41 thoughts on “Rants and Raves! 11-17-12”

  1. 🙂 First

    🙂 A sweet anniversary dinner (belated) with my hubby last night

    😦 I wasn’t fast enough to “claim” a work project offered to me (and several other freelancers) this week

    Nothing much exciting to report, really.

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  2. 🙂 Mr P’s grandson arrived safely and healthy last night.
    🙂 A guy I graduated high school with posted that he and his wife were on the way to the hospital for #2 son to arrive.
    🙂 Seems to be a Baby Boom amongst those I know.
    🙂 I can think of a Rant but upon further thought it isn’t worth the effort so all I have are Raves.

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  3. 🙂 Another grandchild due this week.

    🙂 Get to see (him/her) and (his/her) siblings Wednesday night. (D1 and husband don’t want to know the gender until the baby is born. Good for them!)

    😐 Bought a “new” minivan this week, as the old one was starting to get the nickle-and-dime problems. It had 247,000 miles on it, though the engine only had 120,000.

    🙂 The “new” van is a 2007 Chrysler Town and Country with only 20,000 miles on it. The previous owner was an elderly lady who hardly ever drove anywhere. It is the newest car I have ever owned.

    😦 I have never paid this much ($15k) for a car. Now comes 6 years of payments.

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  4. We welcomed three babies into our congregation family yesterday and another friend had a grand baby on Thursday. Where is the moon these days?

    Congratulations, Grandma-Bride.

    The silver came from Linda. I polished it but did not notice a pattern name, nor did I think to look for it!

    We’ll spend next weekend looking for a good used car for our daughter. Fortunately for us, the Northern California used Honda broker goes to our church. This will be our family’s third time working with him. You tell him what you’re looking for, give him a price and eventually he finds a great deal.

    We have not bought a used car from a stranger in 30 years.

    Sounds like a great deal, Peter. I loved my Caravan when I had a bunch of kids!

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  5. 🙂 All your new babies and new (to you) cars.

    🙂 Rain in California.

    😦 Yesterday was the deadline to sign up for the 2013 benefits at our company. Everything went up as usual (again), of course. At one point I saw my editor with his hands over his face. 😦

    We also have a new system where we sign up for our benefits online under a new employee profile we create for ourselves. One of the questions was what gender we were. We had 3 choices. 😦 (“Other” being #3 after Male or Female).

    😦 I’m working the Saturday shift this week so it’s back to work for me today. So far all that’s on my plate are cop calls (following up specifically on a stabbing that happened last evening) and what I hope will be a short, fun feature covering a gift wrapping workshop led by a national gift wrap champion at one of our local libraries. The only downside to that is that is somewhat late in the day (2 p.m.). But it should be very easy to write up quickly.

    Tess is busy digging another hole in the backyard I see. It looks like she having the time of her life, she’s quite into it just now, bouncing around as she churns up the underground dirt. She’s got a very strong work ethic.

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  7. kittens become cats. Cats bring dead things to the front door to be consumed or not. They ring door bells at odd times. They pat your shoulder as you walk in the door, as a reminder that they need more food. They deposit things in gardens.

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  8. We have not bought a used car from a stranger in 30 years.

    This was at a reputable new car dealer. I won’t buy from a private party again as there is no recourse if something goes wrong. This dealer has a 3 month, 3000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty. They are even going to refund the $45 I had to pay to get one of the remote keys reprogrammed. I do not like the keys with attached remotes! But what else can I do? It would have been that much to get a regular key with a computer chip in it.

    😦 The fallen world in which we live. If everyone were Christian, or at least, honest lost people, we would not need keys and security systems.

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  9. Donna, I think that if anyone chooses “other,” they should be redirected to a site with diagrams so they can figure it out, then returned to the first page so they can answer correctly.

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  10. 🙂 Mumsee, you’ll notice I didn’t say ‘cats’. And I think I’d rather have dead things deposited by my door than things that crawled into the Jeep’s heater fan and died. You’ll be happy to know that these kittens are outside kittens – never to set paw in our house.

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  11. And I think I’d rather have dead things deposited by my door than things that crawled into the Jeep’s heater fan and died.

    Or, as happened to a neighbor, having a live mouse dropped on your pillow in the middle of the night, with a cat having that “See what I caught, Mommy?” look in its eyes.

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  12. yes, I do appreciate the cats, but their focus has turned from rodents to birds. Not so good. They have done an excellent job on the mice. I prefer the cats cutting down on the outside population so the mice don’t come in.

    We got ours from a church member when her cat died and left six kittens. She kept two, we took four. At two weeks of age, eyes still closed on some, the children and cousin fed them with a doll bottle until they were able to eat on their own. Sadly, three decided to go for a ride in the car and two never came back. We gave away one and still have two. How do these things work?

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  17. That is wonderful! I have missed the two of you and your voices of reason on here. Okay, there are many voices of reason, but I really enjoyed reading yours.

