Waders

In honor of Halloween

Three days to get used to The Change and three streams to drain when I got home.  When we go see the vet on Saturday for his yearly, in addition to pushing the stress peeing idea, I'm going to float the hormonal theory of sudden incontinence, apparently when a dog gets fixed and his hormones change, he can lose control of his bladder, it seems that hey need a bit of testosterone to keep that in check and he doesn't have anymore. Its been months since his surgery but it takes that long for the hormones to balance out and I think they are tilted in the wrong direction.

Incontinence is treatable!

So that I would not spend too much time obsessing on dog urine, Rocket and I took a long walk downtown to the museum district. We haven't been by there in a long time so it was nice change for us. We climbed on many retaining walls and sniffed many interesting sniffs. We or rather I  sniffed at the Christmas trees they all ready have displayed in their museum store windows - but it was a much different snif it was closer to a tsk.

Here is Rocket holding the very world on his shoulders

So calm, so collected. He likes the smell of dog urine. Sigh.

Making the heart grow fonder

 Sunday I came to a decision : I can not come home every day for lunch forever.

I knew that eventually that this would have to happen but I was very happy to just let it happen organically. I didn't want to set a timetable or arbitrarily make a date on the calender and say "This is the last day". I wanted it to just happen, and it did.

Sunday I packed a lunch for myself and took it to work and as it turns out, spent part of my lunch hour getting a flu shot I had forgotten about - I was still able to  go back to my old stomping grounds at the foot of Dix Hill and ate my lunch while I watched the leaves fall and the birds and squirrels cavort.

And spent the rest of the afternoon praying fervently hat they dog wasn't destroying the office room. Needless to say I rushed home - Totally broke all the "rules" about not adding to the dogs anxiety by quietly coming home, visiting with the cat, going to the john, changing clothes and generally completely ignoring the dog for twenty minutes ( I haven't been able to do the full twenty) and then going in and non-greeting the dog with no eye contact and  no speech. Its completely unfriendly, but apparently, rushing into the house and racing to his side to greet him with high pitched baby talk and excitement, is not helpful and only adds to the anxiety the dog feels. Sigh.

Monday, I was (very quietly) greeted by pee. Not a lot of pee and clearly, it had been there for a while, but he hadn't destroyed any furniture or hurt himself so I took it as a win. I will have Natures Miracle on hand for the rest of my life, but its a trade off I'm will to deal with.

Monday I fixed my lunch and planned on spending my lunch hour reading my kindle and communing with nature through my car windows. Instead I spend my lunch hour at Sam's waiting or Rockets meds. The good part of this, was that I could not go home, I was trapped where I was and there wasn't anything I could do about it. The flu shot and the paperwork ate time on Monday and Sam's ate my whole lunch hour Tuesday.

I again spent the afternoon praying the dog wasn't destroying anything or hurting himself. I got home and found that he peed again, but this time he seemed to hold it longer because, well, you don't really want know how I figured that out, but I see progress. I do not think that I can with hold anymore water in the morning than I all ready am, he must have fluid! He does get wet food mixed with his dry but I still offer a little of the real stuff because I fear dehydration and kidney damage more than I fear a wet floor.

Saturday Rocket goes to the vet for his yearly and the Vet and I are going to talk about upping the dose of his new med and maybe upping the prozac. I really want us both to have peaceful afternoons.

Kitchen

That's what $17,645 looks like. I think looking at the picture, that I would need the doors to be a darker brown to match the dark in the back splash. I love the quartz counter top but in a perfect world it would be concrete mixed with recycled glass. All the wood would be bamboo, all surfaces an hardware would be as green as possible.

I don't have $17,645. I hate my floor, HATE. I hated it when I moved in twelve years ago and I have not become ambivalent in my opinion  over the years - I have tried to try to cover it up. It should be a good, heavy traffic tile. The wall paper could be replaced. The cabinet doors need to be sanded and then sprayed a different color.

