Sick!

For a little over a week now, I have been sick as a dog (whatever that means exactly). I've had a severe cold with all the wonderful symptoms that come along with it: sneezing, runny nose, stuffy nose, sore throat, cough. It's been a real pleasure. Plus we had a lot of chaos going on last week at work, so I was just generally tired and annoyed.

Today, I FINALLY have started to feel better. I'm still massively congested, but I'm not feeling quite as generally miserable. Hopefully tomorrow I'll wake up and feel even better. Unfortunately, since I've not been up to much more than going to work and laying in bed watching Netflix, I haven't felt like writing here at all.

Now that I'm feeling better, I have complete writer's block. I can't think of a single interesting thing to write about. So know that in the back of my mind, I'm not giving up on this blog. The crappy weather lately hasn't been of any help either. When it rains practically 24/7 there's not a lot of fun outdoor activity to be had.

This past Sunday, we did manage to get some flowers planted in the front yard. I bought and planted a variety of zinnia seeds per my mom's request. I told her on mother's day that since it was snowing then, I'd plant whatever kind of flowers she'd like once it warmed up a bit. Fortunately, it warmed up enough to warrant planting. The garden has yet to be planted, but I'm sure that will come soon.

Rain, rain GO AWAY!

There was only one thing worse than the fact that our internet was out for a week straight (flipping Comcast!) and that was the damned rain. It has rained practically nonstop for the last nine days. Generally, I enjoy a good thunderstorm, but this has been over a week of solid rain. There were a few breaks, but each of those days had a fair amount of rainfall. I think the total rain amount over that period was between 4-5 inches, which is a huge amount when you realize our usual annual rainfall is 8-15 inches.

This was just after the first rain storm when it rained *very* hard for 20 minutes.

Basically all of that was to say, I'm done with the rain! It has been a cool, wet, muddy and generally miserable week at work. The dogs, of course, have mostly loved it. I think even they are starting to get sick of being soggy all day too.

Mud puddles everywhere!

"What...is there something on my face?"

 To top it all off it snowed a good 4 inches or so last night into this morning. Everything was already massively saturated with moisture and the snow was heavy and wet. This is the kind of snow that snaps tree branches easily. So I got up today and took a broom out to shake the snow off the heavily weighted down lilac branches. Luckily, it looks like none of our trees or bushes sustained any major damage and the lilacs were done blooming.

You can see the heavy snow weighing down all the bushes and my dad helping clear them off.

Tomorrow's forecast is already looking up. At least for the next couple of days there is only a slight chance of more rain. In fact, Wednesday looks downright pleasant at 70 degrees and sunny. I could personally go for a few weeks without anything more than a brief thunderstorm or two. Local rivers and creeks are in danger of flooding and I don't think we want a repeat of the September 2013 flooding.

Not to mention all of this moisture has royally screwed up the interstate that I take to get to work. Somehow tons of the tar that's used to patch cracks and smaller holes has peeled up and made a mess on miles of the highway. And of course all of this moisture is just helping to create more and more potholes and preventing repairs.

I've never been a fan of summertime because I hate any temperatures over 75 degrees or so. Maybe it's because I was born in Alaska (though I only lived there for a brief four years), but I have never been a fan of hot weather. At this point though, I'm pretty much ready for the warmer temperatures. I'm tired of the snow (though today's has already pretty much melted away) and I am also tired of rain for now. Maybe I need to make a visit to the desert!

Baby Owls

I tried to make this post about a week ago, but was having some computer troubles. Figures, getting a new(er) computer doesn't fix all that. Of course, it could be that this computer is Windows-based and my laptop was a Macbook. At any rate, it seems to be working out okay now. This post will have to be short because I promised a couple of dogs I'd take them for a walk this evening.

In addition to all the lovely blossoms that spring has brought, there have been some adorable baby birds spotted at work. Specifically, three little baby owls in the nest over the parking lot. It's hard to get all three to pop their heads up at once and both days that I lugged along my digital camera in hopes of spotting them, only one or two were visible. I definitely wanted to get a couple shots with a better zoom before they flew away.

Hard to see in this picture taken with my cellphone camera, but if you enlarge it, you should be able to see momma and three fluffy babies.

