A Little Prespective

We have tried so many things to find Ben. I got a call from the workmen yesterday saying Ben had been around the house most of the morning. I rushed home and they told me how they almost caught him and he was coming to his name. They described him exactly. In the afternoon I sat out front of the house calling his name and walking up and down the street. Around 8:30 last night I walked out the front door and there was a cat that looked exactly like Ben. It seemed a little scared and was eating the food I had put out really fast. Looking at this cat I was certain it was Ben. It took about 15 more minutes and walking about a block before this cat allowed me to pick him up. It even meowed like Ben. Once back at the house I wanted to double check that this was indeed Ben. I checked the front claws and there were claws. Ben is declawed in the front. I was devestated. I was 99.9% sure it was Ben. I had to set the cat down and it walked away. Because Ben was a stray from around our house there are several cats that look very similar to him.

Our bathroom should be done this afternoon. It is looking good, but it is such a bittersweet moment. As much as I love the new bathroom, we have lost a huge part of our family in the process. Who knows, he may be hiding close to the house and just waiting until it really calms down around the house. I pray this is the situation.

Another thing that has put all of this in perscpective is some pretty live changing events going on with other people. I read several blogs and there is this one blog I read of a young woman who after several years finally became pregnant with triplets. She delivered them at 22 weeks on Tuesday. Sadly, one of the babies passed away on Wednesday. I can't imagine losing a child.

Then, this morning I got more devestating news. A lady I used to work with and had become really good friends with is dealing with something horrible. Her partner of 15+ years is going to be taken off of life support this afternoon. Her partner has brain cancer and has been fighting it for more then a year. The two of them have a 10 year old daughter together. Their daughter is the sweetest little girl. My heart goes out to their family.

I love Ben dearly and miss him so much it hurts. But here are two families that have or are going to be losing a child, mother/partner. What I am dealing with does not compare in any way to what these two families are having to deal with.

Please Send LOTS of Prayers

I am beside myself. Yesterday, in the middle of all the construction of our bathroom, Ben disappeared and has not been seen since. He was last seen running down in the basement. The guys doing the work did not listen to us when we said we have cats and you need to keep the doors shut and watch the doors when you leave. The one cat that we were afraid that would get out was Brady (the orange one). I spent all last night looking for him and calling his name. Usually when he hides in the house he will come when you call his name or make some noise. We are just praying that he is hiding somewhere in the house and did not get out. I don't know what I will do if we loose Ben. I told Laura that I know I shouldn't play favorites, but he is my favorite. He is so loving and loves to cuddle. I hope he's ok and I hope to see him again.

*Update: April 27, 2006: Still no sign of Ben. I am going out of my mind. I keep thinking of where he might be. We know for sure he is not in the house. Locked up the other cats last night and put out moist food. (a treat for them) Nothing was touched this morning. So, we know he is not in the house. I don't know how I am going to get past the fact that I might never see him again. My heart is hurting so much right now. I keep thinking of him outside all on his own. I don't know if he will be able to survive out there.

Our Love Is Illegal in 27 States

To understand the title of the title of this post, see last picture on this post. Here are some of the pictures from the "destruction" of our bathroom today.
Notice we have no sink. Looks like we'll be brushing our teeth in the kitchen sink tonight.
The bathroom looks huge without that huge vanity in there. We can't wait until they finish it up this week.
For some reason Sophie-cat was sitting behind the "dog proof" gate last night. It was as if she was in jail. As you can see, she could (if she wanted to) simply go around the gate and leave.

Another Question Answered

I seem to be on a roll with my Ask Rosie questions. Click here to see the second one she has answered. I wanted to see if any Jehovah's Witnesses had come knocking on her door. I got the idea for this question last night when I was watching America's Funniest Home Videos. There was a cat standing outside a sliding glass door and the host said, "Oh Oh it's the Jehovah's Kitty" and the cat turned around and started knocking on the glass with it's back paw. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen. Laura and I were laughing so hard we almost peed our pants.