I can't afford any version of the above pipe dreams, but the floor needs to be replaced. because its awful. Maybe I can work on that and then move to the wallpaper sometime after that.


I need an HGTV show to come in and make it gorgeous. How does one make that happen?

Weekend

I was causally thinking about what I was going to wear to work on Monday and then about what I was going to make for lunch and then more immediately, my shower. Life was good.

And then I remembered that Strangers were coming to my house Monday night to talk to me about kitchen renos!  There is zero chance that this is going to happen, but its free and I like free. They are going to take lots of measurements and I think its always a good idea to have those handy - and if someone else wants to do it?  More the better.

Instead of making lunch or deciding on what I am wearing to work Monday I through myself into getting the kitchen to a condition that I would not be embarrassed to have strangers in. Not for the upcoming holidays, not because I should have a clean kitchen. not because people I care about are going to be in the space - Strangers I don't care about are going to see it and I wanted it to look nice for them.

Mostly I don't want strangers to eat out on the condition of my kitchen. The last thing I want to do is to became a meme at the Home Depot. So I was on my knees cleaning my floor and scrubbing the doors of  my appliances. It got done.

I could have done this at my leisure during any of the many, many hours I spent watching TV or sunning myself in the yard with dog, walking the dog or aimlessly going to the store with the dog. Did you know that Home Depot is Dog Friendly? You can bring your dog when you go to buy whatever it is you need at Home Depot - Which for me right now, is the Santa Vader or the Christmas Giraffe . Sadly, they will not be coming home with me, so I have to visit them. This is how I ended up with the kitchen consult.

I also learned this weekend while I was puttering around not cleaning my house, that it is much easier to mow your leaves than to rake your leaves. Much. I am giving away my rakes.

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Friday Cat Blogging

Pints for Paws

Rocket and I had a night out at a bar! Rocket and I went to a fund raiser for Cause for Paws and we had a lovely time! If you are at all interested in current  Halloween fashion trends among the four legged population, and really, who isn't - This Year is all about Amphibians, Shell fish and Sea Creatures! In the costume contest that we did not win, were a : Dolphin, frog, octipus, crawdad, dragon and a lizard. Rocket coming dressed as a Ralph Lauren model and another large dog dressed as a Rock Star didn't have a chance. The pet costume industry has a serious bias against large breeds! The winner was a tiny dog dressed as a crawfish.

If they had a Mr. Best Dressed or a Mr. Congeniality though, young Rocket would have won hands down.

He and I both are now exhausted

Taking into my own hands.

Rocket has seen some improvement. He has dialed back the gorging to snacking! The wonders of modern veterinary pharmacology! But, its  still not good enough. I wanted him to become an futon anorexic.  I'm afraid that this might not be possible in the short term. I am taking it to the next level. If I can't make him want to stop eating my futon, I can make it as difficult as possible. That is sheets of a  particularly unpleasant carpet protector with the pointy side out.

Very low tech, but I  hope an important deterrent to his afternoon  futon centered freak outs. I called the vet today to register my lack of complete satisfaction with his new med and to ask if maybe we could up the dose a bit, as it stands, it has kept him from chowing down like he did Monday but he's still snacking and I want him to go on a diet. A crash diet. I was unable to speak with the actual vet but I made sure that my comments made it to his chart and I am going to call back to speak with someone with a prescription pad.

I can't be there to catch him in the act so I have to do something to make it as unattractive and painful a process as possible. I want him to think of eating that futon as a bad, bad thing that he doesn't want to do anymore. I don't want to hurt him badly, but a little discomfort can be an object lesson.

Learning about the neighborhood.

Well, he didn't chew on the futon as much as he did Monday. He also seems a little hyper and more restless - he isn't a restless dog, he takes naps. A lot of naps, he's pretty much wide awake right now. I did notice while I was writing this that I too a look around and didn't see him.