This is the least cautious of the three babies as it sits up most of the day and doesn't hide from me

Look closely and you'll note both parents sitting on a branch (one of whom watched me closely as I snapped pictures)

"Who are you looking at?"

A second sibling briefly popped their head up to see me

I'm fairly certain that the owls in question are great horned owls, but don't hold me to that in court because I'm not an ornithologist. Both of the parents definitely have the defined 'horns' though, so that seems pretty likely to me that's what they are. We are all enjoying seeing these owls grow up and I suspect it won't be too much longer before the babies take off on their own.

In addition to the owls, we have some red-tailed hawks that hang out in the area. There are two big, open fields on either side of our location with lots of big mature trees as well. It seems to make for a great location for these birds of prey to hunt and raise their young in.

Spring Has Sprung

Just in time for all the lovely spring trees to be in bloom, it has to be snowing today. I'm  holding out hope that the lilac blossoms in the backyard will weather this storm, but not holding my breath. It seems like every year when the weather just starts to get warm enough for all the trees to be growing leaves, it snows heavily enough to start snapping branches. That's Colorado for you.

Snow...again? *sigh*

The general rule of thumb here is to wait until at least Mother's Day to start planting your summer flowers and vegetable garden. Of course, last year it snowed that whole weekend, so it was a week later than usual to start planting. I'm itching to get some gladiolus bulbs planted, but again it's best to wait until the freezing weather is done. We used to have several in the front yard and they were one of my favorites, but my dad got a little overzealous with weedkiller a couple summers ago and took them all out.

Luckily, one of the days off I had this week was gorgeous (75 degrees and sunny all day long) so I went and found a bunch of spring blossoms to photograph. So in lieu of having much else to say, I'm going to post some lovely spring pictures. I'm definitely not an expert on the different types of trees that are in bloom, but I like the variety anyway. Enjoy!

I like how all the branches came together in this shot.

I see these all over the place (some even appeared in the back yard), but I didn't know what they were, thanks to 20 minutes of Google searching, I am fairly confident that they're grape hyacinths.

I love the mixture of light pink flowers with bright green leaves in this one.

If you enlarge this one, you'll see little white blossoms amongst the red leaves.

And just for variety, some darker pink blossoms.

These white flowers had hints of light pink and grew in little ball-shaped clusters.

Lilacs in the back yard (it smells fantastic back there this time of year).

And a few tulips because it's not spring without tulips in blossom.

Excuses

There is always a laundry list of excuses for not writing and posting on the blog. I happen to have a decent excuse this time around though, because my laptop died on me. I still have a smart phone and a tablet, but I really don't like typing anything longer than a quick e-mail on those devices. I just like having  the feel of actual keyboard keys under my fingers. Maybe one day I'll be considered old-fashioned for typing on a physical keyboard like someone now would be looked at funny for using a typewriter.

Anyway, my brother had an old (not actually that old, there's touchscreen capability) computer that he wasn't really using that he sold to me for a reasonable price. Now I can try to get back into blogging a bit more regularly. A few things have changed around here since last I wrote, but nothing too terribly exciting.

One day, I just up and decided that I really liked the look of parachute cord collars that I saw on a few dogs at work. I looked into buying some lengths of paracord and the buckles and D-ring necessary to make a dog collar and in total it was about $5 for me to make Jonesy a collar. You can look around the web and find all sorts of tutorials on making dog collars and bracelets with paracord. In total, it took me about 2 hours to make the first collar, it took me a while to get into the groove with the pattern you knot the cords in. I kept getting it twisted and having to undo a few knots and restarting. The second time I made a collar for my brother's dog, it came out so much better. After several weeks of wear, I had to repair the one I made for my brother's dog, but Jonesy's is holding up fabulously.

Jonesy, modeling the collar I made for him.

Sadly, Turd Ferguson is no longer with us. I don't know exactly how it happened, but one of the plastic tubes that connected his cage popped loose (they never felt terribly secure to me) and he escaped. My brother came home from work at 2AM as usual and said he found a headless body in the living room. I suspect my cat, Oliver, is the suspect who committed the actual crime, but it doesn't really matter. I feel terrible and responsible for his death, but at the same time he never was able to be handled without biting, so I wasn't as attached to him as I could have been.

