Meet Mitnik

Today was an exciting day! We adopted Mitnik from the Eau Claire County Humane Association. :o) We've been talking about getting another cat ever since Maggie Moo died, but wavered on whether or not we really wanted to. Originally we went to find a kitten...and we found one. I filled out an application online and called the next day to check the status and they said they didn't get it. So, I rushed over there and filled one out at the shelter and when I got there to fill it out Fozzy (the kitten) had already gone to his forever home. We went back today as a family to pick out another kitten, but this cute little Mitnik caught our eye. She's such a pretty girl-very unique markings. She's a "diluted calico" and she's just precious. We brought her home and she's spent her afternoon/evening checking out her new surroundings (which for the time being is the basement--don't worry, it's finished for the most part). She even has her own twin bed, so I'm sure she'll be fine down here. We decided to keep her down here for a couple of days until she's really familiar with where her food/water and litter box are. She has eaten and lapped up water, and she has pooped and peed in the litter box. (YAY!) She seems like a great little kitty. She's by no means a kitten--almost a year old, but she sure is sweet. And we're glad we chose her--it doesn't seem like any training will be needed. :o) This picture is from the shelter's website. She's a little bigger now, and a lot prettier! I'll post new pics soon. I just don't want to sabotage her with flashbulbs yet!

OH NO!

So I'm at work today, and every now and then I check in on Cait's stuff...Edline has grades, the school website has announcements...MyLunchMoney.com shows me what she had for lunch the last few days...MyLunchMoney.com also shows me the balance in her lunch account. THE BALANCE IN HER LUNCH ACCOUNT IS $.15!! OH NO!! I looked at the clock quick, 11:20 a.m., maybe she hasn't eaten yet?!?! I quick flipped back to the school website to grab the number, then while I was calling I flipped back to MLM.com to transfer funds to her account. Come to find out the 6th graders already ate. So, I thought maybe the $.15 was AFTER she ate. Nope, because it was updated yesterday. The person I talked to said if she was short $ she would be able to go to the office to get a ticket for hot lunch, and then we'd pay the office back. Sounded good to me. The poor thing, when I got home from work I asked what she had for lunch (you know, nonchalantly, like any other day) and she looked at me and said "I didn't eat." OH NO! I felt horrible. She didn't know she had the option of going to the office to borrow lunch, so she didn't eat. Ugh. Today was one of those I-feel-like-a-bad-mom-but-I-know-I'm-not-and-it-was-an-honest-mistake days. (I just checked MLM.com, and my transfer has posted. She'll be able to eat tomorrow. :o(

Grrrrrr!

Or maybe I should say BRRRRR.....! When we bought our house in June we asked for the seller to pay for a 1-year home warranty. He wasn't happy about it (as with a lot of things), but he did. I think it cost him around $400.00. Luckily we took that step--we'll be using it twice, at least. The home warranty covers a lot: appliances, hot water heater, furnace, roof, major mechanical/electrical, etc. It's really a good safety net, I think, for first time homeowners who really don't know what they're getting into. :o) Anyways, shortly after we moved in we discovered the dishwasher that was "included" doesn't work. I've been washing the dishes by hand (I know, boo hoo). I really don't mind it. Sometimes I find it relaxing, actually. Seriously. So we've kind of put that off. The first night it got really cold (around 30 degrees) was a while back, and we turned on the furnace. Then we didn't need it for a while. When we did need it again it only worked sometimes. When we would turn the thermostat, we could hear it fire up, but nothing was moving. Well now it doesn't fire up. And it's cold. The service people come tomorrow morning. Only problem is that with this home warranty program we're only supposed to pay a $100 deductible per claim. Okay, that's not a problem. The problem comes in when the home warranty company doesn't have an "approved" service company in our area for furances. Are you kidding me? Northern Wisconsin and they don't have a service company for furnaces. Their alternative is for us to find a service company (we called the guys on the label on the furnace), pay them out of our pocket, and get reimbursed "within 4 weeks". Great. What are you to do then? We have to get the furnace fixed--we just pray that it's reasonable. Funds are quite tight right now with Jason having been off work for a little over two months. Good news is he has a fantastic job that he will be starting on the 29th. Unfortunately that doesn't help us tomorrow when the furnace repair person will want a check on the spot. We really hope it's not anything major and won't put us in a big ol' bind. :o)

Victory!!

