Pictures from my illness

Thought you might enjoy pictures of my quality of life while I've been sick this week.  

This is what it looks like when I lie down: 

Note the expression on Count's face--it says "try to make me move and I will hobble you, warmth bringer."

Here is what it looks like when I get up:

Alula

DecalGirl: Winter Sparkle on the LG Vortex

A couple of days ago I received the decals that I ordered from DecalGirl.  Some people reported unusually fast shipping online; mine took about 10 days to arrive, and both of the decals I ordered arrived in the same shipment (one for the Nook and one for the LG Vortex).  The skins each arrived on a simple one piece sticker sheet and were well packaged with a "Do Not Bend or Fold" warning on the outside of the shipment envelope.

I was a little dubious about the application of these stickers to my expensive electronics, but after reading some reviews online I learned that they can be removed without leaving a residue on the device.  That said, I was worried about ruining my fancy stickers by mis-applying and then needing to peel them back up; figuring I might need to reorder, I started with the cheaper of the two I ordered, and applied the Winter Sparkle for LG Vortex skin first.

N.B., apply any screen protectors you want on your phone BEFORE applying the skin, as the skin will lay over the screen protector.  Also, try to be sure you're happy with the application of the screen protector--if you're the kind of person that those bubbles will annoy, get rid of them now, because they will be all the more difficult to get rid of when you're trying to squeeze them out from under the layer of screen protector and the added layer of skin.

The stickers peeled off the sheet easily, and I was a little surprised that the back side of the "sticker" decal didn't feel much like a sticker at all--it was tacky and adhesive, but not hyper sticky.  When placed on the device, the peeled decal would kind of sit on top until pressed down, and then it would stick.  This "doesn't stick until pressed" property made the positioning of the decal very easy to do, because I could move it around until I was happy with the positioning.  One would think that this quasi-stick property would mean the decal wouldn't adhere well after the fact, but I can say with confidence that the decal is now on and is staying put until I try to peel it off again.  Another property of the decal that surprised me was the elasticity of it--with a normal sticker, a sort of "bunching" of the material can occur at rounded edges on the device.  These decals can kind of be worked and stretched so that bunching around the edges does not occur, and the decal fits the device very closely.  Also, upon investigation, the sticker also has some channels drawn into the adhesive underside--these allow trapped air to be pushed out after application to reduce bubbles under the design.

The price was very reasonable, and the functional and aesthetic design of the product is magnificent.  I am very pleased, and will likely buy from this company again.

 The front of the phone--notice how tightly the button holes fit to the buttons on the device.

 The back of the phone--notice those well-contoured edges!

Front of the phone with the downloadable background--notice my cat watching you intently!  I was a little afraid that the background image might be a smidge off from the decal, and the mismatched edges would annoy my obsessive compulsive tendencies too much.  However, the download fit to the edges off the sticker decal amazingly well, and the colors match darn well perfect despite the company caveat that the LCD screen colors might vary depending on the device.  The overall presentation is very slick!

I'll send more pictures when I get my Nook decal installed.

Alula

our not so friendly neighborhood kitty cat

Yet one more awesome thing to do online...

Scrapbooking: Check out the free software offered by Scrapbook Flair, and additional reviews here. There are a lot of these free album-creating softwares out there now, and I think they're totally awesome because they play to my need to be creative with photographs without the need to buy and store a bunch of stuff. Also, the templates, backgrounds, etc., are updated regularly and downloadable. I made the following scrapbook page using this program (this is an exported .jpg image--the actual scrapbook page is much bigger):

How to Heimlich a Cat

For anyone who didn't know, this is how you Heimlich a cat:

http://www.petplace.com/cats/heimlich-for-your-cat/page1.aspx

I never knew. I found this out while watching Gretal coughing up a hairball and wondering what I would do if either of my cats ever did choke on something.

McDonald's is offering free glassware with the purchase of a large Xtra value meal (price ain't bad with the glass included) and the glasses are really pretty nice. Our tall ones keep breaking in the wash so this has been a sweet deal for us.

School: All homework and no play makes Alula a dull sister. So I am thoroughly denying that I have finals due and decorating my home for the holidays, writing, and finally reading Eragon.

