SHE'S LEGAL

Let's hear it for Lazy Non-Teenager...she finally passed her driver test!!

HIP HIP HOORAY!

Tid Bits

I spent several hours polishing my hardwood floors on Saturday. They were nice and clean and shiny.

So then, of course, it started raining Sunday morning and on into Monday.

Now they are nice and dirty and dingy and covered in dog prints.

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Hubby has been diligently filling out applications to every fire department that is hiring. Near or far, good salary or not so good, to try and get on somewhere. These application are very thorough and time consuming to fill out. We spent a lot of time gathering information, figuring out dates, and trying to remember stuff.

The other night he is sitting at the kitchen table typing out an application. I peeked over his shoulder and asked "So where is this one for?" He looked at the page in the typewriter. Then shuffled some papers stacked on one side. Then shuffled some paper stacked on the other side. Then looked again at the page in the typewriter. He finally turned to me and said "Hell, I don't know. Does it matter?"

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We took Surly Teenager off of one of her crazy meds because of the side effects. I don't think she really needed that one anyway, and her doc said we could compensate by increasing one of the others if it became necessary.

It sounds easy, but is in fact a long and tedious process. We started right before Christmas break by gradually lowering her dose of the one. She completely stopped taking it by the end of January. By the end of February it became apparent that she did indeed need to increase one of the others. We started a gradual increase about 3 days ago. That will last 2 weeks and then it will go up again. Then a few weeks after that she will have a blood test to check her levels.

She is handling it all fairly well. She is a tad bit more irritable, has some days that are slightly on the manic side, some that are slightly on the depressed side. But overall - ok.

Last night was one of the slightly manic times. She came in and stood by my bed, at 1 am, until I woke up. Her thoughts were racing and she couldn't sleep. I got up and got her something to help her go to sleep.

And then I couldn't go back to sleep until after 3.

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It was over a month between the claim settlement for the car Surly Teenager totaled and when we added the new Hoopty for Lazy Non-Teenager. I found out when I got my statement the other day, the insurance company did not automatically drop the coverage for the wrecked car. They knew it was totaled; they gave us a check. And yet, they left it on the policy.

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That's all I got.

Little Women

No matter how many times I read (or listen to) Little Women:

-I cry when Beth dies
-I am proud of Jo for selling her hair
-I laugh at Meg trying to keep her son in bed by bribing him with a sugar cube
-But mostly, I just can't believe that Jo and Laurie don't end up
together (I don't care how happy he is with Amy or how happy Jo is
with Fritz. It's just WRONG that they don't end up together!

One down, one to go

Hoopty car #1 has been purchased. This one is for Lazy Teenager, excuse me, Lazy Non-Teenager. Happy 21st Birthday!

We are still shopping for hoopty car #2 for Surly Teenager.

It's such a whipping.

The Continuing Adventures of HANDY HUBBY

Hubby is feeling very unappreciated because I haven't been putting up his recent (and not so recent) accomplishments.

So without further ado, handiness:

This is the bin on the back porch that we keep dry cat food in. I went out one day and found a neighbor cat hanging out of it with his head under the lid. A couple of days later I went out on the back porch and suddenly, the lid flew open, and the same cat jumped out. He had been inside eating. So Hubby rigged it with a "lock".

We used to run electricity out to the shop by this attractive method:

That is an extension cord coming out of the kitchen window. Hubby (in his Brawny Man outfit) wired up an electric box on the outside of the house.

Then he redid his set up down in the shop. Now you just walk in and flip a switch. And it is set up to make installing overhead lighting more manageable.

The construction people gave us a new gate. Only there was a fairly large gap between the gate and the house. A Haylie sized gap. If she was in the yard alone for more than 2 minutes, she would escape. Hubby fixed the problem by getting a matching post and cutting it down to size and attaching it to the gate post. Haylie was totally confounded and had to resort to trying to dig out under the gate in order to escape.

The short story with this one is I locked Surly Teenager's medicine in our bedroom while we had gone out of town. We told her to kick in the bedroom door. She did a really good job of it and didn't mess up the door at all, just ripped the trim and lock plate off, and cracked the jamb.

He fixed it and you can't even tell it was broken. (Sorry for the blurry. I am too lazy to go back and take it again. Trust me, it looks good.)

Last fall, we moved my mom out of her mobile home and into a senior living place. This entailed much hard work that included, among many other things, taking down the carport, tearing up the wheelchair ramp, and moving a storage shed.

AND on top of all of that hard work, he still occasionally takes time to help with the dishes.

He's such a hard worker. I am very lucky to have him.

Bounce-y Fresh

I spent the better part of the day marveling at the staying power of
the scent from the dryer sheets I use. It seemed liked every time I
turned my head or moved, I caught a brief, unmistakable scent of dryer
sheet.

I have also spent the better part of the day scratching at an itchy
shoulder through my sweater.

I just now found out the connection between the two when I reached
beneath my sweater to scratch my shoulder and pulled out a used dryer
sheet.

Happy Valentines Day

For Valentines Day, we went to see "Tuna Does Vegas", earlier in the week.

This is the fourth of the Tuna plays. If you are not familiar with Tuna, Texas and Joe Sears and Jaston Williams, you are missing out.

I have seen the three previous Tuna plays: "Greater Tuna", "A Tuna Christmas", and "Red, White and Tuna". Hubby has not seen any of them, so I was a little concerned that he wouldn't enjoy it as much as I would. But I am please to report that he did. He did, he did, he did.

And that was supposed to be our Valentines. No gifts, no cards, just going to the play.

But Hubby doesn't listen very well.

I was presented with this, early this morning.

It had this recorded on it:

Yesterday I was on the computer in the family room, and he was in the living room on the laptop. He sent me a message saying he was leaving me. I messaged back saying thank goodness. (yes, we actually use the iChat when we are in the same house but in different rooms. It cuts down on the hollering.) After about five minutes I got up and went in the other room, and noticed that he had really left the house. He came home about 30 minutes later with a bag of CD's from Movie Trading Company, so I didn't think anything of his being gone. Little did I know but he had also snuck over to the electronics store and got me the camera.

This camera is exactly like the one that we had just bought last month. Normally, I would say two cameras are unnecessary. But he was taking the camera to school with him every day, wearing it on his belt. I wanted to take a picture of something and I couldn't because he had it.

I started complaining about needing one of my own because he was hogging that one.

And it worked!

Now I am going to start to complaining that I need an iPhone. All those apps to play with!!

(Thank you Honey Bunny. You are the Best Husband Ever. (So far.) I love you very much.)