Well, as I type this our bathroom is currently being torn apart. I was going to hang around the house til my normal time to leave, but it was too loud with them taking out the tile and the huge vanity. So, I ended up getting to work at 8:30am, thirty minutes early. The cats are very upset. I put four of them in the computer room, but Ben (the little black kitty) got out when I was taking water up to them. The last I saw him he was running behind the couch. I don't expect to see him for a couple days, or at least until they are gone. The dog is in her room and seemed concerened with all the banging going on. Sophie-Cat is under our bed, I think. I just put a food bowl in the room and a liter box.

It's just 9:10am and I feel like I've put in an entire days work already. It's going to be a long day. Looks like we will be without a shower tomorrow night. Looks like we will need to find someone that will let us shower at their house. We have had several people offer their showers to us. I am just happy that we will be able to stay in our house and not have to stay somewhere for a night. Unless we don't have a toilet. Then we will have to stay somewhere.

1 New Toy + Catnip= Craziness

Yesterday while at Walmart we bought the cats a new toy. We thought it was a cute toy. Once home the cats just sniffed at it and looked at us like "what is this?" Once we put catnip all around the toy and dipped part of the toy in the catnip the cats were all about the toy.
Here's Sophie-cat rolling around in the catnip. It's funny watching her try to roll around beause of her size. She can almost get on her back, but not all the way.
Here are all 5 of them sniffing around at the cat nip. As you will notice Sophie-cat (top left) and Bonk (bottom middle) are in pure ecstasy. The other thee are still eating some of the catnip. It was a real hoot watching them get "high". Most of them slept rest of the afternoon.

Tomorrow is the big day. The "Fix-it-Guys" will be here at 7am to start all the work we are having done. We are thinking it will take about 3-4 days as long as there are no major problems. We have all our supplies, the bathroom is cleaned out completly and all the light fixtures marked as to where they go in the house. I am still trying to figure out what to do with the cats. One (Brady) will run out the door everytime it is opened. So, we are going to have to lock him up somewhere. I am thinking we will just lock everyone up to make sure they stay out of the way. Ben and Sophie-cat will hide the entire day. They usually do that when someone is in the house. The others are known to get friendly and I would hate for them to get hurt in anyway. The dog will be in her room. Most likely with Brady. Let's just hope she (Sophie) doesn't go to town on the liter box that will be in with them.

Our weekend was so good. It was so relaxing and calming. We rented three movies yesterday and have watched two of them. We watched "A History of Violence" and "Get Rich or Die Trying". A history of violence was not that good. They did however have some pretty revealing sex scenes. We were like, "wow". Get Rich or Die Trying which is based on 50 cents life was excellent. We weren't too sure of it, but it really was excellent. Again, Terence Howard was in this movie. That guy has gone from a nobody to being in some big movies this year. (Hustle & Flow and Crash)

I am off to take the before pictures of the house. I am so excited for how the bathroom is going to look.

Changes in Attitudes

Thank goodness my attitude has drastically changed since Wednesday. Whew. I think when you add coming home from a wonderful vacation plus a very bad period you get exactly what I had: a horrible attitude. I still miss the beach and the ocean and the relaxation of vacation, but that is exactly what it was..vacation. It was bound to come to an end. With the weather getting warmer here and just a little over a month before the pool opens I think my attitude will be fine. I used to always say winter was my favorite season, but I think I was wrong. I LOVE summer. I love going to the pool, going to the lake. There is nothing better then lake water. I actually prefer lake water to salt water. Laura and I booked a long weekend at the lake in June. We are psyched cause the place we stay has kayaks.

We were suppose to be getting the second part of our deck this weekend, but have had to change those plans. We already have a deck and we were going to put on another tier below that. Laura's Dad who is the master of all trades was going to do it for us. He came up on Wed. night measured everything and told us exactly what to buy. We called Lowe's on Wed. night and said, "if we come to the store tomorrow night to get some lumber will you be able to deliever it on Friday?" They said "yes, that will not be a problem." So, last night we went to Lowe's to order the lumber and set up the delivery. Suddenly they had no delivery times for Friday. So, we decided we will just wait til maybe next weekend.

