Life After NEXCOM Retirement...

Testing...again

2006-11-19T18:34:00.000-08:00

I am still trying to figure out blogger beta. I dont want to switch my main blog yet, until they get all the bugs worked out. But I will play with this one and see

Time to play

2006-10-22T23:10:00.000-07:00

I am going to switch this blog over to beta blogger and see how it works, and then switch my main one over if I like the way it works.

Blue...

2006-01-09T18:46:00.001-08:00

I am so down in the dumps!! I want to get it out and on record, and this may be a good place to do it, because my main blog is fixed and everybody stops there. I Hope.

I have been on the verge of tears all day. Might be from lack of sleep. The wind was gusting around 45-50 MPH last night, and kept me awake. I saw 630 on the clock and fell asleep, woke up at 1030. so 4 hours of sleep. Not nearly enough.

We are on 22 solid days of rain, with another 11 in the forecast. We are just drenched, and the clouds are hanging really low and thick and gray. Depressing!

I also am so saddened by the fact that I once again did not get voted onto the Board of DIrectors at the playhouse. I think I am going to hang up my hat. I hate to do this, because I get such pleasure out of it, but I can only take so many clues that I am no longer needed nor am I wanted. SO I guess I do one more show for Dottie, and then back away until someone asks me again. This has really hurt me. Hurt me Bad! I thought I had some really good friends there, but obviously not. I am not getting called to work anymore either, so I guess I am through there. I never got paid for the last time I worked either, ah well, Chalk it up to experience. Maybe I can find something to do down at WICA. or maybe I should just lock my doors and stay inside the house for while.

Get my nest in order, and finish projects. Lord knows I have enough of them started and left unfinished.

I will be 60 in 2 more days, and I am feeling that too. My sister keeps making fun of it, but it really really bothers me that the only goal I have left in my life is to die. I am not ready to. But I will get these things finished and by that time maybe the sun will be out again and I can take a long drive with my camera.

I dont make friends easily, and I dont have a really good friend that I can talk to at any hour of the day or night. I miss that. Someone I can call and will just listen to me cry. Someone who wont judge, or offer advice unless I ask. I miss working. It is almost 3 years now since I retired,. 2 more years and then I can go back to work part time. I plan on going to the Navy Lodge and working the night and weekend shift. But I am restricted for 2 more years because I chose the buy out. ok. I can wait.

maybe I need a kitten or a puppy. SOmething to cuddle.

Blue...

2006-01-09T18:46:00.000-08:00

Driving home...observing...

2006-01-04T14:12:00.000-08:00

As I drive, I let my mind wander. Sometimes I talk to myself, asking why or why not A specific incident. Usually it is reliving a situation, and how I SHOULD have reacted, instead of HOW I DID!

Sometimes I sing along to the radio, depending on the mood I am in.

sometimes I just look.

Last night I was just looking...I was heading south out of Oak Harbor, having just come from Albert and noticed just how dark it had gotten while I was in the store. From the parking lot the sky was all dark and cloudy, even though it was only 445! I thought at the time it was unusually dark. AS I topped the hill, I was heading west, and noticed immediately that there was a break in the clouds. Usually when a front moves through, the west clears last, and that is where I was looking. But what I saw was TWO fronts. The first was passing through, and was on it's way out. The 2nd front was just coming in off the Pacific, and was hanging low on the horizon. Right in between, in the light lavender and mauve colored stripe of clear sky was the planet Venus was shining brightly. It was gorgeous, a ray of peaceful hope in a very troubled sky.

The clouds on the receding front had the cottage cheese look, and were back lit ever so slightly by the fading light. Just enough to give them definition, and let you know that it was about to get very windy.

