Limber

We had plans on getting the rest of the limb pile transferred to the front yard today, we were going to do that when we got home.  But the City beat us to it, so there are no limbs in my front yard anymore.   I'm not complaining, by the way.  I wasn't really looking forward to hauling limbs around.  There are still some, but the bulk of what we had was already piled in the yard.  The City will pick up small amounts of limbs in the regular trash pick up, they have to be in 4' bundles and tied up but that's not a problem.  I'll probably get out to the limb pile on Sunday and get some of them ready to go for next Tuesday's trash pick up.

 

There was another hornet in the office today.  Same place as the last one, I got it out the same way but it was bigger.  And I could tell it was definitely a hornet and not a wasp.  We can't find any sign of a nest anywhere.  We think that they might be getting in when the garage door is opened and them coming in through the door from the garage when it gets opened.  We're going to look again tomorrow, but I don't think that they are nesting at the office itself.  Hope not, anyway!

 

Tomorrow is 9 years since we moved into this house.  We usually have a pizza, since that was our first meal here but I think we're going to skip it this time.  Otter's going to her anime convention this weekend, she'll be gone from Friday to Sunday.  Bill and I already have pizza plans for Friday evening.  And we'll probably make chocolate ice cream on Saturday.

 

Froggy, I'm still working on your crocheted "something."  I keep adding more things to the list of stuff to make for you, that's what is taking so long.  I am thinking that one particular item is going to be frogged out partially and redone, since I decided that I'm not happy with the way it turned out.  I know your birthday was Monday, but look at it this way:  you'll have longer to celebrate!

Still Out On a Limb

But not today!

 

We had planned on getting the rest of the limbs shifted to the front today, but it's very windy and Bill doesn't want me to be out in it.  Wind like this can (and has) cause me to have significant allergy and/or asthma issues.  So I'm listening to him (for once!) and staying inside this evening.  We also could get rain tonight, and it's very cloudy.

 

I called the City today, and after many tries I managed to get through.  I felt sorry for the poor girl who answered, she sounded so overwhelmed.  Basically, they don't know when they will start the pick-up process, they are giving people a few days to call in.  But they hope to get it all done within about 3 weeks.  Yes, they will pick up any limbs they see so if people haven't called in they will still have their limbs picked up - IF they are on a street where other neighbors have called in.  Since it's still going to be a few days at least, we're probably ok to let the rest of our limbs wait.  We might get them tomorrow, it depends on the weather.  But if by some miracle they do get them tomorrow, we don't have that many left and we'll be able to put them out with our normal trash pick-up.  They'll have to be in smaller bundles and tied together, but that won't be an issue.

 

Bill did mow the back yard as soon as he got home.  Just from a couple of days ago, it's already grown quite a bit.  If we do get more rain in the next few days, it's going to be even longer.

 

Otter's busy working on her costumes for the even she's going to this weekend.  She's sewing a red skirt and a white one, then she's got a few other pieces she's working on.  Two of her costumes have horns, one of her friends made them for her for very little $$ and Otter attached them to headbands.  She has wigs for each costume, there are 3 in all.  Two of them have full-face makeup, I'll eventually get some pictures of Otter in cosplay.  She just won't be recognizable!

Out on a Limb

(The pictures loaded out of order, for some reason.)

 

Anyway.  This is what we've been doing today:

Piling limbs!

The city finally announced that they will be picking up limbs.  We still have to call them and let them know, which makes no sense whatsoever.  The limbs have to be 8' or shorter and piled by the street.  But not in the street (obviously), not too close to mailboxes or street signs, etc.  The limb piles are bigger than they look.

 

We've been piling limbs in a corner of the back yard for a while, mostly it is storm damage.  Just not from one storm!  (The City doesn't care, they just want it to be tree debris and not trash.)  There are a few limblets that got trimmed and placed in the pile, but they were pretty small.  We're still not through, there are a few more.  Maybe one more pile or two, in the size we've put them in at the street.  They are bigger than they look in the pictures.

