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WIPs/UFOs:		Wish to Do:		2007 Completed:
1. St Petersburg - HUGE 2. Autumnal Abstract - Lg 3. Baby Sampler - Med 4. Quaker Odds & Evens - Med 5. Angel Stocking - Lg 6. Birds of Paradise - Med		1. Pelican Pier 2. Dragon Heart 3. Floral Blackwork Square 4. Diamond Ice Hardanger 5. Friendship Sampler 6. Floral Afghan 7. Quaker Gameboard 8. Bristol Fashion		23 Jan 2007 Pink Bookmark 23 Jan 2007 Red Bookmark 10 Feb 2007 Swallowtail Butterfly 11 Feb 2007 A Naughty Word 14 Feb 2007 Monarch Butterfly 17 Feb 2007 Celtic Birds 04 Mar 2007 Cow Sheep 04 Mar 2007 Scissors Fob 13 Mar 2007 Moroccan Biscornu 15 Mar 2007 Skip the Dog 30 Mar 2007 Moroccan Biscornu #2 15 Apr 2007 Blue & Red Biscornu 16 Apr 2007 Chocolate Truth 25 Apr 2007 Spring Needleroll 31 May 2007 Map of Discovery 07 Jun 2007 Autumn Birds 22 Jun 2007 Scaredy Cats 02 Jul 2007 Cassis 26 Jul 2007 Country Bouquet Sampler 30 Aug 2007 Wedding Sampler 08 Sep 2007 Letter "B" 15 Sep 2007 Ornament 30 Sep 2007 Hardanger Heart 20 Oct 2007 Spring Fling 16 Nov 2007 Schoolhouse Needlebook 25 Nov 2007 Harmony & Tranquility 27 Dec 2007 Letter "K"
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I'm making my move to jennentropy.blogspot.com - look for my stitching there.

I've taken a nose dive in the last few weeks. I've been falling asleep after every meal. It's frustrating and fraught - can't be falling asleep at work when you're "in charge". With all of the shivers, frost bite and bad moods I'm getting a bit sick of it all. I'm hoping the doc I'll be seeing Monday has some chipper news that doesn't require much on my part. I'm just using the journal today to appear as if I'm doing work as I fight the sleepies.

There appears to be either a very large coyote or a moderately sized grey wolf wandering around our property. Our neighbor is threatening to shoot it. I'm hoping that he decides otherwise. When the creature comes out into our yard the dogs go berserk. I find this amusing. In addition it's fun to watch it doing it's canid things. I'm guessing it's getting enough to eat on our property since I haven't had any problems flushing rabbits the last few times I've been on walk-about.

2008 is the year of upheaval. I can feel it - it's been coming on a long time. I need to make my move. There's a new dept in NYS DEC for invasive species. They need mapping people. Surely I can hope!

And it's starting to piss me off. :-|

For weeks I've been freaking out because a Dr said on my first visit to him that I should have surgery to see if some "nodules" were malignant or benign. He assured me that they were most likely not malignant, but then he'd have to do surgery to find out. I wasn't too keen on surgery, especially since I was about 3 weeks away from my first marathon and it was our first visit. So I asked him if there was some other way we could deal with this. He wasn't jazzed about the prospect - because it's such a cool surgery, but agreed to do bi-weekly checkups to see if there was any change.

At my second visit he kept me waiting for over 2 hours. I was second appointment of the day and he didn't have surgery that morning. There was no excuse for his lateness except laziness or possibly arrogance. So I left and complained to my referring physician.

Today I was another Dr. He was a nice fellow who asked me "So why are you here?" and when I responded about the nodules he said "and why do we care? They're not bugging you, right?" Nope. So he did his exam, stated that I didn't have anything particularly unusual going on, that he didn't know why the other Dr. put down endometriosis as the diagnosis, said he was going to write up a note about me being healthy and for me to have a nice day.

Aaaaaah.

There's nothing like the two days right before a vacation at work. Almost no one is here and those that are sit around not really accomplishing much. I'm one of the people sitting.

Tonight I predict that Ellie and I fail the Canine Good Citizen test. I hope she can pull it out in the clutch. I need to cover my hands in peanut butter and liver. Then maybe I can get her to think that she's going to get a reward for doing all the tricks.

I'm getting to the point where I have accomplished most of the things on my to do list. If I get to them all will I vanish in a puff of smoke?

EDIT: Note - Ellie and I passed the test!!

I actually had a good day at work today. It started out crappy. People were complaining like usual and all that. But I said shove off and they did _and_ I got traction on the project that has been pestering me for a couple of months. yay.

