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Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Those of you who know me at all know that I’m someone who likes change and having many, many choices. This is especially true with my blogs. Though I love WordPress, I think that I’m going to move to my Blogger Blog, http://lifeisbusynothings.blogspot.com. I want to move because I like to play with the template more than I can here at WordPress, and I can add more widgets there. Also, I can follow and be followed by friends at Blogger.

Random Thoughts and Observations: February 1, 2009

It’s been a busy weekend. So much so that I haven’t really had a lot of time to compose my own thoughts even though I updated Lucy’s Blog. Sometimes it’s just easier to see things from her perspective that to think my own thoughts. I really enjoyed this weekend and the company that we had. I just wish I had another day to do laundry and rest a little. It would just make the week seem a little less long. I can’t complain though. I don’t think that I’ve worked but maybe a couple of full weeks since Christmas for one reason or another. Anyway, here are just a few random thoughts for today:

• I think that cities should have an ordnance that states that developers cannot build a mini mall until every other mini mall within the city has full occupancy. I saw another mini mall going up today on the way to Farmington, and saw several along the same road that have maybe one tenant. I loathe seeing land developed for these stupid mini malls that have no tenants.
• I much prefer Puppy Bowl to the Super Bowl. I just don’t care for professional football despite my love of college football.
• I’m hoping that this week will be normal and calm. You know, no rear endings, no colonoscopies, no ice storms, no disasters or issues at all. I just want to go to work this week, have a calm week at work, come home in the evenings, play with my dog, prepare dinner, do the dishes, iron, cuddle with Bart, and call it a day.
• I’ll be happy when the dirt road in front of our subdivision is repaved.
• I love Rick’s Bakery sugar cookies and sausage rolls!
• I still get a kick out of talking to my niece, Emma, on the phone. She’s a card.
• I love my family, both blood, my marriage, and those friends who’ve become family over the years.

Listened to: The Heart of Life from the album “Continuum” by John Mayer

Listened to: Waiting for the Next Drug from the album “Not Only… But Also” by The 88

A Short Breather

This is definitely one of those days when I’ve felt like I’ve been submerged in a sea of chaos, unsure of when or if I would be able to come up for air. We’re living in, quite frankly, a disaster zone right now. The landscape of Northwest Arkansas will never again be the same as it was prior to the ice storm. Thousands of people are still living without electricity and / or hot water even though the ice is slowly beginning to melt. This is the second absolutley disastrous ice storm that I’ve lived through in nine years. I pray that it’s the last, though I know it’s probably not. To be safe, this will be the last one (unless another hits in the next few months) that the William Gilbreath household will be surviving without a generator.

Work is nothing short of Pandemonium right now.  We’re bombarded with both closings and openings as some places still are without power (and will likely remain that way a good while longer), and some want to post that they are finally open once more.  We have crews (now that the roads are beginning to thaw safely) literally taking their own chainsaws out in order to cut their way to our transmitter locations so that they can turn on the backup generators.  Meanwhile those who do have power of some sort are calling, asking why we’re not on the air via antenna.  The Super Bowl is Sunday on our NBC affiliate, and the satellite providers are having equipment problems only with our station.   Speaking of the Super Bowl, among other sundry things I had to make sure that certain promos will run at certain times Sunday.  Usually have pretty much have free reign over where I place promos, but not for the biggest TV even of the year.

So, that’s my past two days at work.  At home, I can’t let Lucy loose in the back yard because it’s turning into a giant mud pit.  She’s got a horrible case of cabin fever, and it just never ends………………………………

Let There Be HEAT!!!

For all of my lamenting about having been born in the wrong century, I’m very grateful for the wonder of having electricity flowing through the walls of my house. Thirty-nine hours without electricity gives a lot of time to read, to fold clothes, to contemplate how different your own home can appear when it’s devoid of all artificial light and the normal noise of electronics, and frankly to blankly stare into the flames in the fireplace and candles. I had to dry my hair, pioneer style this morning by sitting next the fire for about an hour, combing my hair and rotating from side to side. It wasn’t a fun experience, but honestly, I’m just happy to have power. I’ll blog more tomorrow, after I have time to sort my many thoughts.

Listened to: Junuh Sees The Field from the album “The Legend Of Bagger Vance” by Soundtrack

Fireside Nothings: January 25, 2009

Listened to: Vegetable Car from the album “Simple Times” by Joshua Radin

I have many things that I’ve wanted to blog about the, and I feel that I must do it now because tomorrow we’re supposed to be blessed with ice, a lot of ice, to the point where we may not have luxuries such as electricity or cable and cable Internet in a few days. So I must blog now if I’m to do it at all. Hopefully, just hopefully this preventative measure will be for not.

