can be very testy when you haven’t gone to see them for a while.

 

• Tetanus shots hurt just as much as I remember.  I just don’t remember them making me feel sick before.

 

• After much blood, sweat and tears (literally), I finally have my tractor fixed.  And I got it done for under $50 – which is a far cry from the $150 the shop wanted to charge me just to get the tractor to the garage.  You have no idea how relieved I am that it’s done and I feel as though a lot of stress has been lifted off my shoulders.  I have the property cleaned up and now I can work on some other projects.

 

• I forgot how much bee stings hurt.  And itch.

 

• I’m happy to say that the Guineas are still around and the babies are getting big!  It was funny watching them actually jump to reach branches over their head.  I don’t know what it was they were eating, but they wanted them pretty badly 

• I was very excited to find a way to put the stuff on my DVR onto a DVD.

 

• I’ve become addicted to vanilla malted milkshakes.

 

• I hate whoever makes the decisions of what goes on TV.  A good show like Eureka is cancelled, but they put on crap like Whisker Wars.  Bah.

 

• In the world of yard care, Weed B Gon and Spectracide Weed and Grass Killer are the best products on the market.  I couldn’t believe what a good job the Weed B Gon did on my very neglected lawn.  And the Spectracide works leaps and bounds better than Roundup.

 

Out of all the things I wanted to accomplish this Labor Day weekend, I didn’t get very many done.  I am so lazy.

Neglectful

Yes.

I know.

I have been very neglectful of my blog.

And of all the blogs sitting in my reader.

I’ve been busy, but not with anything worth writing about…  I will try to catch up and be more attentive 

I do have to say that I saw something today that amazed me.  Something I haven’t seen in probably at least ten years… probably more.   I saw not just one, but two school buses drop off kids at the corner of their street. 

Yes, that’s right. 

The buses stopped at the corner of a street and a group of children got off and walked towards their homes.  I thought all buses were required by law or something to stop in front of the house of every child on a school bus. 

Go figure.

Wordless Wednesday

Nothing

There hasn’t been much happening around here worth writing about lately… 

 

• My back went out on me, so I was miserable for a while until it started working again.  It’s still a little tight, but it’s nice to be able to put my shoes on in less than ten minutes.

 

• Give me snow and cold temperatures over rain and mud any day of the week.  Except if it’s windy.  I don’t like cold and wind.

 

• It’s amazing how someone who wears an iPod all day can’t hear you calling him twenty times trying to get his attention, but can somehow magically hear a private conversation you’re having with someone else twenty feet away.

 

• The snowplow took out my mailbox, which I find very annoying.  I mail a lot of packages, so I had made a larger mailbox that would accommodate my needs… the town had replaced it with a standard mailbox.  So until I can make and install a replacement, I have to make a lot of extra trips to the Post Office.  Meh.

 

• This season of Survivor is going to be most awesome.

 

• My car now has the back door/hatch that swings open.  The last time I went grocery shopping, I made sure to park so that I would have no problem loading my groceries in the back…

 

So when I returned to my car, this is what I saw…

 

Really? 

 

• I upgraded my email program.  It now allows me to access email accounts that it wouldn’t before – pretty much accounts I use for things that I’m know I’m going to get spam with.  I wasn’t thinking when I hit that last ‘enter’ button… I had to wait quite a bit while I waited for the 877 emails to download.  That’s when I learned that the upgrade eliminated the ‘stop’ button.

 

So as you can see, not a whole lot has been going on…  I guess no news is good news 

Trust

It can be hard sometimes not having anyone around that you can trust 100%.

Saturday Bullets

• An update on The Ladies' sleeping arrangements…  it seems to be changing every night now.  They are all over the place – sometimes all on the nesting boxes, sometimes all on the roosting shelf sometimes they are split.  Cocoa seems to be the Problem Child.  To me it looks like she’s the one next to one other Lady while the rest are somewhere else.  And it looks like a different Lady draws the short straw each night.  We’ll see how it long it takes for them to fall into a pattern again…

 

• So we decided not to go to Rolling Hills for the tours that they were offering during October.  It sounded like the tours were more of a haunted house type thing, so we are going to try and get ten people together for the minimum required and go on one of their regular historical tours.

 

• Elections were pretty much a bust for me.  Mostly everyone I voted for lost.  Everyone complains about how high taxes are and how New York politics don’t do anything to help the average citizen or move the area ahead at all…  and yet all the same people are voted into office year after year.  How can we expect things to change for the better when we don’t put people into office who want to try and fix things?

 

• You know how life has it’s peaks and valleys?  I feel like I’m in a valley right now.  A lot of things aren’t going right and the rest are a big struggle.  I’ve had tough times before for sure, but this feels different.  Worse.  I sure hope that things turn around soon.

 

• Tonight the clocks get set back to Standard Time.  Why is it when we gain that extra hour of sleep, we don’t notice it all – but when we lose it in the spring, it feels like we lost six or seven hours of sleep?  Ugh.

Work

I’ve usually been very good at whatever job I’ve had.  I was the consistent one, the detail-oriented one, the one that people came to for answers, the one that trained other people.  I’ve always enjoyed that role.

Ever since I hurt my back, it’s not like that anymore.  I’ve since worked jobs that I’ve had no previous experience in, and while I’ve held my own (except for one job that I totally hated), I’m not that exceptional person anymore.  I hate being mediocre.

But being good always came easy – it doesn’t seem to any more.

It’s kind of depressing.

Is this what happens when you get old?

I need to either get really good at what I do now or find something that I can excel at again.

