Monday, August 21, 2006

sad news

My rat Berkeley died tonight. He's been sickly for the past few months, and after the medication didn't seem to make any improvement, I discontinued it, and kept his energy up by feeding him baby formula mixed in with yogurt/cottage cheese. Last night when I was cleaning out the "hospital cage" I keep him in at times (so he had a chance to eat leisurely, he really wanted to get out and run around a bit. He climbed up the cage (haltingly so, but with determination) and ran around a little bit, and it seemed to wear him out. Today it was obvious he had taken a turn for the worse, and when I just checked on him, he had passed away. I am relieved, though, that the end came so quickly for him. Up until yesterday he was still eating and doing as well as he had been.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

How do I love thee?

Let me count the ways.

I'm referring, of course, to my new high speed internet connection. Yeah baby!

1. It doesn't take www.homestarrunner.com ages to load every toon or strongbad email
2. PICTURES! I can look at PICTURES!!
3. Actually able to use alphabet learning/reading webpages with Noodle
4. Those petfinder.org adoption pages load right up, allowing me to search the adoptable doggies and kitties at lightning speed
5. Shopping at iTunes Music Store
6. Not having to dial up!!!
7. An added bonus is that my dot mac mail account works with this browser, whereas NetZero wouldn't allow it.

I'm surely forgetting some, but BOY is high speed fantastic!

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Blast from the Past

We've moved! We're in the new house, surrounded by boxes on every side. Also, David decided to take out half a wall and we opted to paint the family room, so we've also managed to make a huge mess. I spent all day yesterday cleaning the old apartment, but it'll probably take another full day. The new washer & dryer (Kenmore HE2Plus series--they are awesome!) were delivered yesterday, the computer was back online last night, and today we got our TV/cable set up. Now if I can just do something with all this stuff!

The weekend of August 4th-6th we drove up to Idaho to attend my ten year high school reunion. I'd vascillated about going, but in the end decided I would rather go than wonder how it would have been. I had a great time. It was fun to see so many familiar faces and remember high school for a bit. I was surprised to enjoy it so much, because I was more than ready to leave high school when I graduated, and unlike many of my classmates, I never returned for summers. I haven't kept in touch with anyone, at least not consistently, and to a large extent I have felt like my life began after high school. But I really enjoyed hearing what people are up to, and I came away feeling really happy and satisfied with what I have accomplished in the last decade. And it didn't hurt any to have so many people tell me how great I look, including a friend overhearing a guy I dated comment to his friend that I was HOT. So I'm not above ego stroking--sue me.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Tidbits

So the kids and I were eating Nutella on Graham crackers and being the thinking ahead sort of mom that I am, I took Spud's shirt off so it wouldn’t get all chocolatey, and put the shirt on the back of one of the kitchen chairs. He was finishing up and I went to the bathroom. When I came back to the kitchen, there’s my little messmaker, holding his shirt with chocolatey hands. He’d obviously been handling it a bit, as there was chocolate ALL over it. So much for my efforts to cut down on mess!

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Spud has recently learned the phrase “Night night,” and has realized that it is a farewell. So now he’s combining his two farewells, “Night night,” and “Bye bye” into “Bite night.”

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We should be ready to close on the house any day now. The holdup was either the title company or the mortgage company was supposed to send paperwork to the other one and instead of the 1-2 days it should have taken, it took a week. We are thinking we can have our furniture delivered a week from Friday, and there should be enough empty rooms downstairs to store it in until we move all the way in.

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I’ve been dogshopping on petfinder.org. I fell in love with a sister/brother duo today, though I really don’t think we are up for two doggies. Here they are, if you want to take a gander:

http://search.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=6765321
http://search.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=6765372

I’d love it if we could get the girl and my in-laws, who are dog shopping too, could get the brother. But that’s probably a fair amount of wishful thinking.

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My ten year high school reunion is this weekend. I’ve gone back and forth about attending, but finally decided I’d rather go and not enjoy it (though I think I will) than not go and wonder if I would’ve enjoyed it. Plus, the organizer sent me the RSVP list, and enough people that I know and would enjoy seeing are planning to attend, so I think it’ll be nice.