In his place I decided that I would get a guinea pig because they're generally more friendly and easy to handle and I want a pet that I can develop a bond with. Of course, from having worked at a pet store before, I knew that pigs were better in pairs because they're social, so I bought a big cage and got it all set. Then it was time to pick out a pair of piggies, which ended up being much more difficult a process than it should have. The first two piggies I picked out both ended up sick and having to be returned for treatment (one had ringworm and one had a respiratory infection). Not wanting to be completely without a pet in the interim, I picked out a new guinea pig who also ended up with a respiratory infection.

The lighter colored guy is the one who I returned to be treated for a respiratory infection and then brought home again.

When I returned the third piggy, the first one with a respiratory infection was healthy, so I brought him home again. The fourth guinea pig I got, who *knocks on wood* has been healthy and happy so far, I felt, is pretty unique looking. Of course there's a ton of different types of guinea pig coats and colors. He's mainly red and black with some white stripes which isn't all that special, but he has a rough coat, which I had not seen before. Based on some reading, it sounds like he could possibly grow up to have a curly coat, but it's hard to say right now because he's so young.

See his rough coat

 I haven't named the guinea pigs yet, but they're both doing really well with being handled. The darker guy is still more jumpy, but the light one is pretty used to handling because he was on daily antibiotics for a while. I'm sure with daily handling, they'll both get used to it in short enough time. I'm trying different kinds of vegetables and chews for them right now to find out what they like. So far it seems like carrots are a big hit, but they're not too fond of bell peppers. I gave them some chunks of the orange I was eating last night and that disappeared pretty quickly.

To wrap things up, the dogs are doing great. I recently took my brother's dog to work with me for the first time (there had been an ongoing debate about whether she could come along with me for free as if she's mine because I live with her or if he'd have to pay for daycare - ultimately we decided if they live under the same roof as you, they count as yours). I brought her along with Jonesy so she'd have someone familiar besides me. She did pretty well, but given that she's a Husky, I would have thought she'd be way more playful than she actual was. I think she will just need a bit of time to adjust to the routine and understand that this is just one big play date for her.

My brother's dog, Athena, hiding in the dog house at work with Jonesy

I'm on day one of three days in a row off, so I've been cleaning up around the house a bit today. I worked 11 days straight and prior to that, I had worked a week with about 55 hours, so I'm glad to have the break. I've just got to decide what to do with my free time the next two days. Tomorrow is the day to do something outdoorsy for sure as Wednesday looks like it will be a bit cooler and rainy. I'm thinking of driving to the mountains and going for a hike, but I'm not sure yet. I'd better get back to cleaning or else I'll never finish!

Marching On

I don't know why it still surprises me, but sometimes it sure feels like time flies. Just yesterday it seems like it was January and now here we are in March. We've had a break from the snow for a few days, but the forecast continues to call for more storms. At least the roads have had a chance to thaw out in between rounds of snow this time. There were a couple dicey drives to work in the last week. One day I was ten minutes late even though I'd left quite a bit earlier than usual.

For once, this week I was not the one having a bad week, but man did my dad have a doozy of one. First, he got into his car to start it and then when he stepped out to clear the ice and snow from it, the doors locked all by themselves. He had to call a locksmith to come out and open it because he only got one key when he bought the car. Needless to say, he went and ordered a second key for his car to avoid having such a thing happen again. Later that same day at work, he had a huge chunk of snow fall onto him and knock his glasses off and break them.

I helped out trying to repair the glasses for at least the short term. He has a lovely piece of tape around the stem for now, but he has to have them for driving at the very least. He hasn't decided yet whether he just wants to live with the taped up glasses for a while or order another pair. Of course, glasses are not inexpensive, but if they aren't going to hold up, he has to be able to see.

Just in case this was not enough, his monthly car payment was returned to him because the stamp had fallen off in the mail. This was returned to him just one day before it was due, so he had to go drop it off in person. He has had a series of bills returned to him over the years with a missing stamp. For some reason, the envelopes he was getting are too slick for the stamps to stick (or maybe he forgot to put one on once or twice, I don't know, he's not that old, but I could see getting in a hurry and forgetting).

Then last night he was watching TV and stood up to go to the bathroom. He coughed once, so hard that it actually caused him to pass out for a minute. My mom and I were standing in the kitchen and heard a loud crash. We ran to the living room to find him sprawled on the floor and unresponsive for a few seconds. Just before I could run and call 911, he regained consciousness and was very disoriented for a minute. After getting up, he realized that he must've fallen onto the corner of the coffee table because he had a big red mark and very painful spot on his back.