Career: Today I thoroughly considered my job options. I came to the conclusion that there is, in fact, a job I would leave my job for, and it's to work as an intelligence analyst. However, there are no government positions for this available in my area, so I'm good.

Mr. B: ...is out of town again. Lonely, lonely, lonely.

There was SOOO much snow...

Ladies (especially those of you not living where I am):

I let the cats out to play in it when there was 6 inches yesterday. When I suggested going out today, they just gave me sarcastic looks:

This is my birdhouse out back (it is under there, I promise):

We lost power for nearly 45 minutes last night, resulting in a scramble for the candles and nearly 15 degrees drop in temperature inside the house. At my house, we have about 2 feet total--you can kind of see it on the table in the courtyard behind the cats. My work had an early dismissal yesterday because they were worried about people getting home (like my boss, I elected to work from home at about 8 am anyways). My school closed early yesterday too (though I didn't have school that day). I was supposed to have class today, as the school was open, but my neighborhood roads haven't been plowed and it's still falling.

How much did everyone else get?

Alula

The Plagues of Egypt in my home...

So the wasps in my kitchen ceiling are back. Today I discovered a patch on my kitchen ceiling where it appeared they were attempting to knaw through because the drywall under the paint was gone. Another theory ran that the pesticide shot up there had caused water damage. Still another theory ran that the pesticide had damaged the drywall making it soft and allowing the freak zombie wasps (which are actually yellow jackets, I've been told) to munch away at it. Anyways, the patch is 8" by 6", and any way you cut it, not good. I'll post pics of Q and mother's ingenious solution later.

So just to sum things up here, I thought I'd recap all of the plagues of Egypt my home has suffered this summer:

Blood: period that lasted a month.
Frogs:
Knats: Never had them before. Now they are in every house plant I own.
Wild Animals: Gretal and Count. Enough said. Oh, and the deer incident.
Pestilence: We'll substitute "wasps" here.
Incurably Boils:
Hail: Yup. That too--on car, garden, and home.
Locusts: We'll substitute "husband" for this one, as he killed my garden.
Darkness: 3 power outages and counting. One of which made us both late for work.
Death of the Firstborn:

We have also suffered flooding in the basement and in our upstairs bathroom when the toilet overflowed, a heart attack, and a car accident. And for some reason all the walking I've been doing has caused me to gain weight, rather inexplicably, and I'm hitting 185 again walking 2.4 miles a day--what with that?

Boy, I just can't wait for the frogs, incurable boils, and death of the firstborn to get here. (Not really--please don't smite me further!)

On the bright side I got my shiny new badge yesterday and a work laptop (DELL latitude 6000 series...oh baby!) today. I was also invited by my colleagues to speak at a conference in April.

Also, I feel like a really crappy friend. It feels like every time I call Q lately it’s to have her cover my butt, save my butt, or drive my butt somewhere. Q, hon, you’re the greatest—and please feel free to say no. And I totally owe you a deck of tarot cards for everything you do for me. Just send me an email link to what you want and I’ll order it with my school books.

Alula

Cars, Business, Wasps, Screaming, and Camping

Once again, I find myself in the situation that a lot has happened in my life and I'm behind on posting. I've written a summary in prose for those of you who don't want to read the novel:

Mr. B's Outback had just gotten fixed and gone to Pueblo,
It got into a fight with a hailstorm and to more fixing insurance said "no",
Went car shopping & tried to trade in the '93 trooper C4C,
Found it wasn't eligible due to procrastination by Mr. B,
Then went Rolla on a business dealing,
Mr. B found a wasps' nest in the kitchen ceiling,
Had to beg Q for assistance due to husband's vanity,
Q of course came through and saved my kitties and my sanity,
Mr. B freaked out and decided to clean basement,
Apparently got rid of my stuff with permission and still hasn't f-ing apologized,
Got off the plane just in time to fight with husband,
Packed my crap post haste and almost decided marriage was canned,
Briefly discussed if free education was prudent,
Got accused by Mr. B of being perpetual dirty-hippie student,
Went camping one hour later with Q, Munchkin, and spouses,
Banned fighting for the weekend even though all men are louses,
Had 6 hours to share alone with Mr. B on Sunday,
Then we both woke up and went our separate ways.

