So lots of things to talk about in this post, things that float into my head but without Twitter I don’t tweet, so I to turn to the blog.

Halloween is officially over. I did in fact jinx myself. I waited till Friday to order the tickets to the haunted house, thinking that would be safe, and the weather for Saturday was only supposed to be cloudy. Of course Saturday arrives and it’s rainy and gross. The hayride, one of the three Bates Motel attractions, was closed down. $#%@#$%@%!!!!! There are two other attractions at this place though, a corn maze and a haunted house, and fortunately they were open. It just sucks as the hayride was so awesome. The haunted house and maze were awesome too though, having been expanded on from the previous year. However had I known it would have rained, I would have just gone back to the prison. Quicker drive, all inside for the most part.

The weather for this week says sunny but cold. Yeah we’ll see! I need my decorations to dry out so I can take them down . . . which means NO RAIN! I might be horrid and put up the icicle lights at the same time. No I’m not plugging them in though, just putting them up while it’s still somewhat warm.

With all the rain we’ve had this summer/fall, I think we may be in for a messy winter. I better get a good snowstorm dammit, we’ve been jipped on snow the past several years. I want a monster blizzard, just one, that shuts down the state and makes everything quiet outside.

Over the weekend Keith brought his new puppy with him. He was adorable, but the little monster wasn’t house broken at all and just pissed and shit everywhere. He was also a hyper puppy and just couldn’t sit or sleep . . . period. It made me realize I don’t want another puppy anytime soon.

A WTF rant that would have gone on Twitter . . . I just found out Reynold’s discontinued their handi-vac bags/system. I wondered why I couldn’t find the bags anymore. Not only that, the cheap alternative hand-pump Glad version also seems to be gone as well. I was going to buy them, but nope! So now I’m bag to sucking the air out of the bags before freezing or refrigerating them. I’ll have e-coli in no time!

Finally tomorrow is election day in many states, ours included. The Republican and Democrat candidates are neck and neck in the polls, and this year an Independent is in the race and has been gaining a lot of support. There is no chance in hell that he’ll win, but he will steal votes away from the other two. Which party has more people crossing lines to vote for the Independent will basically decide who wins. In the past even though the two-party system sucks and the candidates might not be ideal, I never understood why someone would throw their vote away on someone without a chance. Now I get it, it sends the message that people are tired of the bullshit the R/D give us. I’m voting Independent tomorrow, I know I’m not alone, but it most likely will insure a Republican win for the first time in many years here. I think Republicans are probably going to stick to their candidate, while a lot of the Democrats vote for the independent. For me a lot is at stake too, the Republican has made it clear there will be no gay marriage in Jersey as long as he’s in office.

And that’s about all I have

I realized I had to do a post as it’s been almost a week! Bad me I know, but I don’t have too much to discuss.

First off, if you follow the tweets on the sidebar, you know we have had a “visitor” to the house. Last week I thought someone ran over a skunk outside the house. It happens from time to time living on a farm basically. Turned out I soon learned a skunk sprayed either a fox or the neighbor’s cat in the field. When I walked the dogs before bed, I could tell where the smell was coming from, and it wasn’t the street.

A few days later while returning from a nightly walk with the dogs, they went nuts right outside the back door. I saw something in the yard and realized what it was, the skunk! I got them in fast. I’m pretty sure it’s taken up residence in the bushes (ie overgrown forest) next to the house. Now at night I keep them from sniffing anywhere near the bushes. I fear it won’t be long before we are all sprayed one night :-\

In other news, oh yes, October is fast approaching, which mean Halloween! I never did get the yard landscaped like I hoped to. So I have to cut back the weeds at least, trim the bushes, and then I can start decorating next week! I have to be good and not go crazy with new purchases this year. I am only allowing myself to buy a Michael Meyers mask (to make a Michael scarecrow) and something new to hang in the attic window. I’m thinking a Yurei (funky white lady ghost alah “The Ring” or any of those Asian movies).

So for the past few days we’ve had an ant problem in the kitchen. I have no idea where they are coming from, other than outside of course. This hasn’t ever happened before either. They are always on the stove or counter by the sink as well. Historically that has been a messy spot, as I usually prepare food on the stove because our counter space is limited. So I’ve been cleaning it almost daily, but it’s not helping. I finally put some ant traps down, hopefully if there is a colony somewhere close, it will be RAID’d!

