randomizing

its saturday, and my second four day weekend in a row. i have a few more days vacation around Christmas, and then the year begins all over again. i like saturdays. the world opens up to me on saturday.

yesterday i washed the canine and feline kanji off the windows while the beau organized the computer room. he isnt done yet, but he made much progress. this room hadnt been really organized since we moved in, because we were focused on the rest of the house first.

nosomi is in the hallway singing to her plastic milk carton ring. she loves to carry it around and caterwaul. its ridiculously funny. the feline hierarchy has turned out as i predicted. thor loves her, and they play together all the time. gizmo doesnt like her, but he doesnt like any of the other cats too much. maggie sometimes likes her and attempts to play, and sometimes is her little psycho self and runs up at her, hisses, and runs off. nosi is likely to let out a most unearthly banshee screech at such times. usually late at night. cinnamon just keeps track of every one, and then wants to play with us.

i went out once yesterday to price an iron arch i had seen in a shop near here. it looks like a good item to make the head board i need so i can turn the bed diagonal in the bedroom. they are asking $249 for it. i am still considering it. its a black wrought iron, simple, and about the right size. i didnt measure it, although i probably should have. it looks right. a regular head board for a king sized bed will be too wide. the problem is how to attach it so it will be a back for the pillows, since the bed wont be flush up against the wall. hmmm …

the weather has finally gotten cold, and the sky this morning is overcast. much to my liking. its not that i dont like the sun. i just get tired of it. cloudy days offer a whole other feeling to the world. i welcome the cold as well. now i can get out my boots, my sweaters, and the long stockings that i love.

today i must tackle the remaining few boxes in the front room. with them cleared out, i can finally finish putting up mirrors and pictures, and get my workout room ordered to my liking. the beau probably thinks i have lost interest in my treadmill. but i havent. that, like everything else, has to have a routine for it. i am looking forward to getting this last thing done. pictures to come, of course.

i am pleased to say that i have maintained my 15lb loss of weight, and am about to shed more. i have a goal to reach 130lbs. i like that weight. one of my coworkers believes once you reach a certain age certain things have to happen. i do not subscribe to that thinking. i believe all things are possible to him who believes.

well, im off to my tasks.

almost settled :)

this quiet green reflects how i feel at last. there are still a few things to put away, or hang, or find a place for. there is mail to sort, warrantees to file, magazines to read or put somewhere. and there is still some sweeping to do in the front room. but for the most part, its home now. and i love it. i look around me every day, and thank God for this beauteous place. its beginning to sink in that its really mine.

sammy is at the vets today, having had her teeth cleaned. the doc also took a bone marrow sample to send off for review, as she has become quite anemic. i find myself bracing, knowing every day with her is a gift these days. the results should be back in a couple of days, they tell me. as always, as long as she tells me she wants to live, i will continue to do what i must to help her to be at her best. i still use my faith as my primary, nay, really my only source of help. but if she gets tired, when she is ready, i will let her go. i wont keep her here just to soothe my feelings.

on a lighter note, nosomi is fitting in fine. there are still some kinks to be worked out in the order of cats, but mostly everything is settled. gizmo tried his paw at putting her in her place a week ago, feeling a bit jealous he was. he stalked her three times before they lit into each other. she promptly kicked his butt. a bit humbled, he has given her as much respect as he is capable of since.

cinnamon is doing fine as an only dog. she keeps tabs on the cats, and has the run of most of the house during the day. now its the cats who have their own room, and are kept in it while we are at work. seems to be working out well.

today, tomorrow, and wednesday i have off, so i am getting little details taken care of around the house. and the beau has many items to list, so his evenings will be spent on line for the next few days.

i have missed my time here, and while im home i quite plan to make up lost time! pictures to be forthcoming.

back soon

we got moverd in to the new house in one weekend. what a job that was! im about half unpacked, and things are going well. this weekend i will tell you all about it.

sad news. bougar passed away three days after we moved in. she was an old dog, and her liver finally gave out. she died peacefully in the living room, about 530am last wednesday, with lee and me with her. she had a good life with us, and lived a long time. she was a happy dog, even when her hips were hurting her. we will see her again, but for now she waits for us at the rainbow bridge, with sing and spook and goldie. probably chasing sing.