And the long version:

Well, in case I didn't say this already, Mr. B's Outback had just gotten fixed from the run in with the deer when he drove it down to Pueblo and got stuck in a hail storm. It didn't do any real damage, but apparantly it dinged every exterior portion of the shell of the car to the extent that insurance called it a total loss: cost of repair exceeds total value of car. So we took a settlement and now have a no-value dinged up car.

Realizing we were nowin possession of two cars in need of replacement, we decided to make a move on Cash for Clunkers because my trooper is 16 years old and gets 15 miles to the gallon. Well, thanks to the fact that my husband dragged his butt getting it registered (and had me driving it without registration for 3 months without knowing it), we have not technically "owned" this vehicle for 1 year so it does not qualify. And my husband's procrastination has finally screwed us over in the form of losing a $4,500 coupon for a new car.

I went to Rolla, MO for my first business trip last week; I feel I should note here that they took really good care of us because the flights and hotels were awesome. On Wednesday morning I get this phone call just as I walk through the door to my first meeting:

"Hello?"

"Hey."

"Oh, hey Mr. B--unless something serious is happening, can I call you back around lunch?"

"Oh, um, well...I woke up this morning and there's wasps inside the house?"

"Inside the house?"

"Yeah they're coming through a hole in the kitchen ceiling."

"Uh...okay."

"Can I take care of this when I get home tonight?"

I laugh. "Not unless you want to come home to a house full of wasps--they could swarm and kill our cats. You need to take care of this like now."



Said in irritated tone: "Well, Alula, what do I do?"

I sit there in stunned disbelief for a moment. Then I respond: "Well hon, I'm in Missouri right now, so you're going to have to take care of this one by yourself."

"By doing what?!"

"Call someone."

"Who?!"

And about this time, in my head, I'm going well, there are bugs in the house and you don't want them there...who the bleep do you think you call? I say: "I'm guessing anyone from your dad to 911 depending on how many there are and what they're doing. Jesus--just assess the situation and take care of it. Or keep calling responsible adults until you find one that can help you!"

And I hung up and went to my meeting. I text him that he needs to call Orkin and then let it go. I call his father a little later to be sure he isn't suffering death by wasps alone in our home. Turns out Mr. B has gone to work.

The irony of the situation? I call Q later and she starts with "I got this frantic call from your husband earlier. He needed to know what to do to get wasps out of the house..."

The wasps really freaked him out. Orkin came the next day and gased the invaders and the nest, which was apparently inside our kitchen ceiling. We're still dealing with stragglers trying to rebuild.

Apparently Mr. B thought the basement was too dirty for Orkin to see (no kidding, that was his reasoning) so he "cleaned" it. By breaking a lot of my stuff and donating some of it without permission. I'm still not okay with it and much screaming ensued.

Then when I got home I saw the real damage and there was more screaming. And then I tried to talk to him about how my work is now offering to pay for me to get a PhD--literally pay for it. And pay me regular salary in addition and accomodate my scheduling needs for school. Mr. B said I can't do it because I was "going to become a permanent student" and blah blah blah. We were both pretty pissy and yelly and angry.

Then we took a fifteen mminute breather, started over, and just packed our crap and went out to the camp site where Q and Munchkin and spouses were waiting. We had a lovely weekend of geocaching, s'mores, and freezing our chicklets off. The tight sleeping arrangements of our tent allowed me the perfect excuse to get an albeit amature form of revenge on my husband by breaking gas while we were forced to spoon.

Then we got home, watched some TV, fought a little more, went to bed, and woke up. Now I'm back at work and he's back in Pueblo and we're getting along fine and missing each other terribly. I'm exhausted and I have to plan Movie Night for tomorrow and my family is not making things easy.

Ociffer and Snow were having a rough time of it with Post Partum Depression--she kicked him out and basically absconded with his child for a couple of weeks only allowing him visitation. According to my mom they're "doing better now". God bless him, I hate to see my brother going through these situations. My sister is having some sort of issue now too that she won't tell me about, and my cousin had her baby--another August baby--a healthy little girl. And my grandmother wants to spend more time with me, which I feel guilty about because she lives literally on my same block and I have like no time. I'm setting something up with her for later this week.

