A Zoo

written: July 7

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Alfred has made a damn nest in JOSEY’S yard. Like how dumb are you lil bunny? Josey LOVES chasing Alfred any chance she gets. ::chuckles:: I don’t know if there are babies in the nest yet, but we are covering the nest with a basket anytime we let Josey out, just in case. I’ll probably check tomorrow to see if there are babies, just so we can start counting down to when they are old enough to leave the nest, so we won’t have to cover it for bunny safety.

We had a second puppers show up today – at the front gate this time. It was an adorable little male Schnauzer named Buster. And he lives a few houses up from us on the same street. I was able to call his owners and they came and got him pretty quickly. Not sure why all these critters are showing up all of a sudden.

THEN I had a pair of the resident Crows sitting in the mulberry tree, making a unique vocalization that I can only describe as giggling. Weirdest damn noise I’ve ever heard out of the Crows. Almost feels like a deity or spirit is trying to get my attention. Kind of makes sense that it is using real animals, given that the wards I put in place about a year ago, keep all deities and/or spirits out of my home unless they are specifically invited by name. Honestly, I did that more to keep the damn Fae out of my life, and the spook I was having issues with…but it seems to be doing its job very well, so no complaints from me!

I really do need to see if I can verify that each rail road spike is still in place. Would be world’s easier if I had a metal detector! ::chuckles:: Mostly, it’s just the two spikes in the front yard that I’m wary of hunting for. Can’t weird the neighborhood out too much. ::cackles::

Lavender

written: July 6

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Dried lavender sent to me by Nola (a member of the Pagan pen pal group). She kindly offered to the group that her lavender plant was ready to harvest and that she would be happy to mail some out to the first 10 people who requested it. I was person #10 on the list! Woohoo! I definitely want to make some dream pillows and maybe a bath salt with the massive bundle of lavender she sent me. And now, I really, really, REALLY want to grow my own! ::chuckles:: Maybe I can get my butt in gear and try it out this summer. Or at least, next year for sure!

My lily plants are dying back, as they should. I would love to get a raised planter bed built in the backyard, specifically for them and the daffodils, but that’s a project that will just have to wait until the worst of the heat is gone. So maybe in October? Or November? Oooh, I might be able to talk the Husband into doing it for me for my birthday. ::grins::

Leviathan shed today. And again, I was so busy, I didn’t even notice she had gone blue. At least it was a complete shed. I need to do some work on her tank. It’s so large (like double the size of her original tank), that her décor is completely dwarfed. And I think the reason she stays mostly curled up in her hide is because she feels too exposed in the rest of the tank and thus doesn’t feel safe. So I need to get some more stuff in there to give her a bit more security, so she’s able to better utilize the entire tank as she wishes.

As we were headed out for a late night ice cream run to Sonic, we found a little puppers in the alleyway. She came right up to me and let me pick her up no problem. Her name is Sweetness and I started calling the numbers of her ID tag. Seriously, people should also put their damn address on the tags, but hey, that’s just my personal opinion. So we’re just hanging out with this sweet lil puppers until her owner comes to get her. They live directly behind us, across the alleyway (though, NOT the assholes that constantly mow down the daylilies). It was nice to reunite the pupper with her owners and then go on to get our Sonic Blasts (peanut butter cups for David, and M&Ms for me).

Crepe Myrtle

written: July 5

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Looks like the crepe myrtle is gearing up for another blooming. Love those brilliant red blossoms against the dark green, almost black, foliage. I kind of wish we had purchased two more, one for each corner that of side of the yard. Then we would have three along that fence-line between us and the neighbors with the asshole dogs, and the bright as shit porch lights that shine in our eyes at night. ::chuckles:: Oh well.

I do hope to harvest some seeds from the crepe myrtle. This is the one that David planted in the memory of Holly (Ole Lady Dog) when she passed. And he mentioned a while back how bad it will suck if we move, and have to leave that crepe myrtle behind. So I figured if I could harvest some seeds from this myrtle, while it wouldn’t be THE tree we planted, at least it’s part of that tree.

4th of July

written: July 4

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Cicada shed.

