miniAnn

Sleepy boys

2009-06-27T18:28:00.001-04:00

From the yard

2009-05-22T09:53:00.001-04:00

Our trip to "Texas"

2009-04-18T22:18:00.000-04:00

Riley's boo-boo

2009-03-20T14:12:00.000-04:00

Poor little guy broke a nail off of his back paw. He's such a
trooper. He isn't fazed by the bandage or by the plastic bag that got
tied on over it when it rained yesterday.

White dog in the summer (May 2008)

2009-01-20T00:14:00.003-05:00

1 Little White Dog + 1 freshly mowed lawn =

Riley, a short series - 5 months (Feb 2008)

2009-01-19T23:56:00.011-05:00

Gotta pee. Gotta take my keys.

Peein'... still got my keys.

All done.

That's all folks.

He still does this if I forget to make him drop whatever toy he's got in his mouth. We've "misplaced" several toys only to have them re-appear a few weeks (or months) later when he comes inside after being out for a tinkle or a romp.

Riley - at 4 months (Jan 2008)

2009-01-19T23:46:00.006-05:00

Auggie, Baxter, and Riley (Feb 2008)

2009-01-19T23:20:00.004-05:00

Riley's only about 4 or 5 months old in this picture.

Breakfast entertainment

2009-01-05T12:02:00.001-05:00

Jackson Square

2009-01-05T12:01:00.001-05:00

Cafe du Monde

2009-01-05T11:59:00.000-05:00

Dinner at Pat O's, Hurricane and Mint Julep

2009-01-04T20:29:00.000-05:00

Dinner at Pat O's

2009-01-04T20:28:00.001-05:00

Sights on Bourbon St., part 1

2009-01-04T20:24:00.000-05:00

Flip you for it

2009-01-04T18:26:00.000-05:00

Sunday lunch in New Orleans

2009-01-04T14:43:00.000-05:00

Cat

2009-01-03T14:45:00.001-05:00

Front beach before storm

2009-01-03T14:44:00.000-05:00

Lap dog

2008-11-15T22:15:00.001-05:00

You has food for us??

2008-09-14T03:03:00.000-04:00

New fence

2008-09-03T17:24:00.001-04:00

One more kite picture.

2008-09-03T14:21:00.001-04:00

He's been looking forward to this the whole trip

2008-09-01T18:18:00.000-04:00

Constellation

2008-08-30T14:47:00.000-04:00

Let me nap

2008-08-27T13:48:00.000-04:00

another test

2008-08-27T13:46:00.001-04:00

test

Test post

2008-08-27T13:43:00.001-04:00

Sent from my iPhone

Official Introduction of Riley

2008-03-07T11:05:00.004-05:00

So here's the official introduction - meet Riley, the newest permanent addition to our household.

"Hi"

Virginia primaries are today

2008-02-12T13:51:00.001-05:00

Virginia primaries are being held today. Exercise your right to vote. I did.

Update on Riley's brother

2008-01-25T16:02:00.000-05:00

I got an update on Riley's brother today - no heart murmur! He went to the vet for his last set of puppy shots and he now weighs in at around 30 pounds! That is such a difference from Riley who isn't even 20lbs. His mom said she told the vet about Riley's heart problem and the vet listened a long time to his heart and all sounded normal. I am so relieved.

Little Man in the snow!

2008-01-20T13:27:00.000-05:00

More pictures of Riley/Little Man/Shrinky-Dink.

Huey and Riley aka Heman and Hercules

2008-01-20T10:16:00.000-05:00

The first week of December, we volunteered to foster 2 St. Bernard mix puppies. Enter - Heman and Hercules. We could not bring ourselves to call them by those names, so we called them Huey and Riley while they were in our house.

Huey

Riley

Huey at his favorite place. He would often wander into the kitchen and fall asleep next to the water dish!

Riley playing with Auggie. When we first brought the puppies home, Auggie was not too happy. But after a few days he came around and would play with them.

They were both adopted after about 3 weeks. Riley came back after two weeks due to some health problems. So more pictures to come of Riley.