I can always see him, he is always in the room with me . He was not in the room with me. He was in the office, on the futon, in the dark, chewing on a bone. he was not chewing on the futon.

After I moved the futon around to hide the new chewing, I noticed that Rocket seems a little "up", he is always happy to see me but he usually doesn't go on a victory lap around the house in my honor. I took him to the park because I decided that he needed to o o the park. He got there and ran like he was being chased by the devil. He ran flat out. He also met a couple of new dogs and chased them. At some point some dog  bite or nipped his sides and now he as boo-boos on both flanks. I believe it might have been the totally adorable spaniel who mounted him - Rocket pulled away and I think the spaniel dug in with his claws a bit.

We left the park and went for a walk, he wasn't ready to go home and I wasn't sure I wanted him to go home in the state he was in. So we walked and discovered a whole neighborhood I didn't know was there. I had always assumed that the world fell off at the edge of the dog park and so there was no reason to  go beyond the parking lot.

It turns out there is a little shopping center and a takeout/dine in grill. The Brookside Market and Grill  where they serve Mediterranean food and have a large selection of international foods in the market, and it is also a convenience store. I looked them up on Yelp and the reviews were very positive  and now I want to go there to see if I'll like them too. On Face book they have their menu and it looks interesting. I have wanted to try out Shawarma after seeing it on many Food network food porn shows and now I can and close to home! Yay!

F%^&*ed to Fixed

I came home to a wonderful welcome form Rocket!

My first reaction was to stand in the doorway and scream. And then I came into the room and screamed at Rocket. And then I got on the phone to the vet to scream at them. Clearly Plan A is not working anymore and its time to move to Plan B.  And NO I can't afford a NC State Vet School Behaviorist! My insurance doesn't cover that and I can't afford it on my own. Hook me up with a chemical restraint.

This is in addition to his Prozac.

The vet asked me if I yelled at the dog when it happened and I was like "Yup. Screamed like a banshee", she said "Oh. You should never do that! You just ignore him when he does things like that! Screaming makes the anxiety worse." I was like vet please lets talk about my anxiety! I;m going to have a stroke here! "Ignore him when he does a bad thing!?" NOT.

We took a trip to Sam's and got the pills and fed me then home to fed him and then we went to Wallyworld for duct tape and  a new futon cover.

Photo blogging the experience - How To Fix or Conceal the Damage to Your Chewed up Futon

 Stuff the stuffing back in, don't be afraid to not get it all back in.

First tape the wound shut, make sure its secure.

Seal the area completely and as strongly as possible, it needs to hold.

Make sure the outer layer is also sealed and secured to contain the damage.

Cover the area to keep the wound clean and contained and the scar hidden from view.

Clean the room of evidence and hope for the best. And that the chemical restraints hold.

Doing nothing and liking it.

You know what this weekend was? This weekend was "Diana does nothing all weekend and really, really enjoys herself" It was heaven.

I did start to feel a little guilty about all the nothing I was getting done, so I took the front horizontal planter out of commission and  decided that next year the shoe trees slash planters will be attached to the pallets with zip ties instead of the metal hooks they came with - and this is not just because I lost some in the transition process, they will turn up ( next time I till the garden). The planter in the back yard might stay where it is because it was my first try and was a learning experience and there are a lot of staples involved and I think it is in every ones best interest if  it can stay where it is. I will empty it out after my chives die back, but is in a good place and can winter there.

Saturday I was so lazy I didn't even take the dog for a walk, I ran errands and he came with me. I count this as enrichment because he gets to see new things and watch new people! Yay! Also it keeps him excited and that ultimately, makes him sleepy so it feels like he had a much more full day than he actually had.

Later we curled up on my chair and watched a lot of TV.

Sunday we slept late and watched more TV and later, I took Rocket for a longer than anticipated walk around downtown. And then we watched more TV, I took a shower and then we watched more TV.