island of misfit toys

my household is made up of misfits. that term conjures up mental images of the outcast and the maladjusted, the one who is always at odds with society. but in my house it isnt quite that way. rather, we are missfitted, but only in society’s accepted concept of fitting. in God’s eyes we are not so badly fitted at all.

in the old animated movie ‘rudolf the red nosed reindeer’ there is a place called the island of misfit toys. these toys are made all skrewy, and dont perform quite the way the others do. the most notible for me was always the doll with no name, who seemd on the outside to have nothing wrong with her. and yet nobody wanted her. so she was found on the island of misfit toys.

well in my household it isnt quite so forlorne. we are simply a motley crew of fits that miss.

you already know a bit about our most recent member, nosomi, formerly known as ms nibbles. she has a cleft palate, and might be a little - slow- but thats to be determined. having a mother who ingested people drugs - likely anti-psychotics - while kittens were in the oven, would make anyone a bit misfitting. her funny face is the most charming thing about her. well, that and her attitude. she already acts right at home, finding that the other cats and dogs here wont chase her off and pick on her.

then there is thor. also about five, and a big rugged boy with a sissy little ‘mee?’ voice. he loves the old kitties, and catered to spook when he was with us. now he is sammys bodyguard, and runs in any time gizmo acts like he wants to pick on sammy. he has a temper, but it is a flash in the pan, and he holds no grudges.

maggie is the psycho princess. six or seven year old adorable fluffball that can be so affectionate one minute, and flying off the next as if she has been threatened and insulted all in one move, and then looks back at you like ‘hmmpf! well!’ this often happens if she is on my lap, and i am so crude as to adjust my legs a bit. moments later she will be right back.

gizmo is the prima donna prince. saucey, sassy, and full of himself, he really thiks the world is here for his entertainment and convenience. in the morning he is there in the bathroom waiting for the water in the sink to be turned on for his drink. the he must be petted, and if he is not, he will tap you with his paw until you respond. the sink is his throne. he disdains every other cat. he would rather be run over by a running dog and complain about it than move out of the way. it is beneath him to move for dogs.

sammy is the reigning queen. even though she may not be strong enough to enforce her rule, only gizmo ever challenges it. and then thor is there to defend his dolly. the dogs think she smells like metamucil, and maggie is afraid of her.

cinnamon, a rescue dog of unknown age (maybe 5-6) is a goofy who knows what kind of dog. she seems to be part redbone hound, and maybe lab or shepherd. she is wild and crazy, loves to please but is so full of energy she could be the poster child for ADHD research. she is a smart dog. just lacking in common sense sometimes.

bougar is not so smart, but big on happy and loyal. she adores daddy, and i dont exist when he is in the room. ill be glad when her legs are strong again. she hates tomatoes.

a funny turtle, who after how many years now? still hisses at us on first approach. he loves slugs and worms, and various fruits and vegetables. funny old turtle. hates his winter glass box. even turtles get bored.

all that remains are two ringneck snakes, and three mice. i guess theyre pretty nominal, but the mice dont seem to want to be tamed. ok. fine.

the beau is my prime pet. ahaha! he is not the social type. but that suits me fine. he doent bring home weird guys from work. he is hyper sensitive to the security of the neighborhood, and better at squashing potential problems then the local police … who never show up until the problem is long gone anyway. we like to spar sometimes. he thinks its fun, and i learn self defense. i have thrown him a couple of times. i dont do things conventionally.

well that brings me to me. convention has never suited me. i dont dance to my own drummer … i do my own drumming. then i dance. dance, because i dont march. maybe thats why God called me the way He did. someone has to be able to get into those really weird places, and be able to talk to people of the more strange sort. i can. but God has had to really open my heart to receive from Him first. this was the hardest thing for me. overcoming the ‘feelings’ of ‘dont deserve it’ first. even then i wasnt conventional. most people feel they dont deserve something because of what they have done, or what they are. me? my biggest hang up has been confidence that i could receive. i could believe. but could i receive? or would i f*ck it up? well im finding that God can help me receive, even when i thinki i might mess it up and miss. God is so much bigger than me. and He wants me to be blessed more than i want to be blessed. people dont get that part about God. but i find it easy to understand, not being of the ‘normal Christian’ sort. God is King, and Lord, no doubt about it. but He is not hard to talk to.