 

I'll call the city tomorrow.  Our neighbors all seem to be doing the same thing we are, there are more chainsaw sounds than anything else!

 

We found this in the back yard as well.  Spiderweb!

 

A really big one.
S

It was hanging between one of the trees in the back yard and one of the shepherd's hooks that I hang birdfeeders on.

It was taken yesterday morning, it was getting foggy and the web picked up any available light and reflected it.

Woodpile from today.  This is probably about 1/2 a rick, but it is maple so it will burn fairly quickly.  It's got a few months to age still.  The larger pieces came from the neighbor - he cut down an entire tree and put it in one of his limb piles but he gave us the big pieces.  There are a couple more pieces but I'm not sure if we'll get them or not.

 

No injuries!  And Bill even operated the chainsaw most of the day.  However, I do have billions of scrapes on my arms from dragging the limbs out to the curb.  Also, we have a few mosquito bites but some of them are from yesterday.  But we are going to be hurting tomorrow!  There were about a billion grasshoppers in the yard.  I saw one tiny frog.  Bill saw one mouse, it was running under the old limb pile.  And one dead spider, which I think had been there for a while.  No rats, which we thought might be in the woodpile.  And, probably more important - no snakes with rattlebutts!  We're still going to be cautious when we finish moving the old limb pile to the curb, which we'll probably do tomorrow after work.  That is, assuming that we can actually move.

 

Bill said that he felt like rigor mortis was setting in, he was beginning to be stiff.  I'm not looking forward to getting out of bed tomorrow.  You'll probably hear us screeching!

Tired. Friday.

Ate too much!

 

We went to El Chico for dinner tonight.  We seldom actually eat there, we usually just get fajitas to go.  Which isn't often, but the point is that we don't actually eat there very often.  It was good.  We ate too much.  We went to Hobby Lobby after dinner, but we didn't walk too much of the meal off.  :)

 

Anyway.

 

We did get rain early this morning, but not the hard rain that was forecast.  There was a little bit of localized street flooding in parts of Tulsa, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.  The rain gauge had 1 1/2" in it.  We've probably gotten close to 5" this week.

 

Bill's going to put in another rain barrel for me, actually he's probably going to put two in.  But I'm not sure when he's actually going to have time to.  We could have filled at least a dozen of them, this week.

 

Froggy's, birthday is Monday!  Froggy, I already told you that your card would be late - I'm still working on crocheted "stuff" but I have had no time at all since last Saturday to even think about crochet.  I'm going to remedy that tomorrow, possibly for several hours.

 

Bill mowed the front yard last night.  The back is already beginning to look like it is ready to mow again.  All the rain, I guess.

 

Today's excitement included a hornet.  INSIDE THE OFFICE.  I think it came in when I opened the front door.  I heard something but didn't know what it was, then I realized a few minutes later that what I heard was actually something evil.  Flying right by my head.  It went to one of the windows, it was probably going towards the light like they do.  It was a smaller hornet, but a small hornet is not exactly tiny!  After a little thought because I did NOT want to get stung, I figured that if I could get it to the floor I would be able to throw a paper towel over it and then smash it.  Problem was, it didn't want to go to the floor.  It was happy in the window.  It knew exactly where I was, it would occasionally raise it's wings up if I got closer than it thought I should.  I eventually got a broom and very very very slowly moved the broom until it was close enough that the evilness realized it needed to move.  It very slowly crawled to the corner of the windowsill and then it crawled up on the broom's bristles.  Which is when I carefully took it, broom and all, out to the garage (I'd already opened the door).  I was going to get it to the floor and then step on it, but it decided to fly off and it went right outside the open door.  I didn't see any sign of a nest anywhere, but it had to come from somewhere.  We've killed about 5 yellow jacket nests in the last several days, I sure hope that we don't have to deal with hornets now!

 

I know, this is a rambling post.  But it's been a long week and I am tired.  And overfed!

