Jammin' Whippets

This is a picture my friend Laurel posted of her dogs.  Can you find them all?



Left to right: English, Chili, What, Tick, Casabella, Halo, Dude, Irish, Beast, Panic and little Cayman in the front.

The Theater Gods Smiled on Me

Wow.  Did this day take a different turn than I expected.  In a good way.

You might remember my post earlier in the week whining about being sick and missing out on everything.  Well, the rest of the week didn't change much.  I've spent the last week in bed with my Kleenex and cough meds.  I've watched the rest of Dollhouse Season 2, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Season One of Psych.  I worked a half day on Thursday, and pretty much slept away the rest of the days.  This morning I decided I should attempt to join the land of the living, so I got up, took a shower and went to check on the trailer.

In the early afternoon I was playing on my computer when the home phone and then my cell phone rang.  Since it was right there, I actually answered it.  And what a good thing I did, too.

My theater buddy and best friend Julie, happened to get her hands on tickets to the 6:30 performance to Book of Mormon. A friend of hers had four FREE tickets and she was looking for someone to be her "plus one."  Squee!

So I totally got to see a musical that I didn't think I was going to get to see because the tickets were so expensive and I couldn't get cheap ones.  Not only were the tickets free, they were 11th ROW ORCHESTRA!  Can you believe it? 

Anyway, the performance was really good.  I'm feeling so lucky and thinking that 2013 might just be looking up. 

A New Year, A New Look

Well, 2013 isn't starting off like I wanted.  Let me just get the whining out of the way and I promise to move on to something else.  I had planned to go letterboxing with Maiden, Thunderbird, and Buzzin' Around up at Wildwood Park in Puyallup.  There are a zillion boxes in that park, and I would have picked up a good 50 of them.  I even have a new Camelback that I just bought myself for Christmas to use.  I was super excited.  Then I got this cough a couple of days ago.  Just a little tickle at first, then a little cough.  Then a little more cough, and now it's a sea lion worthy bark.  Along with the cough came a temperature of about 100.  If I stay still I can keep the coughing under control, but moving around kicks it up.

So here I sit, on the first day of the new year, in my bed, NOT out letterboxing on this beautiful sunny day.  I'm pouty and feeling sorry for myself. I can't even really do anything around the house on The List because too much moving around makes me cough more.

Sigh.  And I was really hoping 2013 would be a better year.

Okay, whining done.

So you might have noticed I changed the look of my blog.  I do this from time to time, which makes reading older posts weird.  I like this look for now.  What do you all think?

I suppose I should do a year in summary, shouldn't I?  A look back at 2012?  I'll work on that.  It can be my next post.

For now that is all.  Happy New Year, Dear Readers.

Friends

Greg just sent me this video.  I thought I'd share it with you all because you just can't watch it without saying "Awww."

This is All I Have to Say About This Week

I Wanna Wear Pants

I've been complaining about how tired I am of all the political ads and campaigning and media coverage this whole election.  Until a friend posted the video below, I never once thought about voting being a right that women have had for less than 100 years.  I didn't think about what it took for women to get the right to vote.  I wouldn't have been able to vote in my state until March 22, 1920.  I'm rather ashamed that I didn't think about this. 

I did a little research and found some interesting and surprising information:

*the constitutional amendment  (the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution) was first introduced to the Senate in 1878
*that amendment was drafted by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
* in 1915 a proposal to amend the Constition to provide for women's suffrage was brought before the House of Representatives and was defeated by a vote of 204 to 174.
*the issue came up again in 1918 in the House and was passed with ONE vote to spare but failed in the Senate by only two votes.
*in 1919 it was again voted upon and failed by one vote.
*Can you believe that the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution was not passed until 1920?


Thank you to all the women before me that fought to give women the right to vote.  I can't imagine what you all went through and the hardships and scorn you faced.  I promise to remember this in the future!

Quit with the Christmas Stuff!

Simon's Cat Box Guide

The Verdict

Well, the verdict is in.  Throwing my computer down the stairs apparently creates too much damage to be repaired.  My IT guy pulled the life support plug and removed the hard drive and memory and is recycling the rest.

RIP Dell computer. 

Now I have to research getting a new computer and deciding if I want a desktop, laptop or just an iPad.  Poo.

Goodbye Kitties

Sigh.  The Seven Kittens webcam is going away this weekend.  All the kitties are adopted and ready to go to their new home.  What a great success story.  One of the fans put together this great story about them.