A super good weekend all around. Next weekend I see oxtail stew getting made.

Friday Cat Blogging

Kitty smile!

Live and Learn

And we're open for business! Yay!  Well, "we" were always open for business "we" went to work everyday. The woman down the hall with the same job description as me but with a different payer source, had been out since the first. I'm hoping she doesn't ask how long I was off for because I can't tap dance well enough to dance around the fact I wasn't furloughed for a minute. If I were her, I would hate me.

On to happy news! My washing machine washed a load of laundry! All the way through! All by itself!  And they came out all but dry! It was just like old times! So exciting! I'm like "OMG! I can do my laundry anytime I want!" I spent two months with a cranky washer and suddenly I'm Helen Keller learning W A T E R.

It did make it clear to me that the machine was ill for quite a while before it started to show symptoms. The laundry hadn't been nearly as wrung out as it should have been, and while I noticed the difference, I decided that it was my imagination and it never was that not wet coming out of the machine. Yes, yes it was, it was that not wet. It actually borders on the damp when it comes out, not wet but damp. It had been wet for a while.

Thinking positively, I now have a new timer and a newish control panel so it should  (Please Jesus!) work for at few more years or until a really spectacular appliance sale comes along. Its all but a new machine now having a had heart and brain transplants. So for the cost of a low end, stripped down new machine, I didn't have to get the old machine out and a new machine in - major score there, and I got  to keep using my old bells and whistlers machine. I did learn a lesson though: Do not let the repair service order the part, get the part number, its on your paperwork as well as on the machine, and order the part yourself online. You will get a much better deal than if  the service company orders the part for you.

Happy Friday.

Just say No Comment.

I ran into these little boys while walking with Rocket and we had a nice chat and one asked if Rocket was neutered - points for vocab for that kid, but he said Rocket didn't look fixed. I was like, how do I have the conversation without sounding like a perv? Have my vet sin a statement contesting to the fact that  he had huge out sized balls prior to his surgery? The vet was impressed and shocked by the brass ones that dog was carrying around. Now, he is not even  shadow of what he once was, he is down to a tiny, nickel plated ball-ette now.

I was like Dudes, I can't really talk about the relative size my dogs former genitals with you, I'm pretty sure there are statutes in place against forty-five year old women having those kinds of conversations with eleven year old boys.

Post fix he looks much more sleek. Much more like a seal. A tall seal, a seal that grew legs and needed long ears to be symmetrical! That's his Halloween costume! He's a Land Seal! Ta Da! He looks fixed damn it.  Ask him, I know he's noticed the difference.

Speaking of the dog, he has taught me a trick.  He goes into the kitchen and I take him outside and he pees. Super. Then we go back into the house and go back to whatever we were doing. As soon as we're settled, he goes back to the kitchen and rings the bells on the door to signal he needs to go back outside. We retrace our steps and he voids completely. Why he couldn't do this on the first trip there is no answer. I don't rush him or hurry him along post potty, he wees and heads back to the house.

He is also making the couch look much more comfortable than I ever thought possible. I've had I for fifteen years and its never been more than a prop - but now,  thanks to Rocket, its functioning as a real couch for the first time in its life, I'm discovering after fifteen years that its actually really comfortable and nap-ready and it can do more than hold up  festive throw pillows and function as a enormous dust catcher. Oh that Rocket! Is there anything he can't make better?  He's is truly a magical land seal.

Excuses, excuses

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Rocket is sleeping with his head on my shoulder. He is snoring. So I can't get to the computer to write a real entry.

Before he fell asleep he confided in me that he HATES the House Republicans, and if left alone with them, he would do them like he does cheap toys - He would rip them to shreds and shite out the little pieces.

The blame game

Two thirds of the people in my building have been furloughed and yet the parking lot is full of cars.