But I guess that’s easier said than done… 

Mouse

Good news! I figured out my mouse problem. Thank goodness. I think that the receiver was too close to other electronic junk and that's why it was all wonky. After moving it, my mouse is back to its regular self. I really didn't want to have to use a mouse pad. Yay :)

Buffalo has already dropped to third place in the New York State Golden Snowball Award Contest. Depending on how you look at it, this could be a good thing or a bad thing. Personally, I'm OK with that for now. I wouldn't mind hanging back until we get closer to Christmas. I'd like to see snow on Christmas day and then we can get as much snow as it takes to win the contest afterwards. We don't have to win by an extra twenty feet... just an inch or two over the second place city would be just fine with me. I'm guessing most people don't, but I would really like to see Buffalo win for once. We already have the reputation. We may as well have a trophy to go along with it.

Buffalo Pundit posted about Complaints Choirs. I found this idea a lot of fun and something that everyone could relate to. Here's the trailer the Chicago group made. If you look at the related videos on the page, you can see a whole bunch of videos other cities have made. All the ones I watched were pretty entertaining. I can't sing worth a darn, but I'll bet that I could come up with a lot of ideas for a song. Especially about stupid drivers.

I have a crazy week ahead of me. The action is going to be pretty much non-stop until Sunday. But it should be all good (I hope). Saturday is going to be kind of a stressful day for me, but I think the toughest part this week is having to be at work two hours earlier than normal twice this week. It's good in that we'll get home earlier. However, I think that it's going to feel like we're going to lose a lot more than two hours sleep. Kind of like changing back to Standard Time.

Procrastinate Now!

It seems that over the years, I've tended to procrastinate more and more. I've learned that sometimes if you you put something off long enough, a good chunk of those things come to the point that you don't have to worry about them anymore. Which is great, because then I didn't waste time doing something that I didn't have to do from the beginning. But a lot of times the things that I didn't do come back to get me. As things stand right now, I have put off quite a few projects that I wish I had taken care of. It really didn't matter before tho' - the only person that my procrastinating ever affected was me. Things are changing. I need to learn to not procrastinate so much anymore.

I know I've mentioned before that I really didn't miss going without my TV and computer for a couple of days. That was because I was otherwise occupied. I do have to say that not having an internet connections when I do want to go online is maddening beyond belief. Fortunately all is well now, but not being able to get online when I want to drives me crazy.

I had to laugh when I came across the list Popular Mechanics had published: 25 Skills Every Man Should Know. I think that it's pretty funny that I have done 19 out of the 25 things on that list. And I'm pretty confident that I could do three others if the opportunity presented itself. I wonder what kind of man that makes me?

No Way

You know, my truck has been running pretty good for most of the year. The past two days, I really needed the Jillmobile to be on it's best behavior so that we could get my trailer loaded and move a bunch of stuff with no issues. Naturally, that wasn't the case. I don't know what's wrong, but the truck is definitely not well. Fortunately we were able to move what we needed to, but I'm still going to have to get her into the shop. If something is going to break down or give me problems, why can't it be at a time when it isn't important? I guess it's just one of those mysteries of my universe.

The past week or so, it seems like I have been constantly on the move. I have watched hardly any TV for over a week and for the past two days I haven't even turned on my computer. If someone would have asked me a month ago if I could possibly do something like that and not go crazy, I would have emphatically said 'No way!'. Amazingly enough, it really hasn't bothered me. Granted, I taped the shows I wanted to watch and had a ton of email to go through when I finally did get around to my computer. I still have a lot of blogs to catch up on too, but the whole scenario is not as horrible as I thought it would have been. Not that I want to make a habit out of letting things pile up, but it's nice to know it's not so bad.

124816

So I had this morning all planned out. I got up nice and early so I would have plenty of time to accomplish everything I wanted to before going to work. Of course, I didn't take into account the fact that I didn't double check where I was supposed to go to vote. I have one place I'm supposed to go for school elections and another for general elections. For some reason, I just wasn't thinking this morning and went to the wrong building. I wanted to get to work a bit earlier today to go over some material from yesterday. Obviously I didn't get in as early as I had hoped...

My Stupid-Driver question of the day is: When there is construction going on, and there are no less than four signs warning you that lanes are closed up ahead, why do people wait until the. very. last. minute tocutinfrontofyou? Especially when there is no room for them to fit and there is miles of open road behind you? You would think all the bright orange cones all over the road and the florescent signs would clue people in that something is going on and that maybe they would try to pay attention.

And to the guy driving the red minivan: Once you are out of the construction zone, you are allowed to resume the normal speed limit.

I hit another milestone on my odometer today: 124816

I have more than a few changes going on in my life right now. I am finding it very amusing to be receiving a lot of advice from family and friends that I have handed out many times myself. On the one hand, I'd like to think that I am smart and mature enough to watch out for myself, but on the other hand it's nice to know that so many people are looking out for me. I can't help but smile when I think about that.

Foxy

On the way home from work today, a gray fox was on the road in front of me. What a great siting that was! I knew we had red fox in the area, but this is the first time I've seen a gray one. He didn't seem to know which way to go - I think my headlights stunned him a bit. I was really happy when the car coming from the opposite direction stopped too, so the little guy was able to get out of harm's way.

Sci Fi's Ghosthunters is at Waverly Hills Sanitorium again this year for Halloween. I like it when they go there - they always catch something good there. The Ghosthunters' International show they mentioned sounds like it's going to be pretty good.

I was reminded today that tomorrow will be the beginning of my second month at my new job. I absolutely cannot believe that it's been a month since I've changed employers. And it's funny - in some respects it feels like I've been there a lot longer than a month and in others I think, "Only a month???". What I can say for certain, is that the change was definitely good for me. Health-wise, I haven't felt this good in a long, long time. I've also made new friends. I have more time for myself... All I need now is for better working hours that don't cut into my Geocaching time when Dave is in town :) I really think that my life is heading in a new direction. It looks like things might finally start going my way. I hope.