Monday they are coming to tear apart our bathroom. We have purchased all the supplies: new bathtub, bathtub surround, toilet, vanity & sink/mirror, lights. You should see our family room downstairs. It looks like we have ripped off a Home Depot. :) I can't wait to see the bathroom when it is all done. Oh, and I forgot..we got all the tile for the new floor. Of course I will post before and after pictures.

So, here's to a wonderful weekend for everyone. Oh and congratulations to Kim and Courtney who are getting married today.

My "zest" is gone

This morning as I was sitting with a client I realized I am getting tired of the work that I do. That thought was pretty scary for me. If I don't do this, what will I do? I think part of my problem is I am still thinking about vacation and all the fun things we did. There were no schedules and we did what we wanted to. Every afternoon around 3pm we would lay down for a "siesta". Usually that meant laying down watching TV for an hour or so before going to dinner. I think I really miss those "siesta's".

When I graduated in 1999 with my Bachelors degree I was all ready for the field of social work. I loved my first job and hated leaving there two years later when I got my masters. After getting my masters I worked for one year in a nursing home. I think that one year in the nursing home really took a lot out of me. It was as if I lost my "zest" for social work. It didn't help that the nursing home enviornment is so damn depressing. I ended up moving to another nursing home and then being fired three months later. I called in sick one day and told my boss I had to go to the dentist. He didn't like me and I didn't like him. When I got to work on Monday he said he wanted to call my dentist to see if I really had been there. WTF?????? I told him I just needed a day off and he said, "You're fired". (This was before Trump coined the phrase, so it wasn't that exciting hearing that) It turned out to be the best thing for me. I collected unemployment for six months and really started to heal myself as a person. After six months I got a full time job, but they only paid me for part-time. (the pay really sucked as you can tell) I couldn't live on what they paid me, but I loved what I was doing. I stayed there almost a year and then found this job. And I love my current job. But I feel I am losing some of my compassion and empthay for the client's that I see. I find myself looking at them and thinking to myself, "thank God that's not me". And I think that's a horrible thing to be doing. I thought that maybe a vacation would do me good and maybe I would come back all refreshed and recharged. But I seem to have lost my "zest" for my job.

I am finding myself very envious of Laura who has just one month left before she is out for three months. As much as I love my job, I am just really tired of working. I am tired of always hearing people's problems. I feel I can never have a bad day at work because there is always someone out there that needs my help with something.

Any suggestions on how I can find and get my "zest" back?

Back in The "Real World"

Well, I am almost done with my first day back as a productive member of society. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. When Laura got up this morning I got up shortly after her to make her lunch. I was in a horrible mood. And I was so tired. It had been almost two weeks since I had to get up before it was light outside. I usually stay up until she leaves, but today I made her lunch and headed back up to bed. I was so depressed. It's hard going back to work after having such a great time on vacation.

When I got up to go to work my mood was much better, thank goodness. I think I was ready to get back on a schedule. Ok, that's a lie, but that is what I told myself as I was driving to work. Before even going to the office I had a meeting at 9am. I wasn't able to contribute much to this meeting since I had been out for a week. I was anxious to get to the office and start sorting through all the emails I had. I had more then 300 emails on my office email when I got back. Most were junk mail, so that was good.

I forgot to mention something about our trip. While we were in Key West I was talking with one of the ladies in one of the many shops we stopped in. I asked if she knew where the Real W orld-Key West house was. She proceeded to go on for about ten minutes about all the stories about Real World. She said that they were all on a schedule and that it was even scheduled when they would go out to dinner. She also said that they would call ahead and the restaurant would be cleared when they would show up. She said it was not "real", but all set up. I kind of knew that with the Real World, but it's still fun to watch. Turns out the house was in a neighborhood part of Key West and she said we would never find it, even if we tried. She also told us MTV rented the house for six months with the price tag of $1 Million dollars. I thought it was funny all she was telling us. You never know what you can believe out there. I truly believe when the Real World first came out it was not like it is now.