In honor of all continued stress, I want to make these really, really bad. I don't have one of those cool brownie pans - Where did they come from? I get cupcake pans but I've never seen dedicated brownie pans before. Maybe they are for professional use, I would either use a cup cake pan or a regular half sheet cake sized pan. I don't think it would make a big difference in anything other than aesthetics and I don't think, looking at them, that anyone is going to be spending a lot of time looking at them.

The dog peed on the floor twice was while I at work today.  I don't know what to do with him! It might be a good time to up his meds but I can't afford a trip to the vet right now and I know they will insist on an office visit. I think what I will end up doing is asking about it when I take him in for his heartworm test - in a month. By which time my office floor will be ruined and I will be at the end of my rope. Daisy never got freaked out and wet the floor!!!!! But what Daisy lacked in emotional problems she more than made up for in physical problems and by the time she was his age she had already been sick a lot.  Waaaaaahhhhhhh! I am never satisfied! This is all my fault!

Okay, wet and dry mixed food in the morning and less water. There is plenty of water in the wet food and it should suffice to keep him hydrated. Deep breaths. And if I do come home and find pee, I'm going to shame the little beast into the ground.

R&R

I got up early Saturday morning and  went to a How To class on grow garlic and learned that as much as I really, really like garlic - I do not want to grow it. Its not that its hard to grow, but it takes too long to do so, seven months! And then there is a month of dancing attendance to it as it dries for a afterwards. I think I would rather just buy it at the store.

I am going to grow onions though, scallions actually. They grow in a reasonable time and they do well in containers. I was gifted a handful of what I now believe to be Guardsman scallions last spring and they were fabulous. I am also going to plant a variety called Shimonita. Its going to be fun. I haven't really made any concrete plans yet but for 2014 it looks like: Tomatoes, peppers, sunflowers, corn, potatoes, green beans, herbs and onions.

Rocket helped out in the garden this weekend. I am planning on tilling it up and adding some fertilizer to help it recover over the winter but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Rocket helped me by working on part of the it himself.

He did an outstanding job and went much deeper than I have patience to do with the big tiller.  I should be so focused on the task in front of me. I don't know what he was trying to find but he was really intent on getting to it.

 

He was very proud of himself.

Rocket worked on getting the backyard in shape, I concentrated on the front yard. I mowed it and trimmed the bejesus out of the shrubs. It looks much nicer than it did before and I am hoping I don't have to do it again for a while. I also was able to get up the first n dead leaves but by the end of the day they had been replaced. My composter is full and happy though.

And then I did nothing. I watched TV and then  did nothing made dinner and then did more nothing, a perfect Saturday. Sunday, I  slept late and went to noon mass and I came home and raked the carpets and recycled old magazines and did some household tidying. And then I rested some more and then I took Rocket to Dix and threw a stick for him and ran up and down hills.

And then I made dinner and took a shower and watched more TV. Excellent weekend.

And the beat(ings) go on.

Went to work , worked all day, perhaps for one of the last times. The furlough is not looming, its standing outside the door waiting to kick it in. I am lucky in that while my hours will be cut, they will not be eliminated entirely. I will be a part time employee.

Rocket will be thrilled by my new hours. My checkbook will be broken hearted.

I have found that keeping myself very busy in the evenings is therapeutic for me while I  spend my days waiting for The Letter . This evening I decided that  my dirt laundry waiting around to be washed was not getting my laundry clean. I have walked passed a laundry just down the street for me for over a decade and had never took advantage of it. I changed that. What I learned is that not everything needs to go into your bucket. It was very clean.

I tried to think about the $458K house for sale next door and not about the fact that a man got bludgeoned outside the front door Monday night. I have never seen anyone in the laundry ever and really thought it was closed or maybe a front for  some sort of Breaking Raleigh style wrongness. But it is actually a laundry!   It felt like being on a laundry set, it was odd and its a little weird I've never seen anyone in there, but clearly someone or even many someones still managed to sneak in at some point, because they took a giant a pee in the recycling bin. If it had been hot, the space would have been uninhabitable, it was cool. so it was like inhaling inside a dirty cat box.  Fortunately, I was able to get my laundry done quickly and I didn't have to spend a lot of time there, but enough time for a panhandler to try and fail to hit me up for lunch money.