Bart

I want to say a hearty thank you to everyone who has been praying for Bart the past few days. His colonoscopy went well, or at least it went as well as can be expected considering the type of procedure that it is. Thankfully, there was nothing cancerous down there, but they did find two spots of inflammation from which they took biopsies. We’re actually hoping that they come back posiive ( I think) because that would mean Bart has inflammatory bowel disease, which is somewhat more treatable than just irritable bowel syndrome.

It was rather interesting to be the person responsible for Bart after his procedure. He would probably be a funny drunk if either of us ever wished to take up drinking as a past-time. Oh, the things that he said to me ranged from despite the fact that he didn’t have “ovarians,” he felt he needed to impart to his doctor that there was a family history of ovarian cancer. Of course he almost forgot about the grandfather who actually did have colon cancer and the uncle who died of liver cancer. it certainly made for an interesting day, Thursday, that’s for sure.

Blogging

At Bart’s suggestion, I started a blog for Lucy, Lucy’s ‘Splanations. This is only further proof, I think, that we need to have a baby. God’s still teaching us patience in that arena, though, and in the meantime I think it’s fun. I wish that I had started it when we got her because there have been so many fun incidents in the past year that would have made fun reading. Also, pets are with us such a short period of time that we should cherish the time we do have with them and keep record of it. I wish I had kept if not a blog because it was the eighties and nineties, but a journal of my adventures growing up with my lab-chow, Jetta.

Also, I’ve been working at converting WordPress export files into Blogger ones so that I can cross post to my Blogger Blog. I started my first blog, almost four years ago at Bllogger. Then they changed Blogger to where I didn’t like it. Also, I’m always wanting to try new things. I’ve moved to Vox, then here to WordPress. Somehow, though ecto blogging software, I managed to copy all of my vox posts here, and now I’m wanting to do the same, but with the comments to Blogger. I don’t know which I’ll keep, possibly both, if for no other reason that between the two I should be able to keep and move my entire blog when and if I want the change. Don’t get me wrong, I love WordPress, but Blogger has improved a great deal, and I can actually edit my template there more. If I do a complete move, it won’t be for some time. Getting posts converted to Blogger takes quite a bit of time and effort, but I’ve made a good start.

Writing

Also, I’ve been creating a website for my own fan fictions, starting with Once of Ingleside. Along with just posting my works there, I’m editing them (which they badly need) and revising them just enough to clean them up a great deal. I still want to finish my own WWII fic based on Anne Blythe’s grandchildren, but I’ve spent so much time away from them that I need to go back and get to know them again. There’s nothing that I hate more than for characters to change so completely because their creators have lost all touch with them. Also, I’ve fallen into that trap of having rather too many characters. I may have to not feature some quite so much in one series of fictions and let each or a few maybe have their own individual stories, not unlike Cath’s Cecilia and Bertha stories and Louise’s concurrent Jane and Meggie stories.

Life in General

Again, we’re under a Winter Ice Warning, so I don’ know how much blogging will be done in the next few days. So, I just want to say that I’ll be happy if I can just sit here on the couch with the fire burning to my right, Lucy in my lap, and a good book in my hand. There’s just something nice about that. Oh, and I guess that it’ll be nice to have Bart here too. I couldn’t do without him.

Running on Empty

Listened to: Miss Magnolia (Full Band Version) from the album “Unfamiliar Faces” by Matt Costa

I’m so tired tonight that words seem to keep escaping me. I want to write, I yearn to write, but i think the events of the past few days have dammed the stream of collective thoughts in my head. No, I’m not talking at all about things political but things more personal. Tomorrow I take Bart in for a colonoscopy as a precautionary measure for his iBS. Yesterday some rude lady rear ended me on College Avenue on my way back to work from lunch. Having to deal with such incredibly grown up things seems to put quite the damper on my creativity. Maybe it’ll return tomorrow. Maybe i’ll come up with some epiphany tomorrow.

Listened to: Snow Is Gone from the album “Hello Starling” by Josh Ritter

ARRGGGH!

My dislike for people in general grew a bit today.   I was rear ended on my return trip to work from lunch.  Had the woman been paying attention, she would not have hit me, as I gave her ample time to stop because I’m not one of those people who rides bumpers.  Nonetheless, she hit me.  Basically I think she just knocked the paint off of a spot on my back bumper, but she still hit me.

So, first thing I did was call work and have Meredith give me the non emergency police number.  Meredith overheard while the lady told me to hurry because she had somewhere to be.  I informed her that the law is you call the police, and I intended to follow the law.  Yeah.  She liked that.  Turns out the police had some real emergencies to attend to, so they didn’t come, but I got all of her info while I repeated it back to my insurance company.  Needless to say, she’s turned in quite well.