Cute Auggie Story

2007-07-20T18:21:00.001-04:00

Last Saturday we had Crazymokes and her clan over for a swim. Auggie is not around children very often, so we keep a close eye on him just to make sure. He'd recently been around our niece and nephews and wanted to be everywhere they were - not playing with them but keeping an eye on them. If we're in the pool he tends to get bored and hot and want to be inside - except when there are children present. Then he wants to be outside with them (although not in the pool as he doesn't like the pool)!

Anyway, on to the Auggie story. The neighbor's house that sits at a diagonal to our backyard has 2-4 little dogs (less than 15 pounds each, she has 2 and occasionally doggysits for others). Anyway, these are yappy little things. They see us in the yard and will stay at the corner of their fence yapping away until the owner takes them inside (usually aided by a squirt gun). Auggie will usually head over to that corner of our fence if he hears them and stand and watch them for a minute or two before getting bored and wander off. Now note, he never runs over there and has never barked at them... at least until last Saturday. When everyone was getting out of the pool, the yappers came outside. When Auggie heard the yapping start he ran and started barking at the yappers! I'm of the opinion that he thought he was protecting the children, but who knows why the doggie instincts were guiding him to do that. The yappers were hearded inside pretty quickly so it wasn't kept up for any length of time and I think Kurt and I were the only ones that paid any attention to it.

Maple Mystery

2007-06-29T08:10:00.001-04:00

I was puttering around this morning, checking on everyone's food status - see if Auggie ate yesterday and if Maple had food. Auggie has a wooden thing that holds his bowls about a foot off the floor - big dog don't need to bend down so much to eat! We catch Maple drinking out of his water dish all the time. Anyway, a little background on Maple - she's a long-hair calico cat that "belonged" to Kurt's roommate back when they were in college. We took her when Kurt's roommate graduated and we got married. Maple has her toys that she carries around the house - Nip, the beanie baby, another beanie baby my mom gave her, and her beloved hacky sack. She's got others, but those are her favorites. In all the time we've had Auggie, he has only touched her toys once - he was a puppy so he was corrected and his focus redirected to one of his toys. So imagine my surprise when I saw this:

I have no idea what to think.

Yogurt and apple

2007-06-05T11:37:00.000-04:00

Found this odd combination when we were in Ireland. Have other people known about this combination and just been keeping it a secret from me? Yummy! Need to get a little granola to sprinkle on top.

Flowers from Ireland

2007-06-04T17:49:00.000-04:00

These were taken while we were in Ireland, at the B&B in Kinsale.

Rhododendron taken at night.

Camelia.

And probably my favorite flower picture we took the whole time we were there.

Clematis during day

2007-05-12T18:41:00.000-04:00

Iris at night

2007-05-12T18:37:00.000-04:00

Round 3: Kurt 3, Yucca 0 - Kurt WINS!

2007-04-23T18:47:00.000-04:00

Kurt has been declared the victor... for now. The Yucca has vowed revenge. On to the victory photos!

Round 2: Kurt 2, Yucca 0

2007-04-23T18:41:00.000-04:00

It isn't looking too good for Yucca! He's really taking this hard.

The audience is captivated!

Watch as our hero goes in for more!

Round 1 : Kurt 1, Yucca 0

2007-04-23T18:27:00.000-04:00

Doesn't look to impressive from this angle.

From this angle you can see the beginnings of the devastation.

War has been Declared

2007-04-22T08:05:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the first day this season we've had a chance to get dirty in the yard. After mowing the front yard, Kurt declared war on the evil, dreaded, Yucca plant. Below are pictures right after Kurt dealt the first blow. The Yucca laughed.

Yucca is still a little brown from the winter.

Previous homeowners have tried to destroy the dreaded Yucca, but none have prevailed.

Garden 2006/07/11

2006-07-11T22:02:00.000-04:00

Cucumbers and tomato plant. One side of cucumbers are for salads, the other line is for pickling!

I believe these are cubanelle peppers.

Some other variety of pepper.

Strawberry pot full of herbs, a marigold coming out one area and strawberries in the top.

Whole garden as seen from the gate.

