So the deadline to pay for the cruise is fast approaching, and I have not fully made up my mind. Each day I lean one way more than the other. More than just trying to get the dissertation done by the end of the year is now affecting my decision. There was Moo Kitty’s unexpected and expensive trip to the vet, as well as my work schedule for the spring. I’m teaching at least 2 classes, one I’ve never taught before (but it’s archaeology so I’m excited at the same time). There is possibly a 3rd as well. The 3rd however may not happen for many reason, my choosing not to take it being one of them. While the money would be nice, I’ve quickly learned the hard way the amount of driving I’ve been doing is taking its toll on me right now with everything else going on.

John and I briefly discussed vacation alternatives should we not do the cruise, and it would be something local. I really would love to see Salem as well as Plymouth Colony . . . . however January might not be the best time of the year to do so! I also suggested Great Wolf Lodge in the Poconos. Heidi and I went to one in Wisconsin and it was so much fun. It’s basically a giant indoor water park/hotel. Plus there would be other things to do nearby, such as skiing. I’ve never done it, but think it would be fun. John is not a fan of the cold, and said I’d probably be over it in about an hour. Emily said I’d probably break my leg. Truth be told, both are probably right

John suggested New York and Broadway. “Priscilla Queen of the Desert” hits Broadway early next year. Broadway is always fun, but NY is a day trip at most. I have a hard enough time relaxing on vacations as is (my mind thinks about what I need to be doing and should be doing instead). Add in NY and you just have too much stress. I like NY, but it’s as I said a day trip. NY in January really isn’t much fun. It’s cold, windy, miserable and god forbid it snows. You can’t go anywhere because you can’t get a taxi.

While I have a good number of reasons to just cancel the cruise this year, many of them also become reasons to go oddly. I’m so stressed right now, that a vacation will be wanted and possibly needed by January. Plus it’s the only time of the year John and I can get away together and just both relax. Okay I try to relax as much as I can, but it would be easier honestly if we could go away during the summer like normal folks rather than the week before another school semester starts!

Aside from vacation ponderings, I have yet to motivate to decorate inside. John’s brother, who is now regularly here on the weekends, noticed I didn’t have the Halloween village out. I carried some of it up last night, and it sits in boxes in the living room right now. My friend Keith comes this weekend, so I figured I better put some of it out. Only a few pieces are going up this year, just on the mantel I think. In years past I’ve put pieces all over the living room. Truth be told, I just don’t wanna deal with taking it all down this year I might motivate to decorate while watching my shows tonight.

Our house currently smells like cat piss. Moo Kitty apparently has some abdominal swelling from the surgery the vet thinks is putting pressure on his bladder, which makes him feel like he has to pee a lot. So rather than making it to the litter boxes downstairs, he just pees wherever. I am however developing an alternate theory. I think Moo Kitty is just angry and is pissing anywhere out of spite. Given how much I paid to save his life, I am hoping the swelling theory is correct and this stops soon. Cat piss SMELLS and it never comes out. He has pissed on brand new carpet John put down on our steps and the kitchen nook, which now needs to be replaced. I am spraying and shampooing it as much as I can, cause it’s not going to be replaced till January when John is off . . . and the SMELL!

Our crotchety old neighbors are moving. Or they are trying to I should say. They are LOADED, have a nice house (set far back on their large property) and are either 1) going to get taken to the bank in this poor housing market or 2) just not be able to sell it right now. John says whether they can sell or not, they are moving. They had originally thought of dividing the land up into four plots and selling them as well as the plot their house is on (and thereby resulting in 4 new houses going up), but that hasn’t happened and probably won’t (because of the market I guess). However the option is there for whomever might buy it, the land has officially been divvied by the county to make it possible. To be honest, I expected to be asked to “take down some of my decor” outside, but wasn’t. These are the people that planted a row of pine trees, sending our house into eternal shadows and cutting off our sunlight, simply because when they drove in and out of their driveway they didn’t want to look at our house. They had an open house today . . . . I don’t think anyone actually came by from what I could tell.

Anyway, I leave you with some photos of myself, John and Princess I made with some monster morphing app I got off iTunes. Hey, these days, I have to get my fun where I can find it

So after a looooong night of mojo hunting, I got home in the weee hours of the morning. Our housekeepers were set to show up this morning, and I just decided I’d take the dogs and lock ourselves in the guest room and let them clean the rest of the house. This was not only the longest time I’d ever spent in that room, including sleeping in there . . . but apparently the first time the dogs had ever been in the room.