Well, we are back to our normal weekly favorites. Tonight is wings night at Wild Buffalo Wings. You can't beat 35 cents per wing. It's my job to stop on the way home to pick up the wings. So, that's where I am off to now.

Ask Ro

As many of you know, I adore Rosie. I read her website everyday. About a month ago she started a new thing on her blog called "Ask Ro". You write her a question and you hope she answers it. I have submitted a question every day hoping she would answer it.

Well, this morning I went to her site and found she had indeed answered one of my questions. Click here to see the question I asked and her response. It is under April 17, 2006. And obviously I used my name Caroline. Hint..the question has to do with adoption.

I adore Rosie so much. Laura asked me if I was attracted to her. I think there is just something about her that that I love. I think a lot has to with her confidence in herself and her family. She didn't care that people say gays/lesbians shouldn't have children. She has gone out to change the worlds views on gays/lesbians. If you watched "All Aboard" you will see they are just a normal family. And the center of their family (like it should be in any family) is LOVE.

Reflections on a Wonderful Vacation

Finally, a detailed account of our wonderful trip. I will tell you, it was one of the best trips I have ever been on. Laura and I travel so well together, which always makes it easier. This was our first "big" trip together and it was simply wonderful.

We left Kansas City early on Saturday (8th) morning. For some reason I was pretty nervous leaving. I had to make sure all the cats had enough food/water, etc and that the house was closed up well. All the way to the airport I kept asking Laura "do you have such and such". Everytime I would ask her she would simply look at me and smile and say, "yes dear". Once on the plane it was smooth sailing. We made it to Ft. Lauderdale with no problems. We caught the bus to the car rental place and picked up our car and we were on our way down south. Now the Florida Turnpike is quite the experience. People were fucking nuts on there. Laura drove and at one point we were in the far left lane and there was a sign on the ground that said merge and then you had 10 feet to merge. It was kind of scarey because there was a huge semi-truck right next to us. After that we just stayed in the right lane and minded our own business. Once we hit Homestead the Turnpike ended and Highway 1 started. We stopped right after we got off the turnpike for some lunch. The minute we got on the Highway 1 you could feel it change into an "island" feeling. Everything slowed down and calmed down. Laura also became a totally different person once we hit that highway. It was as if she had finally arrived "home". It was neat to watch her in all her excitement. Driving down highway 1 we had about an hour before we hit Key Largo. It was stop and go traffic the entire way. Not only were they working on the road, but the draw bridge in Key Largo was keeping busy. But we finally made it to Key Largo. We knew we had only 6 miles to go til we got to our resort.

When we pulled into our resort we looked at each other and were like, "wow, this is pretty cool". There are only 10 cottages in the place and a husband/wife run it. How we found this place was funny. We had seen soemthing on the Travel Channel and we serach the internet and found Island Bay Resort instead. We are so happy we found this little resort in Tavernier. Once we were settled into our place and over the shock of how beautiful our place was we went to dinner. All our meals (except one) were wonderful. We always tried to eat at places that were right on the water. Because our cottage had a stove & fridge we bought all our snack food and drinks. And we tried to eat less expensive for lunch so we could really have a nice dinner. IT helped that we were right across the street from a Dairy Queen. There were a couple days that we went and got chili dogs and brought them back to our deck to eat. Somehow, eating a DQ chili dog on our deck overlooking the ocean takes better then eating them back here in KC.