I took him to the ER to get checked out and make sure everything was okay. They tested his heart, did an x-ray of his ribs and an ultrasound to check for internal breathing. Everything came back looking all right, and it seems that he just had a vasovagal attack (which is a fancy way of saying that the vasovagal nerve overreacted to the cough and caused him to lose consciousness). After a few hours of waiting for test results, we were sent home with a prescription for pain pills to help him sleep without a massive pain in his side. Basically all he ended up with though was a big contusion on his side.

All of this reminds me of the week of hell I had back in February that included: emergency surgery for Jonesy, my brakes going out on my car and then my car refusing to start. I'm glad that I'm not the one having an awful time of it this go round. Prior to that week last year, I also had a foot injury that caused me to miss several days of work and a big medical bill of my own. At this point, I'm convinced that my family is just a big magnet for crazy bad luck. I'm not the only one who has had just a string of really awful things happen in a short span of time.

Oh Snow

All this week the meteorologists have been predicting a big snowstorm for the weekend. It was one of those storms where they kept adding to the snow totals as the week went along. What started out as 4-8" gradually grew into 12-18" of snowfall. The snow was supposed to start on Friday afternoon, but didn't actually start until late that evening.

When I drove to work on Saturday morning, I had about 6" of snow to clear off my car. The good news was that the ground was warm enough that there was only a few patches of minor slush on the roads. There was only a minor dusting of snow on the ground when I got to work and it started to seem like this was the usual case of the meteorologists making a mountain out of a molehill. 

My co-worker and I were standing outside just before 3PM and about ten minutes later when we were inside, you could see that it was not only finally snowing, but that it was blowing sideways. Out of nowhere, the wind was blowing very hard and it was practically whiteout conditions. Before I left work a couple hours later there was a few inches of snow on the ground and the roads were starting to get pretty nasty.

On the drive home, I passed a box truck just off the side of the highway laying on its side, facing oncoming traffic. I didn't encounter problems until I got off the highway. I couldn't get going after coming to a stop at the top of the off-ramp. My tires spun and I just kept slipping and it took a good 45 seconds to finally get traction. The same problem happened at every stop I had to make the rest of the way home, which was fortunately only about a mile away. I don't even want to know what would have happened if I didn't have a good set of snow tires.

This morning I woke up to probably around a foot of snow in the yard (it's hard to tell exactly because the wind blew the snow into drifts all over). I shoveled off the back patio area so that it doesn't turn into a skating rink for the dogs. While I shoveled, they ran around and played and I was glad that someone could enjoy the snow. As for me, I'm glad I don't have to drive in the snow today or tomorrow. I guess it's a good day to read or have a Netflix marathon.

Some People

Have you ever run across a person who was so rude and condescending that you literally could not believe it? I ran across just such a person today. I'm still trying to process what would make a person be so downright mean to another human being over a minor thing. I was only a secondhand party to the situation, but it was unbelievable.

Basically a client with a small problem called to complain and ended up outright stating that the woman who spoke to her on the phone was a nobody who didn't know anything. The client insinuated that she was rich and therefore better than everyone and was going to stop bringing us her business (hallelujah if she follows through!). She even resorted to calling my co-worker nothing more than a glorified pooper scooper.

All of this over a very minor issue that the client was definitely wrong about. The client was rude and clearly lying over the phone and has a past history of being difficult and not making her payments on time. Ultimately, my co-worker had to hang up on her after telling her to speak with the owner because they weren't going to get anywhere. The client then spent the next ten minutes just calling back repeatedly and finally leaving a nasty voicemail (which I listened to and can verify that the woman said some very unpleasant things about my co-worker).

Where does someone get off more or less saying that someone else is a piece of trash? It made my co-worker cry and she regularly has to handle phone calls from clients, so it's not like she's never dealt with an angry customer before. I've never even seen or heard her lose her temper with a client (even though I'm sure some of them are very trying).

I know that some people get very upset over their dogs as though they're a child. I get it because to a point I feel the same way. I'm still not going to get so mad over something that I'm going to tell someone else that they're worthless and I'm clearly better than them because I'm rich. I'm probably never going to be rich, but hey, that's beside the point!