Whole garden again. You can see the strawberry pot in the middle. The garden line used to be just in front of that. When I thinned out the cucumbers and zucchini this weekend and moved the eggplants and all of the pepper plants to get them out from under the two large zucchini plants, the garden plot grew. You can see I moved the cucumbers to along the fence. They don't look so hot now. Nor do the transplanted zucchini along the front right edge of the garden. Next year have to remember to give zucchini plenty of space!

Speaking of zucchini. See that zucchini on the right side, that's the size a zucchini should be... I let some grow a little too big before picking.

Note to Amy - I know you like garden pictures, so try not to get too excited when you see the first yield of zucchini crop all lined up together. See the three small-ish ones in the middle, those are like the perfect size. All the others are a little freakishly large... compare to the cantalope in the background there! (Cantalope not from my garden but from our vegetable delivery last week).

Garden 2006/06/04

2006-07-11T21:59:00.000-04:00

Sprouting cucumber plants... these needed to be thinned out. Which didn't happen until this past weekend.

Progress

2006-07-09T20:04:00.000-04:00

Taken in October 2005, about a month and a half after Katrina hit.

Taken July 2006. Not as many tarps on the rooves.

Garden 2006/05/??

2006-07-09T19:40:00.000-04:00

Here are the pictures I took a few days after I planted the garden in late May. Taken right before the sun went down, so light is pretty bad.*

Rather than start from seeds, I bought starters of zucchini, bell pepper, watermelon, cubanelle, and some other hot pepper that I can't remember the name of right now.

First signs of cucumbers.

View of entire garden from the gate view.

View of entire garden.

* Updated pictures - Amy fixed the levels on my pictures and they look ten times better!

Wally

2006-05-17T13:04:00.000-04:00

At the risk of jinxing this, Wally may have found a home. We're supposed to meet with his new owner, L, on Friday to do the contract. Once that is completed, he'll go home with her.

Its kind of funny, but the last guy who wanted to adopt Wally wasn't looking for a dog, he just came to the adoption event with a friend who was looking for a puppy. L was not specifically looking for a dog either. She and a friend came to petco shopping for their dogs a week ago Sunday and saw Wally on the way out. It was actually near the end of the event and Wally had had a particularly bad adoption day, he was just out-of-sorts and not behaving very well. I had contemplated leaving early, but now I'm glad I didn't. Anyway, L and her friend saw him, L took him for a walk, and we exchanged information. She called me the next day to set up a time for Wally to come meet Bella, her 3 year-old pit mix.

On Friday, I took Wally over to L's house. L and I walked him around the block, then L got Bella and we walked them together, L took Wally's leash and walked them both for most of the way. When they were finally given the chance to sniff each other, they both wanted to play. They had a great little play-date - no doggie arguments or growls at all.

L also has a 17 year old cat that really intimidated Wally. Wally saw him, got excited and started to bounce after him when Kitty arched his back, hissed, and advanced. It freaked Wally out and he layed his ears flat against his head and put his head down and backed away. That's how he reacts when he gets squirted with water. He would not go within a foot of Kitty the rest of the visit. Anytime I tried to get him to sniff Kitty again he'd plant his feet on the ground and wouldn't budge! It was great! I wish Maple could have seen it. Show her how to handle dogs.

All went well the rest of the visit. L wanted to schedule one more play-date before she made up her mind. This time, she asked if this could be without me present so she could see how well Wally would listen to her. I talked with the rescue to make special arrangements since this is an unusual request. So Wally went to visit L on Sunday for about 5 hours. When I picked him up, she said everything went well, just like it had on Friday. Wally wasn't even anxious when I left nor did he get overly excited when I came to pick him up. I think he gets more excited when I come home from work than when I picked him up! So the only thing left is for the adoption contract to be filled out and then Wally can go live with her.

I cannot believe how well Wally and Bella get along. Not to say that there won't ever be any doggie arguments, but L is very good at handling the two of them together and not letting their excitement and play escalate into anything desctructive.

L took a few pictures of Bella and Wally playing and hanging out on Sunday, Wally is the white one on the right, Bella the black one on the left:

This last one is just too cute with Wally finally chilling out. We'll see how Friday goes.

