Special K and Coffee
I don't really know why you'd be here. I mean, I know I'm the single most interesting person, but don't you people have lives? Really, it's quite sad.
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Friday, September 29, 2006
Money is not the key to happiness
But it sure makes things a lot easier.
Ahh....I love when that whole travel expenses reimbursement thing finally comes through from the Army.That's a happy bank account right now.
Shoot, Beth, I remembered what else I needed to ask: how much do we still owe on the Lumina? We really want to get that taken care of finally.
Lack of posting
We have company coming for the weekend.....and there's way too much to do before they get here!Wish me luck.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Cat Update
I keep thinking the two in the breezeway are gonna end up in a cat fight, but they probably won't. And the two here in the house....let's just say the little guy is starting to stand up to Trixie. She gets all scared and defensive and hissy, so he's just staying where he is and starts growling.
I think the two in the breezeway would probably be better if she weren't, well, in heat. Oh well. Couple days outside will fix that issue.
Socialization Day
Spuds and Trixie are two peas in a pod. Like mother, like son. Trixie is hissing at the little brown and white boy, who is mostly just ignoring her. And I just threw Spuds in the breezeway with Cleopatra--at least that's the name we're trying right now. I seriously had to throw Spuds in there because he wouldn't come in on his own with her in there. Normally he's begging to get into the house. I was just in there to see how they were doing and he's hissing and growling at her. And he's hissing and growling at me.Trixie has rubbed off on him, I think.
And I have a brown and white putty-tat curled up in my lap....nope, he's gone.And now he's back.
Suppose maybe I should see how the two in the breezeway are doing.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Let's play Spot the Fallacy
There are no adverse side effects because it's all natural.
I seriously just heard that in a commercial on the radio.
The newest additions to our family
Since Spuds got booted from the house, he's been a little lonely outside whenever Trixie isn't out with him. He also will need someone to sleep with to stay warm this winter. The veterinary services at Ft. Riley include a stray facility where you can adopt a cat or dog for a minimal cost. Paul and I had decided that he would keep his eye out for a good outdoor cat that wasn't being adopted out quickly. He'd had his eye on a couple of them and, over the weekend, they got a ton more kittens in, so the kennel manager was looking to adopt out as many animals as she could yesterday. So I headed up to Riley yesterday with our cat carrier to have my say on the kitties.
We now have two new cats here who are currently nameless. One young male (less than a year old, currently not neutered, but that will change) who will probably join Trixie inside most of the time. He has the makings of a good lap cat because every time I sit down, he wants to crawl into my lap. That, however, makes it difficult to get a good picture of him.
And my favorite picture...
And then there's Scuzz. Talk about a terrible name. She was someone's pet--microchipped and everything. She's a bit older and Paul thought she wasn't spayed, but couldn't quite tell for sure if she'd had the surgery very young.
We got pretty quick confirmation that she is, in fact, not spayed, when we brought her home last night. It took a little while to get the breezeway off the kitchen ready to bring the cats in and let them out of the carriers, so they just sat out in the truck. After I got everything set for them, I went outside and headed toward the garage to get one of the cats. Not long after closing the door behind me, I saw a bright white, long-haired cat run out of the garage and into the field. Hmm...never seen anyone but our cats around out here before. I told Paul about it and he said, "well, we have been putting cat food out there, so that's not terribly surprising." We got the cats all settled in then got supper ready and sat around a fire outside to eat. After a little while, I looked over by the door that leads into the breezeway and there was that same cat again with Trixie trying to scare him off. Paul took one look at him and said, "that's a tom." Yep, so both times this tom was hanging around where our new female cat is. Uh-huh. Further confirmation: She's acting in that strange way that cats do when they're coming into heat. She's hissing a lot and you can just tell that she knows there's a tom around outside. And the poor thing is hissing at the other new cat because he's male and not neutered, but the poor guy is too young to know what's going on or do anything about it.
So anyway, we don't mind having some kittens, so that's just fine with us. And Paul's guess is that if that particular tom were the one to do it, we'd have a bunch of calicos on our hands.She also acts like she'll be a good mouser, which is exactly what we were looking for. Paul also suspects that she'll be a good mama and made a comment that her behavior reminds him of Spot at his parents' house--the cat of 29 lives.
And the good news...she's negative for both FIV and leukemia.
She also was a little difficult to get good pictures of because she's a little camera-shy.
I would love to know how you could name her "Scuzz." Sure, the coloring, but she acts nothing like that name. She needs something more powerful or royal or something. Just look at her...
Talk about a dominant female!