WE GOT ONE!!! We finally captured one of those dirty little rodents that is plaguing our beautiful yard. We tried one type of trap, nothing. Bought a different kind...the trap went off a couple of times, but no dice. I saw this morning that it went off and didn't think much of it because I assumed it'd be the same thing: nothing. Welllllll...after work I went out and pulled it. Didn't see any evidence so I was a little disappointed. Then I took a gardening tool and kind of dug in a little and poked around and BINGO. There it was! (By this time we were all gathered 'round) Of course we couldn't just leave it--curiosity got the best of us so we dug the whole thing out. Ugly little bugger! We dug the hole a little deeper and left it to the earth, where it belongs. (And maybe as a warning for his mole friends!) We moved the trap to a 3 way intersection this time...looks like high traffic there so hopefully we'll get another one. YAY!

Weekend Review

Cait didn't have school on Thursday or Friday this week because of the annual teacher's conference. I had planned on taking those days off, but since I was off the previous Friday for my grandma's funeral and we were fairly busy I decided to work anyways. Thursday Cait spent the day with a friend and they went to the Y to swim, etc. Thursday evening I ran her and 2 of her friends to a football game. While they were there I went dress shopping again with Peggy and Nikki. After we were done shopping we went to eat at Burrachos. It's like Subway for tacos. It was pretty good. Friday night Cait had a friend over and we just hung out at home. Saturday morning I ran a few errands and then worked in the garage. I was pretty happy with the results. As a matter of fact, BOTH of our cars are in it right now! After working in the garage I cleaned up and Cait and I made caramel apples. YUM! The apples are from a local orchard (we didn't pick them--one of the local grocery stores had them). They were a little pricey, but boy are they good apples. My new favorite-honey crisp. I used to love Granny Smith's, but they're just a little too tart for me nowadays. Here's a picture of Cait and our creation...

After that we ate dinner and watched a couple of cool shows. I don't remember if they were on Discovery or what, but one was about cockroaches and the other about jellyfish. Trust me. As icky as these creatures are, the programs were extremely interesting. This a.m. I got up a little late...after TEN. Yikes. Then I cleaned house and did laundry. Cait and I went to the mall for a bit to look around for shoes for her. After that we went to Wal-Mart, came home and had dinner, finished laundry, and washed the dinner dishes. Whew! That's about it...a pretty productive weekend, I'd say. :o) Oh, and my girlfriend Lori had her 2nd baby, a boy, on Saturday night. I believe he remains unnamed for the time being. She'll be going home tomorrow some time, I imagine he'll have a name before he leaves the hospital.

Freecycle

Wow! I just had to write this one down. When we moved into our house in June, the man who lived here previously left a bunch of junk in the garage. He thought we might be able to use it. (Yeah right!) It was miscellaneous lumber and some gutter pieces. Basically junk, not enough for any one project. We always joke that "it came with the house". Appliances "come with the house", little pieces of boards and gutters do not. Anyways, we need to get our garage cleaned out so we can actually park our cars in it so I posted all of this stuff on Freecycle. Someone responded (I always work with the first person that replies), and I told them the stuff would be in our driveway by 10:00 a.m. today. I had to run an errand and by 10:26 when I got home they had EVERTHING loaded and were on their way. Bless their hearts! I figured they would come and pick through it and take what they wanted and leave the rest. Nope. They took it all. Yay for Freecycle!

Links

I want to try to build my list of links, just because I know from experience that sometimes it's fun to wander from various blogs to various links. I was searching for a recipe online the other day and happened upon a gentleman's blog. I added it to my link list, but for some reason it's not showing up. I'm going to give it some time...maybe Blogger takes time to make those adjustments. Otherwise, I'm not sure what happened to it. But anyways, when I do finally get it in the right place you should check it out. This guy's blog has lots of neat ideas and recipes on the "healthier" side.

Oh, and last post for today. :)

100 Posts?!?!

I just realized that a couple of posts ago was my 100th post. Wowie! That's pretty cool. I've been blogging a lot more recently so 200 will come in no time. Woo hoo!

Brrrrr!!

The first day of fall has come and gone, true, but 47 degrees for the high? C'mon! It's crazy. We've had some pretty bizarre weather lately, that's for sure. Saturday was so stinkin' hot that at 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning we put our window a/c back in because it was too hot to sleep. Sunday all day I spent watching Cait play softball (she had 3 games, beginning at 10:30 a.m. and ending at 4:00 p.m.). I think it was near 90 on Sunday, and I was sweating bullets just sitting there. It was so hot and humid that when I got home my capris were drenched. Ick. And now, it's just a little chilly--definitely jacket weather. Sheesh! Someone's confused. :o)

Prince Adu What?