Weigh-in day

2006-05-15T15:31:00.000-04:00

So Saturday was weigh-in day for Auggie. He's been scratching at his ears and shaking his head and his left ear is dirty so off to the vet we went Saturday morning. He's got allergies, which we knew, but this is the first time its manifested itself in his ears. Just like when humans go to the doctor they have to get weighed in, so do dogs. Its time to do some serious exercise increase and food-decrease. He's now tipping the scales at 106.6 pounds. That's up about 11 pounds since last fall. I guess the excuse that its just the fur won't fly anymore.

Happy Birthday!

2006-05-15T15:25:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday, Kurt! It was Saturday so I'm a couple of days late on the public blog-wishing side of things. I love you.

That's a strange banana

2006-05-09T00:17:00.000-04:00

If you're into web design and css, this site is awesome - http://www.strangebanana.com.

Recovery

2006-04-12T12:01:00.000-04:00

I'm recovering from the hard drive failure last week. I ended up taking the computer out of the conference room and setting it up as my local work station. One bonus, the conference room computer has a 240 gig drive where my old drive (and the replacement drive) only have 80.

Now for a little gross humor..

What's gross?
A cat that drools

What's grosser than gross?
When the cat that drools shakes her head violently and slings drool all over the place.

To: Auggie

2006-04-04T11:34:00.001-04:00

Mail my dog, Auggie, has received:

1. Inivitations to visit the Baptist church.
2. Coupon for teeth cleaning from a dentist's office.
3. Credit card offers.
4. Offers to join dating services.

I'm sure there are more, but those are all I can think of at the moment.
In addition to the mail, he has also received phone calls from various kinds of telemarketers. Some requesting donations, others trying to get him to buy something. I sometimes explain to them that he can't really buy anything or donate money since he has no job and he receives no allowance. Other times I just say he can't come to the phone because he's urinating on a bush outside. Or that he doesn't know how to talk on the phone and he really doesn't like to listen on it either.

Past, present, and future.

2006-03-22T16:20:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about what I want this blog to be. Those thoughts turned into if I even want this blog to be. I find myself turning to the blog when things aren't right in my head and tempted to post things I'll regret at a later date. My instinct (instinct isn't the right word and I'm too lazy to figure out what the right word is) is to use the blog to vent. But I can't vent here because many people I know in person know about this site and could read it at some point. Some people will get it, but most won't since they don't really know me. And if I can't post honestly and I continue to censor myself, then what is the point. I may opt to stop the blog, I may opt to stop censoring myself or I may opt to continue with the superficial type posts I've done so far and keep the deeper feelings out of it. Maybe I'll buy a journal and actually take pen to paper.

Dog teach dog

2006-03-21T19:37:00.000-05:00

Most of the time, when Auggie gets a cookie (dog cookie) he'll drop it and look up at you to see if you'll give him another one. Wally, the amazing foster dog, has picked up this little trick.

Movement

2006-03-18T13:56:00.000-05:00

Wally at top speed! This is one of the pictures I took of Wally for the rescue to put on their site.

Weakness

2006-03-18T13:48:00.000-05:00

These are pictures of the Ocean Springs - Biloxi bridge, or what is left of it. Everything has weakness.

Noses

2006-03-16T15:54:00.000-05:00

Some people need to be told exactly where their nose is, otherwise they'd never be able to blow it.

Something's fishy!

2006-03-16T12:03:00.000-05:00

There is this overwhelming fish smell in the office that started about half an hour ago. The dude in the office next to mine cooks fish every other day in the microwave. Today was one of those days. The smell was so bad someone went around a few minutes ago spraying air freshner. Why in the hell is it called air freshner? It always makes things worse, it never freshens the air. It got so bad I went out to the hall in front of our offices. The smell had permeated the whole floor to the point that the other companies on the floor had called building maintenance to find out what the problem was.

Dancing Fever!

2006-03-13T14:30:00.000-05:00

This weekend was full of dancing and home depot visits. I'll save the home deport stories for another time. I will tell you about the dancing, oh what dancing! We danced and danced and danced! The dance studio where we take classes has a dance on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of the month and this past Saturday was just one of those occasions. From 8-9, there is a dance lesson in a specific type of dance, and then from 9-11 is the dance. This past Saturday Sling Hustle was taught. Since we've taken that class and we've practiced enough that we haven't forgotten it, we skipped the class and showed up at 9 for the dance. We got there a little early and joined in the last few minutes of the class. Through the night we hustled, we cha-cha'd, we rumba'd, we swung (both single and triple) and ended the night with the manhattan hustle. Most people were gone by then and Kurt and I were the only ones on the floor. So far, the Manhattan Hustle is my favorite. I think its cause we know the most moves in it. Needless to say, we had a blast.