Happy 4th of July. We don’t really celebrate it all that much. We don’t do the firecrackers, and we don’t go watch the city set theirs off – which they did yesterday. And we don’t have a grill or a pool, so how un-American! ::laughs::

I was reminded today just how perfect my husband is for me. ::chuckles::

We did a late lunch at Texas Roadhouse. Hubs got ribs and chicken strips and I got the huge chicken fried chicken. As we were driving back, my husband had his window cracked because he was smoking. And we were talking and joking and he said something about being stuffed with “cock meat” (which is our way of saying chicken, because we are completely juvenile). Well, apparently the guy in the pickup beside us had his window down and HEARD it. And that guy promptly rolled his window up. We died laughing and Hubs said, “Yeah, bet he’s one of those ‘real men’ who can’t handle a bit of cock meat and is scared of gays”. And we giggled the whole way home.

I love that my husband has the same sense of humor I do. And I love that he doesn’t get embarrassed about it, even if he says something that another person assumes is homosexual. ::chuckles:: And I love that he recognizes that for what it is, and just laughs it off.

Polar Bear Dog

written: July 3

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Here we have an exhausted pit bull. Very rare. ::chuckles:: We played “red dot” (the red laser pointer) game out in the yard for a while. She should sleep for at LEAST 20 minutes. ::laughs::

And we swear she’s getting more and more black freckles. Like her front legs are significantly more black that we remember. We joke that soon we’ll have a black dog with white spots, or that she’s turning into a polar bear (polar bears have black skin).

Work today was SO MUCH BETTER. Still working on the Dell laptops (I think they said there are 3,000 total that we need to get done), but this time around, I had an entire crew to help me out. So Tech Mike (who looks so much like my dad, it’s almost creepy) was in charge of opening up the pallets, opening the boxes up (the people packaging these laptops LOVE tape), and bringing the boxes to me. I just scan them into the system, assign them a Tag number, and then pass them on to a crew of four. That crew then puts the tags ON the actual laptops and then passes them to a crew of six to eight who set them all set up and ready to go to the campuses.

Still a repetitively physical job, but WORLDS better than yesterday. And then after lunch, I had to man the back while Sandy (boss-lady) and Roni (assistant-boss-lady) received a huge shipment – we’re talking 25 pallets of electronics. It was nice to just chill in the back. I spent more time SITTING DOWN (amazing!), and could properly stretch my back out. I barely hurt by the time I got home.

AND, we don’t work tomorrow (4th of July), or Thursday…and we still don’t work Fridays….so I have a FIVE DAY WEEKEND! Woohoo! I ain’t gonna do shit! ::laughs:: David only gets the 4th off, so I’m sure we’ll lounge around and be bums that day.

I do need to clean Leviathan’s tank and get some new photos of her. I need to get cracking on her upcoming Hatchday cards – she turns 12 in September. ::smiles:: I’ve posted on FB asking for people to comment on that post if they are interested in receiving this year’s Hatchday card. The same goes for here – just leave a comment saying so. ::smiles::

Death of a Thousand Cuts

written: July 2

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My poor arm. The death of a thousand cuts. ::chuckles:: Luckily most of these are just welts.

At work today, I worked on the Dell laptops instead of the Macbooks. But holy crap, it was crazy physical. On my lunch break, I laid down on the living room floor to stretch out my back and shoulders – I thought I was going to die. It was so painful. And of course, Josey just KNEW I was down there to play with her. I am so deeply grateful she didn’t get zoomies because there’s no way I could have gotten up off the floor before she creamed me two or three times.

Man, by the end of the day, I was dying. My shoulders, back, arms, knees, and feet were hurting so bad. I finally busted out the heating pad my mom bought me and strapped it to my back. I should have done that in the beginning! ::laughs::

NaJoWriMo

written: July 1

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The beginnings of a cottontail rabbit wallow in the side yard. I don’t understand why Alfred wants his wallow there, where Josey gleefully chases him anytime he shows up. He has the backyard, which is Josey free. ::shrugs:: I don’t understand bunny logic.

So I changed the settings on my FB posts now to keep them hidden from Paula. While I wish I could set ALL of my posts (including past-posts) to keep her out, but I think she would notice that. ::chuckles:: So this is the next best thing. It shouldn’t tip her off, but also keep her out of my business. And when I look through the memories section of my FB, I see she’s been making random, off-hand comments for a while now. Guess it just had to cumulate before I could recognize it. But, limiting what she can see and how she can interact with me has already lifted quite the weight off my shoulders.

July is a new round of the National Journal Writing Month challenge. This round, I’ve decided to go back to handwriting a journal. I picked up a composition notebook for this challenge. I went, hoping to pick up a new planner, but they didn’t have the one I wanted and I’m being super picky on this shit for some reason. But then, I couldn’t just leave the store without buying anything, so I picked up a composition notebook. Weird how my anxiety will show itself sometimes. ::chuckles::