We are open to suggestions for names if anything comes to anyone's mind from these pictures.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Grab your brush and grab your rollers, all you kids and all you bowlers, we're goin' paintin' today!
So you finally get started on the last little priming of the stupid paneled walls so that you can finally just paint the darn things the color you want, which you've been wanting to do since you started the process of priming these walls waaaay back in July. You've got all the missing trim work fitted and nailed in place, you've taped everything else off, you've got the primer in the pan with a roller and a paintbrush and you attack the little pieces of wall left to paint. And as you're painting, you come to a corner that makes you think, "man, this is a really crappy lookin' corner." Then it hits you: it needs trim. No biggie, you've got plenty of that type left from the previous owner, you just have to cut it and nail it in place and you're good to go. Then you realize that there is another spot nearby that needs trim, too. So you stop painting and cut the pieces and as you're getting ready to nail them in place, you realize that there is another spot that needs trim. So you cut that piece and get all three nailed in place and finally get back to painting. Then there's another place you notice that needs a corner piece. And, finally, one more place that needs a corner piece. All told: 5 missing corner pieces that had to be measured, cut, and nailed in place to be primed in the middle of what you thought would be simply slapping on a coat of primer. Oi.
Will I get to the pretty pale blue I picked for this part of the house today? I hope so. I love painting, but this hallway might be the death of me. Well, the stairwell at least is because we don't have good ladders for it.
Anyway, off to do a little working out then find a late lunch.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
One of those days
Paul and I both agree that this is one of those days when all you want to do is cuddle up on the couch with your sweetheart and watch a movie or something. He should be home in about an hour, so hopefully we'll get to enjoy that soon. Of course, he's probably going to make me go running with him first. I know, I need it and it's good for me, but I am soooo not a fan of running.Never mind the fact that my legs feel good and it's one of the best ways to get in shape.
Anyway, today I thought I might get almost done with painting the upstairs hallway and stairwell. The problems being that 1) I still need to put up some of the missing trim work (which is being painted because it's crappy); 2) I spent about half an hour attempting to get the roller pad off of the wire frame, so that I could fix problem #3) the painting supplies had been rinsed out outside and left out there to dry....it rained last night and is still raining. Wet brushes and rollers with oil-based paint....hmm.... Yeah, and I still have priming left to do.I want to start painting the pretty and easy-clean-up stuff!!!
From the "little victories" department: WE HAVE AN ENTIRELY MOWN LAWN!!!! And the lawnmower is still running! I'm not sure, though, this one might be a big victory.We have been fighting the belts on that thing for a month while attempting to get the lawn mown. And we think it perhaps is finally running like it should [knock on wood].
And we have more downed limbs. Gotta love Kansas.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
There might actually be a house underneath all these boxes
It's happening, folks... the kitchen is starting to show signs of counter space. The dining room is starting to look like one. The living room is starting to look like a living room. And the library/office is starting to look like work might actually be done in there. There's still that pile of boxes in the den, though.
Last night was fun. I've discovered that quite a few of the LCMS pastors around here have a history of serving churches in Iowa and in Iowa District West at that! It was fun to talk to the pastor last night about Camp Okoboji and how he knew Doug, the camp director, when he was just starting out as a DCE (Director of Christian Education). Pastor Parks also knew the pastor who baptized me.
Anyway, it's about time to start running my errands now that places will actually be open.
Completely off these topics: There is this awesome station here that I wish was nationwide: Country Legends. I think it's basically "Hank's Place" on XM, though, but it's great to be able to be working on things around the house listening to all these great old country songs, some of which have been recently recorded by current artists and I didn't know they were covers. It's awesome! It's a very nice change from the excessive repetitiveness of the new country stations.
P.S. Any chance Paul could move his blog over to notnothing.net? Ya'll are never on messengers anymore!
Monday, September 18, 2006
Caught off-guard
We have piece-of-crap ugly aluminum storm doors on our house. This is on our list of things to upgrade for better resell and curb appeal. The side door, by the driveway, is in particularly sad condition and has been driving both of us nuts with getting stuck and its falling apartness. This particular door also quite easily gets caught by the wind and whipped open. This weekend was particularly windy here up until yesterday. We got home Friday evening and I opened the door to go inside and it just flew right out of my hand, banged the side of the house, and Paul and I both watched helplessly as the already loose pane of glass over the ripping screen dropped to the ground and shattered into about a trillion little pieces.
Thus, the reason I was vacuuming our lawn. Ahh...shop-vacs are a wonderful thing!