My Father was an outdoors person, with no formal training, just a love for the nature around him. He Read voraciously about it, and LOVED the Weather, the geophysical sciences, and the forests. So naturally as we grew up, and had no Television...(horrors!!), we went out into this vast encyclopedia of living things every weekend, and we observed. Weather was a big interest, as it would adversely affect out lives if we did not watch it carefully. Dad would tell us what the weather was going to do just by looking. We had no weatherman on the 6 o'clock news. He would point out the subtle differences between the clouds, and even though he didn't know the scientific terms for them, he could tell us what they each meant. The Horsetail clouds way up high meant that warmer moist weather was coming in a few days, and it usually did. He could point out where the rain was falling and tell us how much longer we had to walk the beach before we would get wet, SO we always headed back to the car JUST IN TIME!

Last night I saw that one system was moving through and that the end of the system was usually followed by winds, and that the second one was moving in with rain and winds. By the time I had made it to Coupeville, the winds had started, and lasted about an hour, and then it was calm until after midnight.

I know by listening to the sound outside just when it will start to snow, (I have a young lady thoroughly in awe of me!) and I can smell it coming. I really can. I can tell by the way the wind is blowing what might be heading our way. From the south and strong, usually means the storm is going to be warm and wet...A Pineapple express, coming in from Hawaii. From the North usually means that the jet stream has dropped and the lows coming in off the pacific have been diverted to the North, and then whipped down this way, bring cold rain and wind.

I can tell by the moss growing on the North side of everything in my back yard, that we have not had very much exposure to the sun this fall and winter. It will take a lot of scrubbing this spring to get it all clean again.

This is usual weather for the Pacific Northwest. All wet and gray, hardly ever any snow in the lowlands. Dad brought us here in 1954, from sunnier climes, and Both Phyllis and I fell totally in love with the place. It was like living in the middle of a national forest. We learned about nature by observing Dad, and we learned that not all of God's knowledge can be gained by formal schooling. Sometimes the best lessons are ones we observe first hand from someone we trust.

I know I did.

Flotsam and Jetsam...

2006-01-03T19:29:00.000-08:00

Why do they say weak as a kitten? those little suckers are strong!!!

Why do we say sick as a dog? I have never seen a sick dog.

Why is it when you barf for 12 hours your tummy muscles and back hurt for 48?

Why is it when you go to town looking your absolute worst is the time you are going to see people you have not seen in YEARS? >:(

Who coined the phrase Flotsam and Jetsam?

I believe I will live. I am feeling better, and managed yesterday to keep chicken noodle soup down. and a bottle of apple juice. I am hungry right now, so I will go eat something comforting like mashed potatoes, or mac and cheese, or I could make some bread pudding? or a PB&J...

I bought some lemon and ginger tea, never tried it, so I will fix a cup of that too.

Next I will go take a hot steamy shower, and WASH MY SKANKY HAIR!! I did not realize how bad it was until I was on my way home from town, and smelled dirty hair, and thought it was Sadie...it wasn't!! ARRGGHH!!!

Sick is not fun!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was just going to bed, when I turned to Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN and heard him say that all 12 miners were found alive!!

I was still awake and watching with bated breath when Anderson Cooper was told an hour or so later, that only 1 young man had survived!

How in God's name can something be mis-communicated like that to all of those family members? How in God's Name are they going to live with that ? I know there are those out there that will blame EVERYTHING on THE GOVERNMENT or THE MANAGERS...but after listening to the President of the Company at the press conference just now, It appears that one of the rescue workers 13ooo feet under the ground was overheard by "someone in the COmmand Center" and then it went from there. Dear Lord give them ALL PEACE!

I blame the press, ONCE AGAIN, for creating a wild frenzy to be FIRST with the BREAKING NEWS. ANderson Cooper right up there with the worst of them.

BRING BACK AARON BROWN!!!!!!!!!!!!

a big bad bug found me!!!

2006-01-02T20:27:00.000-08:00

I woke up around 330 AM on Jan 1, puking my guts up. I had woken up to go to the bathroom, but as soon as I sat up I was finding the garbage can, I spent the next few hours getting reaquainted with that yummy lobster tail. I will say it was much nicer on the way down than on the way up. It was not alive when I cooked it, It was thawed, previously forzen, so no telling what good little bugs had decided to make their home in my gut.