I have to wonder if the situation would have gone any different had this woman come in to deal with a person face to face. Just look anywhere on the internet and you see people behaving like monsters because there's no direct human interactions. It's a lot easier to type a nasty comment out than it is to say it directly to someone's face where you can see how it hurts them.

I've been mad over perceived bad customer service before, but I've never used the situation to make someone else feel like they're useless. Mistakes happen, if the situation is bad enough to require a comment, I'll speak to a manager. I'll explain what happened and ask for my money back if it's warranted or just let them know that the situation needs to be rectified so that a future customer is not treated poorly. Everyone has an off day at work, but this wasn't even the case here. The only thing my co-worker did wrong was answer the phone!

The good news is tomorrow is Friday. Fingers will be crossed that no more tears will have to be shed and no clients will make anyone feel worthless. The funny thing is that while this woman was berating my poor co-worker, another client was bringing in donuts for us say that she was so grateful for the wonderful service we provide her. Talk about your polar opposites! Let's hope for more of that type of client.

It's A Hairy Situation

Winter has returned as expected now. From last night into late this afternoon it snowed, dropping about 6 inches of snow on us. At last glance outside, it had started to lightly snow again, but the forecast shows that it'll be back to nearly 60 degrees by Thursday. So on to the main story for today. 

Last week, I went to visit my grandma and took her to get a perm done in her hair. She has been asking for some time for someone to take her because she has decided on her own not to drive anymore unless she absolutely has to. I was also ready for a hair cut, so it was the perfect opportunity to take her so that we could both get our hair taken care of.

I don't know why it's so hard to get a decent hair cut. I know I was spoiled growing up by having my mom always cut our hair. She understandably got tired of cutting all our hair so in the last several years I've been on my own. I have tried getting my hair cut at several different places. It seems like I've only really had one good hair cut that was exactly what I asked for in that time.

My hair didn't turn out terribly this time around, but it was cut a good 2" shorter than what I had asked for, making it the shortest hairstyle I've ever had. The good news is my hair grows quickly, so before I know it will be long enough to need a cut again. It's just frustrating that you explicitly tell the stylist what you want and they invariably don't listen. It's either cut too little (which of course is easily fixable) or cut too much or cut in a style that isn't exactly what you asked for.

It's so short now that I can't do anything with it. It's too short for a ponytail of any sort and I've even had a hard time keeping it back with a headband. It's not the end of world in any way, but in the meantime it's hard to deal with. I work a job that has me outside for 11 hours a day and sometimes it's windy, so it would be nice to not just constantly have hair in my eyes. I dyed my hair on Sunday so that has helped me to be a little happier with the way it's looking now.

My grandma wasn't entirely satisfied with her perm either, so I guess it wasn't just me. The stylist who did hair took a long time, but since I've never had a perm, I don't know if it was especially long or more average. She also left a weird part in the front of her head that my grandma was not happy with. She's gotten pretty stubborn and hard to please in her old age though, so I'm not surprised she found fault with something.

Next time I'm ready for a haircut, I'll move on to another place. Maybe I'll give my sister's stylist a shot, she seems pretty happy with her, it's just a bit more than I usually spend on a simple haircut.  I guess if I want a good haircut, I will need to be willing to spend a few more bucks. It's not like I get them once a month, more like once every 6-12 months. For now, maybe I'll just make a point of wearing a hat when I'm outside so that my hair isn't constantly falling in my face.

It's Technically Still Winter

I know that it's technically still winter and that folks on the east coast are having tons of snow to deal with, but I'm thoroughly enjoying the wonderful spring weather we've been having lately. I even noticed that the grass has started to turn green this week. Of course, we've still had some cold days and a couple small snow storms, but I'm so ready for spring. We have a good, solid two or more months of potential snow storms, but for now, I'm enjoying it.

Basking in the warm sun

For me, the ideal situation would be if the temperatures never ranged much outside of the 50-80 degree range. Anything warmer than that and I'm too hot, colder than that for long periods gets to be pretty annoying too. Living in Colorado is probably not the best choice if I want that weather, but the gorgeous scenery far outweighs the weather drawbacks.