These things happen, I know.  It’s just that when you’re at fault, don’t be such a witch.

Just a Jumble.

I’m of mixed opinions and emotions today as I watch the inauguration of our 44′th President. Of course, I’m happy that we have our first African American President. As a country, we’ve come a long way from slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation. On that note, I’m thrilled and happy for our country as a whole. Also, I respect the office of President. It’s not an easy job by far, and I believe that a great many people have set President Obama up for a huge fall because so many people expect him to be the savior of us all, and sadly a great many will expect instant gratification. As of yet we don’t know if the new President’s policies will help our horrible economy any more than Bush’s. We won’t know for some time. All any of us can do right now is pray for our new President, all the branches of our government, our troops, and our country as a whole. I don’t have to agree with President Obama’s ideology, his politics, or his preference for basketball. I wish him well though. He is my President now, and he deserves due respect.  My greatest complaint about this is that despite the inauguration of the first African American President, we are in economic turmoil right now.  We’re being told by our new President that we’re all going to have to sacrifice things, and that the state of things hasn’t been as bad as this in decades, and yet we’ve had little more than parties, concerts, and expensive celebrations in honor of the event the past few days.  What could we have done with the money spent of these things?  Who could we have helped?  You can make a big deal about this without quite so many displays of such gross extravagance.

How wonderful it is that we live in a country with such a peaceful transfer of power! How blessed are we to be able to vote for President. Let us not forget that though he has not been popular, we in fact owe the continuation of these privileges – these rights - have been kept safe and sacred through the diligence of President George W. Bush.

You can dislike him. I know that I haven’t agreed with a great many of his decisions. However it cannot be ignored that our shores have been safe since 9-11. Seven and a half years ago, we feared of and were almost certain of another attack on our country. That has not happened, and the efforts of the Bush Administration to ensure that should not be forgotten. So I have to say, thank you, President Bush for all you’ve done for us. Thank you, from the very bottom of my heart, and may God bless you.

To President Obama, God bless you, God bless your family. I pray that Gob be with you these next four years. I pray that you can help bring our country to a great place. I pray for your safety and your decision making..

Lastly, God bless America. I do love this land, and I do love our history; the good and the bad. May God continue to be with us, despite party ties, despite everything. Again, GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Peculiar Things, Internal Clocks

I can never seem to wake up on Monday mornings.  I mean, a get out of bed when I’m supposed to, but I don’t feel awake.  I’m just now beginning to feel a little alive, and it’s 11:30.  I’m not a morning person, and my own  internal clock doesn’t like to have to wake up at 6:00 AM.  I am OK with 7:00 and best at 8:00, but I honestly think that 6:00 seriously cuts in on my REM sleep cycle.  I also know that if I sleep later that 8 or 8:30 I feel almost as badly as I do when I’m up at 6:00.  Internal clocks are peculiar things.

My internal clock and my dog’s internal clock are both fairly well tuned; Lucy’s definitely more so than mine, considering she can’t really tell time.  Almost without fail, she keeps a schedule of:

6:00 am – Get up with Mommy, go potty, eat breakfast, then get back in bed with Daddy.

7:15-7:30 am – Go poop.

7:45 am – If the weather is nice, go outside to play while Mom and Dad go to work.  If the weather’s not nice, look down with sad eyes from the top of the stairs.

7:45 am – 1:30 pm-2:30 pm – Either spend morning playing outside with an occasional nap or spend morning inside napping.

1:30 pm-2:30 pm – Share lunch with Mom and go potty.

2:30 pm-5:20 pm – Either play outside or nap inside the house.

5:20 pm – Greet Mommy, poop, and play racquetball with the possibility of a walk.

6:00  pm – Go inside the house, eat supper, wait on Daddy to get home,  and greet him.

6:30 pm – Play with Daddy,  help Mom cook supper.

7:00 pm – Beg for Mom and Dad’s supper.

7:30 pm – Help either Mom or Dad do dishes.  Immediately followed by a potty break.

8:00 pm – Run / walk with Dad.

8:15 pm – Cuddle time on couch, watching TV with Mom and Dad.

9:00 pm – 9:30 pm – Time for another poop.

10:15 pm – 11:00 pm – Time to go to potty one last time then cuddle up in bed.

2:00 am – 2:30 – Wake Mom by licking her eyes so she will take me poop if I need it.  Go back to bed.

6:00 am – Time to start all over again!

When we stray from this schedule, we sometimes get a cranky pup, and that throws the entire schedule into confusion.  I’ve realized with her how important it is to keep some sort of schedule, that dogs and probably children seem to do much better with that stability.  Honestly, we all do.  Sadly, my REM cycle seems to want to stay off track with the rest of my schedules.