Then Sunday we took an Argentine Tango workshop. I've never had the desire to learn the tango (american or argentine), but Kurt was pretty interested in checking this out. We'd seen a couple dancing it a few months ago at one of the dances and it did look pretty damn cool. I always thought the tango was a little contrived, but that's probably due to the choreography of them in movies. The Argentine Tango was a lot of fun. Its the closest dancing position of any dance - you're right up against your partner. This was a bit tough since the top of my head barely reaches Kurt's shoulder. When the dance instructor was going around to each couple while we were practicing the basic tango walk, she demonstrated how I should stand in relation to Kurt - with my head on his chest. It beats looking at his shirt the whole time! We learned how to do the "tango walk", a turn, how to do a "flare" or "fan," and a grapevine. I hope they offer a class in Argentine Tango at some point, we'd be up for that.

Tonight starts the next 8-week set of dance classes. Tonight begins intermediate cha-cha/rumba (first 4 weeks cha-cha, second 4 weeks rumba). And on wednesday is beginner salsa.

One of the things I have learned with all this dancing is how to dance with other people. And how to be that close to another person who isn't Kurt. I am not comfortable being touched by other people - don't ask me why as I have no idea, I just know there have been a few occasions which have brought this to my attention. Usually a coworker putting a hand on my shoulder, or when an old roommate linked arms with me. It just always weirded me out. For the most part, I've only danced with Kurt, but occasionally the dance teachers like to switch the partners up so you get to see how leading/following styles differ. When we first started dancing, it was a little weird, but I've gotten used to it and rarely feel uncomfortable anymore. I'm always a little uncomfortable dancing with men who are my height or close to my height. I'm used to Kurt towering above me. There's also the men who just can't lead to save their lives. Or the know-it-all ones. There was this one guy who I thought had been taking lessons for a while until I danced with him and it was clear he hadn't. He was a decent lead, but not as great as he thought. And at the risk of increasing Mr. Swim's dancing ego, I always try to get him as a partner whenever we have to do the round robin switch ups. He's a good lead and is similar to Kurt in that he actually leads and doesn't only repeat the step or pattern that we've just learned but mixes it up. This is another interesting thing I've noticed about dancing, I cannot think or I'll screw up. If I start thinking about what I'm doing, I'll try to anticipate the next step, and 90% of the time I anticipate wrong. When we first started learning the tango steps, I found it easier to close my eyes. If I was looking around, I'd either get distracted watching other people or I'd try to use visual clues and end up getting off-step or off-balance. Oh, my, I've rambled on long enough about dancing. That's all for now.

Can You Swim Challenge

2006-03-06T18:17:00.000-05:00

It just occurred to me that I should explain some of the posts going on here - mainly the last two. Can you swim? has started a challenge - those who accepted the challenge must express each word from a list Mr. Swim came up with in some way - picture, poem, etc. The initial challenge was issued February 11th, but I just now got around to posting my first entries. Just in case anyone actually reads this, now you know what's up with War and Sorrow.

Special Message for K

2006-01-03T10:03:00.000-05:00

Happy 7th anniversary! I love you!

Whee doggie!

2005-12-29T10:50:00.000-05:00

Go meet Wally! (towards the bottom of the page). He's our foster dog that was rescued in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. He's been through a lot since September and is now ready to find a permanent home.

Snug as a Bug in a Rug

2005-12-12T18:38:00.000-05:00

Turned the Saturn Ion in on Friday and picked up my mini. It looks good and feels great to drive it again. I did manage to squeeze the Ion into the garage Thursday night - I did not want to clean snow off of it at 6 in the morning! It barely fit. Its nice to have the mini. Even used my seat heaters today! Its now parked in its garage - snug as a bug in a rug.

SS Smokestack sunk and Gnome Kidnapper on the loose!