Gotta love those cloud formations over the peaks

Today, my sister and I took our dogs for a short drive into the mountains to a dog park that had a bunch of open space and trails to walk off-leash. Of course, we failed to realize that even though weather was pretty warm (I'd guess the temperatures were in the upper 50s), there was still plenty of snow on the ground. Parts of the trail were icy and parts were incredibly muddy, so we didn't get to hike quite as much as we planned, but the dogs had a blast.

Lots of space to run and smell things!

Jonesy was rolling around the snow and Bob and Danger were running and chasing each other. They played and ran around and had a general good time. They didn't care in the least about the mud and ice. I think this nice forested dog park will be a great spot in the summer and it's less than an hour away from home.

In other news this week was a pretty good week at work. I take Jonesy with me every day I work at the doggy day care and he loves it. He makes lots of friends and plays and gets lots of exercise. He's also a momma's boy, so he loves spending time with me. The good news is, today was my last day at the job I wasn't happy with. I put in my two weeks notice a little under two weeks ago, but I'm not on next week's schedule. I'm perfectly okay with that because it really wasn't a good situation anymore. Hopefully from here it's onward and upward to better things.

Puppies make good nap buddies!

The Great Outdoors

One of the good things about working outside (other than enjoying nice weather) is that I get to spend lots of time enjoying the clouds. I am always fascinated by the shapes and colors of different cloud formations. I love a good sunrise or sunset any day of the week.

Sunrise on a snowy morning this week

I also love that my work is positioned far enough north of Denver that it's in a more farmland area. There are lots of big birds of prey hanging around because there are open fields with lots of mice. There are hawks, owls and even a bald eagle or two. I plan on taking my digital camera one of these days so I can try and capture some decent pictures of the birds (my camera phone does a good job, but the zoom is pretty limiting). 

Had to go with smaller size because this one is so grainy. It was taken in the dark with my phone and I had to edit it with photoshop. It's an owl in the tree I park my car under.

Of course it's still February, so there will be plenty of snowy days to come. At this point, I'm just enjoying the warm weather while I can and looking forward for spring. Then comes summer, which I'm less excited for because I'm not a big fan of hot weather, but I'll worry about that when the time comes.

A rainbow cloud from this week

 My foot is doing after being sliced with glass last week. It still hurts when I walk around without shoes on, but otherwise it's fine. Then, I got bitten by a dog at work this week, so my streak of being injured is not at end yet. It's not a serious wound, but of course it was my right hand that was hurt and I'm having fun trying to do things left-handed. I swear my left hand is in need of some special training because the coordination level is practically non-existent.

Yesterday's sunrise

Yesterday's sunset

The Week That Was

This post is just going to be a recap of the happenings of the last week with a few pictures weaved in to break up the text that may or may not have to do with the stories. Early last week, the weather was gorgeous for January in Colorado. We had two days above 70 degrees (normal high temperatures this time of year are more like the mid-40s). Those two days made me very glad that I have a job where I can be outdoors for the majority of the day.

Enjoying the unseasonably warm weather when Jonesy popped in for a kiss.

Then there was yesterday. The forecasts had called for less than an inch of snow to fall overnight Saturday into Sunday. So imagine my surprise when I woke up to around 8 inches of snow in my yard. I think I cleared closer to a foot of snow off my car (which was cold and allowed the snow to accumulate faster). That's Colorado for you though, 70 degrees and sunny to almost a foot of snow in less than a week.

An inch or less of snow, my foot!

Saturday was a heck of a day for me. I got to work and saw that for this week they only had me scheduled for a total of 8 hours. I'm available to work there any amount of hours, 4 days a week and they give me two days with four shifts, what a waste of my time. I've been getting quite frustrated with this job and that was pretty much my last straw. I've worked this job for 2.5 years and since the newest set of management has taken over, things have gone downhill. They hire tons of people and keep even their longer term employees like me (I think I'm 3rd in line in seniority now) strung along with very few hours so they don't have to provide benefits for anyone I'm guessing.

Today, I officially put in my two week's notice to quit. Yesterday the head manager was not working and I wanted to give myself a day or two to make sure I was doing the right thing. Luckily, I'm getting enough hours at my other job right now to be able to pay all my bills. And as business picks up there in the next month or two, I'll be getting more hours than I can shake a stick at. If necessary, I can take another part time to fill in the gaps for a little while too.