My old Twitter account never got fixed, and I’m just accepting it probably won’t. Maybe God is telling me to stop Twittering for good I emailed Twitter support about the problems I’m having restoring it (ie it’s not working), but all I got was a bot form response saying “Based on your question, we think these known issue FAQs will be of help.” Um, no, they weren’t . . . and they made me read those before I could put in a help request. I replied back and emailed off a different support email. Maybe I’ll get a human answer one day soon.

I took an hour to go out to the Collingswood May Fair today. Basically live bands, rides for the kiddies, and a buttload of crafters and venders. Lots of people, lots of doggies, and the summer sun straight down on me. I just got back and am pooped!

I still haven’t eaten meat since last weekend, and I’ve eased up on the fish too. Carbs are gunna be a problem for me! I ended up getting some wraps to use in place of breads to see if that will help. So far the only temptation to eat meat has been a Big Mac box trashed by the side of the road that I kept passing while walking the dogs. Mmmm, Big Macs! I finally just picked it up and threw it away so I didn’t have to keep seeing it.

Tomorrow was supposed to be the hiking day, but sadly I’m not sure if I’ll make it. It will be almost an all day affair, leaving here around noon and probably not getting back till 6pm. I will have to see if I feel I can sacrifice the hours. I need to get 2 dissertation chapters done and fired off this weekend. They were supposed to be done by Monday, but I didn’t realize what shambles one of the chapters was in. I ended up rewriting it and adding a ton of new stuff. Now all I have to do is proof them.

Even if I get them done by tonight, I have other issues. Nikko it seems isn’t feeling too well, he’s having ass explosions I do not want to leave him home for six hours with no walks! It’s a holiday weekend, so the market is slamming busy, and John might not be able to get over to walk him enough. I also really want to clean the house really well, it’s long overdue, and might help with the ants

Anyways, that’s about all I have to say. I am going to have a review of “EA Sports Active” for the Wii up soon. I’m trying to get through a few days with it so I experience a good number of the excersises. The personal trainer option basically picks them out each day and they vary from day to day. I have to say, it’s been kicking my ass!

So I figured I should do a follow-up post on how everyone is getting by. First up, Lance’s death wasn’t unexpected. He was getting worse since he was diagnosed with an enlarged heart back in February or so. I blogged about that incident back then, how we rushed him to the emergency room one night when he was having breathing issues.

He had been put on medicine and given an ecocardiogram. The news then wasn’t good, the doctor was shocked he had basically lasted as long as he had without treatment. They put him on more pills and we were to bring him in around now for a follow-up to see if they helped at all. However over the past week or so his symptoms were clearly getting worse and he was having breathing issues again, in spite of the meds. I knew it wouldn’t be long really. John woke up Sunday to find him basically unable to breath and spitting up blood

The other animals seem to have adjusted as far as I can tell (we have so many!). There are big age differences and personalities between them too. Lancelot and Galahad are/were the old men of the house. They were here before I was here! They had a third, Uther, who past several years ago. Lance and Galahad were basically brothers, so I think if this hits anyone it will hit Galahad the worst. He was howling last night as if he was calling out wondering where the hell Lance was. Of the five cats, Lance was the one Galahad probably hung out with the most.

Lance (grey) and Galahad (grey striped)

The middle cat is big ole Moo Kitty. Moo Kitty hangs by himself, because he only likes human attention. He doesn’t like the other cats that much and he definitely doesn’t like the dogs. He’s kinda of a shit actually and just enjoys attacking (or trying to attack) the others. He thinks he’s king of the castle, but he’s more of a tyrant.

Moo Kitty, taking over Princess’ crate

Percy and Grim are the youngest and are about a year 1/2 apart. They usually hang out with each other, playing with and chasing each other all around. Percy will sleep/cuddle with Grim, but that’s about it. Grim however will/would sleep/cuddle with Galahad and Lance on occasion.

Percy (orange) and Grim, Grim and Lance

Of course then there are the dogs, who have each other. The cats tolerate the dogs, but that’s about it. Grim usually just runs from them, while Percy likes to lay on his back to get them to play pounce him. I rarely see the cats sleeping with the dogs, except for Lance. Lance would always sleep with them

Princess licking Lance’s ears, her favorite thing to do to him

So I figured I best check in before another week goes by without a post. As Summer approaches I should have more to blog about, both more free time and more going on. For example I finally plan on getting this house into long overdue shape by cleaning out the basement and redoing the guestrooms downstairs finally.

I have to get back to watching what I eat and make time to get to the gym. I hit 160 today. Not as bad as the 180 I was, but I was 150 back in December when I basically stopped running due to a nasty rash, which turned out to be eczema.