2005-12-07T11:44:00.000-05:00

The SS Smokestack was returned to the dock yesterday and exchanged for a Saturn Ion, which doesn't stink. So far I kind of like the Saturn. It at least drives more like a car than a boat. It doesn't have any of the features that my mini has, but I guess I can live with it for a week. One thing that really sucks, I can't get into the damn garage. I think this car would fit, but I don't have a garage door opener. We only have one garage door opener for each garage door and my husband has them both. The mini has programmable frequency buttons, so I never needed an opener.

Now that I'm driving the rental and can't get in the garage, I'm using the front door. I discovered something quite upsetting yesterday. My garden gnome was kidnapped! I'm so so so unhappy about it. Not to mention pissed off. And a little scared by it. There's no telling how long its been gone, but my husband thinks its been at least 2 weeks. The garden gnome was a gift to us when we moved into our house last year. He's always sat on one of the rocks in the garden area by the front door. He would occasionally hop from rock to rock, but he never strayed out of the front garden. I can't believe someone would take off with him! They took him, but left the solar turtle light. Whomever took him must have known he was there. That means someone came up into my yard and picked him up. I live on a fucking cul-de-sac people, no one should be walking by my house, let alone in my front yard. I'm a little freaked. I'm debating on reporting it to the neighborhood watch association. I doubt they could do anything, but at least they could put out an alert to other homeowners that there is a garden gnome snatcher on the loose.

At least we have a big scary dog to deter hamburglers, which they'd be out of luck since we have no ham. People avoid even walking on the sidewalk in front of our house if the dog is outside. We let him out unleased into the front yard and it tends to freak out people who don't know him. He knows his boundaries and has never crossed them (unless chasing my husband on his bike). Auggie's boundaries consist of our front yard and both of our neighbor's front yards. He likes both of these neighbors (although one of them recently moved) and they like him so they call to him when they see him out. Auggie used to go whine at their front door of the neighbor who moved so they'd let their dog come out or let him come in. It worked most of the time. After we watched their dog for a week over the summer, he was confused as to where he actually lived. So whoever moves in is going to be in for a big surprise if I can't break Auggie of whining at that door.

If anyone sees my gnome's kidnappers, tell them we want our gnome back!

SS Smokestack

2005-12-06T12:24:00.000-05:00

Things I hate about the SS Smokestack (my name for the Dodge Stratus):

1. It drives like a friggin boat! Hence, the name - SS Smokestack.
2. It reeks of cigarette smoke. Again, the name SS Smokestack.
3. No outside temperature indicator.
4. More surface area to clean snow off of.
5. Too big to fit in the garage causing me to have to clean snow off of it.
and the big one that really ticks me off since I could really use this right now
6. No heated seats. Yes, I'm spoiled by my heated seats. I love them. And this damn thing doesn't have them.

The one thing that isn't so bad about the SS Smokestack - its a generic looking car so if I cut someone off in traffic that person isn't likely to remember the car so he can then his car into mine the next time he sees it. It COULD happen.

mini seperation from the mini

2005-12-05T09:56:00.000-05:00

I got to the car repair shop at 7:30 because the Enterprise guy said they set up shop in one of the repair shop's extra offices and would be there at 7:30. Nope, nope, nope, nothing opens until 8. So I'm sitting my happy ass in the cold waiting for something to open. The repair shop opened their office early so I handed my sweet mini over to them for the week. I went back across the street to wait for the Enterprise guy to show up. And when he did I realized I left my license at home so he couldn't rent me a car. He wouldn't even do the paper work. The whole freaking reason I got there so damn early was to get my pick of the cars they brought with them. So, I woke up my sweet husband to bring me my license (he had it for a Christmas party we went to on Friday so I didn't have to carry a purse). I gave him directions and told him the building was on the right side of the street when in fact its on the left. He's learned that I confuse right and left, so he should have known, right? :) And then I snapped at him when he pointed out that I told him the wrong side. Poor man, sweet enough to bring me my license and I snap at him. Need to call him in a minute to apologize. So, got my license in hand and I get paper work done and they don't have any full-size cars left (which is what insurance will pay for). He offered me a free upgrade to an SUV, but come on people, I drive a mini for a reason. I like my small car, I don't like SUVs. I had to wait another 10 minutes for them to bring over more cars. So I got a Dodge Stratus, not much better than an SUV. Its a bit of a boat, but it accelerates nicely.

