Smile...

I just realized this morning that I need to take some new pictures of things other than the pups. I'm always taking pictures of them, so much so that they now turn their heads. I guess they're sick of being my models. I really can't blame them, I hate having my picture taken too.

I took a picture of the wildflowers in the field across the road a couple years ago. It looked so gorgeous, I'm going to have to see if I can find it and post it here.

Well, unfortunately I couldn't find that picture. It's a shame too, but I did find this one:

This is along the fence line between our property and that directly south of us.  You can see that it was taken awhile ago.

Oh, and another thing I found was a picture of Max when he was just a pup, the day he showed up. Wasn't he a cutie?

Actually he still is and knows it, but I think I've already mentioned that before.

Let's see what else is happening, not too much really. That's the way it is here in Iowa sometimes. We've gotten so laid back since we've been here, sometimes I even lose track of the days. Don't worry, I do eventually remember. It's nice though. I never want to go back to the way we lived before.

ETA: It was so cute just now, I was bending down looking under the couch because I had slipped my laptop under there earlier to get it out of the way. Angel was laying right in front of it so I of course had to tell her to move. Next I hear Dave telling me that she's helping me. She was laying down in front of his chair which is next to the couch, her head between her front paws, looking under it. Come to find out her squeaky ball was under there and she wanted me to get it out for her. 

Okay...

This is going to be a happier post than yesterday's. And why shouldn't it? It's another gorgeous day here in our little part of Iowa. The birds are singing, the pups are relaxing, and it's just one of those types of days that make you happy.

I can't believe it's almost the end of August already. All the kids around here are back to school, or at least I think they are. Since ours are out of school, I don't pay much attention to that kind of thing anymore. I figure that I don't have to worry about all the stuff that goes along with it, like school supplies, clothes, lunches, etc. It's kind of nice not having to worry about that stuff anymore.

Just think, less than four months from now till Christmas. I love Christmas, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here. I like it now too. I love when the weather is nice and comfortable, not hot and sweaty, but nice to where you can still wear shorts during the day, but you can sleep with your windows open at night. That's the way it's been for the past week around here.

One thing I like about living in the country like we do, no sirens every few minutes because the police are after someone or there's been an accident, shooting, or whatever. You may hear a coyote every once in awhile, or an owl, and off in the distance the train going through town, but that's it, nice and peaceful. Oh and on a clear night, you can see so many stars in the sky, it's breathtaking. Nothing like it looks in the city where the city lights block the view.

I have really come to love this kind of life. No one bothers us, heck our closest neighbor is over a mile away and around us are nothing but open fields and pastureland with some crops mixed in. Nice and quiet, this is definitely God's country.

Vent

What great weather we've had this week, not too hot, not too cold, and no rain. Too bad it can't last.

My sister has finally joined the computer age, she set herself up an email account. I received an email from her this morning, asking why I hadn't called. Easy, I've been busy.

Why is it that I'm the only one who must do all the calling and traveling concerning my family? Why is it that we're expected to spend our money, but no one else can be bothered? I'm tired of it.

I mean if I don't call, no one else calls here unless it's bad news. Every time I go back there, my mom asks me the same question and not just once, whether I've gone down the street to see my brother. She even told me that I should have been ashamed for not going to visit him when I was home a couple years ago. I finally asked her why she was so obsessed that I see him.

No one in my family came to visit us when we lived in Virginia unless we paid for it. My sister came down to "watch" the house once and put over 1000 miles on my car. My mom came, but only because Dave drove up to Pennsylvania to pick her up and then drove her back. My sister came out here last year, but only because I drove out there to pick her up and then drove her back. Okay, to be honest, I told her that I was doing so only because I knew she would back out if I didn't and I left it up to her to drive out here. She also helped to pay for gas and such.