I'm going to miss their sweet little kitten antics.  Somehow it was so soothing to check in with them throughout the day and watch them playing or more often, sleeping.

Good luck in your new homes, kitties!  I'm going to miss watching you guys.

The Damage

So here are some pictures of the damage from the fall down the stairs.

 This is the computer on/off switch.

 The pieces I found the computer in and was able to pick up. (I'm saving this one to show to all other computers that give me grief. )

 The goudge in the wall from going down the stairs.

The goudge in the vinyl flooring from going down the stairs.  I'm assuming it hit here first and then hit the wall.

Nice, huh?  My IT guy hasn't had a chance to look at it yet to see if it is fixable. 

5 Things I'd Tell the Teen Me

1.  Go to college.  It doesn't matter that you don't know what you want to do and are being all practical and not wasting money going without a goal in mind.  Just GO!  It will be a lot harder to get your degree when you have a car payment and a house payment and a 40-hour per week job.  And go out of state.  Get the full living on campus experience.

2.  Don't wait for the perfect guy and the perfect "spark."  There are some great guys out there that like you.  Try them out.  You may be surprised. You don't have to marry them.  And that romance novel stuff?  I haven't seen much of it yet, so take it with a grain of salt.

3.  Start an exercise regime now.  Good habits go a long way!  I know you hate to sweat, but you'll hate it a lot more when you are 42 and facing the daunting task of losing 140 pounds.

4. Major forks in the road of life do not come with a road sign.  You will be presented with choices that will change the path of your life and won't recognize that fact until years later. 

5. If you volunteer for stuff early on you get to pick the job you like (or hate the least).  If you wait, you'll get stuck with the sucky jobs.

To quote Brad Paisley, these are nowhere near the best years of your life.

Oh! This is Where I Went Wrong!

This is an excerpt from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.


How To Fly

© by Douglas Adams

There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] suggests, and try it.

The first part is easy. All it requires is simply the ability to throw yourself forward with all your weight, and the willingness not to mind that it's going to hurt.

That is, it's going to hurt if you fail to miss the ground. Most people fail to miss the ground, and if they are really trying properly, the likelihood is that they will fail to miss it fairly hard.

Clearly, it is the second part, the missing, which presents the difficulties.

One problem is that you have to miss the ground accidentally. It's no good deliberately intending to miss the ground because you won't. You have to have your attention suddenly distracted by something else when you're halfway there, so that you are no longer thinking about falling, or about the ground, or about how much it's going to hurt if you fail to miss it.

It is notoriously difficult to prize your attention away from these three things during the split second you have at your disposal. Hence most people's failure, and their eventual disillusionment with this exhilarating and spectacular sport.

If, however, you are lucky enough to have your attention momentarily distracted at the crucial moment by, say, a gorgeous pair of legs (tentacles, pseudopodia, according to phyllum and/or personal inclination) or a bomb going off in your vicinty, or by suddenly spotting an extremely rare species of beetle crawling along a nearby twig, then in your astonishment you will miss the ground completely and remain bobbing just a few inches above it in what might seem to be a slightly foolish manner.

This is a moment for superb and delicate concentration. Bob and float, float and bob. Ignore all consideration of your own weight simply let yourself waft higher. Do not listen to what anybody says to you at this point because they are unlikely to say anything helpful. They are most likely to say something along the lines of "Good God, you can't possibly be flying!" It is vitally important not to believe them or they will suddenly be right.

Waft higher and higher. Try a few swoops, gentle ones at first, then drift above the treetops breathing regularly.

DO NOT WAVE AT ANYBODY.

When you have done this a few times you will find the moment of distraction rapidly easier and easier to achieve.

You will then learn all sorts of things about how to control your flight, your speed, your maneuverability, and the trick usually lies in not thinking too hard about whatever you want to do, but just allowing it to happen as if it were going to anyway.
You will also learn about how to land properly, which is something you will almost certainly screw up, and screw up badly, on your first attempt.

There are private clubs you can join which help you achieve the all-important moment of distraction. They hire people with surprising bodies or opinions to leap out from behind bushes and exhibit and/or explain them at the critical moments. Few genuine hitchhikers will be able to afford to join these clubs, but some may be able to get temporary employment at them.

I've Got a Case of the Monday's

Sometimes you do use information you learned in high school that you never thought you would use. I didn’t take physics, focusing more on biology, but I proved one law this morning. Well, several actually.
1. I can’t fly.

