One Happy Dog Speaks

Did anyone else start out the year with a budget of $3.30 a gallon for gas? Or higher? It certainly is making everything else go up in price as well. Some of it I can understand, some of it makes me wonder if they are just taking advantage of the situation. Makes me want to find the cheap stuff. Like cheap auto insurance, cheap house insurance, cheap clothes… ok, maybe not cheap clothes… My luck they wouldn’t only be cheap but cheap looking and that would create the wrong effect.

Don’t get me wrong, I buy off the sales racks, so I like my clothes as inexpensive as possible… I just don’t want to look like street trash. I’m heavy, trust me when I say you need to be a little more careful in the clothes you buy.

Totally off track of the original thought… the whole budget thing. Just means I need to spend this week trying to figure out a new budget. Sucks to be me!

A very old man lay dying in his bed. In death’s doorway, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookie wafting up the stairs.

He gathered his remaining strength and lifted himself from the bed. Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom, and with even greater effort forced himself down the stairs, gripping the railing with both hands.

With labored breath, he leaned against the door frame, gazing into the kitchen.. Were it not for death’s agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven.

There, spread out up on newspapers on the kitchen table were literally hundreds of his favorite chocolate chip cookies.

Was it heaven? Or was it one final act of heroic love from his devoted wife, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?

Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself toward the table.

The aged and withered hand, shaking, made its way to a cookie at the edge of the table, when he was suddenly smacked with a wooden spoon by his wife.

“Stay out of those,” she said. “They’re for the funeral.”

Finally getting my life back into some semblance of order. After starting a part time job outside of the house, I really lost touch with reality. Though playing with Windows Active Directory and looking at routers again has been a huge plus… I missed on sending out scout info, organizing the school store and getting the school store order out on time. I was just running in all sorts of directions but not able to bring it all together.

Finally, a couple of nights of sleep, some exercise and my brain kicked into gear. Thank goodness. I am now back on the road to success. Phew. So I have picked up some scrapbooking challenges and genealogy problems. It should be fun to add ANOTHER couple of items to my list…

Sigh… I’m missing my nephew’s wedding. Partly due to cost of plane tickets and hotels and partly due to other family activities here at home. My mom, sisters, brother-in-laws are all going to be there. It would have been a great family reunion. Except for the costume part. That is what is going to make it hilarious. My nephew and his wife waited until a Renaissance Fair was in town and they are going to be married in old Viking style. The dresses are basically bags with arm holes. HERE is a link to see one. Trust me, her light weight and stance are what is making that dress look even semi-decent. If she was standing straight up and down or just walking towards you… a bag with arm holes. Then again that might be the list of best fat burners because you would want to be underweight to be wearing that dress!

Still.. what a great idea and what fun. I’m sorry I’m missing it but I know my nephew is going to have a blast and it will be loads of enjoyment for the family. Enjoy Nephew and Lovely Lady!

Yesterday was… interesting to say the least. One of the things that went wrong that made me sad is my rss feeder crashed. The last backup I had of my feeds was from 2007. Hmmm. Not so good. I have been trying to recreate it, but I know that I am going to miss some. Which sucks. If you know of some good blogs, please comment or email me with them. I’m just going to have to start from scratch again. Another day…

Yesterday it was work, school work, karate, and den meeting. Today was work, school work, tutoring, sister-in-law for dinner. While at work today there was an awful smell in the office. I thought a machine of some type must be burning. It certainly was a natural appetite suppressant. I went from wanting girl scout cookies to leaving to get some hot tea. Ugh. Though I must say it was good that I didn’t eat like crazy… when I’m stressing…I eat. Bad smell… no eat. Wonder if it will smell bad tomorrow to? Well, hopefully there is nothing else to stress about and no bad smell so I don’t want to eat and don’t have something to keep me from eating!

Ok, off to work.

Boy do I need some humor… but FIRST… I saw this in an email and had to share it:

The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser – in case you thought optimism was dead. ~Robert Brault

Camping humor:

- A tuba placed on your picnic table will keep campsites on either side vacant.
- A two-man pup tent should not be used either by two men or a pup.
- A potato baked in coals for an hour makes a good meal. One baked for three hours makes a good hockey puck.
- The guitar of a noisy teenager makes excellent kindling.

My youngest keeps asking me why I am not wearing the lipstick in the mornings. I did the first two weeks of work and haven’t since… I should. I guess I will in the morning. I think he likes me to kiss him and leave a mark. I should enjoy it while I can.

Particularly since I know when my hormonal acne comes back soon he will be pointing that out as well. The little turd (LT) has no switch, limits, stops from opening his mouth and saying the obvious… like “What’s that big red bump on your chin?”. Yaaa… lipstick kisses on the cheeks are where I need to go!

One of the fun items that happened was the rock climbing. I was able to get pictures of the youngest giving it a shot. He made it to the top and I was so proud of him! Click to enlarge:

And it was funny to hear the guy running the rock climb talk about my youngest on the way down. I heard “He’s the first boy that is actually propelling himself the right way!” That’s because my son loves to bounce around and loves the ‘flying’ feeling.

He had so much fun doing this stuff. I’m glad we joined scouts.

I love the comment Bou made and am going to repeat it here:

There is absolutely NOT a more disgusting place to camp than TK. Dirt, filth, nasty bathrooms… the absolute worst time to camp there is in the summer. The Boy Scouts use that as their summer camp. Add the heat and bugs to the filth and it truly is the hell hole of the Boy Scout Universe.

So bad is TK, that the boys in our troop actually stood up and boycotted when told they were going back again for their one week this summer. Every one of them said, “NO WAY. We refuse and you can’t make us.” So they are trying to find some place else…

Here is a picture of the socks I washed… they wore shoes and never ran around in just socks…

A couple of them didn’t really show how dirty they were… but trust me, I’m going to have to get a bucket of bleach and water to get these things clean or just throw them away.

I wonder if it is something they could use to advertise skin care and how well their product works in the worse environment. Or better yet, hair care. I have washed my hair three times and I still think I should wash it again. Ugh. It is a fine dirt / sand combination that just sticks to you. Hmmmm … instead of saying how well it removes the dirt, maybe we could advertise a product to add to the dirt as a skin / hair improvement! hahahaha.

More pictures coming to you tomorrow!