Tree Tales

We got our electricity back sometime yesterday, we were down less than 24 hours but there are still parts of the Tulsa area that are without it.  We don't usually have to wait as long as some areas do, which I think is because our lines are buried and when the lines leading to ours get fixed, that fixes ours.

 

We did not lose anything in the fridge or freezer.  I had been trying to get to the grocery store for days but hadn't made it yet.  Which is probably a good thing!  I did manage to get there today, Wallyworld was busy and running out of things.  Probably because a lot of people did lose things and are re-stocking.

 

We had a whole bunch of tree limbs to deal with.  It was not really light enough to tell when Bill left for work yesterday morning.  When Otter and I left, it was earlier than normal and I didn't spend a lot of time out in the back yard beyond standing out on the deck and checking the roof.  The roof seems to be fine, none of the limbs hit it as far as we can tell and the shingles all look good.  Bill said that there is a house not too far from where he works and it looks like just about all the shingles were peeled off of the roof - wind will do that!

 

We did discover that the gate was open.  We didn't discover that until we were hauling limbs around yesterday afternoon, which means that it was open the entire time the dogs were running in and out the back door yesterday morning.  It was obviously wind that forced it open, two pieces of the wooden slats were broken off but Bill was able to fix it.  He also got the back yard mowed yesterday, the grass was growing fast due to all the rain we've had and it already looks like it's on the verge of needing to be mowed again.  He mowed the front yard this afternoon.

 

The limbs are all piled up.  Tulsa is picking up limbs starting next week.  We don't live in Tulsa, we live near-ish to Tulsa.  Our area will be doing limited limb pick up but the residents have to request it and there are a lot of regulations.  We'll probably just start cutting the limbs to 4' lengths, binding them together and then putting them out with our regular trash.  They will pick them up that way as part of the regular trash pick-up.  But some of it will be cut up and put aside for firewood.

 

We could get more rain tonight.  We are already under a flash flood watch, but we are not supposed to get the high winds like we got Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.  That one was forecast, but it wasn't supposed to be anywhere near as bad as it actually was.

 

Like Bill always says, the forecasters couldn't predict a hole if they dug it themselves!

Weather Update

Bad storms came through Tulsa and surrounding areas overnight.  We were awakened by the power going out shortly after midnight.  I set one of the cell phone alarms to wake us up on time, but we were awake before it went off.

 

We have no power yet, the electric company is saying that it may be "days" until everyone is restored because its so widespread.  Like nearly to the Kansas border!  My office still has power, so I brought my laptop with me.  I also brought Otter with me, she had no desire to stay home in a dark, warm house.

 

Our power lines are buried, but the ones leading to us are not so we sometimes have power outages caused by problems in other areas.  We'll see how long it lasts, in the meantime we are actually ok.  Because the Borg Queen is always prepared.

 

We do have some tree damage, looks like we lost a lot of limbs in the back yard.  Nothing in the front yard, but most of our neighbors seem to have a lot of tree damage both front and back.  The tree limbs are all over my back yard but I could also see limbs that were broken off but were caught in the trees and not down yet.  Bill has been planning on mowing the lawn for 2 or 3 days, but it has rained every time he planned to mow.  Maybe today, although I think he'll probably be busy with tree limbs instead.

 

If the power isn't restored soon to our area, we might not be able to call long distance because of the cell towers.  If they go down, we won't be able to use the cell phones but we still have landline phones at home.  We'll be able to make local calls, just not long distance.

 

The dogs are unaffected, they didn't mind eating in the dark this morning.  They seemed to be happy with the fact that we had the doors open for fresh air, they spent a lot of time going in and out the back door.  Then, they curled up for a nap.

 

They might be on to something!

It's Monday?

I'm going to try to blog more often, ok Froggy?  But don't expect an entry every day!  However, I will try not to go a week between posts.

 

I also can't think of a good title today.  But it is Monday so I guess I'm not too far off. :)

 

We had an unexpected thunderstorm this afternoon.  Of course, I put the pink cactus back out this morning!  I checked it when I got home, it looks ok.