On Tuesday (11th) we ventured down to Key West. The drive down was so beautiful. We were amazed to still see boats that were in the ocean turned sideways and looked like they were abandoned. And these were really nice sail boats. You could see how hard they were hit this past hurricane season. Once in Key West we parked at the Welcome Center and bought tickets for the trolly. Once on the trolly we headed right for Margaritaville. This had been a dream of Laura's for most of her life. Once there her excitement was almost overwhelming. Her quote leaving there was, "I now know why there is a song after the cheeseburger". As we were sitting there having lunch she looked at me and said, "expect to spend $500 in the gift shop". That coming out of her mouth kind of took my breathe away. I prayed she was wrong. After spending about 45 minutes in the gift shop we came away unharmed with having spent $140. We even got the dog a toy cheeseburger. (which, by the way, she loves) After Margaritaville, we headed to Ernest Hemmingways house. Another dream for Laura. ONe thing about his house...there are cats everywhere and not just your ordinary house cat. They all have six toes. Literally, they were everywhere. And most didn't care if you took their picture. That was pretty cool. Laura said if she lived at his house she could easily write the all american novel.

Key West is very busy. We were there at prime time when all the cruise ships come in. It was so crowded everywhere we went. After Ernest Hemmingways house we decided it would be best if we headed back up north. Key West is a great place and everyone should experience it once in their lifetime, but we prefer the more laid back feeling.

The next few days were spent soaking up the sun. We did a lot of snorkling. Laura had never done this before and quickly fell in love with it. We also did some kayaking. Neither of us had done this before and realized this is something we really love. I spent 1/2 my childhood in a canoe and kayaking is very similiar, but you are a lot lower to the water. Plus, it was great exercise. We are really considering getting one for all the lakes around here.

It was sad to go, but we know we have found our new vacation spot. As we were leaving we were talking with our hosts about rebooking. We had decided on our last night to book our new trip for June 2007. Because we booked the day we left we are getting this years rate. Cool!!!! So, in June 2007 we will go back for another week. Looks like 2007 will be a very busy traveling year for us. We decided early on in our trip that this was the very reason we get up every morning and go to work. In 2008 we are planning to take Laura's parents down to Florida for their 40th anniversary. I think we talked her younger sister & husband into coming with us. That would be an awesome trip.

Tomorrow (Tuesday for me) it's back to the real world. I decided to take one more day off to catch up on the laundry, etc. Laura at first was upset and said, "hey that's not fair." My response to her was, "well, it wasn't fair you had two weeks off at x-mas". All were said with smiles of course.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. We went down to see the family and had a wonderful time showing off our tans and pictures.

More Pictures

To see more pictures of our trip click here.

Pictures from Paradise

In all we took 174 pictures plus one underwater camera with 23 pictures. I will not bore you with all the pictures, but here are a few. I tried to add some more, but I think I hit my limit for this post. Will add more in time.
Here I am at Ernest Hemmingways house. There were cats everywhere and they all have six toes. They could care of less that we were taking a picture with them.
We went to "Theatre of The Sea" which turned out to be pretty neat. They nurse sick animals back to health. This poor turtle was injured when a boat hit his shell. He looked so sad.
One of the many beautiful sunsets we saw. This one was taken while we were waiting for dinner.
On our last night we found a place to play pool. Bad picture of me, but we were having a great time.
Here are the two of us on our first night.
A sunset at our resort. This picture was taken right from our deck. Isn't it georgous?
Laura loves sharks. We saw one while snorkling, but it wasn't near this big. :) Maybe 2 feet long.
A view as we were driving on the 7 Mile Bridge on our way to Key West. I thought this picture was cool. Looks like we're driving right into the ocean.

Home Sweet Home

We got home late last night and have been exhausted all day. We had a WONDERFUL trip. The last post was suppose to be longer going into more detail about what we were doing, but blogger did not want to cooperate. I had typed out a pretty long post and then when I clicked to publish it, it suddenly vanishsed. I was not happy.

I have a lot to write about, plus some wonderful pictures, but that will have to wait til maybe tonight or tomorrow. We got back in town around 11pm and then had to pick up the car and drive home. Once we got home we had a whole weeks worth of mail to sort through, plus giving our cats some loving. Boy, did they miss us. I think they all slept with us at some point last night. Then we had to find our toothbrushes, etc in order to head to bed. Once in bed we had a hard time falling asleep. I think it was 2am when we finally fell asleep.