Bob called about 1030 AM and asked how I was. He was sick too. So we know it had to be the lobster! i DID NOT MOVE ALL DAY yesterday. And slept almost the clock around. I hurt all over right now. Everytime I try to blow my nose or cough then I have to stop. The muscles are so sore from all of the heaving, that I cry out in pain. Bob had to leave his place for toilet paper, so he brought me over some chicken brooth and apple juice. I think I will live now.

I have been sitting upright since about 1200, and I am really tr4ing hard to stay awake, so I can sleep tonight.

Might be harder than I think. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Happy New Year

2005-12-31T17:57:00.000-08:00

So how did YOU spend your New Year's Eve? Hmmmmmmm?

I spent mine right at the stroke of midnite, chasing my Damn dog up and down a dark dark street.

The evening started out just fine. Bob brought T-bone steaks and Lobster tails over, and We grilled them out side. (no it is not that warm, but if we dont grill in the dark, the rain, and the wind, we don't get to grill at all.) We ate a nice slow leisurly meal, talking about Iraq and how to win the peace over there. (We concluded that since there have been tribal wars in that region since the beginning of time, that it is impossible to do so, and that the only one who CAN bring peace to that region is the creator!) Whom ever you feel that may be! We moved on in to the living room and turned on PBS which had the new OKLAHOMA! musical on, so I watched that while Bob read his BREW magazines. (remember, he is brewing beer for a year)

It actually was a very nice evening, me watching the show and crocheting his afghan, (the one I started 18 years ago, until he came over one night with a snoot full, and said "GOD THAT IS THE UGLIEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN!" It got put away for 18 years and discovered a few weeks ago in the bottom of a box.) I am going to finish it anyway. He has a birthday coming up, it would serve him right if he got it for a gift huh?

Just before midnight around 11:40, I put Sadie in her pen in my bathroom. She was ready for nite-nite. SHe was snuggling in and making her bed when I closed the bedroom door. About 3 minutes to midnite, Sadie started barking hysterically, so Bob and I went in to see what was wrong, and she had jumped out of her pen and was barking her head off at the fireworks on the corner. I, Like a bloody FOOL, opened the front door to see what was going on, just as Bob came over to give me my 1 and only kiss for this year, and WHOOSH--Sadie ran right out the door into the night.

Bob stood there puckered up and I was running in my slippers down the road trying to get her back. Sadie, thank God, is Buff colored so I could see her against the dark night. Sure enough down on the corner, across from the wolves, the people were shooting off lots of really cool fireworks. THese are the same people that put on a great show on the beach on the fourth of July. Sadie would not be caught. She ran helter-skelter, from one yard to the next, through the hedges, over the driveways onto the porches, with her nose to the ground scenting something. Soon she was over to the WOlves, and stirred them up, They did not howl though but they woofed.

RIght across the Cul-de-Sac are two of Janice and Dans dogs, and I did not want to stir them up either, so where did Sadie head? yep right back toward the dogs. I am by this time almost out of breath when Sadie runs right between my legs and over to the fireworks barking like a fool. I thought someone would grab her, but NOOOOO, No one was ALLOWED to catch her. Little BITCH!!

Bob by this time was in his truck with his lights on bright trying to light the road, but all he was doing was blinding me so I could not see at all. I sat right down in the middle of the road, hoping that he would not run over me, and that Sadie would come to me then. But NOOOOOOO I was not allowed to catch her either. SO Bob stops the truck in the middle of the road, opens both doors and is yelling lets go BYe-BYE at the dark street, hoping that she would jump in. Sadie came right up to him, jumped in to the truck and right out the other side and then ran between his legs and back into Janice's yard and on to her front porch. I could see Janice peering around the curtain, but she did not have a clue who I was, out at midnight, sitting sober in the middle of the damned road yelling for my freaking dog! (I woulda said Fuck, but Esther and NJ read this. and they are ladies!) I then thought, Hey, she loves to lay on my back, so I layed down on my stomach in the middle of the dark wet road, and called to her and she cames running, and jumped right over me using my back as a spring board, and takes off again, into the dark.