 

Otter and her boyfriend saw the new movie Pacific Rim today.  She said it was very good and that it was, as we had heard, patterned in general after the Godzilla movies.  It sounds like maybe they did this one right.

 

We're watching Men in Black on tv at the moment.  It's one of our favorites and always will be.  The 2nd one wasn't as good as the first, but the 3rd one was very good.  Of course, just about anything with Tommy Lee Jones will be good - TEXAS knows TEXAS, after all.

 

OK Froggy - you can't get after me for not blogging now. :)

Rainy Day Ramblings

Today's plans included Bill mowing the lawn.  However, the thunderstorm we woke up to changed that.  It was a nice sprinkle and it had just about quit by the time we got to church.  But about 1/2 way through the sermon, the skies opened up.  Church is in a metal building and it was noisy!  We got pretty soaked going to the car.

Of course, I forgot to move my pink cactus out of the way before we left.  So, I moved it up out of the rain after we got home and I got soaked again.  Bill did get to play in the rain as well, the rain gutter on the back of the house was overflowing.  So, he got the ladder out and cleaned out the gutter.

We had a couple of errands to run, so we took Otter to work today.  We need to replace the vent-a-hood over the stove so we went to Sutherland's to look.  They don't carry them, it turns out.  We have seen them at Lowe's, but were not impressed with the quality.  We might wind up back there, if we can't find one anywhere else.  We (Bill and I) also grabbed lunch at Taco Bueno.  We haven't eaten there in years, but it's improved quite a bit.

 

This is the current view from my back deck.  It's very close to their back fence.

We're going to plant crepe myrtles, 13 of them to be exact.  They will be about a foot out from the fence and we're going to try to get them this fall.  Fall is the time to plant them, same things as trees, but most places don't actually carry them then.  They are generally available in the spring, although spring is not the prime time to plant.  Planting in the fall gives them time for the roots to extend downward and that makes them stronger when the spring storms and wind roll around.  We might be able to find them locally, if not we'll probably be able to order them.  We're thinking we'll go with the medium range of crepe myrtles, then get 10 - 15 feet tall.  They spread out well.

 

Eventually, we will have privacy in our own back yard again.

UFO Sunday.

I've been working on UFO's lately. 

 

Specifically, I finished two UFO's.  I started a lap blanket for Bill several months ago and I got it finished this morning.  The crochet part of it was finished weeks ago, then I put it in the closet to finish lately.  And forgot about it!  I dragged it out yesterday and got started on the finishing touches, all it really needed was the tails to be done.  The tails process took longer than the actual crochet!  I'll get pictures posted on the crochet blog, as soon as I get around to uploading them to the computer.  The 2nd UFO was a similar lap blanket, one I made for Otter's use but it really just needed a couple of repairs to it.

 

Now that I've finished those two projects up, I'll have to come up with a new project.  Somehow, I don't think that will be a problem!

 

Bill's been finishing up two pachinko repair jobs, he's in the process of boxing the 2nd one up as I speak.  They will get shipped back to their owners sometime this week.

 

This morning, Bill got out with the ladder and a saw.  He put the ladder up against the tree and took the saw to the tree.  There were several limbs that had broken but hadn't come down, they were probably from a couple of storms ago but we didn't realize that they were so big or we'd have already gotten them down.  Bill looked in the tree yesterday and realized just how big they were.  Now they are piled on the side of the house until we get a chance to cut them up, some of them are firewood size.  No injuries!  (With Bill, he gets hurt just breathing!)

 

Frasier was going to get a bath today, but I don't have the energy to wrestle with him.  I'm sure Frasier is not terribly disappointed! :)

 

Otter's gone to one of her friend's houses, for a Dungeons & Dragons game.  They haven't gotten together to play in weeks.  She was armed with two bags of chips and a bottle of Mountain Dew.  We probably won't see her until sometime this evening.

 

OK, back to my laundry now!

