I hate inservice days.  

That's all.

Saturday

more animals

I've spoken with my mom and while they got the western edge of Ike, it didn't do any damage. I heard from my friend that her parents in Clear Lake lost a tree and a fence but are fine. I haven't heard from my friend in Spring but they had bad weather until a few hours ago according to the Weather Channel and I'm sure she's without power. I'm sticking with the idea that they are fine and I'll hopefully hear from her in the next few days.

That's pretty much it around here. Today is just a day for doing human stuff--laundry, cleaning the house a bit, going to the grocery store for a few things, watching college football, harrassing the cat who is sleeping in his box. Nothing exciting to do, nothing pressing to get done. It's just a lovely Saturday spent enjoying the little things in life and each other.

Mostly just pictures of Jubjub

Paul took pictures of my friend Devlyn and me working on name tags for Junior League on Saturday. This shouldn't have taken nearly as long as it took me to do but I'm obsessive and more than a little anal retentive about making things look "nice." Notice my OCD-tendencies and the straight lanyards on all the name tags? Compare with Devlyn's half which is probably how a more sane person would do it. (In true OCD fashion, I straightened hers up when I'd finished mine.) But the compliments I received at tonight's meeting were worth it. I might have just solved the "how do we organize these blasted things?" dilemma that every other N&P chair has faced. I shall leave a legacy behind at the end of this year via the name tag organization system.

When Dev and I finished this, I had a few errands to run during the afternoon. While I was waiting for my oil to be changed, Paul called to let me know that the fraud dept. of our credit card had called to alert us to some questionable activity on our card. Since we use the card for pretty much everything we buy and Paul uses it frequently for work buying odd and assorted things, it was hard to imagine anything would alert them to fraud. But a charge for $1.36 to a company in Australia did just that. Since neither of us had made such a purchase, our number was cancelled and new cards were issued. Bummer since we both had that credit card number memorized. I guess I'll just have to practice a little online retail therapy to learn the new number.

And now, a bunch of pictures of the cat because we haven't had enough of these lately. These are the typical ways we find the cat. He obviously leads a very tough life. Here he is stretching. Love those toesies.
I'm way behind on filing our bills so I started to do that project on Saturday. I got sidetracked, probably by something shiny, and I didn't get to it right away. Jub decided it made for a good pillow.
I got a package yesterday and apparently, the box makes for good napping. The cat has only left the box for eating, pooping, and the occasional lap around the house to make certain we aren't touching any of his stuff which is pretty much everything in the house. Obviously, we're ready for a toddler since we deal with the same behavior in the four-legged "child" variety.
And a video of the cat on Sunday. The cat had laid like this for a while before Paul started the video and he stayed in this position for a while longer. Goofy beast.

I still giggle when I see it

This came my way via email probably four years ago. I know I was still in the old library when I got it and I wasn't surrounded by boxes so was at least 2004-05 (started as librarian in 03-04. Half of 05-06 was spent boxed up in old library and then in the portable; 06-07 was in the portable and then in new space). Anywho, yesterday, Donna's post on her site included a couple of funny videos and we started talking about this one. So I found the CD of documents and other "important" stuff I burned when I got my new work computer to see if I still had it.

Hooray for thinking this was "important"! The hippo's expressions are priceless.



And a late update because in the email today from a friend, a longer verson. Thank you, friend! :)

And in the middle of all of this, there were people at the house servicing the A/C

Last week, we received a letter from the HOA that we needed to trim the big grasses next to our driveway within the next 10 days. We realized this but just hadn't done it. The letter wasn't an impetus behind getting it done--our neighbor to the south of us has needed to paint his garage for several YEARS. I've complained about it and nothing has been done. So, we weren't in a big hurry to get the grasses trimmed. I figured we'd do it when we cleaned up the yard in the fall.

Imagine my surprise when I came home today to find our bushes trimmed. Not really trimmed so much as shorn. They look like little grass nubs. Utter confusion turned to anger as I looked at the letter and realized it had only been eight days since the letter was mailed. We still have at least two days to comply if we were going to. It was one of those shaking mad while dialing the phone number for the HOA compliance officer and just let into him, telling him that it hadn't been 10 days and this trim job looks ridiculous and yes, we know we needed to do it but they grow quickly because they're right next to the downspout and it's been raining so it's an ongoing battle and it hadn't been 10 days and. When I took a breath finally, he explained that he just writes the letters but the HOA doesn't do anything about the violation. They weren't the ones who trimmed the things. Oh. OK. So I sheepishly apologized for my outburst and said that I would call my neighbor next door who was probably responsible. And did I mention I'm sorry for yelling at you?

I took a few deep breaths and walked next door where my neighor was on the phone, leaving an apology on our machine for the grasses. She had had some yardwork done and since we never really know who is actually responsible for the grasses (we've taken turns in the past trimming them back) and she suggested that he trim the grasses so they looked like such. She said she was pretty shocked when she saw what they looked like when he was done (it's kind of like he was trying to get them straight and just kept cutting until the grasses were nubs). We chatted for a while, I told her about the compliance letter, and as we were talking, I realized that it probably wasn't her who made the complaint but the neighbor across the street who did it (she apparently questioned the ownership of the grasses a few weeks ago to our next-door neighbor). Next-door neighbor and I chatted for a while longer, she apologized again for the nubs, and sent me home with some pears from her tree as a peace offering (a yummy peace offering).

And looking on the brightside, we won't have to trim the grasses again for a couple of years: