So today Colby catapulted (haha, get it??) to the spot of “most expensive single vet trip of the house.” I mentioned last month, Colby needed to have his teeth cleaned because they were pretty awful. so I dropped him off this morning and headed into work.

Mid way through the day I got a call from the vet saying she took x-rays and Colby would not not one, but TWO teeth extracted. Ugh. How did he go from being fine one year to needing two teeth extracted the next?! The vet said he had Feline Oral Resporptive Leisons which cannot be repaired but no one is sure what causes them. Great. Also, when I got the pictures after I picked him up it looks like it was the back molar-ish teeth that got pulled. Poor kid! Good thing he doesn’t bother to chew his food…

So the poor cat is now wandering around the house wailing like he’s lost. Layne isn’t as interested in him as she was in Tili, but I think Gouda is picking up the slack. I also think it looks like his face is a little swollen and he was given pain meds for the next like five days.

And lastly, as I’m laying in my bed watching DVR’d Olympics from last night, Colby just tried to jump onto the chest at the end of my bed and failed miserably.

SO drugged!

On Monday we went to Dupont Forest. My dad had rented four bikes we were stopping on the way to pick up. Four of them were going to ride bikes, and four of us were going for a walk. One of us was too hung over to leave the house in the morning, but I won’t name names.

So before we headed down the path we talked to a couple of guys who had just come out of there with their dogs. They told us not to take the first left onto Triple Falls because if we kept going and kept making lefts after it we would come back around in a circle and see the falls on the way out.

I’m not sure if we missed a left or what, but 1.5 hours later we were about 2 miles up the road (actual street, not forest path) from our parking lot and we had seen no falls.

The walk itself was really nice. We saw a great covered bridge, and even spotted a deer, although without knowing where to look in that picture I really never would have seen it! Otherwise we spent a LOT of time looking at the ground trying not to step on horse crap. Sort of a bummer when you can’t look at the scenery on your scenic walk because there is a LOT of horse crap.

We wound up walking from the upper parking lot to see Hooker Falls while those from our party on bikes road back down the street to get the cars.

It’s a pretty nice park, but it would have been even nicer had there been a map or something you could take with you on your walks instead of having to look at the big map that only appeared in parking lots and hoping you remember the path names as you’re walking.

Today is our second anniversary!

To celebrate tonight, Nate is going to his first day of class this semester and I am going to bed at 8pm to help recover from the shock of having to get up to come to work this morning.

Actually we’re going to wind up doing what we did last year. Taking a delayed trip to the Biltmore for the Christmas candle light tour again. Even though we just spent a day there last week it was enough to make us want to go back again for a whole weekend.

I know you’d maybe think going there would get sort of old or something, but I really just love it, and fortunately he seems to like it pretty well too!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080812/people_nm/lennon_killer_dc_1

I hope he rots. Maybe it makes me a bad person, maybe it’s not even what Lennon would have wanted, I don’t know. But I personally would not be sorry if they let this man into general population. Fear for his safety my ass.

Nothing like opening your laptop after your mom used it to find IE open to your website. Hi Mom! I’ve been slack about updating. I know.

Vacation is awesome so far. Lots of loafing at the pool. Hit some golf balls (poorly) at the driving range, took the longest walk ever at Dupont Forest, which wasn’t quite how I pictured it, but it was still fun. I’ll talk more about it later once I get some of my pictures uploaded. I’ve already pulled a lot of them off the camera, but I want to wait until I have all of them so I can make sure I only upload the really good ones and I don’t upload 500 pictures of my vacation when people really only wanted to see like 3.

ANYWAYS!

It’s now 12:17am and for those of you who know my or visit here often it is SO far past my bed time I don’t know how I’ll get up in the morning. We’re expecting Nate’s brother to arrive around 1-2am with his wife and children although Nate will be the only one waiting up for them because I am freaking dead tired.

The men are outside smoking cigars now. I can hear them laughing every now and then and it sort of makes me laugh too, because I can tell by the tone that someone just did or said something completely idiotic and I only wish I’d heard them too! I tried a couple of the cigars and I could tell a difference, but I still fail to see the point. I’ve been taught not to inhale cigars, but doesn’t that defeat the purpose of smoking in general? I’m pretty sure if I was to inhale I’d just choke and cough and hack, but that’s just a guess.

Oh, and this year we didn’t go to the Outer Banks. After two years in a row we decided to go to the mountains instead. It’s been really fun and a nice change, but I think we’ll be back at the beach next year. We’ll see!

ANYWAYS (again).

More to come later. More fun stuff about drunk karaoke (my completely awesome parents have a karaoke machine), and laying by the pool, and hopefully horse riding and a trip to the Biltmore are coming up. And there was a visit with my grandparents which just makes me laugh and want to cry all at the same time, so plenty to say, just… not enough awake-ness to do it right now!

PLUS! I’d really like to wait for the pictures (for some stories) to help illustrate me point. I hope everyone is enjoying their work week this week while I’m off, in the mountains, not working, sleeping late, and drinking probably more than I should.