2. Gravity is real. Respect it.

3. My computer can’t fly.

4. I need to keep up on the dust bunnies on my stairs better.

5. It is a really good thing we didn’t use laminate flooring on the steps.
Yes, I took a spill down my stairs this morning. While carrying my desktop computer to work for one of our IT guys to repair it. I missed a step on the first flight and before I knew it I was face down on the landing and my computer was at the bottom of the stairs in pieces. I’m okay; just sore and bruised. We aren’t sure about the computer. IT Guru Don is going to see if he can do anything to revive it. Since it wasn’t coming on already (the reason I was carrying it in the first place), it may now be a lost cause.  It now has many small loose pieces that once were attached, but I don't know how important they all might be.

I also managed to put a gouge in the flooring at the bottom of the stairs and a good sized chip in the wall. So now I can add fixing that to my to-do list.

Don’t you love Mondays?

Guest Blogger - Got the Trailer!

I stole this off of Greg's post on the Montana Owner's Forum:

Well, we finally have our new trailer. Went up last Saturday night, started our PDI on Sunday and finished it on Monday. They started the punch list Monday and worked on it until Wednesday. We stayed in it Monday and Tuesday nights on the lot. We headed home Wednesday and decided to stop in Lacey and overnighted at Cabela's and just got home yesterday afternoon. If it tells you anything about how tired we were, we didn't get ANYTHING at Cabela's - how sad is that? Generator was very nice to have to do a couple quick breakfasts using the microwave :)


PDI went pretty well. I will post a list later to give you some ideas of what to look for.

The unit looks great and after the first couple nights of having to vacate it so they could work on it, finally feels like it is ours.

First time ever towing a fifth wheel, and first time with the new diesel... WOW is all I can say. The truck was hardly working at all to tow the Montana. I could go 65ish and it was barely doing 1600 rpms - that was nice. Could accelerate uphill with ease. Even had to pass a few semis going up hill and the pickup just cruised up the hills with little effort. Anyone even REMOTELY debating getting a diesel - DO IT!

Kris and I wanted to give a big thank you again to everyone who has helped us out on here. Just reading and listening gave us so much information to use on the walkthrough and made it seem so easy as we had heard a lot of it already here on the forum. Just little things even, like we couldn't get hot water with the electric side of the water heater. Thought hey, they've talked about that on the forum. Go out and see if the switch is on at the water heater - voila, switch was off and we felt smug as we "fixed" our first "problem" with the trailer :)

Will post more later as we get acquainted with the unit, but so far it seems to be in good shape!

New Addiction

This is the cutest thing on earth.  But be careful!  It is very addicting.  Don't you just want to pick them up and snorgle them?

A Nice Surprise

Look what my hubby got me:

A cool set of Harry Potter world coins:

A very cool set of bookmarks with all of the Hogwarts house shields:

And he did it all on his own for no reason other than he thought I would like them.  Isn't that sweet?



Another Delay

Huh.  Looking back it seems I haven't kept my blog audience up to date on the trailer saga.  I guess I've been too busy whining to everyone in person to write it all down.

So, remember back in March when our brand new fifth wheel trailer was stolen off the dealer's lot?  Well, we are still waiting for the new one. There has been one delay/screw up after another on this thing.  When Camping World of Burlington reordered the trailer, we requested that we get upgraded tires.  The manager didn't put it on the order, and after 6 plus emails from Greg asking about them, finally said it would be handled at the dealer level when the trailer came in.

So the new trailer came in about a month ago.  They had to do the usual stuff to it like clean it up and get it all ready for us.  And they had to add in the 12-volt receptors we ordered for the bedroom (in case we dry camp we can use our cpap), put on the vents, and install the inverter.  Oh, and deal with the tires.

So we've been waiting for a month now for them to get the tires.  We were ready to go up last weekend and pick it up and they ordered and put on the wrong tires.  They were some South Korean brand that we've never heard of.  Ummm, not what we wanted people!  How hard can it be? Five Michelin G614's.

They were whining about how they couldn't find these tires available ANYWHERE.  Greg made one phone call to the company that supplies the tires and wheels to Keystone (the manufacturer of the trailer) and they had 85 of 'em in stock and were happy to sell them to Camping World.

MAYBE this weekend we'll get the trailer, but I'm not holding my breath.

So far they are really screwing up my summer.

Everyone Needs Some of These

Tongue Tied