So now we get to live with an even crappier door until we can afford to buy a really good one--preferrably one that will withstand this Kansas wind better. That ain't a cheap proposition.
Yesterday we went to the same church we did last week, though no decision has been made yet. We would have gone to the "big" church in Herington were it not for the fact that we were again interested in the Sunday afternoon auction in Council Grove. After the service, the pastor mentioned that he wanted to come out to our house to visit and asked if tonight would work for us.
We fell in love with this at the Ft. Sam Houston PXtra and couldn't find it anywhere but there. There was no way we could take it on the plane, but one of the managers told us she could ship it up to the Ft. Riley PX, so here it is!! Think we like spending time around a fire?
Pretty Kansas sunset from our backyard.
More pretty Kansas pictures to come later...when I don't have to be a whirlwind around the house.
[Congratulations, Bill.We'll get ya next year.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Ever vacuumed your lawn?
I can now honestly say that I have.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
A moment of truth
I haven't been stung by a bee or anything in probably over 10 years. That changed this morning when I was taking out the trash. I'm not sure what stung me, but it was defintely something. Bee stings have never had a ton of effect on me, but you can develop a stronger reaction later in life, so I was a little worried.
I am happy to report, however, that my finger swelled up just a little for about an hour and now you can hardly tell anything happened.I can still say that bee stings don't bother me! Well, except for that whole hurting thing when they first happen.
I have the most wonderful husband!
I sent Paul a shopping list for the commissary yesterday so that we could have toppings for our tacos for supper. Funds have been a little tight lately because of an issue with the guy we bought the carpet from deciding that, even though we put down a deposit and they mailed us the bill, he was going to pester us for the money only 2 days after receiving the bill in the mail. The bill that had no payment due date whatsoever, so he got a nice (and I don't mean that sarcastically) letter and a post-dated check, which we're hoping the bank would catch. So anyway, there were other grocery items on my mind, but I decided not to worry about them until next week when we'd definitely have a little more in the bank, so I didn't put any of them on the list because we could live without them that long.
Paul got home and I started the taco meat while he brought in the groceries he bought. He had bought a few more things than were on my list and I just kind of glanced at them to see that the taco toppings were there and went back to the skillet. Once that was really going, I started getting the taco stuff out of the bags and found...everything that had been on the list I hadn't sent him: milk, stewed tomatoes, brown sugar, and cottage cheese. What really got me was that I had mentioned the other items to him at some point, but he flat out read my mind on the cottage cheese!
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
How'm I Doin'?Off to paint a closet and some paneling!! I wish I could just do this fun stuff and not have to deal with the unpacking.
- Dishes
- Laundry
- Move canned goods to the basement
- Paint the closet in the bedroom
- Install the towel bar in the bathroom
- Move the wine to the basement
- Call Sears about getting 3 more windows
- Make tea
- Tell the Xanga people that Uploader put a trojan horse on this computer
- Unpack boxes
- Unpack boxes
- Unpack boxes
- Move towels and my morning hair stuff to the upstairs bathroom
- Did I mention, unpack boxes? It never ends. I think they multiply.
P.S. I watched episode 3 of last season, too! I want more, but I don't have time!
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Help!!
How do you fix a problem of peeling painted 40+ year-old wallpaper without tearing off the wallpaper?Superglue?
[This painting project is temporarily on hold.]
I love chilly mornings!
Maybe I'm crazy, but I love these mornings when you have to layer up to be comfortable--even in your own house because you had windows open and fans going throughout the night. It's camping weather. It's PERFECT camping weather. It's beautiful. I think that's a big reason Fall is my favorite season. I like every season for different reasons.
Winter = snow
Spring = budding trees, new life
Summer = enjoying various bodies of water, flip-flops
But Fall. Fall is awesome. It wasn't until just two years ago that I could answer the question of "what is your favorite Season?". Spring also has these chilly mornings, but they're usually combined with melting snow and it's much wetter. Fall has all the beautiful colors of leaves. Fall has that wonderful smell of burning leaves and campfires. Fall can have some snowfall, but it doesn't last long and it's pretty on all those fall colors.
Anyway, I wasn't planning to go there with this post, but there it is.
On to my reason for this post. A To-Do list. Paul always gets on me to make a list so I don't forget to do something. So here goes, in no particular order.I've probably forgotten things. Oh well. And I think Spuds knows he doesn't get to come back inside. He's actually been hanging around the outside of the house instead of running off to explore.
