Bogieblog

Signs

Heard a strange sound this morning; a slight gurgeling sound coming from the heater room. Damn, the heat is going on upstairs (forced hot water - hence the gurgel). The thermostat is set at 62. This is not a good thing! Unless you are coming from out of state to look at the foliage, then that signals great timing!

Ugly Stepchild

Show of hands; who has a room in their house that is considered the “ugly stepchild”? You know: the room that is never shown off, kept locked away from the world, and only appreciated when it’s needed. Come on, fess up, raise a hand if you have a room like that (I won’t tell anyone – promise).

Now, who has a whole floor of a house that is the ugly stepchild? Damn, it looks like I’m the only one with my hand still in the air.

Yard and Garden Time

Remember how the corner of the driveway looked while we were digging it up (once again I use the term "we" loosely)?

Then it looked much better when I transplanted plants from inside the horseshoe driveway to the other side - but it still looked bare (if you look really close, you can tell there are plants lining the inside of the rock wall).

Pneumonia

All right, I've done a little research on pneumonia, and the theory is that some types are contagious - others aren't. Pneumonia just means "inflamation of the lungs" and can be caused by foriegn bacteria, viruses, or bacteria that is already present in the mouth and throat.

Since I haven't contracted pneumonia (knock on wood), it's a safe bet that it isn't the contagious type. One of the causes of pneumonia can be different types of "dust"; miners run a higher risk of pneumonia because of this. This leads me to believe that the exposure to galvanized steel dust is a culprit in the Wonderful Spouse's current condition (it doesn't help that he smokes either).

And that, class, is your short (very short) medical lesson for the day.

Bad News

With so much pet-sitting, I haven't been able to keep up with reading other blogs the way I would like (an example, I missed Buffy's anniversary by several days). It is one thing to send belated Anniversary wishes.

It's quite a different thing to be sending belated condolences for the loss of a special dog. my heart goes out to Greg and his Lovely Bride.

Captain It's Breaking Up!

Found over at Dax Montana's; the Breaking Up Power Point presentation. I guess it is old school to write a letter or make a phone call (or heaven forbid, actually talk to them in person) - it's the high-tech way to do things.

In Sickness and in Health

Remember how sick the Wonderful Spouse was last Friday? (For those not in the know, they sent him home from work because he was so sick). He took it easy all weekend and seemed to be doing better. Starting Monday afternoon, he started feeling worse. On Tuesday, people at work were again worried about him and told him to call the doctor. He did try, but apparently everyone is sick so the phone was busy (a bunch of people I work with are sick too).

He’s been going in every Wednesday for 6 weeks to have his blood pressure checked, so at this week’s appointment he told them his symptoms. They found his temp was 101 and they came back with a diagnosis of pneumonia. Yahoo! Ironically, there is another guy that he works with that had pneumonia a couple of weeks ago (pneumonia isn’t contagious but it seems sort of strange that out of 9 people in the shop, 2 have had it within a short time span).

I am on the computer way too much (not that you can tell by my lack of posting . . . ). Bear with me for a minute:

WS has two brands of socks; Wilson and Champs. I rotate which ones I buy because it is easier to sort them that way; Wilsons have a big W sown into the fabric and Champs don't have anything. So, when I sort socks, I first sort for 'W's: and "non-W's" before doing any further sorting (cuff size, length of sock etc).

Last night I caught myself saying 'Word" and "not Word" as I was sorting them - pretty sad!

No Flood Zone

42 degrees this morning - a bit on the cool side! Our trusty rain gauge says that we got 3 3/4" of rain from the remnants of Hurricane Ivan. Not much compared to what some other folks got, but considering the prognosticators called for "perhaps an inch of rain", more than we expected. Fortunately the precipitation didn't come all at once, but arrived as a nice soaking rain that lasted for about 16 hours, so it had time to soak in and give the gardens a nice thorough watering.

WS did have to go and bail out the inside of the foundation for the ex-greenhouse. Suprisingly it was draining fairly well, but there was an inch or two of standing water by late morning. The sill to the door leading into the basement is about 3" above the current ground level, so he decided to play it safe - thus the bailing. Our being too darned busy turned into our good fortune as we had planned on pouring the concrete for the floor in that area. We haven't had the time, so it is still just layered in sand; if we had poured the floor, we might have gotten a flooded basement overnight.

After bailing out the greenhouse, WS took it easy for the rest of the day watching stupid movies (Night of Tornadoes and Lightning: Fire in the Sky or something like that). All movies about kids that don't get along with their father (or step-father) but predict the massively bad weather (which the weather forcasters poo-poo) and they, in some manner, save the town. Predictably, the relationship with the father/step-father instantly goes from bad to fantastic after it is all said and done. Actually, they seemed to be the best thing on TV, so he didn't have much choice. Anyway, he had a restfull day and is slowly on the mend.

Since it rained most of the day, I cleaned the bird cages and scrubbed the birdroom floor - a nice neccessary 4 hour job to while away the afternoon. I also hunkered down and reconciled the checkbook, which hadn't been done for a couple of months. Also did my pet-sitting chores which included cleaning someone else's birdcage and vacuuming the floor. Heck, I didn't even get my own floor vacuumed. Tonight I add another customer to the list of pets to be watched for the week. The 25th will be my busiest day; I will have 4 clients that I have to pet-sit for - each of them needing two visits in the day. The 27th will be the worst work day as I have 3 customers that I have to pet-sit for, stopping at their houses twice per day (which means leaving our house about 4:45 AM and getting home about 7:30 PM). Then it goes backdown to two customers for the rest of that week.

Ah, the fun never ends around this place!

Blogger Test

Going thru my blogroll (sometimes it's good to wake up early), JimSpot pointed me to this little piece. Seems I passed the redneck blogger test!