Guess I Should Probably Update

It was Monday the last time I posted anything here.  I don't want Froggy to get after me! :)

 

It's just been a busy week, work is crazy but it generally is from about the 10th until the 15th or so.  I have a bunch of things that have to be done at a certain time on certain dates and that keeps me hopping.

 

It's been hot-ish.  By TEXAN standards, it's comfortably hot.  But the humidity this afternoon is really a problem for me.  If it wasn't humid, it would be tolerable.  Right around 100.  It wasn't too humid until this afternoon, and then it made up for the lack of humidity earlier in the week.

 

Otter and I went to the grocery store today.  She was off work today, I came home after I got off work and got her then we hit Wallyworld.  It was starting to get really cloudy by the time we got out of the store, we thought it was going to rain but now I'm thinking it's not going to.

 

Bill's been working on pachinko machine restorations for various customers.  He's been kept busy every second of the day when he's not at his actual job.

 

Just normal stuff, in other words!

 

OK, Froggy.  I did update.  So now you can't get after me about it.  :)

First Day Back at Work

And we survived!

 

It was so hard to get up this morning, I would have much preferred to sleep in.  Of course, last week I think I only managed to make it to 6:00 a.m. one day last week. :)

 

Today actually turned out to be a pretty good day.  Especially after I got back from lunch and discovered what my older boss called a "love note" on my desk - the official notice of my raise!  It was totally unexpected, in fact Bill and I were talking about our salaries over the weekend and I remarked that I'd probably reached about the top $ I could expect for a small company and I was already making more than I thought any other part-time job could pay.  Clearly, I was wrong about that.  Spectacularly wrong, in fact.  (Froggy, I already told you the amount but it's not something I'm going to put out there for everybody to see.)

 

We're watching Frasier.  He's doing ok as far as the cysts, etc., are concerned.  But he's really showing his age lately.  We're not really sure how old he is exactly, but he's starting to act like he's possibly got some issues with his hips.  Hip dysplasia is common in shepherds and he is getting up there in years, so we won't be surprised if that's what's happening now.  He's got a lot more grey lately, and he might have some vision and/or hearing issues but they are not bad at the moment.  With him, any dog in fact, it comes down to quality of life.  He still seems to have plenty of quality left, it's just that we are noticing more lately.  We'll do the right thing by him, we just don't expect it any time soon - hope not, anyway!

 

Maggie isn't being ignored, she's just being her typical silly self.  We have to watch them when we let them out in the back yard, because the plank in the fence has not been replaced yet.  It's still there, and there is another house beginning out there now so there is more activity.  The fence piece will be replaced at some point, possibly by us.  But Maggie has discovered the missing piece and she now spends a lot of time sitting in front of it.  She's watching the activity on the other side.  She's not a smart dog, but we can see that she's getting more interested in what's going on "on the other side."  She might or might not fit through the hole, but we don't want to take any chances.  She's a typical beagle, they can and do run for miles.  Then they realize that they don't know where they are and they generally are lost for good at that point.  She's already proven that she's got that instinct, so we don't want to take any chances with our little adorable beagle.  Or with the big dog, either!

 

I think my crock pot ceramic insert might be cracked.  While the soup was cooking on Saturday, we heard a sound that we first thought might be one of the suncatchers in the window loosening up.  When I lifted the crock out of the heating unit, I noticed a little bit of soup had "dribbled" to the bottom.  That happens if the crock pot overflows, which I didn't think happened this time but when I saw that I figured that it had or it might have spilled over a bit when I stirred it.  But when I was putting it all up this morning, I noticed what I first thought was a spot that needed to be dried (I wash it by hand, it's too big for the dishwasher).  But then I realized that I could just barely feel it and it wasn't going away with the drying.  Now I'm thinking that the (small amount) of soup that was in the bottom of the heating unit was probably an actual leak.  I'm not planning on using the crock pot again any time soon, but I have to be sure it's not actually cracked first.  If it is cracked, and I think it probably is, I'll see about replacing the ceramic insert.  I don't want to have to buy a whole new unit, but that might be what I wind up doing - sometimes the replacement parts for things cost almost as much as new items!  Like my electric razor, the blades are nearly $30 but an entirely new razor is only a couple of dollars more.  Makes no sense!