I came home and got the dryer fired up and then grabbed the dog and went to the grocery to pick up some more brownies for work - we need brownies, ya'll don't know!  I also bought fixings for a meat loaf and that made me happy. Its a new recipe and I am always looking for new and improved meat load recipes. I made the brownies, two batches because those cows at work aren't the only ones that need brownies in their lives right now.

Friday Cat Blogging

Still working

Another day, another day not furloughed yet . It's not an "if" it is definitely a when. So we wait.

I came home from an exhausting day taking part in Death Watch 2013 and took Rocket to the park for an hour, he had a blast and I feel that I made up for making him sit in the car for two hours while I kibitzed with the Democrats and shivered in the cold on Tuesday. At least Rocket had a nice place to lay down and toys to play with.

My big accomplishments today were

 1) Spent an hour at the dog park
 2) removed a peed on section of Rickets stress rug
 3) Bought  Rocket a sweater
 4) Took pictures of Rocket in sweater.
 5) Filled the dishwasher.

yes, the cat did make fun of him  Ha ha. I have adequate body fat to maintain warmth and I have lovely full coat! I don't need to wear clothing! Har Har. Rocket answered : I have one thing you don't have : Prey Drive.

Election 2013

Note to self : Get Rocket a sweater! Poor naked dog!

Also Note to self - If you are going to try to be all hard and represent actually stand around in the cold and rain for two damn hours, excuse yourself to go get a coat! You are going to get sick and its your fault. Rocket gets points for watching the car for the whole time and not barking the whole time,  destroying anything or making a mess. Him is good puppy.

I have not been furloughed yet . The popular wisdom says that I will and it will be sooner rather than later but it most likely won't be for long, if we are actually not put on leave, my office will in all likelihood be part timers.

I was standing around in the rain, full disclosure, under a tent, because I  was told I was going to be there. I have never had to be there before, the extent of my involvement under prior  precinct chairs was to drive in the rain the night before the election to fetch signs and then early in the morning of the election - also in the dark, putting the signs out at the polling place. This was slightly better because of the See and Be Seen aspect and I got to look at a scrapbook of a former officer of  the local NAACP that covered three decades of service. Very cool stuff.

I just looked up the  election results  and thus far, everything is looking good and I think everyone I voted for is going to win. Wake County is pretty reliable from a Democratic Party stand point I am also happy that both the bonds passed - suck it tea party terrorists.

Damage Control

Something I've noticed about cats and dogs. When you catch your cat doing something wrong the conversations goes like this :

Biped - What did you do! ( you will never, ever catch your cat mid-outrage)
Cat - Bitch, I do what I want!
Biped - Don't do that
Cat - What? this? Bitch, I told you I do what I want! You think you the boss of me? You ain't! I do what I want! I'm going to do it again! And wait till later, you pissed me off now.

My cat carries an shiv and he has claws. But I think he uses the shiv because its more bad ass.

When you dog does something  wrong it goes more like this:

Mommy - What are you doing? dogs are not sneaky
Dog - This? You don't want me to do this
Mommy - Stop It!
Dog - I will never do this again! Until later on this week! And I will do it differently so it will be okay when I do this again! I am so this is upsetting to you! I feel so bad about that! I am so sorry you are mad! Tummy rub?

My dog carries around a squeaky toy and a weed whacker because it just causes so much glorious damage so quickly! It is his God. And he likes squeaky toys.

Today we find out if I am going to be  #800,001.

A break

Did lot of things went lots  of places and got a lot done. I ran the dishwasher twice on Sunday! I mean OMG! I need to slow down.

Yay for work!