Back to Saturday, at work that morning I managed to drop the keys I carry around for work into the toilet. The little clasp that keeps them hooked to my belt loop decided to give out right as I was standing up from the toilet. If you've ever dropped anything into the toilet, I'm sure you have an inkling of the absolute disgust I felt when I heard that metallic clink on the porcelain. So, for a lovely mental image (hey, I had to live through it!) I had to go fishing in the toilet I had just peed in for keys. Then I vigorously scrubbed my hands and the keys for a good ten minutes. And just for good measure, I dipped the keys in hand sanitizer as well.

My car's odometer hit 350K last week and I missed it. :( -Also, I clearly need to clean off my instrument panel...I don't remember splattering anything on it, but it's dirty.

That was not the end of my bad luck for the day though, as it continued that evening at home. I went into the kitchen and decided to cook breakfast for dinner: french toast and bacon. I started to cook the bacon, then somehow, after multiple trips back and forth across the kitchen, managed to step on a shard of glass. My brother, apparently, shattered a glass earlier in the day and not only didn't warn me (I'd have been wearing shoes in there had I known!) he failed to clean up very well.

Personally, if I shatter something, I sweep up the big pieces of glass and then even on tile floors, I'll hit it with the vacuum cleaner. You gotta get all those little bits of glass up off the floor. You know, so someone like me doesn't end up with shards of glass in her foot. Thank goodness it was me, not the dogs or the cat who had stepped on the glass. When I went back in to vacuum the floor, I saw several sizable shards of glass on the floor.

I ran from the kitchen to my bedroom, where I keep my first aid supplies due to low storage space in the bathroom. Also, my tweezers are kept in my purse, you never know when you'll get a splinter (at least if you're me it's a pretty frequent occurrence). I pulled one smaller shard of glass out of the ball of my foot and that's when it started bleeding, not just a little, but gushing. I could tell there was another piece of glass trapped under the skin, but I was hesitant to pull it out. Would it hurt more to do it myself or should I call my mommy for help?

I opted to dig it out myself, whilst dripping blood on my carpet. It was hard to see what I was doing with all the blood, but I managed to work the larger shard of glass out of the skin. I cleaned up the wound and put a bandage on it to help stop the bleeding. Then, I stared to smell smoke. THE BACON! Too late, the bacon was fairly well burnt and of course this was the last of my bacon. The dogs were excited to have some bacon after it cooled off and not at all upset that it was blackened.

Later, the bandage that I had on my foot fell off because it's difficult to get anything to stick to the ball of your foot. Now that the bleeding had quit, I inspected my wound and it was not a long cut, but it went pretty deep. Had it been on a less fatty portion of my foot, I may have gone to to the emergency room instead of just taking care of it on my own. At last check, it was looking pretty good, I don't think it will get infected. Fortunately, me being me, there's a big stock of antibiotic ointment and bandages to keep it covered until it's dried out enough to not stick to the inside of my socks.

Here's a nice sunset from last week to take your mind off all the gory details if you're upset by that sort of thing.

In fact, I may use some super glue to close the flap of skin up before work tomorrow. I can't imagine a bandage staying in place for 12 hours while I'm on my feet most of the day. It might sound weird, but someone told me super glue is similar to surgical glue and I use it regularly to close cracks in the skin around my finger nails. Winter is hard on my skin and Colorado is not a very humid environment in the best of times, so my skin splits no matter how much I moisturize and it's painful. Although, maybe I'll hold off on the super glue because I'm not sure it's a good idea with a deeper cut like this. If you never hear from me again, I guess we'll know I went ahead and it was a bad idea ha ha!

Anyway, on Sunday I think I had a pretty successful day. I didn't drop anything into the toilet. I didn't cut myself on anything. I didn't burn my meal. Those are all big positives after having a day like Saturday.

Time for Some Laughs

Last week was a long one for me. I worked 7 days straight and got in a good, solid 55 hours, which will make for a nice paycheck. It still made me pretty tired and one of my jobs is pretty much driving me crazy. I'm at the point where I want to quit, but for at least a little while I need the hours there. In about a month, my 2nd job will have full time hours available so that I can quit the one which is driving me up the wall.