- Dishes
- Laundry
- Move canned goods to the basement
- Paint the closet in the bedroom
- Install the towel bar in the bathroom
- Move the wine to the basement
- Call Sears about getting 3 more windows
- Make tea
- Tell the Xanga people that Uploader put a trojan horse on this computer
- Unpack boxes
- Unpack boxes
- Unpack boxes
- Move towels and my morning hair stuff to the upstairs bathroom
- Did I mention, unpack boxes? It never ends. I think they multiply.
Spuds was officially fired this morning
He had been banned from upstairs and was mostly behaving himself downstairs, except for trying to get outside when he wasn't supposed to be. Friday night we went to the high school's football game and left several of the screen doors open to let the house cool off. When we pulled in after the game, Spuds was walking down the driveway when we had left him inside the house. He had managed to get the screen door to the deck open and I think he had just accomplished it when we got home. We yelled at him to get inside and he took off toward the neighbor's house, so Paul went after him, scruffed him, and threw him back inside. Being mad at him for that didn't last too long, though, because that was also the night that Trixie had killed a mouse and Spuds ate it.
This morning, however, was the last straw. Everything was fine last night, Paul had even cleaned their litter box right before we went to bed. This morning we moved the big metal "pantry" cart into the basement so that I can put cans on it today, and as I was helping get it down the stairs, I thought I smelled cat turds, but I thought maybe I was imagining things. I closed the door to the basement and there they were, right by the hinge for the door. He had no excuse other than possibly being upset because he didn't get to spend enough time outside yesterday, but that's not an excuse. So he's kicked out. I wish we had doors on the garage/shed, though, because there are coyotes here--we were listening to them the other night. Oh well.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Progress report
Before I get started on a few of the hundreds of things on my to-do list today, I thought I'd give an update.
- We have 3 new windows!!
- We have a "new" ceiling fan which cost a grand total of about $25 and a little elbow grease:
Old fan
New fan
- We have a good table saw for only $40.
- We have a 32 gallon trash can for $2 brand new. It was marked on sale for $10 and rang up as $2, which we pointed out, but he still gave it to us for that price.
- We have a really cool old trunk at the foot of our bed.
- We have cedar closet lining for $10. Guess where my wedding dress and cape are going?
- We have pest control: Trixie caught a mouse inside the other night and Spuds ate it. They got high, high praise!
- We have bright light with a light switch and outlet in the basement. My husband should become an electrician.
- We have ghost squirrels. OK, this may be creepy to some, but we have been working at cleaning out the basement to make it a useable space for storage of canned goods and wine. I'm not sure this basement has EVER been cleaned in the 106 years the house has been around. We also would like to make it a more enjoyable place to wait out a tornado if we ever have to. So while Paul was working on the lighting issue, I took to the floor with a shop-vac and a pair of gloves. I found, not surprisingly, two recently dead mice and some skeletons. As I was cleaning a corner, I kept finding all these nuts in amongst the pieces of stone and dirt. Let me explain here that the access to this basement obviously used to be outside. I found a lot of rather large bones. Larger than any mouse I've ever seen outside of a cartoon. I must have found at least two full sets and Paul found at least one yesterday. He picked up the skull and looked at it closely and said, "that's a squirrel." At the very least, 3 squirrels died down there. Weird stuff. The only animals we're letting down there are the cats and that's only after we make it so they can't get into the crawlspace portions of the basement, and it's so that maybe they can kill some of those furry little mice.
- We have Fall weather and I really wish it would stay.
- We have our dream patio furniture set waiting for us at the PX.
- We have possibly found a church, but have one other option to check out.
- We have lots to do still.
- We have not forgotten.
Have you?
Friday, September 08, 2006
Personality Awareness
A good friend of mine from college had me do this for her and I decided to make my own to see what happens. Follow the link below and pick 5-6 words that you think best describe me. Then you get to see how your answers compare to mine and everyone else's!
So anyone who's game, play!
http://kevan.org/johari?name=KalyB
**Edit** It's interesting to see how people who know me from different settings (school, work, church, etc.) differ in how they describe me. Fun stuff. This was what I liked about my communication classes. It's so very interesting.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Because we all know how good I am at making decisions ;-)
Medical Transcription. Interesting thought for making money from home on my own schedule. I'm a fast typer and I have had more exposure to medical terminology and concepts than I thought I would even two years ago, not to mention a great resource in my husband for help with learning it. Makes a person think.
Makes a person research, too. That's where the decision-making comes in. The skill is in high demand and most transcriptionists work from home. That's why I heard about it. I was listening to the country station out of Salina and they had TONS of ads for a seminar on working from home as a medical transcriptionist. The only problem was that it was the night before I was to catch a plane in Iowa.