Then this morning I woke up at 7:30am and mowed the lawn. I am very particular about the lawn and hate it getting too long. Because it had rained the two days before we left I had to mow earlier then what I had wanted to. So, the grass was really long when we got home yesterday. After mowing we drove down to get the dog. Sophie was very happy to see us, but she had really made herself at home at Laura's parents house. We walked in and she was all excited to see us and then laid down like, "this is my home now." She slept all the way home. Once home I put her in the backyard to allow her to go to the bathroom since she only went poop once while we were gone. After a call to the vet on Tuesday (it had been 4 days since she pooped) the vet said she should be ok for at least a week, anything after that we should be concerened and have her looked at. She did poop on Thursday. When we got her home she went out back and spent about 10 minutes pooping. I felt like I should take her a magazine or something.

Will write more about our trip. It was one of the best of my life. We've already made reservations to go back in June 2007.

Keys Update

We are still in Florida. We are having a wonderful time. We don't want to come home. We are getting lots of sun. We are swimming a lot. Will write more when we get home this weekend.

Sophie Thought She Was Going With Us

I think we are done with all that needs to be done before we depart tomorrow morning. After work Laura and I took Sophie down to spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa. As you can see from this picture, she was not too happy about going. She kept looking out the window like, "where the hell am I going?" Once we turned onto Laura's parents street, she got all excited and started barking. She knew she was going to get lots of love, hugs and more importantly table scraps.

The last few hours of work were horrible. I was so bored. Finally about 45 minutes before I was to leave I went to my boss and said, "can I please go?" He looked at me and said, "yea, get out of here".

I hope everyone has a wonderful week. We won't be back until late, late next Friday night. I will write as soon as I can when we return. And I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter weekend.

My Mother Taught Me Well

I am so excited that I can barely sit still. Yes, I am excited about our trip tomorrow, but there is something else making me so very excited. Last night Laura and I watched "All Aboard". We fell in love with the cruise. It is truly a place where we can be ourselves; affection and all. After the show was over Laura said, "let's do it. Let's go on the cruise in Feb.07". I couldn't believe my ears. I had to ask her a couple times to make sure she was ok with doing this. We went up and found the room we want. We decided on one with a balcony. I could barely sleep last night. The excitement of this trip added with the excited of the cruise with Rosie. No wonder I had a hard time sleeping. This morning I woke up and asked Laura one more time, "are you sure". Again she said "yes".

So, this morning I got to work and called and made our reservations. OH MY GOD!!!! Growing up we traveled a lot. It always seemed that we would have our next vacation planned before leaving for the current trip. I will say, this will make coming home from Florida a little more easier. Knowing that the cruise is in our future. So, I have to say, in that aspect, my Mother taught me well.

All Aboard

Tonight is the premiere of Rosie's "All Aboard" on HBO. I have seen the previews for it and I can't wait. It looks very touching and moving. I would LOVE to go on one of her cruises. Infact, Laura and I are looking at the cruise in Feb. 07.

Last night we started writing in our Travel Journal. We went to the internet and found pictures of the hurricane in Oct and the projected path it took. Those are the first two pages of our journal. Tonight will be filled with going to the bank to get our spending money, doing laundry and finishing up packing.

If you have HBO, watch "All Aboard". It looks wonderful.

Oh So Anxious

I am having such a hard time concentrating. Only 3 days left until we leave. Thankfully Thursday and Friday are going to be pretty busy at work and home so I won't have that much time to sit and watch the clock slowly go by. I don't have that much going on at work today, so it has been miserable waiting for the day to pass. Here are some pictures of where we will be staying.

This is the view from our private deck. Notice how close it is to the ocean? Also, see the grill. How fun will that be to grill out for dinner. Our cottage is the only one with a private deck that faces the ocean. If my estimates are correct...I believe it looks like maybe 25 steps to the water. Wow...Heaven.
This is the room we will be staying in. We are excited because it has a fridge, stove/oven and microwave. We decided that we will eat breakfast there. Fresh fruit in the morning will be so good. I can't wait to taste the oranges. The room isn't huge, but with a view like this one..who could ask for more?