I was going to assume that anyone reading this would know why my car is in the shop, but just in case anyone other than my, what, 5 friends reads this they might want to know. If not, then why are you even reading this?

Anyway. I was rearened a couple of weeks ago by a scatter-brained person. I was sitting in traffic, we weren't moving and when we were it was less than 10 miles an hour. And somehow, this woman managed not to see a purple mini in front of her! Luckily, no one was hurt and no bad damage done to my car, at least it doesn't look like its bad. The shop folks will have a better idea once they get the bumper off. So until further notice, watch out for the silver dodge stratus with an "e" sticker on it.

mini what?

2005-11-29T21:23:00.000-05:00

What's the mini for in miniAnn? Potential answers (some of which are correct, some of which aren't):

I'm a dwarf or little person.
I'm a people version of mini M&M's.
I drive a mini cooper.
If I were a mouse, I'd be Minny Mouse.
I love mini bars in hotel rooms.
I have an unhealthy obssession of Verne Troyer.
Love those frosted mini wheats.
I listen to an iPod mini.
I own a few mini skirts.
I'm a miniature version of my imaginary twin sister.

Halfway

2005-11-21T17:23:00.000-05:00

So I'm doing the whole getting healthy thing that's in vogue right now. With the aid of weight watchers, I've managed to lose 25 pounds as of this past Saturday. This is the first time I've ever lost this much and I'm seeing a difference in my body's shape. My little incentive to myself was to buy a new, uh, titsling (10 points to anyone who knows what movie this is from without googling it). Gotta say, I was ready to run home and post the dimensions of said titsling. But, on better judgement, I'm not. Let's just say I'm now the same orchestra size I was in 9th grade, but not the same glass size. Unfortunately, the sling's orchestra has to be taken in so I won't actually get it for another week and a half. Hopefully I'll have it in time for my husband's company's annual christmas party.

Finding a dress for said Christmas party will likely end up as another post.

Decade

2005-11-17T15:52:00.000-05:00

In talking with my husband last night, we realized we've known each other for 10 years. We met online. It is so interesting how far our culture has come in the past decade. Now, no one bats an eye when I tell them I met my husband over the internet. When we were "dating" (you can't really call it dating when you're 900 miles apart) and in the first years of our marriage, I'd get the strangest looks from people when telling them how we met. Some people were fascinated by it, others thought we were nuts (including my parents at first). In the olden days of online dating we had to cross 6 states up hill both ways to meet our online interest. Not so with all the dating sites out there today. Also seems to be a lot more dangerous today. Most folks have a computer and internet access, including the crazies.

So, 10 years. That's a long freaking time. 11 years ago I would never have thought I'd meet the love of my life, let alone marry him and move away from Mississippi. In a state like MS, where teen pregnancy is high, education and job opportunities are low, there are always the kids whose goal it is to "get out." Especially if you're in a small town. I lived in two places in Mississippi - one had a population of around 20,000, the other 2000. I spent most of my childhood and teenage years in the larger of the two places. Somewhere in between was the 2k town where I spent 3 miserable years. When my family lived there, I was one of the kids who was going to "get out." Heh, I was also one of the kids who the town probably wouldn't have wanted to stick around because I asked too many questions and was a feminist. Anyway, when I wanted to get out of that town, that was it - just get out of that town. I eventually got my wish and my family moved back to the 20k town. I never had much desire to move away from there. If I hadn't met my Virginian, I'd probably still be there.

So, 10 years. I didn't date much before I met my husband (not that I date much now that we're married). I'm sure if I'd realized how much power the ta-tas can yield I'd have taken advantage of it. But due to other issues, I didn't know about that. I never thought I'd get married, never really expected to have kids so its a bit surprising to look back and think about that. My husband basically had the same expectations that I did. Maybe we weren't meant to meet until we were older, too old to have children, but that damn internet thwarted the fates. Riiiight. We could potentially spawn children that weren't meant to be in this world! Think of what they could do that shouldn't be done! They could invent a time-traveling device that rips apart space-time and life as we know it will end. The world is going to end cause of unprotected sex and the internet. I just turned 30, let's say I birth these babies within the next 5 years. I should spawn at least two so they can collaborate on this project together, and they will likely invent it in their mid-to-late 20's, maybe early 30's. And with my family history, they'll work out of my garage since they'll still be living at home. Folks, you got rougly 30 years to wrap up all your loose ends before the world ends. Maybe 40 if the kids are slow.

