Old Pictures

Here are some of my favorites:

My son and Endy when we first got Endy. The boy is now 12!

First white water rafting trip in April 2010

Second trip, August 2010. My son is on the right side in front of the tour guide and I am on the left side in front of the tour guide.

August 2010, the bear tore the container from the cabin to get to the trash!
We were trapped in the cabin for about an hour. 

He preferred the junk food
(he left theoranges out
and ate the cookies -
BAD BEAR!)

R.I.P. Henry

February 5, I found Henry, the plecostomus, had left our world. He was with us for nearly 8 years, which is about average for a pleco. To remind you, we got Henry with a bunch of other fish prior to Katrina. I had put in all kinds of live plants and then Katrina hit and we could not get home for a while. Henry and the other fish lived off the plants and scared me to death when when they moved - I had assumed that everything in the tank had died. Henry also survived Gustav - he stayed safely at home while we got wolluped in Denham Springs.

I was never able to get a good picture of Henry in his tank so I have found one that resembles him very strongly.

R.I.P. Henry - I will miss talking to you!

Getting my geek on

I am so lonely at work. I am the IT Director for a Research facility that focuses on HIV and childhood diseases. Due to the lack of funding for grants, we have shut down labs and researchers have either moved on or out of the field. I love what I do. I get to work with all the cool programs that sequence DNA, watch cutting edge ideas for development of new vaccines as well as solve network problems and come up with cost effective creative solutions. I really love my job, BUT...there is NO ONE here who understands what I do!

So, last night, hubby got home from his new job (he is in IT as well) and I literally bombarded him with questions about his day because I am so starved for tech talk. He is now working with a team and I am so jealous. He told me about his day until he finally said he was tired of talking about it. He is right, I am not bored but lonely because I have no one to talk to when I use a sniffer to track down a rogue access point, catch a hacker poking at my firewall, change a disk in the cluster without downtime or come up with a really cool work around for my scientists. Yes, they are my scientists and I love working with them.

Poor hubby - got my geek on him last night till he said "ENOUGH!!!"

Gotta run and figure out why our video conference system is misbehaving - I will hug my imaginary horse before I go though :).

I love my job!

Focus on the good

I admit it, I need some therapy right now. But until I can get that setup, I have decided to focus on the good that is happening.

At my son's soccer game last night, I had the chance to catch up with a couple of good friends. We made plans to get together Saturday night and it just felt good doing something normal. Unfortunately his team lost but it was fun and the boys played the best they could.

After picking up dinner for the humans and the cats, I started working on the Oxford plans. Oh, didn't I tell you? My son got accepted into a 4 week program for Oxford University (yes ENGLAND)! He will be studying math, physics, debate and photography. They have field trips and he will meet kids from all over the world. I was trying to find something this summer that would challenge him and I think this will do it. I also wanted him to meet new kids and that will definitely happen. His buddy was also accepted so they will be able to bunk together. His parents are going to bring the boys up and we will bring them home. My little nerd - he is so wonderful! I guess I should stop saying little, he passed my up by 2" this month. OK not hard to do because I am only 5' 2" but at 12 and 5' 4" he is taller than most of the kids in his class.

Hubby started a new job this week -yeah! He is a nerveball about it but I know he will do fantastic. He seems to like to so far, I am just glad he is no longer at the other job. They were working him into the ground. Getting a good job in this economy shows how valuable he is - sillyhead will not believe me when I tell him though.

My father-in-law is starting chemo next week - yeah! WHAT?? you say. Yeah because they feel he is strong enough and a good enough of a candidate to go through it. He had small cell carcinoma in the bladder, which is very rare. Of all the bladder cancers that are found, small cell carcinoma is on .05% - 1/2 of 1%! It is also extremely aggressive so they are saying he is tumor free and the chemo will hopefully knock out any microscopic small cell carcinoma in his system. So, Yeah! My father-in-law is starting chemo.

The animals are all doing well. At Petco last night, I made the mistake of looking at one of the shelter cats - I have to stop doing that. No I did not bring her home but I just get pissed that people allow their pets to breed and dump them. I remember being young and nearly every family in our neighborhood let either their dog or cat have a litter so the kids could experience the miracle of life. Being young, I thought it was cool. We got to help "raise the babies" and if we could not find them homes, we could just bring them to the shelter so they could. I choose the believe the parents did not understand what would really happen. All our cats are strays:

Mini walked up on my husband and his evil ex-wife starving at 6 months
Maggie was adopted from a shelter - I think she was born at the shelter
Ashley was found by my wonderful sister-in-law starving in the bushes at 6 weeks
Murphy walked up on my father-in-law skin and bones with an embedded collar at 5 months

The positive is that we have them and they are ours for life.

I find myself reading dreamhorse.com. I know I do not have time but I wish I had a horsey.

The sounds of Happy Boys

Made it through the holidays and right now I have the sounds of two happy boys in the front of the house. There is nothing better for the soul than listening to tweens laugh!

Murphy was neutered Tuesday and seems to be doing fine. He misses playing with Ashley but by tonight, they can tussle all they want. I told my hubby I could look into getting neuticles for Murphy (or Murph the Smurf as he is affectionately called), my hubby didn't know what they were. He was appalled that someone actually thought of that - must be a man, he said.

Ooops, I did it again!

Well, after swearing that we would not add to our little zoo, we did. Murphy, the most adorable little stray tabby boy, showed up on my father-in-law's deck. He was starving (literally skin and bones) and he had two collars that were nearly embedded and had to be cut off (they were kitten collars). I am guessing that he is between 4 to 6 months but the vet will tell me this afternoon. He has been with us for a few days and has a good appetite, has been putting on weight and was VERY playful this morning so I think overall he is healthy and just needs the weight gain. Murphy will be the only boy cat in the house so it will be interesting to see how the others react. We already introduced Endy, who was very well behaved. But Murphy growled a lot so poor Endy is still not allowed in our bedroom.

This is a welcome distraction for me - my father-in-law's surgery is next Monday and I am sick over this. I am praying for God to do what is best...well for the most part. A little part of me is still demanding that he is still at stage III and not stage IV. I am thankful for everything we have, I just don't want to lose this man. So I guess that is why I stole his cat! That is what everyone is teasing me about - I just love little Murphy and guess I feel like I have a part of my father-in-law with me since he found Murph.

Will post pictures later.

PS - did I say that 2011 has sucked the big one? Thank God for hubby, child, in-laws and all these wonderful creatures He allows me to care for.

PPS - the vet says he is 5 months old. Am I good or what!

Maggie, Maggie, Maggie

Well Maggie went on a 3 day walkabout. When she showed up Saturday morning, she was limping so we took her to the vet. Unfortunately she had a wound inside her left rear leg that exposed her femoral artery! So my poor little Maggie is now confined to a doggie crate with a cone around her head :(. We have to clean the wound (they were forced to stitch it to protect the vein) and give her lots of happy drugs. She seems to be adjusting but she is really bummed right now and has become an expert at removing the cone in the middle of the night.

So much for our week-end plans - I am just glad she is healing.