Of course I wound up at work 40 minutes after I wanted to leave the day before I’m off for a week, because isn’t tha always how it works?!

Anyways, FINALLY it’s here! Vacation! Packing is hard and am I bringing enough stuff, too much stuff, will I get there and realize I forgot something important? I think you if you saw everything we’re bringing with us you’d say “too much!” but I figure better safe than sorry.

The pets are all set to go. The cats have someone checking on them and the dogs are going to Pupsi, as always. I hope they have fun! I just love that we’ll pick them up and they’ll sleep for the next 3 days due to exhaustion. It’s pretty awesome.

I’m also bringing my laptop with me. Is that wrong?

And fun, really really fun, but also? Really really hard.

A long long time ago (middle school) in a (not so) far away state (Georgia) I played tennis on a regular basis. On a team even. And it was fun. I don’t remember if I was really good at it or not, but I think I didn’t suck at it, so that’s something.

When we moved here I didn’t play because I was in the marching band and marching band practice conflicted with (and was WAY more important than) tennis. (If you find yourself with the urge to make fun of my marching band history I suggest you suppress it!)

So anyways, I played a few times in college, but otherwise I haven’t really played since I was 14. Recently Nate and I have started playing with friends. Recently, as in last Saturday. And we’ve played four times since then. I hate being away from the house so much in the evenings and the dogs being stuck in their crates, but I really do love playing tennis. Even if it’s 5000 degrees outside.

So I’m freaking exhausted now! And now? I definitely lean towards the side of “suck” on the skill scale, but hopefully I’ll get back into the swing of things pretty quickly! Today the four of us even rented a ball machine to practice. Even the ball machine kicked our asses!

But! It was fun. And it’s great exercise and exercise being fun is SO important.

Yay tennis!

So it turns out that it was just a bad cable from the wall to the splitter that had gone bad last week. That’s what caused us to lose phone and internet service for around 24 hours. I was SO convinced it was the modem I never even thought to check and make sure all of the cables were still working. You know, since the TV and the phone/cable came from the same outlet, why would one work and not the other? Even as he was replacing it I was skeptical because it’s a cable. I mean can a cable really stop working over night, just like that, for no reason at all? And apparently the answer is “yes” because after he checked like 5 other things and he replaced the cable it all works fine!

I know the fact that it works should make me happy all by itself, but I can’t help but feel a little foolish for having the cable repair guy come out to replace a bad cable. I’d like to think I’m at least competent enough to handle that much!  (Or maybe I’m not!)

Recently at dinner Nate and I have been seeing a few different birds hanging out in our back yard. I really enjoy watching the birds, although I wish once in a while they would sit a little closer and hold still for a picture, but I guess that may be asking too much.

Anyways!

On Monday I saw a bird land on our fence and start squawking, and then open its mouth. Then I saw another bird land next to it and stuff something in its mouth. Adorable, huh? A baby bird being fed on my fence! Nature! Up close, right in my back yard! Yay!

So last night I heard the same squawking and went over to look and this time I saw the baby bird (who, frankly, looks exactly like the adult bird, except louder) and the parent bird. Only this time I caught the parent bird trying to pick up a tomato off the ground. About 20 feet from the tomato plant so I’m like 99.9% sure the bird dropped the tomato in the first place. So once the tomato was recaptured both birds flew off.

I mean, I’ve been thinking about getting a bird feeder for a while now. I’ve been torn though because I don’t want squirrels and with the size of our yard and potential locations of the feeders, the fence, our trees and deck I don’t think a place in the yard exists where we could put a feeder and not have a squirrel on it.

Little did I know that I already had a bird feeder.

And if that wasn’t enough a bird actually had the nerve to attempt a tomato plant landing while I was out in the yard watering my veggies! It started swooping down towards the bush until it saw me turn around and then it did an immediate U-turn and landed on the neighbor’s roof where it could watch me walk around the yard.

So then, just when I thought I’d seen the worst of it, I got home from work yesterday and went outside to check my tomatoes. And I WAS WRONG. There, on the ground, next to the planter and about 90% eaten was my biggest tomato. The only one off the big plant that had started turning red, and the bird knocked it off the plant and ate it. (I have two plants with regular sized tomatoes and two that grow the tiny ones). So I carried the tomato up onto the deck to show Nate, only while I was in the house two birds came over and tried to fly off with it! So I went out and chucked it over the fence. Then I thought that maybe I should have put it back up on the deck and taken pictures. If they’re going to eat my tomatoes I could at least use it to my advantage! But no, I was not the smart.

The nerve of some birds!

Of course it helps that Nate is all giving me a hard time now because I wanted the birds to come closer and I wanted to feed and bathe them (I want a bird bath), and now that I’m actually feeding them they’re seriously pissing me off!