Alula

Present from my Cat

Today I was inside trying to do my final project when Count jumped up on the coffee table purring like a motor boat with something in his mouth. He dropped it in front of me and practically cocked an eyebrow and said "I'm so sexy I brought you a present and I didn't even eat it on the way!'

It was a caterpillar. This caterpillar. Fortunately, he wasn't even mashed--I picked him up and he started squirming, and I looked him over for wounds before giving Count a pat on the head and taking the Brave Little Caterpillar out front. I set him down in my garden to chrysalis and grow wings. He might be a moth or a butterfly--I'm not sure which--but it's always nice to have things living in the garden.

As some of you have already seen, my slacker productivity has gone into high gear again and we now have a private webpage to accompany our blog. If you are currently a contributor to this blog (i.e. Alula, Munchkin, Q, DoHP, and Fuzzy) have permissions to check it out here: The Virtual Nest.

Everyone has a private page to play with located off of the home page. Please feel free to customize your private pages however you want; please ask before doing anything with the main page because the RSS feed to the blog and the chat box were hard to figure out. Suggestion to Google: just give people full access to the HTML. It would make my life a lot easier.

Alula

179.5

Cat Litter and Baking Soda

Just to explain the topic, it's with regards to the emails I forwarded to everyone. Apparently the new high-tech scammers are now hacking voice mails to make you think you have a loved one in the clink, and forcing you to use your credit card to make an "account" to speak to said jailbird. Knowing this group, and some of the crazy stuff we claim we're going to do someday, I could buy it if someone had a wild night and wound up in the striped pajamies.

My come-and-get-me (...and-bring-bail-please) code phrase is "spatula juggling."

Also, I've been dosing my cat litter in baking soda. Surprisingly, this does seem to help with odors--even better than odor-control cat litters.

Also also, my free time has been evaporating like sprinkler water on the pavement. I thought I was going to be free to do Strawberry Days this last weekend, going to see Fuzzy and the boy--but no. Turns out I forgot Father's Day until Friday night, and due to my father's birthday in close proximity (and the Holiday Reassignment Rule), we had both Father's Day and Dad's Birthday on Saturday. Then we did Father's Day round 2 on Sunday with Mr. B's family, and I was required to attend because he's gone this week. I am alone with kitties, and it's a tough time for that, because we haven't had a lot of time for each other since I started my job.

Q I did check in on your kitties between Father's Days. Fuzzy, I feel like a really bad friend that I didn't confirm I wasn't coming. My cell phone battery keeps quitting at random and I don't know why; we'll find a time and I will come out to visit and make it up to you.

For Father's Day 2 (also Litha, summer festival) we went out and had a picnic in Estes Park. And now I want to move to Estes.

Alula

Adding to our Family

Firstly, Q, I know for a fact that you are not unintelligent. And you are not lazy. What you are is freakin' stubborn. Use a spell checker and proofread like a normal person and YES, you can change it overnight. (Oh, and now I get the topic tag...)



Second, I have a big announcement. A few months ago I had a dream that Mr. B and I walked into a shelter to adopt a cat, immediately bonded to different cats, and walked out of the shelter with two cats. Q can back me up that this dream did happen. I woke up in a cold sweat thinking "Thank God! It was just a dream--we would never be that impractical!"





Well. Guess what happened on Sunday?

No? Need a hint?




We went to a shelter just to look, and we walked past a room full of kittens. Like 10-12 of them, and Mr. B pointed at one and said "That's the kind of pattern cat I like." And I was all like, "Oh! They have a little black one--isn't she cute?" So we ask, and one of the shelter workers lets us in to play with uber kittens.

And then Mr. B is like "You know, I would hate to just get one and have it be lonely all day..."

Then we left--without kittens. We needed to get the heck out of there before something crazy stupid happened. We looked at kittens at two other places, and they were just as cute and friendly, and then we went back to the shelter. We interviewed 4 kittens one-on-one, and then walked around the donut-shaped cat room for a while, chatting...

And then something crazy stupid happened. And we haven't regretted it since.