anyway, the point is, no one in this house is fitting according to social norms. but im finding that to be an asset after all.

signed, sealed …

yesterday on my lunch break i went to the mortgage company, ironically named ‘first mortgage’ and signed all the papers, and handed the mortgage broker a check for the appraisal. later in the day i called the car insurance guy for a quote on home owners insurance. the closing is the 5th of october. i guess all that remains is to give my landlord notice. since we have a month deposit, we can give him his rightful 30 days, and use that time to move in. not that it will take that long. the beau wants to move in one trip. that shouldnt be a problem. next on the agenda is to pick out a refrigerator, washer/dryer combo, and a shower door for the bath tub. id like to get a large rug for the bedroom too. then get some curtains, and we’re set. i am planning on using the front room for dancing and workouts. i do not need two living rooms.

next item up is nosomi. i think i can bring her home today! the biopsy showed no cancer (i knew it would), and no fungus (i figured that too). seems to be a bacterial infection, with inflammation. the clindamycin should take care of that. and faith. i will get pictures of her today.

bougar continues to improve. she seems to have cracked a few teeth chewing her nylabones, and wont eat her dry food anymore. so she is getting the canned food sammy had left over, as sammy now prefers the dry version of her diet. so its all getting used.

leave me a loan!

today i will decide on which mortgage company i will go with. i have it narrowed down to my bank and a local mortgage company. on the advice of the beau, i had the two lenders speak with the seller about the closing costs they wanted him to pay for me. after their discussion, i was offered a much better deal. understandably, he didnt want to pay more than is required, and i knew he wouldnt. but it was so much better to let them discuss it among themselves, and then i dont look the fool for asking the ridiculous. as it stands, i can finance a large portion of the closing costs too. this is going to work out nicely! and i have learned so much. i have a better head for money issues now. i always have been a late bloomer.

bougar is much better, although her hips still seem to hurt her quite a bit. she falls a lot in the morning, when her back legs are still stiff from sleeping. so we stay close to her when we take her out in the morning, to help her when she is trying to do her business. still, i believe even this will succumb to the power of the Word of God.

we should get the results of the biopsy that was done on the new kitty, to see what needs to be done for her skin problems. then we can take her home, get her cleaned up, and begin integrating her into the fold. her funny little upper lip! as soon as i get some pictures, i will get them posted.

im so excited!

the house, the dog, and the new cat

 

well, we decided on a house last week, signed a purchase agreement, and set the closing date. we plan to be in before halloween. we looked at two houses last sunday, but the second one was the one. actually, we both felt that way before we ever saw the inside, when we had driven past it a week earlier. all that remains is to pick a lender, and sign the loan agreement. i have learned a great deal about house buying this week. *deep breath*

i can barely contain my excitement, however! its a really beautiful house. the owners bought it and redid the inside, so its really nice. the kitchen has new appliances in black and steel, except for no refrigerator. the bath room is also redone with new tile, and a cool brass sink. ok, so its got a lot of yellow, and i would never have picked yellow. but if thats the only thing i can find i dont like, well … i can live with yellow. i will add blue and black that i already have. and maybe some green. or red. or both. or neither. the floors in both rooms are this tuscany tile. very old world. i like that. once we have moved in, and i get some of the decor going, i will show it off in the album.

bougar is better. her liver is healing, being an organ that can regenerate itself. of course we stood on the promises of God for her to recover. we also have a good vet, and know a little about natural healing as well. i have never thought faith was compromised by these things. what compromises faith is unbelief. to use natural methods in case faith doesnt work, for me thats never really believing in the first place. faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. vets and doctors, and natural remedies, i use my faith that they will be of some use. it has helped my animals be more comfortable while waiting in faith. it gives me something to do to act on my faith, for faith without works is dead. so, bougar is recovering, and we are believing the arthritis will be removed from her body as well. her legs need their strength back, so she can run and climb steps, and not slip and fall on the wood floors. and not be in pain.