Sunday Cooking

I haven't used a "Sunday" title in a while so I thought it was time.  It is Sunday, after all.  And I have been cooking so I guess it's appropriate. :)

 

I made Beenie Weenie Surprise for Bill.  It's actually for his lunches, there are three containers in the freezer for him.  Along with several containers of my famous Beef-Vegetable Soup.  The soup recipe is on the cooking blog, but I made a slight change to it.  I added a can of Rotel tomatos to it and it turned out wonderful.

 

I also finally got around to looking up my $15.00 Coach bag I got about 3 years ago at a thrift store.  I was pretty sure it was authentic, and I was right.  I'd have kept it anyway, $15.00 for a good quality, suede leather bag is too good a deal not to keep.  But now I know for sure and it is real.

 

Don't remember if I mentioned it or not, but my Mr. Coffee Iced Tea Maker might be going out.  Well, we've had it longer than we've had Otter!  We have used it a lot over the years.  Mom gave it to us, she showed up on our doorstep one day shortly after we'd found out that Otter was on the way.  She brought us a cooked chicken, fruit, ice cream fixins* and the tea maker.  It's still working, but it is taking longer and doesn't quite sound right anymore.  I looked at the new ones at Wallyworld earlier, they are $20.00 and it looks like they've been improved a bit.  It's something we'll replace, but not until we need to.  It's also going to be Sun Tea season shortly, and we'll make that as often as we can.  Kind of like the coffee pot, which will be replaced asap if it ever goes out!

 

Bill finished up the pachinko shelving system this afternoon.  It works well, I'm not even going to begin to explain it except to say that it's two shelves with slots for machines and is holding 18.  There is space for 6 more, which Bill will get situated but it was getting too hot in the garage to work any longer today.  He could probably make another shelf for that many and still have machines in the floor of the garage!

*Fixins:  See the many posts with TEXAS as a label, it's part of our language.

Friday Vacation Report

Today is the last day of our vacation.  Which has not been the typical vacation, although we have had some time for fun stuff.  Bill didn't quite get as much done on the pachinko storage as he wanted, but he has managed to get a lot finished.  He had two machines come in with repair orders and he had one waiting to be repaired - UPS damaged it in transit and he had to wait until the machine's owner got through with the claim with UPS before he could work on it.  The owner emailed him yesterday, so he's spent the last several hours working on the it.  He also had to go help his Dad move some furniture this morning, Otter and I took advantage of the time to go shopping!

 

We went to the mall and looked at several stores.  I found another purse for my collection - actually, its an addiction and not a collection but I do use them.  This one is not leather, but it's still a better quality bag and it was also on sale.  I didn't pay as much for it as I did for the blue leather one in December, but it was still non exactly wallyworld pricing!  It's a turquoise/teal color and I really like it.

 

We met Bill at Cici's Pizza for lunch after he got finished helping his Dad, then he came home and got back to pachinko repair.  Otter and I went to Hobby Lobby, mostly for her to get what she needed for her current craft project.  I did buy yarn, I got a 2nd skein of "Chili" color yarn.  We had to stop at Wallyworld for a couple of things so I can make soup tomorrow, but we weren't gone nearly as long as it sounds.

 

Otter goes in to work at 4:00 this afternoon, she gets off at 10:00 p.m. (yuck) and she also works tomorrow.  She goes in at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow but she gets off fairly early, at 1:00.  She asked her boss this week why she's been scheduled for nearly every weekend for the last couple of months, the answer was that the boss knows Otter will always be there, on time and ready to work, and that she's a good & responsible employee.  But she (the boss) said she'd try not to overschedule Otter's weekends and give her a few more weekend days off in the future.  I think she'll be off this Sunday and probably both days next weekend.