This is Gretal, and she's 2 months old:

And this is Count, and he's 3 months old:

They came with the Bob Barker treatment, chipped, with a full month of pre-paid insurance, and with 2 months of food and very cheap startup supplies. They came named, too, but after talking about them all day we were kind of already attached to the shelter names. Count is now our resident urban tiger and trouble maker; Gretal is our resident baby kitty and cuddle bug. Gretal likes computers; Q has already taught her the finer points of World of Warcraft. Count likes climbing things with his claws; I'm pretty sure he thinks his name is "NO!"

But we love them both.

Alula

1 cat away from crazy!

Hey ladies!
I wanted to give a update on how the new cat is working out, he seems to be working out great. His name is Marley now and he seems to be a very good brother for Al. They have there good moments and there bad moments. They will be grooming each other one second and beating each other up the next. But I rarely see them apart and that has to mean something.
Al has gotten really cuddly too. Its nice! He bites Marley instead of me! Marley does not seem to mind he bites right back.
Did you know getting a second cat triples the amount in the litter box? Its amazing!

The battle of Good vs. Evil!
(Actually I think Marley is mad because Al keeps teasing him because his collar is pink, but its not! Its Salmon!)

Too much play! Now they must rest for three hours!


I though I had better feed them after I found them prying the lid of the food bucket together!
Little stinkers!


I can only assume the are plotting to take over the world!

Although I do not think we have much to worry about! They need to rest and sleep 20 hours out of the day, it does not leave a lot of time for global domination!

Lazy cats

Hey Ladies,
I am making Cheese and Broccoli soup, if it turns out right I will post a recipe. I made it a few days ago and it turned out great but I wanted to let the flavors blend better so I put it in a crock pot and probably forgot about it. I killed it! but the bowl I had of it before I burned it was excellent.
I though I should post a picture of my cats being cute. It makes it so hard to use the computer when they are both feeling cuddly.

Cats!

Lazy good for nothing cats!

New member of the family!

hey ladies!
I did something bad today. I Went to the pet store for cat food and left with a Cat!
His Name is Malamar (like the Cookie) He is a 2 year old male. So far he is getting along rather well with my other cat AL. Al is also a 2 year old male. As luck would have it they are both orange tabbies. With no outstanding markings. I did not plan this, Mal just happened to be almost identical to Al. They are getting along better than I had expected. They have been together for nine hours now and I have only had to rip them apart once. Fur was flying everyware. Al will not leave Mal alone. I think Al its tring to get him to play but has no idea how to play with a cat. He keeps running up and bitting Mal and Mal keeps turning around and slapping him. Mal is so cuddly. Hopefully it will work out and Al will have a much needed play mate. Most if all I am hopping I am not alergic to the new cat.
Mr. Q if you happen to read this before I have a chance to explane myself. I Sorry. I'm not sure were my head was.

Cristmas Gift

On a scale of 1 to 10 what would you rank this gift at?
10 is the worst!
I give it a 11!
Yes its a cat drinking tea on a pink TV! Your eyes are not fooling you!

To the pain!

Hey ladies!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH_iDlCdL60

Or he could have threatened to make him were a Corset!
The ren fest was a blast but it would have been better if our out of townees had been with us! DoHP you are missed!

I figured out how to get pictures up on the web sight with my new computer!
We saw this bug at ren fest. What is it?

The great mystery bug!

And now for a tribute to my cat! His name is Al and he is a pain akin to a hangnail! But he is till my baby!
I like to call this one " busted looking at porn!"
I got the feather!

Pretty!
I have good news too! Mr. Q has four days of leave in August, and he gets to fly home! yeah! Unfortunately after that he is off to Iraq. But I will take all the time I can get with him!

Stuff on the cat

He looks so angry dosen't he? So Angry you just want to cuddle him and make it all better.

(I was browsing through some old photos, and found this, it was suspossed to be a submission to "Stuff on my Cat", but we decided that it didn't have nearly enough stuff)

Couple more silly videos

All I've got time for is silly videos (as opposed to serious blogging). Something went "NOM NOM NOM" with a lot of my time and leaving me wondering where my suitcase is and where the giant pile of laundry came from.

Engineers and cats
Wake up!
Pirates! (approximately)