we are taking in a cat whose owner cannot care for. she is an adorable girl, very sweet and loving. she has a skin problem that we are working to get cleared up before we bring her home. but the thing about her that makes her a little different is a birth defect. apparently her mother got into some pills, that is the theory. no one knows for sure. the whole litter had something wrong with them. hers is a cleft palate. it doesnt seem to hinder her ability to eat and lick as cats do. it just gives her a goofy kind of cute look. so … we have named her nosomi. japanese for *hope*. pictures to come.

in other news:

 

 

my son went off to iraq for his second tour. he will be mostly overseeing the work places and living places of the platoon he is with. he explained it to me, but i dont have a real clear idea. i just know he wont be in the battle front, such as it is. never the less, again my faith is hotly deployed with him, and the men of his squads. i have stood on the promise of isaiah 43:5 ever since the first hint he might go.

Fear not, for I am with you;
      I will bring your descendants from the east,
      And gather you from the west;

 

and i will not come off my stand on this, and on psalm 91. my God is faithful!

 

my new grand daughter will be born in december some time. i am hoping to find means to go visit her for a couple of days. my vacation days are all scheduled, but i can take a few personal days for this. we will see.

 

 

as summer wears on

this was a long four days at work. it seems like when you have a holiday three day weekend, you get five days of stuff on the following four days at work. and us with one person on vacation all week. ya! but next week i have a four day week again, because im taking friday off. so that will make up for it. i scheduled a visit to my doctor friday to see why this bump i incurred five weeks ago, on my shin just above my ankle, wont go away. i think i may have a bone chip. the beau and i had an argument that evening, and i was trying to take a shower and forget about it. i guess i bumped my shin on the tub. i really dont know what i did to it. all i know is the next day i had a painfull bruise and a hard little bump on my shin the next morning, and it hasnt resolved itself. stupid briuse.

then there is bougar. our funny old chow. she has lost some weight in the last month, and was acting like she didnt feel good. the vet did an ultrasound, and it showed that her liver and her spleen have nodules. the vet seems to think they started in the spleen and metastasized to the liver. friday she had a needle biopsy and an aspirate to check the liver and spleen tissues, and the fluid in her abdomen. we will get the results early next week. but our stand as soon as we knew there were health issues was to stand on psalm 145, as we have for the cats in times past. God opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living creature. bougar qualifies as a living creature. her desire is to be well. ask, she’ll tell you. we have received that from the open hand of God. she will be fine. this will pass.

this morning we had a raucous storm. it blew through around 2:30am, and rained hard on everything. by 5:30am, when i took the beau to work (had to work this saturday), there were garbage cans and branches, stalled cars and standing water everywhere. after a storm, its a surreal and strange trek to the west side of tulsa and back early in the morning. it almost feels like a nightmare, except im not scared. i am rarely ever scared. but it is strange to drive my routine route to take him to work on those early days when he has to be there at 6am, and there is so much weird stuff on the roads going and coming. and its still dark, so its even stranger. later, after i had couple hours more sleep, i found an electrical problem. seems when i had more than one major thing on the lights blinked a lot. the air and the computer. the fans and the blow dryer. sometimes just the air or the blow dryer. so i called PSO, and they resolved the problem. weather covers. i think they are little shield things that protect the connections where the main lines and the transformers hookup. they replaced them, and no more problems. happy me.

tomorrow we are going to look at two houses for sale in our neighborhood. and we are getting miss nibbles. the comic book store owner where the beau goes most fridays after work has this sweet kitty that he keeps at the store. she really has personality. trouble is, the cats he has at home wont accept her. so he has been keeping her at the store. but they are about to expand the store space, so her environment is going to shrink. besides, she has been getting upset at being alone at night at the store. so we are taking her. she’s a lovely little tortishell shorthair with skin allergies. thor will love her right off. he loves every one. gizmo will not like her. he doesnt like anyone except people. maggie, it will depend on what day it is. the dogs will love to have another cat. and sammy wont care either way. whats one more?