Really I did. And it hurt. And I'm going to do another one. I will bring more anti-inflammatories with me.

Well it's a rainy day. I'm sullen. I like being sullen more than I like being chipper though. I seem to get more work done.

Last night I came across some internet detritus from a long-lost friend of mine. I reached out. I wonder if she will reach back. It makes me think, where is that line between curiosity and stalker?

This was found by a coworker in a local newspaper:

I wonder how I should feel that she thought of me :-|? :-(? :-D? Hard to say.

The dude is seriously still alive! I so had him written off over a decade ago.

I spent the day yesterday at a dog agility show volunteering as the Ring 2 Jumping Chief Rind Steward. Mostly my job was to make sure that everyone else showed up for their jobs because, hey, I had no idea what anyone was supposed to do. By the end of the day I had it all figured out. Well everything except I still have no idea what the different titles are.

The dogs were a riot. They were all so excited to run around the course. Most of the handlers were good too. It was the not so good ones that were the most entertaining (as usual). There were dogs that decided they wanted to go a different route through the obstacles. Then there were the dogs that decided the spot on the ground was way too smelly to bother with running the course.

Sadly there were a few people who were disqualified. Each of them had the wrong collar on their dogs (nothing but flat collars or no collars were allowed - choke or pinch could get caught on something). Then there were the people who had to give up because their dogs were just not ready for whatever reason.

The best dog of the day (in my opinion) was my buddy Fang the Great Dane. All of the dogs go through the same sized tunnel - miniature dachshund all the way up. I would say the tunnel opening is 2.5 feet in diameter, maybe a little less. It was a riot watching Fang go through this thing. It was like watching a dog get sucked into a black hole and then spit back out.

Yesterday I learned the Hardanger stitching technique. It goes much more quickly than I suspected. I'm looking forward to doing this with all sorts of crazy colors (it's traditionally done in variations of white).

I was running behind the bus hanging on there for a while, but it's finally left me in the dust. Yesterday I signed up for Ironman KY 2008. Still I shouldn't have too much trouble with it - heck it's less than 24 hours. I'm finding that training for a marathon is much easier than training for a 90 hour bike ride.

I've been noticing that more and more of the churches around here are getting those plastic signboards and posting sweet little sayings to encourage people to pray and stuff like that. I've been saying to sparkymcfinder for a while that I should start collecting them. Well today's sighting was a winner:

"If God is your co-pilot, you're in the wrong seat.'

The Five Love Languages

My Primary Love Language is Acts of Service

My Detailed Results:

Acts of Service:	10
Quality Time:	7
Words of Affirmation:	5
Physical Touch:	5
Receiving Gifts:	3

About this quiz

Unhappiness in relationships is often due to the fact that we speak different love languages. It can be helpful to know what language you speak and what language those around you speak.

Take the Quiz!
Check out the Book

LOL - and this is Sparky:
Acts of Service: 10
Words of Affirmation: 7
Physical Touch: 7
Quality Time: 4
Receiving Gifts: 2

Vacation is over. I accomplished all of my goals for the week and had a few adventures on the way. I was able to read two books during the week. I haven't had time to read in so long - it was fantastic. I'm in a much better state of mind! And I was able to take care of most of my issues with Chase and AT&T yesterday. I'm hoping today's follow up is just as fruitful. I finally had someone apologize to me because they felt bad as opposed to being required to say it.

Aaah it's vacation time. I had a blast yesterday doing little things and things of little note. Today I have a big day of sitting around planned. I might run too. This is too much like work so I'll stop now.

Seriously WTF is going on with corporations? Oh that's right, they're here to steal our hard earned (and I mean HARD) money.

I ordered mobile phone coverage though AT&T the other day. The 20th of July. I spent 2 hours on the phone trying to be sure they got everything straight, asking all the questions, asking the women to parrot me back to be sure that she had the order right. It was insane, but I got it done. The 23rd we got our phones and activated them. Nothing like X-mas in July. A week later I got the bill, they had not gotten my corporate discount, had the activations fees incorrect, hadn't sent us the free case and the bill was impossible to read to boot.

So called to find out what the problem was and to get everything corrected. The woman was unbelievably rude to me. She was condescending, minimally helpful and generally infuriating. So I canceled my coverage. Canceling took another 1.5 hours. They couldn't tell me what my final financial liability would be. In fact the person I spoke to didn't know what the word liability meant *sigh*.

I refuse to pay other people to insult me and to be incompetent with my money.

Empower yourself - stop paying the people around you who are ass-holes. Teach them a lesson - NO MONEY FOR BAD MANNERS!!!!