There's also some family drama going on right now, and that has me extra stressed out. So after a rotten day at work on Saturday, I decided that I needed something fun to do to distract myself for a little bit at least. That was the night that comedian Chris Hardwick was doing a show in downtown Denver. I'm a huge fan of his podcast, Nerdist as well as his late night show @Midnight on Comedy Central, so it was a no brainer for me to go see his show.

I'm really glad that I went to see the show because it provided me with an excuse to just let go and laugh really hard for a couple hours. From the opening comedian, to the end of the show, I was able to not have to worry about all my problems and have a good time. It was a really fun night and I've felt much better since. I still have my problems, but I'm feeling generally a lot less stressed out than I was a few days ago.

I guess the lesson to take away from all this is that no matter what you've got going on, you still have to take the time to do something fun. Do something that's just for yourself every once in a while, you'll probably feel better about things when you do. Even when things are getting you down, you have to take the time to laugh. That cliche about laughter being the best medicine is at least sort of true.

I Read...A Lot

If you know me in person, you've probably seen me reading a book pretty frequently. I like to sit down and read at least a little bit every day. I have multiple bookcases full of books and I've been collecting them since I was a kid. In fact, I still have a stash of children's books in my cedar chest in case I have kids or nieces and nephews some day. I have fond memories of reading those books as a kid and I want some future children to get the opportunity to read the same books.

When the Kindle first came out, my brother had to get one because he's the early adopter type. He always has to have the newest gadgets and electronic toys. I've never been extremely interested in gadgets. I was late in getting a cellphone, my first one wasn't until 6 or 7 years ago, and my first smart phone was less than two years ago. So when my brother got me a Kindle for my birthday a few years back, I wasn't convinced I'd enjoy the thing.

I downloaded some books and started reading on the device. It took me a while to really feel great about the e-book reader. There was just something about having a physical book to hold in my hands that I could literally turn the pages of that was more appealing to me. I finally realized that one benefit of having the e-book reader was that I could carry dozens of books with me in a small package. Sometimes books are thick or hard back books are too big to carry around in my purse. Plus, Kindle versions of books are generally cheaper than the physical copies.

If I had a day where I had tons of time to read, I could finish up one book and there was the next one waiting for me. I got to really enjoy my Kindle and then last year my mom accidentally broke the screen on it. I was really disappointed, but bought some books so that I'd have plenty to read. It was late fall and too close to Christmas for me to buy myself a new Kindle. I put it on my wishlist for Christmas, but didn't get one. So when I got an Amazon gift card for Christmas and a cash bonus at work, it was enough to purchase myself a new e-book reader.

A few months ago, when I was Kindle-free, I got an Amazon local offer to try out three months of Audible for $1.95 a month, so I signed up for that. Audiobooks just don't do it for me though, regardless of how good of a job they do in producing the books. I think that maybe I just absorb the stories better and have more of a chance to imagine the characters in my mind if I'm reading them myself. It's weird because I love listening to podcasts, which is similar because it's spoken word storytelling. Maybe I like them better because it's more of a conversation than one person reading a story to you.

I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who prefer audiobooks to any form of reading because they can listen to a story while they're doing other things. I like to listen to podcasts when I can at work and while I do chores or walk the dogs. I think when I read, I like to devote my full attention and imagination to the story, whereas with podcasts, I can just split part of my focus onto the stories being told.

I've just always been very fond of reading. It maybe stems from having taught myself to read when I was a little kid. I don't remember this, but apparently I did teach myself to read. I do remember always being in the advanced reading groups in elementary school. At any rate, I'm going to wrap this up so that I can get back into reading. I'm in the middle of two books right now, so I'd like to get back to them!

Happy Birthday, Jonesy!

Today marks the fourth birthday of my dog, Jonesy. I remember bringing home an adorable 13 pound puppy from the shelter like it was just yesterday and now he's a 90 pound beast. With the exception of a few little health scares like the allergic reaction he had in August, he's been a pretty healthy, happy dog. In honor of his birthday, I'm just going to post some pictures of him, so if that's not your thing, you may want to just skip ahead now.

Here's little baby Jonesy on the day I brought him home

Even though he's a big boy, he never outgrew being a lap dog

He's a great hiking buddy

When he was 2, he got a kitty

He can't wait for summer because he loves to swim!

He is a good cuddle buddy, especially with his best friend Bob Barker

He really likes coming to work with me and making new friends

Happy birthday, Jonesy, here's hoping you have many more!