Friday, June 16, 2006

Time has been flying by since my last post. It's been a busy and productive few weeks.

My newest wedding assistant is GREAT! He's 17yo,very responsible and intelligent and has a natural eye for capturing good images. He wants to major in photojournalism, so the situation benefits us both---he gets experience and I get reliable help. Huge blessing, there! The new equipment is working out great, too.

My veggie garden is really flourishing. I was very concerned about the deer and rabbit infestation in the area, but I think the dogs' presence has kept them at bay, so far.

Funny story!! I took the dogs for our evening walk in the field and came upon several deer munching on Farmer Sammy's corn. I let the dogs off of their leashes to give chase. Elvis, as is his custom, runs his quarry to the edge of the woods and then marks his territory and trots back happily to my side. Hilda tears across the field, full steam ahead (as is her custom) yelping excitedly. She's very quick and was right on the heels of a big doe as they both plunged into the woods. A couple of seconds go by and there's a scuffling sound coming from the woods. Suddenly, out bursts Hilda from the treeline, running as fast as her legs will carry her, ears laid back, eyes huge, tail between her legs and right behind her is the big doe, actually CHASING her back into the field!!!! I couldn't believe my eyes!! Dog and deer are headed on a beeline for me until Elvis caught sight of the doe and charged towards her. The deer, of course, fled back into the woods and the dogs bounded back to me. I thought I was going to wet myself from laughter. That is just not something you see everyday!! If I'd had a video camera I'd have a sure winner for AFV's $10,000 prize.

My 34th birthday has come and gone. Quite frankly, I feel old. However, the day itself was nice, if busy. I got to see Austin play ball and received several nice well-wishing phone calls and e-mails. A beautiful bouquet of flowers, a homemade b-day card and prime quality beef, all delivered to my doorstep.

About the beef. Two boxes of excellent burgers and a box of lobster stuffed filets. Did I mention that it's PRIME beef? I am SO excited about that. I can't decide whether to just dig in or save them for special occasions. What a lovely dilemma to have, eh? ;0)

The trim is down on my wood floors and they look great. One of my clients actually did it for me while his wife perused their newly created wedding album.Worked out GREAT!!

Alright, that's just all I have time for. I have more stuff to write about, but I'll have to catch up later.

Thanks for the b-day wish, Bridget!!!! And thanks for the compliment on my new sidebar photo, Dy!! :0)

Thursday, June 01, 2006

One of Those Days

I'm trying not to complain. I'm trying to see the humor in it. Hence this post.

I awoke this morning to find that what was supposed to be the FINAL coat of polyurethane that I had slaved over the night before did NOT look good. It was too shiny, full of lint and still tacky. That was incredibly frustrating, because I had no choice but to go ahead and walk on it and let the dogs tramp over it to get outside. So, footprints galore! I also had a consultation this afternoon, meaning I had to drag all of my furniture back into the living room from the various locations where it had been stuffed,wedged and/or precariously balanced in the office, kitchen and bedroom (for the ump-teenth time). So, drag marks galore! And there's really no need to mention the dog hair, is there? You all know it's there.

The kid down the road who was supposed to cut the grass for me on Sunday is STILL a no-show. I called today and his mother informed me that he was at a ballgame with his girlfriend. Well, good. I'm SO glad he's out having such a lovely time with his little Miss Thang. In the meantime, my yard is starting to look like the serengeti. I swear, I think I saw a lion in there the other day. I don't know, maybe it was just the heat. Or Hilda.

Speaking of heat, today was HOT and humid. I left my purse, filled with all of my makeup in the car and returned to find--well you can guess. It was a big mess. Word to the wise, here: strawberry lip gloss will, in fact, reach a completely liquid state and form an impenetrable and unremovable glaze on the bottom of ones purse, if it is heated to a high enough temperature. Who knew?

I put the dogs out for their early afternoon airing and came back to find that Hilda had disappeared. My hollering until hoarse did not succeed in calling her back.

I tried to place a supply order and was startled to find out that my bank account was overdrawn. Knowing this had to be a mistake, I quickly checked my account online. Turns out an album company had mistakenly withdrawn a LARGE sum of money out of the account WITHOUT my having ever made a purchase.

After shooting off an irate email to the offending album company demanding a refund, I grabbed the nearest wedding deposit check and sped off to the bank to deposit it. The lady at the bank, informed me that because the name was partially scribbled out, she couldn't accept the check. Even though it's clearly initialed and everything's in the same handwriting and the same ink and it's a check drawn from an account in your OWN bank??? Nope. So sorry. You'll just have to get another check. I just drove away. I was so furious I was ready to cry. Why didn't I notice I was in the Newbie-teller line?? The other bank ladies are super nice and know me by name and would never ever send me packing over a misspelled word that was scribbled and initialed, anyway, for garsh sakes!!!

It has been my observation that bank tellers come in only two varieties: Supernice-no-problem-have-a-nice-day-oldtimers and Screw-you-those-are-the-rules-newcomers. When does the one evolve into the other? How long a process is that? Why are there no links between the two in the fossil record?

The couple who's afternoon appointment was the cause of my dragging all of my furniture back across the new floor(gouging it all. to. PIECES), called at the last minute to reschedule for another day--for the third time. Ahhhhhlllrighty, then.

And that was my day. Cause I'm done now. I'm sitting in front of the computer with a glass of week-old wine (who knew it kept that long?Huh.) and everything is quiet. Hilda eventually returned, all panting and exhausted and quite remarkably dung-free. The album company has agreed to refund the money back to my account, immediately. I'm contemplating calling up other kids on my road and offering them an extra couple of bucks to cut my lawn tomorrow. My makeup has congealed back into usable, though misshapen, forms. The nice bride who's scribbled-on check was deemed undepositable by the powers that be (damn them) has agreed to write me a new one. So, other than a wee little bit of residual bitterness about the picky teller and the gouged-up floor....I'm good. Life is good.

My folks are coming to stay the night with me Friday. They're coming into town to see Jack's baseball game and Savannah's ballet performance. I really wanted the floors to be done and the yard to look neat. I wanted to possibly cook something and have a bottle of their favorite wine chilled and waiting for them. It would appear that none of those things might now happen. The floor'll look crappy, the yard'll look sloppy and I'll be too freakin' poor to buy wine and victuals (depending on how fast that album co. actually refunds their ill-gotten gains!). But, it's okay. It's just wood and grass and alcohol--just things. I'll be spending time with my folks and be seeing the kids enjoying and excelling in their chosen activities. "No success in life can compensate for failure at home"(another one of my pithy little bulletin board quotes). "Failure" would be me making myself and those around me miserable because things didn't go my way,instead of just letting go and appreciating the time we have together as family members. So the heck with the lawn and the floors--they'll hold. :0)