Last night we had Lyn over to watch Brokeback Mountain. It was just as good the second time. I swear I love that movie. Really makes me thankful that we live in the time we do. I can't imagine having to hide my love for Laura like they did in the movie.

Back to watching the clock tick away....

I Voted!!

Today was election day in Kansas City. It actually was kind of excitintg. There were only 3 things on my ballot. One was for school board and the other two have to do with our baseball and football stadiums. Kansas City is unique in the fact that our baseball (Royals) and football (Chiefs) stadiums are right next to each other. In their day they were beautiful and state of the art. That was 30 years ago. They really need some help in updating them and making them great stadiums again. The city has been fighting over how much money to spend on the repairs. I think they have been fighting over this for 10 + years. If they had done the repairs ten years ago it would have saved them millions. The other part of the vote was to have a rolling roof that would go over both stadiums. They are doing this in hopes of getting a SuperBowl or All-Star Game. Kansas City was promised the Superbowl in 2015 if this does pass. I hope it passes. If it doesn't we have a chance of losing both teams. I can't imagine Kansas City without the Royals or Chiefs.

Most people don't get that excited about voting, but I LOVE voting. Every time there is an election I make sure I go and vote. As a Jehovah's Witness you are forbidden from voting. It goes along with the whole neutrality thing. (I think JW's are trying to be like Switzerland) I think it's funny how they want nothing to do with politics, but they love the benefits they reap from those pollitics. When a JW says they are neurtal, do not believe them. It is impossible not to have an opinion on some of the political things going on. You should have heard some of the things JW's I knew were saying about Clinton. I kept thinking..I thought they were suppose to be neurtal.

Today is also a big day for the fact that "Brokeback Mountain" comes out on DVD. We have already bought our copy to watch tonight. I can't wait to see it again. I think our theme this week is "All Gay..All Week". On Thursday we are going to be watching Rosie's "All Aboard" on HBO. And then we are heading off to the gayest place in the US...Key West. All I see is rainbows. Life certainly is good.

We Should Not Be Allowed In Barnes & Noble

Tonight we decided to go out to dinner. I think the "vacation" mind set has already set in for us. Why cook when someone else can do the cooking for us?? After dinner I told Laura that I wanted to stop at Barnes & Noble to pick up a book for the trip. Ever since graduate school, I have had a hard time getting back in the habit of reading for fun. I really want to read "Find Me" by Rosie O'Donnell.

We get to B&N and they don't have my book. But they were nice enough to tell me they can order it and it will be here in a week. No thanks. So, what to read now? I ended up buying the book "Honeymoon with my brother". Heard it was really good. We'll see.

I realized one important thing tonight. I learned why we don't go to B&N more often. By the time we left we ended up spending $81. Important note: I need to stay out of book stores. They are very dangerous.

We did however find a very cool travel journal. I guess that is the good side.

I can't believe it.....5 days.

Losing An Hour Of Sleep

I knew it was coming. I knew I was going to loose an hour of my life early Sunday morning. I have actually known about it for the past several months. I found out when we turn the clocks forward because I wanted to know it was before/after/during our trip to Florida. So, it's not like I wasn't prepared.

Yesterday wasn't so bad. I did keep thinking, "it doesnt' seem that late". Plus, I had not changed the clock in my car so when I was running around I would think it was 1pm when it was actually 2pm. When I would get home I would think, "wow I was out for a while". Last night at 11pm I was thinking, "I am not tired at all." But I decided that it was time for me to head up to bed.

I laid there and I laid there. Nothing was happening. I could hear Laura sleeping and I could hear the dog snoring. There is nothing worse then knowing you need to be getting to sleep and not being able to sleep. I eventually fell asleep because the next thing I knew it was 6am and Laura was awake. In my mind I knew she was running late because she is usually heading out the door by 6am.