Well Jason didn't get the part of Aladdin, just as he suspected, but it was awful nice of the director to throw him in the production anyways being that he missed the "official" auditions. He has 2 parts, one as Guard #1, and the other as Prince Dahdu Rahn-Rahn. I must note that there is also a character named (The) Prince Formerly Known as the Artist. Goofy! He'll also sing in most of the numbers, and he has one song with his good friend Kurt who will play Jafar. Another good friend is Iago, so it will be fun for them to be in this production together. Jason has kind of taken a hiatus from the theatre for a couple of years so it will be nice for him to get back into it. It's something he really enjoys and he's good at it too. So...stay tuned for backstage reporting. :o)

Happy Monday!

Well, not really. I guess it's not sad Monday either, just Monday. :) Usually on Sunday evenings I'm all ready to go to work on Monday morning; today was just kind of blah. My lovely morning started when I opened the bathroom closet to get a fresh towel and I saw a little centipede scurry by. YUCK. We found it (after taking all of the towels out of the closet) and flushed it. I dropped Cait off at school and came back home to get ready for work. I close the office 3 days this week while the regular receptionist is on vacation so I got to go in a little later. I always like the idea in the a.m., but when I have to stay at work until 5:30 p.m. it's not as likable. I had a dentist (hygienist) appointment this afternoon too, so my teeth are squeaky clean. The trip to the hygienist is less and less enjoyable every time I go. My mouth is super sore this evening from all the poking and prodding and scraping. And I go every 6 months. I can't imagine NOT going that often. Whew. I planned to make a quick dinner of some-type-of-pasta-and-another-type-of-sauce, but by time I got home I wasn't feeling like it and it would have been cutting it close on time so I went down the block to the grocery store and bought a rotisserie chicken and some microwave broccoli while Jason threw some bread in the oven. Have you had the micro veggies? I LOVE them. They're easy and taste really fresh. They are, however, a little more expensive so I don't buy them that often. Jason auditioned for a play at the very last minute last night and the director told him to show up for the first rehearsal tonight. He doesn't even know what part he has! The auditions last night were for the part of Aladdin, but Jason doesn't think that's the part he'll be asked to perform. He thinks he's too old for Aladdin and they just want him to be an extra something or other. We shall see! I'm off to watch Dancing With the Stars. Love it. And, have you seen Journeyman? I really like that show so far. At first I thought it seemed a little "out there", but it's not too bad. Have a happy Monday evening.

Grandma Myrtle

My Grandma Myrtle passed away on Sunday. She was 89 years young, and lived a long, happy, and healthy life. Even still, it's sad to see her go. She'll be missed! I have a million and one memories of Gram from childhood through the recent past. I'm so glad that Cait got to know her too. One of their favorite things to do together was play a card game that Cait taught Gram-Hong Kong. I'm pretty sure Grandma thought it was silly, but she played along anyways. I could write for days if I went through the memories...but I'll leave a few here. Some of my very eariest memories are going down the street whenever possible to get an ice cream cone from Grandma. Ice cream was never out-of-stock at their house! I also remember my 5th birthday party in Grandma's basement (I had the chicken pox!). Of course there were all of the Christmas Eves spent there with the whole family. Sometimes we'd walk home after the festivities, if it was warm enough. One of my favorite things to do was play in Grandma's basement office. She didn't care one bit if I rummaged through her desk, used her stapler and ink stamps, and even the telephone. That must be where I got my start! As I got older the visits became about life, talking about school and friends. She was always interested in what was going on. After I moved to Eau Claire our visits were less frequent, but she still liked to know everything. Most recently, we would talk about Cait, Jason, and work. For the longest time she called Jason "Chase". She must not have heard very well, and I never corrected her. Then all of a sudden she had it right. (Someone must have corrected her.) One of my more recent (and I think favorite) memories of Gram is from my wedding. She looked so pretty in her pink dress and pearls and she seemed very happy (although confused). It will be sad to go by Grandma and Grandpa's house since they're both gone. And will be strange to see someone else living there. My Grandpa and Grandma were both beautiful people, and now they're together in a beautiful place.

One more time!

Tuesday night I went for "coffee" with my friends Nikki and Peggy. Peggy arranged the meeting and I had a sneaking suspicion what it was all about. Sure enough...Peggy asked Nikki and I to be in her wedding. How exciting! She even gave us a little card and a gift-this handy canvas bag.

I'm glad she asked me...it will be a lot of fun. The three of us get together quite often (I work with Peggy so we get together almost every day), and we've all been good friends for a while. We all met while working at American Title. Nikki has since moved on to be a dental hygienist, but of course we keep in touch. Nikki was in my wedding in August. Peggy wasn't, but looking back I wish I would have had her be a bigger part of it. She was there for everything anyways, but I should have honored her with being a bridesmaid. Oh well. And then both Peggy and I were in Nikki's wedding last October (Me, Nikki, Peggy).