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My thoughts released; a mind set free |
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These pages contain my thoughts, from meandering ideas and persuasions to deep cerebrations and serious mentations. Why, for what purpose? To release my mind and set creativity free. Somewhere inside the constraints of my mind dwells a writer, a poet, an artist who paints with words. In here I release those constraints and set the artist free. Perhaps, lost somewhere in the depths of thought, is a story or a poem, waiting to be written. 
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| Yesterday I blited that things were looking better and I may have more time and fewer interruptions. I also titled it "A light At The End Of The Tunnel, Or A Train?" because I was a bit skeptical. Rightfully so! When my wife got home from work she informed me that orders are down and she had today and tomorrow off. So much for peace and quiet... But, the company is also talking lay-offs and has asked for volunteers to take lay-off status for April. In doing this, the company will continue to provide all benefits, but if not enough people volunteer, they will shut down for the month, and as is the standard lay-off policy, no benefits. So, we discussed it and she is in the office volunteering to take April off, then she will file for unemployment and be around for the next month. Now, with two puppies, the added help is great, but with me liking my quiet and alone time, it's also going to be trying. Even so, I held an optimistic view that it will work out in the end. Just moments ago, I got a call from the high school and was told my younger teen has been busted for vaping. It's still undetermined if she will be suspended, pending her discussion with school personnel and the local police, and there will be consequences here at home. If today is a preview of the days ahead, I can see that it's going to be difficult to spend a lot of time in WdC and I may have to write off any writing until my wife goes back to work. So, was it the light at the end of the tunnel, or is a freight train coming my way? For now, I have to run, my wife is watching puppies and I can hear a consistent string of no's disrupting my blite... |
| It's almost the end of March and the lion still roars! What happened to in like a lion and out like a lamb? The entire month has been a lion and as I look at the next ten-day forecast, I wonder, "Did the damn beast eat the lamb?" This morning, it was minus ten degrees Fahrenheit with a minus 18 wind-chill factor and we will be doing well to break twenty degrees. Tomorrow it will reach thawing temps, barely, with freezing rain. Friday more snow is forecast and once again barely in the twenties. In fact, it's the same for the next ten days! Other than crappy weather, things have been progressing pretty well. The sore on my leg has finally started healing and the fracture seems to be mending. Bellah has started using the puppy pads once again, and as much as the weather permits loves to be outside. I've been working with potty training her to go outside and she does well as long as she can get through the snow and doesn't freeze her little feet. (She weighs a whopping ten and a half pounds now) Max is doing well, even though his training kind of got put on hold as he adjusts to having a little puppy around. (He weighs just over fifty pounds now but is still a puppy and loves to play but can get a bit rough with Bellah, so his training has been switched to playing nice with her,) We have everything moved and set up but are still organizing things a bit. I even have my office set up and usable and have actually used it a few times. In fact I was in my office when I started bliting (blog-writing), but had to move out to the dining room because Bellah was crying. (She was sleeping when I retired to my office and woke to find herself alone.) That's been another issue; she was supposed to be seven weeks old when we got her, but as it turned out, she was three days shy of six weeks. Much too young to be removed from her mother and other puppies. As it turned out, this may have been a good thing for her since they had homes for all the other puppies and they left the next day. They had also removed all the puppies from mom so she would put weight back on, so she would have been isolated and alone had we not taken her. There's still a lot going on and time is still an issue but things are improving and I'm hopeful that I will not only continue to spend a little time here but will also start having more time to spend. I'm also hopeful that the weather will improve one of these days and spring will arrive so I can start working more with Max outside on a leash. Being a Husky, he doesn't mind the snow and cold, but my coat isn't as warm as his. |
| I'm trying this again. Lately, I've had very little time to spend in WdC and the one entry I did manage got lost somewhere in cyber-space. It's been that kind of a month. Not necessarily bad, just very busy. I set my clocks ahead, but I still haven't found the extra hour it was supposed to provide... Anyway, we have Max, a five-month-old Husky that keeps me very busy. We also have had the size of our living quarters doubled (two halves of a duplex rejoined into one house) so we have been cleaning, moving rooms, and reorganizing our household. One teen was in a play, so there was driving him to practice and back, the other joined robotics, so there was picking her up. And, there has been a lot of snow storms and cleaning up after them. Oh, and our boiler still cuts out at least a few times a day/night. On top of all this, and as a result of some of it, the snow on the roof has gotten deep and a thick ridge (6" to 8") of ice has formed along the edge making the water from melting snow back up under the shingles and leak through the ceiling. Luckily we caught it right away and very little water damage was done, but it meant getting the ladder out and climbing up on the roof to remove some snow and try and chip some of