AtomicMrX

Well, some of you will have thought I fell off the face of the earth, some not. I have just been busy and lazy at the same time.

Work has been crazy busy. We’ve been putting in the overtime so that means getting up at 3:00 AM (note AM not PM) and starting work at 5:00 AM (usual start time is 7:00 AM). We have a second shift where I work and so the possibility of everyone staying after work instead of coming in early doesn’t work well. Most of the employees share the same computer with the other shift and there are few “empty” seats on both shifts. So we come in 2 hours early and the second shift stays 2 hours later than their shift.

So that kind of explains the no new posts to the blog. By the time I get home I don’t want to touch the computer again.

I contacted the electrician that fixed my mystery plug when I bought the house to see if he could put in 3 outdoor outlets. We have none outside and it’s a pain! He gave me a very good bid so we’ll have them put in on October 2nd (and I get to take the day off and see how he does it, plus extend my weekend). I see outdoor xmas lights on the house this year! Shannon and I are splitting the cost of the outlets which will make it very affordable (there goes some of the overtime money!).

Jaki has three vertebrae that are too close together (in-between her front shoulder blades) and they got irritated/injured again Thursday night. She jumped off the couch when I brought Shannon home from work. She was in extreme pain all day Friday with lots of crying and screaming and by Friday evening she was acting a lot more normal. We have some pain/muscle relaxing pills that we give her when it starts acting up and we are almost out so today I will be picking up a new bottle at the vet.

There is nothing we can do but wait for the pain to subside and try to keep it from getting re-injured. It was heart breaking to see her in such pain and all we could do was comfort her and hope the pills kicked in soon. Speaking of, we gave her a pill Thursday night and I think it started to help her but she jumped up into bed with me in the middle of the night and I think that is when she twisted it and made things very much worse. The pill bottle says only 1/2 pill a day so I didn’t want to give her one Friday morning even though she was in such pain. Shannon called the vet when they opened and they said we could up the dose to two half pills a day but then we have to work her off of them when she shows a 12 hour improvement.

We have to get more diligent in keeping her off the furniture and no more jumping. Yea, right, this will be easy. It’s like telling a fish not to swim!

I bought an electric leaf blower/vac for $39 at the hardware store and it will come in handy this Fall with all our leaves. We have to pay to have them taken away so the 10 to 1 bag mulching ratio will help us out. Shannon bought an electric chain saw (small one) so we can cut up some of the limbs that fall from the trees to use in our cast iron chimenee. We are very anxious for the outdoor electrical outlets, can you tell?!

Well, I think we are up to speed!

Tomorrow will mark five years after a horrific event. Let us not get lax and forget what happened on American soil, and what could possibly happen again in some other form.

Take time on Monday, September 11, 2006 to remember all the lives lost, all the effort to save those found, and all the solders doing what they were trained to do so they can come back home - alive.

Yesterday Shannon and I worked hard in the yard for most of the afternoon and a little into the evening. I was a little worried my back would not take well to all the sudden activity. My back seems to be doing okay today, but I will have to take it carefully to make sure it doesn’t go out.

While Shannon mowed the back yard I weeded the garden and clipped the grass around our cobble stone pathway and fence. Then in the front yard Shannon worked on the bushes along the front of the house while I gave the White Lilac bush on the corner of our lot a major hair cut. I cut off three feet of bush and it still is about as tall as me. I think the neighbors will appreciate seeing around that corner for traffic now.

This morning is great! Nice cool 68 degrees and it rained last night. I was making the morning coffee and heard a weird twang sound on the kitchen window and it was a two inch Dragonfly. I always enjoy Dragonflies and have never seen one at the house. We have several flying around the windows where I work which is great to see. The ones at work are much larger than this one. I found a picture online of the specific species and coloring of the one (still holding on to the kitchen window screen) and here it is.

The little Dragonfly on my window is a Male Pachydiplax Longipennis or The Blue Dasher, says it’s found in Texas. It’s a long ways from home!

I found this on the Wikipedia site: “Dragonflies typically eat mosquitoes, midges and other small insects like flies, bees, and butterflies. They are usually found around lakes, ponds, streams, and wetlands because their larvae, known as “nymphs”, are aquatic. Dragonflies do not normally bite or sting humans (though they will bite in order to escape, for example, if grasped by the abdomen); in fact, they are valued as a predator that helps control the populations of harmful insects, such as mosquitoes.”

I hope our little friend stays around and starts a family. I would like to look out and see them from time to time.