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  20. 🙂 Yay, Cameryn is here. I so enjoy Grace’s photos (especially the ones at the beach!) on FB, what a cutie — blessings to you all, it’s been quite a road for you all.

    And I was just on your husband’s blog today by coincidence. I hadn’t visited that in a while but i was going through my bookmarked sites and bounced over there for a visit. Good to see you two are still fighting the good fight.

    🙂 Workday almost done — as soon as the editor gives me the clear signal that she’s read the story I emailed about 30 minutes ago. After filing the standard stabbing-of-the-weekend story earlier, I had to cover and write up a light feature on workshop given by the nation’s gift wrapping champion who also is local. I am newly inspired! Here’s the competition:

    🙂 Kittens! 🙂 (Belled collars help warn away the birds in time — usually; not lizards, though, apparently.)

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  21. 🙂 Cheryl (about the diagram). Amazing, isn’t it? I mean, who’d have ever thought even just a few short years ago that gender would have 3 categories?? 😮

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  22. We’re not good at updating the photos (we’re horrible at remembering to have the camera, much less take the photos), but we do at least a few every season. TJ took the beach photos, which I thought were really good. I’ll pass on your praise when he gets home (leading a youth retreat in MS this weekend).

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  23. We never collar outdoor animals. They tend to get stuck in out of the way places. We learned that when one of our dogs got caught in a pile of old boards years ago. We happened to hear her yipping and found her. Never since have we kept collars on free ranging animals. Scary.

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  24. That is a hazard, Mumsee — although cat collars are now made to be “break-away.” With a little tension, they come unhooked on their own.

    Of course, that means we’ve lost a whole lot of cat collars in the 3 years since I’ve had Annie Oakley.

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  27. Annie’s main frustration is I won’t let her come on the walks I take with the dogs. She often sets out following us (I can hear her jingling-jingling behind us in the dark) so I turn around and get her locked back inside the house.

    We go too far, cross way too many streets — I’d be a nervous wreck thinking she was going to get hit by a car or somehow separated from us and lost.

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  30. Katy also tries to follow when I walk the dog. Yesterday the neighbor’s cat chased her back and saved me the trouble of catching her and putting her in the house.

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  31. Our 2 older cats are indoor cats, with no desire to go out into the big scary world. Rudy, our “baby” cat, who turned a year old in Oct., is a rascal. He is supposed to be an indoor cat, but he likes to escape out the door.

    We have a jingly collar on him now, so we can hear him coming. He still gets out every now & then, though.

    Interestingly, we’ve seen his desire to get outside – & stay outside – diminished since he was neutered. He’s easier to catch now when he does get out. Or, if we can’t catch him, he’ll come back to the door on his own in just a little while.

    (Chrissy, to whom Rudy belongs, does not want him to be an outdoor cat. It makes her too nervous when he is outside.)

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  33. 😦 Not sure if this is a legitimate rant. We went to the family thanksgiving dinner today. There were 5 children there. Three were the grandchildren of my younger brother and his wife. This SIL kept staging pictures of her grandchildren and on a couple included the child of my big brother. She never once asked my son to be in a picture. I could see he noticed he was being excluded.

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  36. 😦 I brought part of the dog park home with me today. I stepped in some poop that stuck to the bottom of my boots & before that I leaned up against a tree and wound up with sap in my hair.

    Nice.

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  38. Since I did all my ranting and raving throughout the week, I’ll just chime in on this PET THREAD!

    Four cats. Except we only have three here. One is with 2nd Arrow in her new locale (no, not in a dorm room). 😉 They live with my sister-in-law and niece. The cat (who is deaf) just stays in my daughter’s room, sleeping on the bed or sitting there looking out the window, contented as can be.

    The other three cats are still here. Two are mostly indoors, one is mostly outdoors. The one is NEVER by the other two (long story). When 2nd Arrow, who took care of all the cat details, moved away, 4th Arrow took over. Sometimes 6th Arrow helps. 😉 That means I don’t know much about the cats. It’s not my realm. But I do know there are no collars. And they get fed.

    🙂

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  40. Have I mentioned that that sweet American Bulldog, Kane, has been back with us for at least a couple months now? I think he really likes it here, & he sure does love all of us.

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  41. 😦 More shenanigans from “R”. He has been messing with Emily’s attempts to plan a birthday party for Forrest, who turned 2 in October. The details are too many to get into, so suffice it to say that he is not putting his son first, & he’s now planning a separate party for Forrest, with us not invited.

    His “plans” are for his family to go to the Thanksgiving dinner his sister (who lives with him in the condo they’re renting from their grandparents) is putting on, & then having a birthday cake for Forrest. So he doesn’t really have to do anything.

    Emily has been planning a cute potty-training themed birthday party, which will be on next Sunday. (She’s quite clever & creative.)

    At this age, sweet, happy little Forrest doesn’t know what’s going on with this birthday party stuff, but in a couple years, he’ll have a better idea. I hope his father matures by then, & stops using Forrest as a pawn to get back at Emily &/or us.

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