By this time I am about to cry and cussing a storm and beating on the asphalt and Sadie looks across the road at me like I am nuts, SO I start to sing, and SHe starts to sing, and just as Bob reaches for her.....OFF she trots again!! She is gone to the wolves again, with Bob in hot pursuit!

I sit up and I am trying to get myself off the pavement when Sadie runs out of the trees and into the culvert, then out of the culvert and stops. I yell SIT YOU LITTLE BITCH SIT!! and she does, as still as a mouse. and Bob slowly walks over to her picks her up and looks at me and says, NOW WHY DIDNT YOU DO THAT 20 MINUTES AGO? I just grabbed Sadie from him and headed home totally out of breath while he backs the truck all the way down the road to my house. I make it up the steps, and take Sadie and put her Back into her pen, telling her what a good girl she was, (cant discipline her for sitting!) and then went into the living room totally gasping for breath and my pulse about 140.

Bob chooses this time to come over and try to give me my one and only kiss. I just looked at him and he backed off until I was through weezing,and gulping for air, gave me a quick kiss, said happy new year and ran out the door for home.

ANd how was your night???

Happy New Year!!

2005-12-30T21:52:00.000-08:00

Whoo-hoo!! I just learned how to upload pictures on blogger!! Who KNEW!!! I thought you had to use Hello and bloggerbot!!! hehehehehehehehehehehehe I am getting smarter and smarter on this thing. Now if I can just figure out where i screwed up my old template I'll be fine!

Bob came over and we went into Anacortes which is about 30 miles North and on the next Island over. He heard that Anheiser/Busch was raising their prices on Jan 1, so he paniced. He went into the Northwest Brewers Store, and bought a years worth of Beer making supplies. He was afraid that the price was going to go up on hops and barley and malt also. Now mind you, this man has enough money every month to be able to buy a YEARS WORTH of brewing supplies, so he can afford the higher price on BEER!! And, oh by the way, HE DOESNT DRINK BUD!!!! He drinks micro brews, Fat Tire, Moose Drool, and others I cant remember. (Yes, Moose Drool IS a real beer!! ) He is soooooo strange. After we got the supplies, we went on down the island to a hole in the wall Mexican restaurant for dinner. Burp!!

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve and the 22nd year that we have been dating. I will collect my 22nd New Year's kiss from Bob, and it will be my 25th kiss total!! Tonight would have been my 39th anniversary if I had stayed married to Donna's Father. I can barely remember what he looked like, I was so young. That seems like a Life time ago. Well I guess it was wasn't it Donna? LOLOLOL

It has been raining all day long, and I was chilled to the bone most of the day. When I got home, I built a fire in the woodstove, and now I am toasty clear through. 4 cats and 1 dog are all spread out on the 5X8 rug in front of the fire. I opened the stove and picked up a log and whoosh, there they all were looking at me as if to say "it's about time!"

I do not know if I will have time tomorrow to post, as Bob wants to come over and look some things up. (oh JOY!!) :( now I really WILL have to dump all my temp files, clean out my history and defrag! He gets about 20 windows open and then cant figure out how to make it go faster, and he cant spell, so we get some really interesting hits from google!!

You all have a very Happy New Year, and Drive Safe!! I will tip toe in on N ew Years Day so I wont wake you up.

Still waiting....