I bought Rocket a new sweater for the fall - not that it is ever going to be fall, its hot and  the Farmers Almanac is full of crap. "Record Winter" my ass. I am returning said sweater, not because he isn't going to need it, but because it's too big.  Rocket as big as he looks is not actually all that big, he is Large. but not Extra Large.  The  sweater was long enough  but too wide. I hope they take it back and that if they do take it back, I can get a size Large in the same pattern because it turns out looks outstanding in navy blue and gray argyle. I still did not buy the tie.

 I mowed the back yard and would have mowed the front but sadly, another extension cord prematurely  passed on! I don't know what is happening to them, they were so young and vital! I had to  leave the house and buy two new cords that hopefully come from stronger stock. The front yard didn't get mowed. I was in mourning for the dead cord and didn't think it would be appropriate so soon after the funeral.

I went to First Fridays and didn't buy anything!  but before I didn't buy anything I took Rocket to Dix.  I didn't buy anything because another reason we were at Dix was that I had forgotten  something at  my desk and I needed to bring it home. I left Rocket untethered in the car for ten minutes and he broke the car.

He found a way to forcibly remove my review mirror .  I'm not sure what message he was trying to convey with this, but the message I got was never leave me untethered in the car ever, ever again .  A  day later, Broskey repaired it for me , but Friday night I sweat the cost of getting fixed if that wasn't possible. To make up for not spending at First Friday, I bought the part for my washing machine instead. I would really like to be able to do my laundry again without having to dance attendance and hope that my interference actually would force a complete cycle - News flash? It never did. In the spring I'm going to use my tax rebate and get a new one.

While I was licking my wounds at Dix, we met a little club of women and their nice dogs and the dogs ran around and had a good time, it was cute and it took my mind off my car. Rocket can be so damn cute! The little beast.

Sunday I made two batches of brownies and wrapped them in gift bags and that makes them sound a lot nicer than they actually look, I'm not happy with the wrapping but I think the brownies will at the very least taste better than they look.

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Cat Blogging

 

 

 You found me.  Damn.

 

When is the dog leaving?

I hate the Republicans.

I hate the Republicans. I hate them  usually on principle because they are  racists and bigots and misogynists and they celebrate ignorance and superstition and they want us all to be stupid and women to have the same input over our reproductive choices as  dairy cows.  Now I hate them because of their group hysteria, I can't order toner for my fax machine.  The "old" one isn't that old, but now I can't order a new one because the  purchasing people got cold feet. I hate the Republicans. It cost $30  and on a good day I have to get permission in writing from four different offices to buy it and now I can't buy it at all. I hate the Republicans.

Volunteer

I found another super-duper deal on Christmas cards today! Weeeeee! SO far I have about half I need in the bag, I just need to get one more deal and I';ll be good to go. I was about to pull the trigger on the last bit and I decided that I wasn't going to pay that much per for the equivalent of a postcard. They are the cutest cards ever, but I can't see to spending a fortune on them.

I could and am totally willing to DYI the last bit but I lurve the image! I found the perfect design! I can't replicate it with  DIY! Arrggh.

I decided to step away from the Christmas cards and get my focus back to the now or actually, October 7, the kick off for my divisions annual combined campaign. The committee had a meeting to day and it was reveled that we do not have enough deserts for the desert raffle! We also have no food trucks and only ten charities booked for the Charity Fair. Last year we could buy stuff from a craft fair, this year we get to steal pens from hungry children. I was volen-told that I was going to do be adding the desert count and I better know what I will be bringing by Friday because I have to submit the ingredient list .I guess it was better than being volun-told to get a food truck to show up.

How do you find the ingredients on a box of brownie mix? Do I have to include the soy lecithin? or can I just say "It comes from a box, figure it out" . So I went to the store to get whatever it was that was going to inspire me, and I was inspired, the mystery desserts are going to be brownies. Everyone loves brownies. They aren't going to win the prize for Most Raffle Tickets Collected, but last year I worked like hell on my dessert and it was awesome - and it didn't win either.   The Brownies are not going to be awesome.