The other sister, the eldest one and my brother never came to visit us here or in Virginia, oh and did I mention that we lived in Virginia for 12 1/2 years and here for over 14 now. Oh, but oldest sis did go down to Richmond, two hours from where we lived in Virginia to visit her sister-in-law. She and her family vacationed in Myrtle Beach, SC, but they couldn't make it to David's, our oldest, graduation that same year. She never sent a card for his or Kenneth's, his younger brother. We went to her son's the year before. When I called my brother about David's graduation because he promised that he would be there, his words to me were,"Why are you making such a big deal?" Makes a person feel real loved, I tell you. I didn't bother inviting them to Kenneth's graduation because I knew they wouldn't come. I did send out announcements though.

Oldest sis did offer to drive out here once, to drop off her son's one dog that she wanted to get rid of. I don't know if her son knew of her plan or not. I told her,"no." He ended up moving out and taking the dog with him. The dog now has an entirely new home and family, which I'm sure he loves.

I did tell my oldest sister and my mother how I felt before, but I think it fell on deaf ears for the most part. She did make the comment to other sis that she must have really opened a can of worms when I gave her a piece of my mind after she complained that Kenneth never called her "Aunt" when he had gone out to visit.
 
I don't know why I'm bringing this all up, probably because sister asked me why I hadn't called. It always brings up those memories of not being important enough, of feeling like I'm the one who has to do all the calling, of Dave and I taking the time and money to go out there to visit, but no one there can make the same effort concerning us. It is good to write it down though and get it out of my system whenever I feel like this. My family just irks the heck out of me!

Thanks for listening.

Max, aka Zoom-Zoom

Went to let Jake out this morning and of course, Max went running out too. He always has to go out whenever one of the others go out. He's always has to be where he thinks the action is going to be. He also loves going outside to explore and to see what he can dig up, literally.

It was so funny this morning though, he went running down the sidewalk towards the back gate, made a sharp left turn behind the lilac bushes and then stopped. The next minute a bird came flying out of one of the lilac bushes and flew away. I'm sure it was laughing at him the whole time.

Another thing Max loves are his squeaky toys. So much so that if Angel tries to take the one that he has, he'll growl at her. Or if she das one, he'll take it from her. We call it that terrier attitude, he thinks he's the boss, numero uno, no number four for this little guy, no way, no how; that is until one of the others puts him in his place.

Even Jake, wuss that he may be, will put Max in his place when he's had enough of Max bossing him around. After all, he was the first one here and is the oldest. He lets Max know that he deserves respect, not too often though.

Rolli though is the real boss, the real numero uno and lets everyone know. For a small dog, she sure has a big attitude. She's not that far behind Jake in age, but everyone knows, even Jake, that she is top dog. It's always been that way.

Max loves to torment her though. She's about the same size and weight that he is, so she's the perfect target as far as he's concerned. He'll pull on her collar or harness and bark at her or roo-roo her. When he roo-roos, it usually means he's telling her off. It means other things in other situations, but it's funny when he does it, but then again, almost anything he does is funny. He is such a funny pup.

What will the next months bring?

Finally, some nice, not so hot or humid weather. The type of weather we all wish for in the summer. Whenever we get weather like this in mid August, which actually is pretty normal in these parts, I can't help but start thinking about fall and the coming winter after.

It's kind of sad, the coming end of summer with its long, warm days and the coming of fall and after, winter with their shorter, colder days. I and I'm sure so many more will, come winter, be wishing for warmer weather. Especially if we have the type of winter we had last year.

Now normally if we have a lot of snow in the winter, we have a fairly dry summer. Not this year though, from the end of winter, through spring, and now summer, every month has been wet, wetter than usual. This is one summer I'm not going to miss, all that rain, all that humidity. It makes for a big ? as to what winter is going to be like. If we have a wet summer, winter is usually pretty dry and not that cold. But it seems all bets are off this year. Will it be wet, dry, colder than normal, warmer than normal, or just normal? We'll just have to wait to see, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

Where kitties go...

o, I'm not talking about outside, in fact I only stepped outside once today and that was to tell Dave that our neighbor called to say that he wanted to come and pick up his trailer. Why do we have it, you might be asking. Well it's for the horses, rather he brings us about 180 bales of hay for the horses every year that lasts us pretty much until the end of winter. In payment for it, we let him store soybeans in one of our grain bins. Pretty cool deal if you ask me. Any hay we get from him after that Dave pays for, until the next trailer full.