tomorrow i will take pictureas of the new cat and the houses we look at. i will post them as soon as i can.

update on the update

well we went and saw the house. i was kind of disappointed. its hard not to get a little excited when the discription sounds so desirable, and the pictures dont quite tell the whole story.

it is a cute house, no doubt. there were a lot of features i liked about it. it has a box window the cats would have loved. it has beveled glass cabinet doors. it has loys of windows, and they hav all been replaced with aluminum frames and lock in two places each. and there is great potential to decorated how one likes. the yard is nice, and with a little extra seeding could be very lush.

the down side is its way too small. there are termites inder the crawl space access to beneath the house. when i asked the owner how cool the three window units kept it, she merely said ‘comforatble’ - comfortable to me is around 68º. there isnt much cabinet space, even if the doors are cute. there is a history of flooding in that area - it is rather close to the arkansas river, and not on high ground. it also happens to be directly across the river from sun oil refinery, which frequently creates a seriously pungent smell in the whole area.

then there is the neighborhood. we got there thirty minutes early, so we drove around in circles observing the activity that goes on there. i saw about a dozen people milling about here and there, walking around with no apparent direction, or hanging out on porches smoking and drinking beer. family people dont generally do that, even if it is a saturday. it was only 12:30. there was an odd mix of very nice little houses, and dilapitated boarded up shacks. there were a lot of old pickups parked every where. not a neiborhood i want to deliberately move into.

i didnt take any pictures. im not taking the house.

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in other news:

bougar seems considerably better. still going to get the ultrasound to make sure of what we’re dealing with.

sammy is doing well on dry KD food, but seems to have developed an insatiable thirst since her most recent event. i still give her fluids subcu three times a week. safe to say shes hydrated …

i am thoroughly enjoying this three day weekend. its gotten really busy at work, and we’re hardly ever slow anymore. after a four day work week, and a weekend, and another four day work week, we will have another three day weekend. we have the 14th scheduled off. ahhh … vacation good.

so, im off to scout my current nieghborhood for houses for sale. i bet i find a good one.

updates

this has been a strange year weatherwise. it was so rainy this spring and into the early part of the summer. sad that a lot of people lost their homes and possesions during that time, when some of the creeks and ‘rivers’ overflowed their banks and flood neighborhoods. it finally got hot in late july and into august. it got pretty hot for the duration of the month, but has already started cooling down. this was also a year for several groups of cicadas to emerge, and the ragweed was early too. i dont know that much about cicadas. i just know there is more than one kind. one stays buried for seven years, one for thirteen, or something like that. i guess several emerged together this year. they always make the trees sound like theyre live with electricity. 

temps are starting to cool down now. im not disappointed that we had such a short summer. im relieved. today started out much cooler, even though it was a bit sticky still. its only 80º now, at 11:30am. it may get up around 90º+, but the trend is cooler.

bougar has had a bout with something. she lost some weight, and was acting like she didnt feel good. she has kinky hips anyway, and they bother her. but then she had some diarrhea, so we took her in for a check up. seems her liver enzymes were too high. wednesday she goes back for an ultra sound, and we are awaiting more results from blood tests. vet put her on liver pills, and it has made a difference. she acts like she feels better, and no more squirts. oh thank God for that! well, we thanked God for more than that, because as always we laid hands on her and claimed the promise in psalm 145:14-16

 

“the Lord upholds all that fall, and raises up all those that are bowed down.

the eys of all wait upon You, and You give them their meat in due season.

You open Your hand, and satisfy the desire of every living thing.“

 

later today, when the beau gets back from the postal office, we are going to look at a house for sale. its seems like a pretty good deal, and theyre asking $65k which is a great price even here. i wasnt looking for a house, because we are planning to move back to oregon/washington next year. but this one fell into my lap. my friend at work has a daughter who just got her real estate license, and although she isnt the realtor for this house, still told her mother who told me. so far im liking what i see. but im staying reserved until i see it, and find out a few more things. im going to take a few pictures.