 

There were a few fireworks last night, but not too many actually.  Wednesday night was actually noisier.  We couldn't see nearly as many as we used to, thanks to all the houses being built behind us.

Happy 4th!

Happy Birthday, America!

Mid Week Vacation Report

Otter and I went shopping today.  This was our one "play day" we had scheduled, since the main focus of the week really has been taming the pachinko clutter.  But we had to have some fun, after all.

 

We went to Bartlesville, which is about an hour north of Tulsa.  Several months ago, we went up there and also farther to Dewey.  Today, we decided not to go on to Dewey, just to Bartlesville.  There were two antique-ish stores we really liked and that's where we headed.  Bill did not go.  Just me and the Otter.  But you'd never know it, since he bought more than we did!  I didn't actually buy anything, Otter found several things.  But Bill?  Well, the pachinko clutter/collection has now increased by one.  On the way back, we stopped at another small town, Skiatook, and went to an antique-ish store we try to visit every so often.  Again, I found nothing but Otter did.  I still enjoyed it.  We stopped at a fireworks stand on the way home and Otter got a few things.  We looked at a couple of thrift stores when we got back to town, but didn't find anything.

 

We did make the acquaintance of one particularly sweet animal.  I forget his name, but he's a wolf/husky mix and we would have brought him home if we could.  Big, fluffy, friendly and spoiled!  And very intelligent, reminded me of Frasier in a lot of ways.

 

We also made one other stop.  We went to SuperCuts so Otter could get her hair cut.  Which turned out to be free.  Apparently, Supercuts supports Locks Of Love and they don't charge for haircuts if you are making a donation.  Which Otter was.  Her hair is now just right at shoulder length and it looks really good.  She texted a picture to her boyfriend, he sent back a slightly puzzled picture of himself but he also said that he likes it.  Which is good, he's not obsessed with long hair like Billyboy is! :)

Shark Tales and Ouchie Feet

We're on vacation this week.  We are staying home-ish.  Bill's been working on the pachinko storage project and I'm conscripted labor.  When we get through, the bulk of the machines will be stored neatly (!) in the garage, on a shelf system Bill came up with.  Which will be nice, but the process to get them there is hard work!

 

Otter and I did manage to escape for a few hours today.  Bill went to meet someone who wanted a machine fixed and we ran away while he was gone.  Actually, I told him the other day that we were going somewhere this morning.  We went to a neighboring town that has an aquarium.  They have a wonderful shark display, it has a walk-through area that makes it look like you are walking through an ocean of sharks.  They also have an otter exhibit, which was very popular with my Otter.  We've been before, but the otters are new since our last visit.  Next door to the otters are beavers, and there is also a raccoon.  Not quite sure how a raccoon fits in, but it apparently is happy because it's a fat one.  The aquarium is working on a sea turtle exhibit, which will be wonderful when it finally gets finished.  They do have turtles, lots and lots of turtles, as Froggy can attest because I texted her lots of pictures.  We petted the horseshoe crabs and stingrays.  There's a huge exhibit of assorted jellyfish and a couple of big happy frogs.  We spent a couple of hours there.  Otter took a bunch of pictures, which I will eventually get uploaded so I can post some here.

 

On the way home, we stopped at Domino's and got a pizza to bring home for lunch.  Otter's been having allergy issues so she ate inside, but Bill & I sat on the front porch and had a nice picnic style lunch.  We did that yesterday as well, but it was Braum's.

 

After lunch, I got out in the garage and helped Bill with his project.  It involved a lot of heavy lifting today.  I have ouchie feet, but I did get a decent pair of tennis shoes so they are not as bad as they could be.  I also have assorted ouchie muscles, which I'm going to blame on Bill!

 

Otter has to work tomorrow, but Bill & I are going to be back on the shelf project.  It's a lot of work, but it's going to be really good when it's finished up.  He's also working on shelving in the shed.

 

It's only Monday and I'm already exhausted.  I like hard work, fortunately.