[Aside: I just got back inside from making sure the kitty-cats were ok outside. Trixie was just fine and easily findable. Spuds, on the other hand, had wandered over to the neighbor's house and was looking like he might try to cross the street (not our street, but the county highway that intersects with ours), so I started yelling for him more to get him to come home. Well, he decided instead to go sit in the neighbor's garage, which he could get into and I couldn't. So I just spent about half an hour trying to coax him out long enough that I could grab him and throw him back inside our house, because when we call, he's supposed to come home and if he doesn't, he has to be taken home and doesn't get to go back outside for a while. Stupid cat. Smart enough to know that I couldn't get into that garage to get him, though.]
Anyway, medical transcription. Something recently caused me to remember that I had been interested in that, so Paul and I have been talking about it a lot lately and trying to figure out what the best and cheapest option is for training. I have contacted two schools, CareerStep and Allied Schools. Allied's website didn't seem to give me much information at first, but yesterday I received two emails and a phone call from them. After that and the information I was then able to read, I was leaning their direction. Paul suggested doing a little more research. Both schools were around $1500-1700 (including all text, software, etc.) and would take 4-6 months to complete.
This morning, instead of working on cleaning or unboxing boxes, I did more research. In that research I noticed that CareerStep advertised being one of only a few school approved by the American Association for Medical Transcription. Nowhere had I seen that for Allied. Hmm... A lightbulb went off in my head at that point to look at the schools approved by the AAMT. Allied was not listed and is on the $1700 side of cost. After taking a look at the 3-4 other schools on the AAMT website, CareerStep is actually the shortest amount of time and the least amount of money. I originally liked Allied because of how proactive they were, but I'm thinking maybe CareerStep is the better choice. Their website is prettier, too.
So anyway, I'm going to apply for their scholarship, which means writing a 1-2 page essay. Haven't done that one in a while! Hope I still can!
I might get back to those house chores and boxes sometime...
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Breaking
I've gotten a few things done and now I'm taking a break, not that I really need one, but that's beside the point.
Life here is good. Paul's getting settled in at the office this week and I'm trying to make this house look a bit more like a home and a bit less like a pile of boxes, cluttered countertops, piles of dirty dishes, and a pile of dirty laundry. With the new carpet upstairs, we've moved the bedroom upstairs, which was the biggest help in the world!! Now instead of feeling like we've got too much furniture, we really realize we don't have enough. Somehow yesterday we were one of who-knows-how-many-houses to get a letter for a local furniture store's going out of business sale that, today and tomorrow, is not open to the general public yet. We're gonna check it out and just see what they might have to offer for cheap.
Unfortunately, we have a little problem with Spuds. That I can tell, he's been behaving himself just fine on the first floor, but when we've let him upstairs for extended periods of time, he has left both urine and turds in the bathtub. OK, at least he's using the tub and not the brand new carpet or tile in the bathroom. Except that I just noticed some urine in the corner behind the toilet in said bathroom. Our hypothesis has been that he needs a litter box upstairs because he doesn't think to go downstairs when he has to go, and the tub is the closest thing upstairs he can find. Well, I put a litter box upstairs this morning and showed him where it was and even watched him use it, so I let the door to upstairs stay open. The last time I went upstairs, I checked on things just to see how he'd been doing: urine in the tub. *sigh* I don't know. He probably needs more time to figure out for sure the litter box is there or something. I don't want to banish the cats from upstairs most of the time because they like to sleep with us and we like them sleeping with us and Trixie is just fine, it's just Spuds.
Anyway, I should probably get back at it or call Sears about windows or try to figure out how I might become a medical transcriptionist. I've been liking that idea.
(I need to find a box of CDs...this is the 2nd or 3rd time through this one.
Friday, September 01, 2006
A list of things we now have...
(In semi-photo essay format)
- Internet & phone
- A curved shower curtain rod for upstairs (would you believe Home Depot didn't have any but the little DoItBest store in Council Grove did?
)
- Many downed limbs on a 1 acre property
- Luck. I noticed before I left that a couple of our trees should be trimmed because of their close proximity to the power line. None of those branches fell. One of the windows on the west side of the house angled inward, but didn't get blown in (we're replacing these anyway). The only damage to the house is fairly easily fixable and not even worth an insurance claim:
- A chainsaw and a firewood pile
- A "firepit"
- Flooring upstairs
- Under $0.50/square foot pretty tiles for the downstairs bath and laundry rooms which are currently carpeted.
- The lawn tractor
- A truck.....mmmm.....pretty truck......