I do admit, I have been hitting McDonalds FAR more than I should lately, and that has to stop. In trying to eat healthier I’ve actually done something shocking, I’ve started eating fish! Okay actually one kind of fish, tilapia, which I can take because it’s so mild in flavor. However I need some good recipes for it, so please share if you have any you love. So far my favorite way too cook it seems to be blackening it with a yummy Cajun-creole rub I got off the net. Spicy goodness!

Finally a bit of cute news. I submitted some photos of the pets to Cute With Chris, a website about pets with a weekly video blog show. He posted a photo I took of Nikko and Lance! You can see it here on Cute With Chris!

Post Note: Emily and mine’s night of fun this past weekend got canceled, neither of us were feeling 100%. We are aiming to do it this coming weekend! So the cams should be on

I keep seeing on my Twitter feeds and Facebook from lots of people sick of the snow they are getting. So here is there chance to send it my way!

Lately the weather here in Jersey has been sunny and hot one day, almost to the point you could wear shorts, to cold and gray the next, or just plain shitty like today. It’s cold, gray and raining. I mean pouring down rain.

We have not seen a really good snow in years here. I’m going to say 5 or 6 was the last time we got hit to the point that the state was put into a state of emergency because it was so deep (I think we got 10 inches, which is a lot for us).

I would like a nice deep snow, one that shuts down the state. One that makes traffic outside just stop because nobody can drive in it. I want me a blizzard! Of course the downside of where I live . . . no hills to go sledding on. Plus I’d have to shovel a walkway to walk the dogs. The doggies love when we get snow, they run around in it and think it’s the best thing ever. Of course they’ve only seen it a few times.

Here is a shot of Princess’ first snow, and one of Nikko coming in after his first snow.

We have some birthdays coming up in the house!

On Saturday Nikko will be three years old.

Grim is probably 1 year old now as well. He showed up last year a week or two before Thanksgiving. At that time he was estimated to be about 6 weeks old, because his eyes were changing color. So I am going to default and give him Nikko’s birthday as well.

Sadly because he was so malnurished when we found him, it seems to have stunted his growth. He was possibly the runt as well, which may have been why he was on his own. He’s a very tiny cat compared to all our other ones, which doesn’t really show in this photo I know.

It seems my allergies are in simpatico with poor Princess. The past two weeks I’ve been clogged up, post nasal drip, pretty much in hell. Aside from the fact that it’s the season and the crops are all blooming, I’ve been trying to find out why I’m so miserable in our house but okay outside of it! The BF, not wanting to waste the money using the AC, had been opening the bedroom window at night for cool air. This of course is bad for me because there is a farm field right outside our window! I put an end to that last week and stuck an air filter in our room to try and clean it out, but it hasn’t helped. Today I cleaned the whole house as best I could and also turned out the house fan. Since we haven’t had the AC or the heat going, there has been a lack of air circulation. I turned on the house fan today to get things moving, to see if that actually helps at all. Yeah I know technically that would churn up the dust more, but it would also force it through filters. I also changed the nasty dirty filter in the furnace thingy! Ew! When the hell was the last time it was changed? I don’t know honestly. I’m hoping that will do the trick. So far I am feeling better than I was last night for sure.

Meanwhile poor Princess, today I noticed her scratching, shaking her head a lot, then I saw she was holding one ear down. Yup, it’s that time again for her too. Her allergies are acting up and her ear was inflamed and all, which seems to happen around this time every year. I fortunately have a bottle of prednisone and gave her a pill. By the end of the day the ear was back to normal and her itching under control. She’s due for another now actually, I’ll give it to her as soon as this post is done.

Changing the subject somewhat, but staying on ears, I ve decided I want new earrings, as well as more. Currently I have 2 in each lobe and 1 in my left cartilage. I want 1 more in the cart below the current one and 1 more in the other lobe (I have to keep the sides different numbers, I don’t know why, having even numbers in both seems so uncool to me). I’ve wanted to get more for awhile, I just never have. My first cart one took forever to heal, I think that’s why. I think I might do it this summer though. I also want different earrings, or should I say colors. I have the plain old silver/steel loops you get at the piercing parlors. I want some color, and am thinking blue on one side and orange on the other (cause the also can’t be the same), assuming i can find orange. I’m sure I can, otherwise I’ll go with black. I’ll probably get the colored earrings first, then the piercings later. Oh and for the curious, I have nothing else pierced! I can barely deal with putting in and taking out earrings, it skeeves me, I don’t know why. So I could not do it anywhere else on my body!

Wii Fit tomorrow! Weeee I’m so excited!