I have struggled all day with feelings of wanting to take a nap. I went home for lunch and laid down for 15 minutes. That only made me want to sleep more. It didn't help that two cats and the dog were all on the bed with me. They all looked like, "geez, it feels like we lost an hour of sleep". I would have given my right arm to be able to stay home and sleep.

When I was a child and we would loose the hour in the spring I had a very simple way of getting through those first few days when I was so tired. I would just tell myself.."if we hadn't turned the clocks forward I would be getting out of school an hour later." Somehow that made it a little easier.

A Night Out on The Town

Yesterday was spent working in the yard, getting all our summer clothes washed and ready to be packed and cleaning up the house. So we decided we needed a night out on the town. Hey, we were going to loose an hour of sleep anyway, so why not go out and spend the evening on the town.
We went out with our good friend Lyn. We had soooo much fun and dinner was wonderuful. (Thanks again Lyn) It was nice sitting down with Lyn and just laughing.
Here's Laura and I at dinner. Can you tell we are having the time of our life?
This was taken before we went out to dinner. I wanted to show everyone the new haircut. I think I have finally figured out how to style it to where I like it. You can't really tell, but there are a bunch of layers.

While we were at dinner I said, "hey ladies we could be really wild and go up to the boats (casino)". Lyn wasn't able to make it and Laura just looked at me. As we were walking out Laura said to me, "you wanna go to the boat?" I wasn't sure what to say. I was thinking maybe this was a trick question. I said, "yes". It was about 9:30pm. But hey, we were going to be wild this Saturday night. We dropped Lyn off at home and headed up to see if we could win some $$$. No such luck, but we had fun. One thing though..I hate the boat on a Saturday night. It was so busy. I could barely find a free machine. And when I did I seemed to be next to the oddest people. This one lady started touching my machine. Now, I explained to Laura that when you are in the casino touching someone else's machine is like touching their body. She was trying to show me how to get the machine to pay out. I watched her for about ten minutes and realized.."this woman has a problem". You should have seen her slamming the buttons down. At this same machine this one lady walked by when I won 40 credits. (25 cent machine) She was like "wow". I didn't think it was that big of a deal. She sat down at the machine next to me and within five mintues won 920 credits. Damn her. I cashed out and went to find another machine.

Now I could say we won $10,000, but that would be a cruel April Fools joke. (sorry Lyn) All in all it was fun.

Garage Door & Summer is Here!!!

I am proud to introduce our new garage door. I am so excited. (don't know why) Here are some pictures from our busy day.
Here is our old door. I was not sad to see it go. It was about 10 years past retirement.
Here is our new door!!!! Isn't she beautiful. And she is so quiet. I love it, love it!!!
It's official...Summer is here!! As they were putting in the new door I mowed the lawn. Can you believe how green the grass is???
Here's where you will find Laura between June-the end of August. It's amazing how comfortable this hammock is. Last year about this time, we bought this and our table/chairs for our anniversay. We decided that if we can't live at the beach we will bring the beach to us.

Tomorrow (weather permitting) we will hang all our little yard signs. Some say, "beach this way" and another says "living on the porch". We need to get out our Tiki torches. I think I like summer more then I thought. For lunch today we fired up the grill. Our neighbor came out and said, "I was in the basement and couldn't figure out why my house smelled like lighter fluid." Because we grill so much in the summer she realized WE were the reason her house smelled like a grill. There's nothing better then something cooked out on the grill.

All day today I have been playing it through my head what we will be doing in exactly one week. One week from right now we should be at our resort heading off to dinner. OH MY GOD!!!!!!!! It doesn't seem possible. I remember thinking last fall when we were taking down all our summer stuff that it when we bring this stuff back out we would be heading for Florida. It seemed so far away. Now it's simply 7 days. 172 hours. Wow. Today we got out all our summer clothes and washed them. I apologize to all of you that have had to put up with me talking about this trip for six months now. It will soon (not too soon though) be over and I will move to other things like: remodeling our bathroom.