Well, that wasn't my excitement for the day though, heck no. It was time to change the cats' litter boxes. Such a fun thing to do, yeah right!

I told myself after Velcro died, man I loved that cat, I cried for a week after he died. Anyway, after he died, I told myself that I did not want another cat. Then I told myself only if it was another tuxedo because I thought it would be like Velcro. Well, that quickly changed after two feral cats gave birth to kittens on our property, one in the stable stall that we keep hay in. The first one I saw was another tuxedo and I got excited, so much so that I ran in the house and excitedly proclaimed to Dave, "We have a tuxedo!" He was cute too, along with the other four kittens.

I never intended to have four cats, Patches came a year later under similar circumstances, but one morning when I went out to feed them, one was missing, a mostly white one, the one I really wanted to keep too and in it's place was this little tiny calico. She was the kitten of the other feral cat. Our best guess is that she replaced the other kitten who was the largest of the bunch with this tiny one. We never found the missing one. But so that no more disappeared, Dave and I collected up all of the kittens and took them inside. I was really upset for a long time over that one kitten disappearing and for while, I told myself that I couldn't accept the new kitten, but slowly and surely I did and now she is my favorite. I swear she even has Velcro's personality. She has turned out to be the cutest little cat too.

Anyway, the one thing I hated about owning a cat was changing litter boxes. That was the main reason I told myself that I didn't want another cat. I should have known better, but you already know, we now have four.

Oh, and if you're wondering what happened to the other two, Kenneth our youngest son has them. Their names are Charlie and Shadow.

Note to self:

Always measure before you buy. I bought a shade for the kitchen window at Wal*Mart this morning thinking the window was one width, only to find out it's wider, UGH! What's that saying, "Measure twice, cut once." In my case it should be, "Measure twice buy once."

On to a happier note, the Iowa State Fair started yesterday. It goes on until the 22nd.

Dave is there right now. No, he didn't go without me, he had to go because where he works is doing one of those team building things. He said that they're doing a treasure hunt. In my opinion it's not going to make teams work together any better. Now I can tell you, I've had to do team projects when I was in school, there was always those who did not pull their weight, it never failed.

We are planning on going to the fair one day next week. It's also supposed to be much cooler and dryer then. Can't live without one of their funnel cakes. Yum! That's the only time I have one. It's become a tradition in our house.

Did you realize that today is Friday the 13th? I didn't until I woke up this morning. On the good side, it's supposed to cool down after the rain moves out. It's been as hot as he!! here.

ETA: Dave bought me a present at the fair, a Pittsburgh Steeler popcorn bucket. :) Now I'm ready for some football. We decided that we're going to the fair on Tuesday, that seems to be the best day as far as the forecast goes.

I quit!

That's it, I quit! I've hung out a couple loads of laundry on the line, but I've been getting eaten alive out there. I didn't want to heat up the house, but I refuse to be those little buggers' lunch, so in the dryer the other loads go. Luckily I have only two more loads, plus the one that's already in the washer.

I need to get some Off the next time I go to the store.

Rants and Angel

Okay, I don't get the big deal about Brenda coming back to General Hospital. My question is why is she coming back? Can't she find an acting job anywhere else? The only other show I remember her being on was 90210, was she ever on anything else but that and GH? Oh yea, there was that one about the casino that was canceled. There was another former soap star on that show. I can't remember now from what soap, but I do think he went on to do some movies.

Okay that is my rant for today other than it being as hot as haties again so I don't feel like doing anything other than trying to stay cool. Parts of the state are also seeing more heavy rain, something not needed anywhere in the state.

I'm going to try something new here and post a picture. It's one of Angel sleeping on the couch this morning that I took with the camera on my computer, here goes:

Cool, it worked. She looks comfy, doesn't she? :)

For the love of a dog

I was up at 2:30 this morning giving Jake another quick bath, well actually it was just the one end. One bad thing about having a long haired dog. I gave him some keopectate and it seems to be helping. Boy, I hope so! Luckily someone on the message board I go to mentioned it, thank God for that board because I never would have guessed.