Almost immediately the dogs darted straight under the bed. This was a problem, because the bed is seated high up on coasters, and it’s become a bit unstable as of late. I had also had a dream the night before that Princess refused to ride in the car when travelling, she insisted on running under the car as I drove. I of course was paranoid I’d run her over. I decided because of this dream, they couldn’t stay under the bed. In fact, the bed did get a little tipsy later on!

After a bit of coaxing I got them out from under the bed and up on top with me. There they just stood alert looking around for a good long while. At some point they eventually settled down. I wondered what they were seeing, but as I was so dead tired at that point, I didn’t care too much. I just went to sleep. As far as I know, the ghost didn’t bother me . . . but now I feel like I’ve invaded his territory.

Dum dum dum dum!

So at 5:06am, a 3.6 earthquake hit the DC metro region, with the epicenter in Rockville, MD. I am home in Virginia at the moment . . . . and slept through the whole thing! We’ve only had one other minor quake in the region, and it was so long ago that I can’t remember if I felt it or not These aren’t California sized quakes mind you. My mom said the whole house shook and it felt like a tank went down the street. A good clap of thunder can do that too.

My mom said the dogs went nuts about 45 minutes before the quake. Demanded to go outside, sniffed the ground all over. When they finally came in, moments before the quake hit, they went to alert again.

I can’t believe I slept through it! I’m so effin pissed! I know, weird, I wanted to be in an earthquake. Again this isn’t some 2012 or California type one, though we are on a major fault line here on the East Coast. Most don’t realize that, and one day we might get a big one and several of our cities will be in big trouble as most buildings aren’t built with earthquakes in mind.

I finished sweeping and clearing off the patio this morning. Tried to power spray the dirt away and really clean it, but it’s not working too well. Ending up having to just shovel the mud film left after I sprayed. I set up the fountain again. Poor Pan got knocked off long ago and the fountain filled with dirt and crud. I’m amazed it still works, but Pan has suffered a serious leg injury . . . . poor guy.

As you can see I have my grill out to grill this weekend. Happy Fourth everyone! I’m actually grilling tonight. Unfortunately here it’s going to be 97 degrees on the fourth and 99 on Monday and Tuesday. Not sure how many people will actually brave that to go to Philly to see fireworks. We’re not! I’m hoping John gets off work early enough tomorrow and he’s not too tired that we can go out to eat and see the fireworks from the parking lot after. That’s what we did last year if I recall.

Oh and to show that once upon a time, our yard did actually look really nice . . . . a photo from six years ago. Princess playing in the flowers. I think this is actually the day I brought her home, or very shortly after.

So I’m typing this on this handy dandy Mac app called MacJournal. It is a diary/journal app, but with the ability to post them to blogs. We’ll see how well it works, especially since I’ve attached some photos and resized them.

I can also apparently download ALL my previous blog entries into it. We haven’t tried that yet, we wanted to see if posting went okay first. If it works though, it will be a handy way to have a solid back-up of the blog in a format other than the MySQL database wordpress stores them in.

The weather lately has been wonderful. I just hope the nasty rain and cold stay away Well obviously we need rain, but not days of flooding rain! In spite of the lovely weather, I spent most of the weekend with a migraine. I know where it came from, I volunteered to do some manual labor in the sun on Friday at school. The next day . . . migraine! Aside from feeling crappy, I am now behind on work. Story of my life lately!

Speaking of school, I am teaching in the fall and next spring most likely. I was told the prospects of keeping me around look fairly good right now. Fingers crossed! I have my conference at the end of this month, and am entertaining submitting an abstract to another local conference that happens in May. Fortunately I can and will use the same paper, with some minor tweaking The dissertation will finally be finished and defended this summer. It’s dragged on long enough, and by fall I expect to be working a lot and it just needs to be done.

In a little over a month I head out to visit my friend Heidi. Unfortunately we have become a fat-ass! I was shocked and horrified when I stepped on the scale this morning. I have not been exercising enough lately with working so much, and I’ve been drinking too many non-diet cokes for caffeine boosts at work, as well as grabbing too much fast food cause it’s quick and easy. None of this is good considering we are doing some water parks. Me in a bathing suit like this? GASP! It’s diet time again and I now have to be serious. I also picked up a copy of EA More Active, the sequel their personal training Wii game. I liked the original well enough, aside from the fact it was such a lunge nazi. Lunge lunge lunge! I got sick of always lunging. I’m hoping the sequel is better, I’ll give it a go tomorrow morning to see if it revs me up.

The doggies have also been getting their exercise as of late. I’ve been taking them to the enclosed field next to us to run around sans leashes and play Frisbee. They get pooped out pretty quick though. They are as out of shape as I am Enjoy some photos I took of them today, as well as one of Little Bunny Poo Poo, who is now a little over a year old.

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