And also, on a sort of funny note, last night when I was letting the dogs out before bed (at around 10pm) I walked over to look at my tomato plant and I seriously almost screamed. There was a slug. The BIGGEST slug I’ve ever seen in my life. And it was inching its way along the side of the INSIDE of my planter. I mean I wasn’t even near accidently touching it (which seriously may have given me a heart attack) and it freaked me the hell out. I glanced around for a big stick or something so I could try to pull it off, but even the thought of that was too much for me so I ran inside to tell Nate. Thinking he was going get the slug away from my tomatoes. WRONG! (again). He was all like “Really? Gross.” And he was also definitely NOT going out there to remove the slug. I checked this morning and it’s gone, but knowing there was a slug outside that close to my tomatoes… to things that I plan on EATING. Ick.

So… I’ve been hearing people talk about Twitter. I kind of wondered what it was but I figured no way was I cool enough to join.

HA! I showed them!

Cynical Nymph sent me an invite and I immediately signed up.

It’s kind of fun and I’m sure it will be kind of addictive, so yay! Now I expect each and everyone one of you to sign up. Don’t make me actually fill out the invitation section, save me time! Go now!

Or actually… maybe do wait until I send you an invitation because while I may be cool enough to use twitter (ha!) I am in no way smart enough to figure out how to add the cute little squares with people’s icons into my Following section but I’m sure there must be a way.

Is anyone else watching Fear Itself this summer? I was kind of excited about it and we’ve watched a couple episodes so far, but so far I’m not overly impressed. Especially after watching the most recent episode, Community.

As soon as someone said something about a “perfect” neighborhood all I could think about was the X-Files, and how I’d seen this one before and it was called Acadia.

And while they weren’t quite the same thing, both of them are about a super strict and crazy HOA.

Fortunately mine is not super strict or crazy. Unfortunately right now mine is pretty much also non-existent. I called the management company but they claim that they haven’t really been given authority from the developers yet so the developers are in charge of things like the common area that is like 99% weeds now and they said that so far the developers aren’t being especially cooperative and don’t seem especially receptive to suggestions and questions from the management company. So now I have to figure out what I can do to get their butts in gear because this is a nice neighborhood and I’m tired of looking at my neighbor’s trash can parked in their front  yard next to their driveway where it’s been for the last month!

Monday night I went to Nate’s soccer game and then we went to dinner with the team afterwards which put me in bed a little later than I’d like.

Tuesday.. Umm.. I don’t really remember Tuesday. Probably means nothing happened. Probably.

Wednesday, another soccer game, another after game outing. Only this was the last game of the season so this outing lasted WAY longer than I was hoping. I got to bed around 11. I’m sure most of you are like “wuss” or whatever, but getting up at 5:30 after going to bed at 11 hurts!

Thursday? I have no idea what we did. No clue. Probably, again, means nothing in an attempt to recover from the rest of the week, but I didn’t feel especially recovered.

Friday we went to see the X-Files movie. Which I really enjoyed and Nate “didn’t hate” so I’d call that a success. Then we came home, cooked dinner and went to bed before 10.

Saturday we did habitat for humanity in Siler City. In July. It started at 8:30am and Ted and Jennifer picked us up around 7:15 with breakfast. It was fun, I would totally do it again, but I would definitely rethink the “July” and “really hot” part of the equation. I worked outside most of the time painting siding. The painting wasn’t bad. It was the bending, lifting, carrying, bending, putting down, painting, bending, lifting, stacking part that got me. By a little after lunch I couldn’t take the heat any more and a few of us switched off to work inside for what was probably only an hour or so more of work.

Then we got home and had to get cleaned up real quick to go to dinner for my mom’s birthday. It was at the Red Room in Raleigh, which I’d never been to, but it was really good!

So today we’ve been taking it easy and I’m starting to be in serious denial about the fact that it’s almost 8pm and the day is almost over and tomorrow I have to go back to work but I really think I need another weekend to recover from my weekend!

Yeah, so I’m a dork. I’m going to see the movie tomorrow at 4:20 after work. I even went by today and bought tickets on my way home. I’m psyched.

It had better not suck.

I have moderately high hopes! Plus if it sucks I’ll feel at least a little bad for dragging Nate along with me.

I have placed an order for a quarter of a cow. The only thing that stopped us from getting the entire half a cow is the part where it says “most if not all of a 15cu.ft. freezer,” and our freezer is not quite that big, and not empty. So quarter cow it is!

I’m kind of excited! Is that weird? I mean look at me, growing (some of) my own vegetables, eating locally raised cow, now all I need are some chickens in my back yard and I’ll be set!

I think the dogs would appreciate the chickens. I don’t think the chickens would appreciate the dogs though.

So tonight I got on elliptical machine for the first time since we’ve moved into this house.

Truthfully? It’s probably been longer than that, but I refuse to believe that it’s been 4.5 months since I’ve used it, much less any longer!

And you know what I discovered? Exercising again after not doing it for a few months… it kind of hurts. I forgot about that part.

So I figure 4.5 months is long enough to “get settled” in (considering it only took us a few weeks to actually unpack) so hopefully I’ll be getting my lazy butt back in gear now.

And also I’ll have to see if I can see the big TV in the bonus room from the elliptical machine (it’s in the dog room) or if I need to ask Nate and my dad to run a cable outlet into the room for me, because exercising without TV is almost too painful to take!