I did go for high end boxed brownies though. I bypassed the lesser Food Lion and sprang for the nicer Food Lion, I'm pretty sure they had the same stock in the stores, but the whole vibe was nicer. It was clear that these were nicer then what I would have bought in the other store. I think it will convey through the brownies'  spirit, they'll say "We are brand name brownies!, we were not on sale!". If I wanted to be truly giving, I would have made the trek to the really nice Lowe's - but I'm not that nice and my cake didn't win the raffle last year and not only did my cake not win, I was the only person that didn't win a cake in the raffle! So this year, boxed brownies.

Grr Argh.

I went to still more card sites and looked at more cards. You know what  style I like best? the most expensive . Uniformly. Do I like the square design? The one that costs about .30 extra per card to mail? Sure do! Is the design just about perfect? Does it suit the image perfectly? Is the message appropriate for multiple holidays? Yup! Is it the cutest thing ever? OF COURSE IT IS.

But. It is not to be. No. I am going to DIY it and I will be happy with the results. Damn it. Sure, I could make what I have look like what I want but that would turn the whole thing into an art project and I don't want to do a project and when you add in the cost of your art supplies, you might has well spend the fortune on the Ideal , because your time is actually worth a certain amount too and when it gets the time of year when you are  dealing with cards you don't have a lot of extra time for extra projects.

I need to watch TV, calm down. Think positive but simple DIY card thoughts. My new manta is: No Art project No Art Project No Art Project

I thought about this at church on Sunday.

I was sitting next to this woman at church and I noticed that she had very small thighs and I was like “What little thighs she has! Mine are so huge! God I’m fat!” and I tried to arrange my thighs to look smaller. We got to the Peace-Be-With-You’s and I heard her voice for the first time. She sounded like a Muppet! A child Muppet a moppet Muppet! How sad... And after that  I was like "What a trade off! You have great thighs but at the same time you also have a weird little moppet  Muppet voice". I felt instantly better about my  fat thighs and my non-Muppet voice.

Better me than them.

With holidays swiftly approaching  My God its October! All ready!! I have gotten an early start on my cards. Yay! Because there are other things I really need to get started on but I don't want to - I'm looking at you dog cookies.  I do want to play with pictures and online card sites. I made one set all ready and they turned out beautifully and I got a great deal from one of the online card sites.

This made me hopeful and I decided to try again on the card site, I was hoping to get a similar deal but I'm discovering you can only go to the well once, somehow once th3 universe knows you got a great deal once, that's it, its full price for you for the rest of the season. Bother. So I went looking for other sites and did a quick search and found Photo Card Review .

Helpful, helpful, helpful! Just what the doctor ordered! I dove right in. Quality? Choice? Which is the cheapest one? I discovered there is no such thing as cheap when it comes to photo cards. I then also discovered that my image (s) this year are edgy. I am not "edgy" I am a person who ends out Christmas cards from my dog! I am without edge. However, my images this year are a little more interesting then other years, in that the people who get them are going to have some interesting thoughts when they get them. Hopefully they will be thoughts like "Wow, I never looked at those things like that myself, how clever! That really does look like a ...
and not WTF? She thought a fill-in-the-blank was Christmasy? What was she thinking? after plugging my images into approximately 300 cards, I am having my doubts about my um, vision. I see them as being  neato and different but others may just think that I am different.
Clearly, this year I thought outside the box. I think its a good direction to go in. I think the direction I'm going to have to go in is the cheaper direction and thus the better direction than what I was going to do in the first place - Corporate! Inside the box! Fill-in-the-blank! and I'll make it more of a hands on DIY project. Ha. The  pricey, narrow minded photo sites loss will be Jerry's Art-O-Rama's gain.