Where's Auggie?

2005-11-13T17:16:00.000-05:00

Here's a few pictures of my office at home. I finally started setting it up a few weeks ago. In the office I have two matching desks that my husband and his friend had in college. As you can see, there's the one in the fore-front of the picture and one against the wall behind it with my desk chair and an IKEA poang chair between them. So there really isn't a whole lot of space to move around. Somehow, my 85 pound dog manages to squirm his way under the desk to be right under my feet. He does this at work too, as seen in my previous post. He does this just about anywhere - at our dining room table (but only when we're actually sitting at it, at my mother-in-law's, at our patio table outside that has a ground clearance of maybe a foot, at friends' homes. His moto is "Where ever there's a table with people gathered around it, I'll find a way to lay under it."

Life is so hard

2005-11-11T09:23:00.000-05:00

Auggie says -
Sucks to be forced to go to work with mommy. I get back at her by laying under her desk so she has no leg room.

Patch this.

2005-11-11T08:04:00.000-05:00

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/11/10/patch.warning.ap.ap/index.html

Gotta say, this really ticks me off. I switched from depo provera to the patch about two years ago. Told my doc I was sick of the acne side-effects of depo and wanted to go on the pill instead. She convinced me to give the patch a try instead of the pill. I was on it for about a month when I started having very severe abdominal pain. I can remember sitting in traffic on 66 and thinking that if I couldn't get over to the side of the road I was going to get in an accident. The pain usually lasted anywhere from 5 - 10 minutes and then went away like nothing happened. When it first started, I didn't associate it with the patch at all. But that was the only thing that had changed recently as far as medication or lifestyle. The last time I experienced the pain it was so bad I couldn't walk and ended up laying down on the floor in our dining room. My husband was beside himself so he called the emergency after-hours number for the gyno. A few minutes later she called back and after explaining what was going on she had no explanation except that it couldn't possibly be the patch. Her only suggestion was to call the next morning to schedule an appointment and if it came back go to the emergency room. I told her I was taking it off just to be on the safeside and you know what her response was? In a very condescinding tone, "You know you aren't protected against pregnancy now?" What the fuck? You don't say? Well geez lady, I guess I can manage to use a condom if it means I'm not going to double over in pain.

After a lot of bitching on my end, they manage to find a way to work me in the next day to see the nurse practitioner. She finds nothing wrong with me - surprise, surprise. But still assures me it isn't the patch and that its perfectly safe. I'm not convinced, so I switch to some variation of the pill. I've not had a problem since I took off that goddamn patch. And I've not been back to that sorry excuse for a doctor or clinic. Wonder what would have happened if I had listened to the trained professionals and stayed on the patch.

Have you any wool?

2005-11-09T18:11:00.000-05:00

My anal husband gave me shit about the sheep mewing title. He says sheep bah or bleat, not mew. He had me search google to prove his point. http://www.kiddyhouse.com/Farm/Sheep/sheep.html, Sheep do mew, but bleat rhymes with sheep so I changed it. BAAAAAAH.

So much for that.

2005-11-08T12:59:00.000-05:00

Started this sucker and forgot about it (kind of like the weight bench except didn't forget about it just didn't use it). Now it seems everyone I know has a blog, so I too must keep up with the Sancoast/Panders family! BLOG.. take two.

Life resolutions

2005-01-23T16:13:00.000-05:00

We bought a weight bench and set of plates last weekend. This weekend we set up the bench in our bedroom - yes, our bedroom. There's really no where else in the house for it to go. This is a good thing - its right there for us to see every morning and no way to avoid it. We need to write down some tangible goals and get to it! Think I'll go do that now.

Where to start?

2005-01-07T22:08:00.000-05:00

This ought to be a fun little experiment.