Dave ticked me off last night too, granted he was tired, but so was I and he was also scaring Jake by yelling at him. The poor dog is hyper to begin with. Dave also has this habit of getting all "poor me" and goes, "Yea, mean Dave," when I told him that he was scaring Jake. Last night yes he was, plus he was standing there in our tiny bathroom, which barely holds one person, let alone one short one (me), one tall one (Dave) and Jake. I told him to get out and he said that he was just trying to help, by doing what? It's not like I didn't know what I was doing and after he left, Jake calmed down some. I was even able to go back to sleep when I was done, but I didn't want to get up this morning. I know what I need, some caffeine!

What we do for our dogs. :) But it doesn't even compare to what they do for us.

Got severe thunderstorms north of here. We may get some later. We don't need anymore rain. Unfortunately they're not going to make it any cooler either.

Had to give Jake a bath when we got back from Des Moines. He looks so cute after a bath because his fur gets all curly just like when he was a puppy. He also smells a lot better too.

More troops left for Aphganastan today. Iowa now has the most troops per capita deployed than any other state in the country. May the Good Lord keep them and all the others safe.

Another day in Iowa

Another hot, humid Sunday is upon us. We're supposed to have dangerous heat indexes of 110-115 degrees. Dave and I are supposed to go up to Des Moines today. I have some jewelry that I need to get checked and he wants to run to Lowes. We'll probably have lunch there too.

The person who owns the property across the road from us has been clearing all the trees off of it. It's a same to see them go. Our neighbor down the road said that he's doing it so that he can plant it  next year. It's a shame because that's where we always see deer in the mornings. We see them elsewhere, but mainly in that field. We now have a better view out of our living room window, but come this winter, I have a feeling that if we get the amount of snow we got last year, we're going to have an even higher snowdrift in the road because those trees won't be there anymore to block the wind. It also looks so bare now. :(

Who would have thought...

That 20 or 30 years ago if someone told me I'd be living in Iowa someday,  I would have told them that they didn't know what they were talking about and yet here I am, for 14 years now. Don't get me wrong, I like Iowa, but it just wasn't one of me first choices of places to live.

I'm from the eastern part of the country, Pittsburgh, PA to be exact. Moving here was literally a culture shock to me, after living in the places I lived  and being from where I was. But I think I've adjusted pretty well. I won't lie, I do miss the Burgh at times and I'll always consider it home in my mind, but this is home now. I do get to go back there to visit, so not all is lost, and according to some people, I still have my Pittsburgh accent, even though you couldn't prove that by me.

"How did you end up in Iowa," you might ask. Well, it all started back in 1978, when I married my husband, from here on in, to be known as Dave. He was in the Navy, so we moved around from one end of the country to the other, going from California and ending up in Virginia. After nine years for me and twelve for him of Navy life, we hit civilian life. From there and after several layoffs, he was offered a job here in Iowa, so here we moved and we've been here ever since, again, going from one end, but this time ending up in the middle.

We have two sons too. One lives here with us, the other lives with his fiance in Missouri. They both work full time and we're proud of each of them for their accomplishments, especially successfully furthering their education, something that was important to Dave and I. one graduated from high school in Virginia, the other here in Iowa, but they both graduated from college.


Since we've lived here, we have acquired four dogs, four cats, and three ponies, one of which passed away this past winter. She was the oldest of the three. The other two, geldings, we still have. You'll hear stories about them all, especially the dogs because they're always doing funny things. Their names are from oldest to youngest, Jake, Rolli, Angel, and Max. The cats' names are Oreo, a male and Peanut, Patches, and Pumpkin, all females. The ponies' names are Spots and War. The ironic thing about War's name is that he's so laid back. Oh, I forgot to tell you, we own a small farm, very small.


Well, that's the short version of a story some 32+ years long.


Sometimes I still can't believe I live in Iowa.