the ice away. I also dumped a bunch of salt along and on the ice. Thankfully we had one of our niest days in a long time, and it melted back quickly and solve the problem. Unfortunately, there is so much ice under the snow that there wasn't any stable footing for the ladder. Knowing this, I did anchor myself just in case the ladder didn't stay in place, which it didn't. When the ladder slipped out from under me, I was securely suspended by my anchor rope and was able to lower myself to the ground. But, once I was down the ladder decided to join me and topped over. It hit a bunch of ice and snow I had removed from the roof and bounced back into my leg. It scraped up my shin and hurt a lot, but shins are like that. So, I didn't think much about it and hobbled around putting stuff away and going on with my day. That was a week ago and my leg still aches and throbs, it's bruised and swollen, and my wife thinks I may have cracked the bone. Yeah, she also thinks I should see a doctor, but I don't think they would be able to do anything for it after this much time. Well, they would likely have me stay off my feet for a while, but with two puppies I don't see that happening anytime soon. It's been a busy, crazy, stormy, and snow filled month and I'm definitely ready for April... |
| It's been a while since I've done much in WdC or in here, so this seems like a good place to start, then off to the Newsfeed, and then off to get some work done. So, what's been happening with me? It's been crazy; let me tell you... We reside in a duplex, one apartment up front, and we live in the back. Well, we did until just recently. Our neighbor in front decided to move at the start of the year, so we talked to our landlord about opening a doorway between the two apartments and renting the entire house. He said yes, and that he would work on it as soon as Lisa moved out on February first. She started moving in January and it was looking good for us to be in shortly after the first, but she didn't move much at a time and only one or two days per week, so it was pushed back to March first for us to officially move in, and the landlord would have things ready about mid-month so we could start moving some things around. There are four of us, two teens and two adults, ad our apartment is only two bedrooms and is rather small. Our bedroom is pretty big, so we divided it into two rooms, so each teen has a room, there is a kitchen-dining area and a decent-sized living room. The front apartment is about the same size but has a bigger and new kitchen, so we wanted to move our stove and fridge over here, put one teen in the larger bedroom river here, and get our entire bedroom back. The extra bedroom in the front is a bit small, so it became my office/writing haven. The front finally opened up the last week in February and the doorway was installed the last day of the month, so we finally could start moving (I despise moving) our stuff over, after a good cleaning. The woman who rented the front didn't clean anything, and it turns out, she was not a very clean person, so it took a week to deep clean everything. Finally, after a thorough cleaning, we could move. On'y, my wife works and the teens have school, so a lot of the heavy moving was done on the weekends and I did the lighter work on weekdays. We finally have things pretty well moved and set up, but still a lot of little things to do, My office is a mess, with stuff stacked and piled since it was the last room to set up. I thought it would go faster since we were moving within the same house, but moving is moving and it sucks, takes a crap-load of time, and with trying to keep up with cooking and getting kids off to school, I just have not had time for much of anything else. We also had our youngest teen in a school play this last weekend, so there was driving her back and forth for practice. Our older teen is in robotics right after school, so she also needed a ride home, and of course, these extra activities could not coincide at the same time. Our heating system has been acting up a lot this year and it's been a weekly, sometimes bi-weekly, call to get someone out to fix it. No matter what they do or replace, something else messes up (I reset the damned thing at least twice a day, sometimes more) so we don't freeze up. On top of this, the weather hasn't cooperated in the least, it's been cold (sub-zero) until a week ago, and now that it's getting up to thawing during the day, we are getting snow every other day (like I really have had time for shoveling and chipping at ice). Oh, and I know most of you already know we got a Huskie puppy in December, so I have a great deal of time taken up with training and spending with him. As you can imagine, I have had little time for anything, including sleep, since the end of February when this all started. But, now that we have the biggest chunk of the work complete, I can finally get a full night's sleep and have some time during the day to spend here and with my writing; well, once I get my office set up (I'm currently on my laptop at the dining room table). But wait, I still have my training to do with Max and taking care of Bella. Who's Bella? My wife thought and convinced me, that having a companion for Max would free up more time for me. I mean, he needs a lot of interactions, playtime, and training, so it makes sense. She saw an ad for Australian Shepards and went to look at them on Tuesday. She returned home with Bella, who just turned seven. I'm talking weeks, not years. So, Max weighs about 45 pounds now and will be five months old on Saturday. Bella weighs 4.5 pounds and will be two months old in another week; she's about as big as his head. I don't know how long it will take for Max and her to get used to each other, but hopefully will just be a few days. He does pretty well with her, but he's so big and she's so small that it takes constant supervision whenever they are together. So much for my extra time! On the bright side, they are both napping right now... |
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