2005-12-29T23:33:00.000-08:00

I called my server Isomedia today, and the tech person was very interested, I told him the whole long story, and what all I have done, and he said he would talk to some one in Admin who might know the answer, and he would get back to me tomorrow. We shall see. Meanwhile I am here and it seems to be working just fine. I just still can not see your comments on your blog Wanda, Blogeois, David, Kat and Becky, and any one else who has Haloscan.

We have had storm after storm march in from the pacific. California and Oregon are getting pounded with big waves and high winds and rain. We are getting the high winds and rain also, but it is every other day or so. We keep getting told that there is a high wind watch in Admiralty Inlet, expect winds up to 60 MPH. So far we have been dodging those bullets. I was expecting the power to go out on Christmas Day, because I had that honking big roast to cook, but all went well.

Harry and Harriet, the Hairy Woodpeckers, and Mort and Morticia the Downy woodpeckers (tee hee) have been busy little peckers! I have gone through 8 suet blocks in 10 days!! I also think the squirrels have been back gnawing at them too. Must be good stuff! I just put the last ones out this evening, so unless I can find more suet, I will have to break down and buy the blocks. They really are not that expensive, but when you pinch pennies like I do, every little bit helps.

I am going to take my Christmas decorations down on Sunday, and get the house ready for spring. I have always thought that Spring should start as soon as the new year comes. It should not be winter! It should be getting ready for the turning of the seasons to spring. The birds should be pairing up and nesting, and the bulbs should be bursting through the ground, and it should warm up and the sun should shine. I have never understood why the seasons are so messed up. Out with the old and in with the New. That would be my perfect world. But then I am not the Goddess, Michelle is, so I shall have to talk to her about that.

(Oh My GOD I am watching Letterman rerun tonight and he is decorating the studio tree with a meatball and pizza sauce. That guy is twisted!)

I got an email fron Leslie (USA) and she said to tell all her blog friends Hello, and Happy New Year! She just had a birthday, on the 23rd. And for all of you who are keeping count...CJ is Jan 1, Losts is Dec 30, Joe's is Jan 3, Elliott was Dec 27.

Well, I am getting bleary eyed, looking at this screen, so I need to get my bath and go to bed. I will see you in the Morning! Please have the coffee ready will ya? And French Toast!! That sounds really good.

Starting over...

2005-12-28T19:32:00.000-08:00

COMMENTS ON THIS BLOG ARE OPEN TO ALL. I Fixed It Bill, and Rusty!
Man what a headache this has been. As soon as I get my income tax back, I am going to have this 'Puter optimized and cleaned up and the partition moved, and the superfluous crap deleted off, and then I should Sail along here.

This is the first posting of a new blog, as it appears that my old one was screwed up. Haloscan was who hosted my comments, and I seem to be blocked from them. I can not see my comments, nor can I see any of yours if you use Haloscan for your comments also. I tried to switch to blogger comments, but for some reason, It will not update. SInce I know NOTHING about creating CSS or RSS and just a SMIDGEON of HTML, I thought I would go right back to the very beginning, That's a very fine place to start...

I will be getting pictures put up as soon as I get Hello configured for this blog. Now the challenge will be to see how many people show up on this site!!

I spent the better part of today fighting with this damn machine. I finally got a call that my laptop is ready. Bob fixed my Laptop for me for Christmas. SO I came home and scrounged up a telephone line and hooked up my laptop. Yep works just fine. Slow, but works. SO I tried to open my blog and the same thing happens. I can see the blog, not the comments, and no comments on your blogs either.

Since the two machines are not connected in any way whatsoever, I assumed that it was the only 3 common denominators...ISOMEDIA my service provider; Haloscan itself, or my phone line.

It cant be my phone line. scratch that. SO then I call ISOMEDIA, and the guy on the help desk could not get to haloscan.com either. AHA!!!! So I think it has to be haloscan that has blocked ISOMEDIA's IP for some reason or another. anyway, I can not contact haloscan to ask them because I am BLOCKED. so until I get fixed, I will be over here. Maybe...

If I can get this to work.

I did read most of you tonight though.