Donald Cooper, you will be missed. You fought long and hard, and were always cheerful and strong. You are an example to us all with your bravery. I hope you will now be at peace. I will pray for you and yours tonight.
I know that his family will never read this, but a friend of ours passed away on Sunday. His funeral is tomorrow, and I'm sad, I've known this man and his wife for more than 10 years. I'm worried about Margie, his wife - she's been so strong for so long, and they were such a wonderful couple, I can only imagine what it would be like to lose your husband, after the battle they fought for so long. It's been a roller coaster for them. And he was indeed very brave and always positive. Donald had problems with his stomach from a young age, too.
Anyway, just a small memorial to him.

We are going to the BEACH TOMORROW! YAY!
I would never have been able to do this if I hadn't quit the manager training program - now I have two days off, we're leaving tomorrow right after work!
Mind you the beach - near Wilmington, NC, is less than two hours from us.
I'm freaking excited!
WHEEEE!
Now I've got to run to Wally World and pick up a dog crate and a one piece.
Okay?
Okay!

Guess what? I went to Trader Joe's today, and they had:
FIDDLEHEADS!
YUMMMMM. I am in freaking heaven. I haven't had fiddleheads since I was in Maine last - 5 years ago? Oh, so delicious.
And hubby got to have some too - I have a fiddlehead convert on my hands. He was in doubt at first, but upon smelling them decided they might be safe for consumption. I read that they are a cross between broccoli and asparagus as far as flavor goes - I'd say that's accurate.
Good thing I got two batches - I might decide to go back and get some more for freezing, the season is very short!

Wanted to say HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to everyone - I personally count furbabies, so if you're a furbaby mama - that's also for you!!!
I do have to work today, which is why I'm up so darned early. And I'm sleepy! Gah. I'm going to need a lot of coffee to get through this day. I don't know if my stomach can handle that so I'm going to take one of Tony's OTC Prilosecs with me. I CANNOT FREAKING WAIT FOR MY NEXT DAY OFF. I'm tired. I can't get adjusted to this schedule.
So I've been working on my YouTube channel. I've finally figured out a way to compress my vids, actually using my Cannon software.  But I cannot get Windows Movie Maker to do me any good, if I could figure out how to run that and then export the video for the optimum size, I'd be all set, really. I think I'm an addict. I've actually got two more videos to make already.
OH.
RENATE: Congratulations, sweetie! I hope everything went smoothly and you had a GREAT TIME.  I WANNA SEE PHOTOS!  pulverheks just got married! And wattle_neurotic went from Australia to Norway to be there - how awesome is that for the two of them! Sweet.
Oh hey - is anyone else ridiculously addicted to the new Madonna song 4 Minutes ? I can't get it out of my head. That and Rihanna's SOS.  I forget sometimes that I like pop music at all.
So I'm going to go hop in the shower.

I'm not really sure if I'm up for the challenge. After the crazy weekend, I got one day off, today.
I spent all day cleaning and doing laundry, and I have hardly touched the list of things I wanted to get accomplished. I need to get into the yard and pick up all that crud - and that's going to have to be done like early in the morning - possibly Thursday, because on the next schedule that's my only day off.  It puts me at working approximately 56 hours a week, give or take.  Somehow I only ended up with 54 this week, but I don't want to go in to make up those two hours that I'm supposed to work as a manager trainee. Ugh. The money's good though - on a 40 hour week the first week, I made $400. Anything else is just butter, right? So the paychecks are good, I think if I do keep up this pace I'll be clearing close to $2000 a month.  That's more than I've ever made.  Even when I worked for RJ Reynolds. It's grueling, mentally though.  I mean, I'm used to the physical, I've worked as a waitress for more than ten years, and when I'm at work, I WORK. My feet burn when I get off. But this is different, I'm still doing the physical - a lot more cooking now than before, but I'm cool with that, I like the switchup.  The mental though, everything you have to remember and there's several tasks that HAVE to be done every single day, plus covering when people are going to be late or call out, or when someone wants to have drama at work....and then there's all the bickering that goes on, and they ALL come to you. OY.
Naw, actually, though I've worked all day at home, I feel pretty good, I feel like I can do it all over again. I just get tired, like, yesterday, Tony told me if I came in today it would really throw my paycheck over the edge - and I couldn't make myself do it, I just needed to be away from the place today.
And then, at 1:30, he realizes he doesn't have a second shift cook. I was so down about it, but I was going to do it, I was about to get into the shower when he called back and said he found a cook. Boy was I relieved.  Because that would have been a split - and I have to be in the unit at around 6AM, ugh.
So this is why I haven't had much to blog about. All I've done is work.
However, when I got my paycheck Friday, I did go shopping, and even made my first YouTube video.  I hate it, and I don't know how the hell people edit with Windows Movie Maker.  I can't do it. Plus, I can hear a lisp - I can only assume I was still suffering from all that dental work, because I can't hear it now. However, if you feel like checking out my little haul video, you can click here. Ignore the hair - it was wild, and I couldn't even think of taming it with a headband - they give me headaches. Oh - I ended up with a Ralph fragrance, like I mentioned previously, but it wasn't the one I was thinking of, it was Ralph Wild instead.  Which is really yummy.
And that's all for now. I placed a huge order (for me, anyway) at CherryCulture.com, which has not shipped yet, so I'm waiting anxiously on that.
I think I'll be trying out Medusa's Makeup next, I want those gorgeous pigments.

And ordinarily, this would be my weekend off, following rotation.  But no, thanks to my promotion, that's now skipped. I won't have a day off until Tuesday. Then it's one day. So that's nine days in a row. And I haven't even hit the weekend yet, when I'll be managing the store - since Tony's going to be off and we no longer have a district manager, that leaves me in charge.
YOU HAD ALL BETTER SHOW UP! DAMMIT! AND YOU KNOW I'M TALKING TO YOU! So play nice, k? Kthx.
Now, it's 8 in the evening, and I'm stumbling off to bed. With a blazing headache.

So yesterday I got pretty stuff, today I had to suffer to be pretty.  Yeah, I had another dentist appointment.
I guess I'll explain all of this; I don't think I have before, and why not? I've got time to kill.
I'm going to put this under a cut, it's rather long and also, for the weak of stomach, I'm going to warn you: Getting a tooth pulled is kind of hard on your body.  Lots of yuck under the cut.

I mean, like seriously.  I went by Ulta today, because I decided if we could pick up a nice Fender acoustic guitar for Tony (my actual PERSONAL birthday present to him), then I could treat myself with a few little goodies.
I found my next perfume: Ralph HOT by Ralph Lauren.  It smells so freaking delicious.  I think I may have to go back tomorrow to get it, I'm so in love with it.
I originally stopped by to pick up some more NYX eyeshadows - I had gotten five from Cherryculture.com before, but I wanted to peek and see what the local Ulta had in stock before I ordered more, and I went home with five more - High Light, and then four shades of green: Herb, Green Tea, Khaki, and Lime Green. I had to immediately try out the lime green - and it's SO much fun. I love the color! I also picked up a couple more of one of my favorite drugstore brand eyeshadow - Revlon ColorStay 12 Hour eyeshadow.  These come in palettes of four, I picked up a set of greens I've never seen before, so they must be new, (obviously, I'm on a green kick), and then a smoky set, which has black and dark blue and two shades of gray. They stay forever, and the color is incredibly vibrant, all for six dollars.  I really am in love with these.  I think I have all of the palettes.  So if you can't already tell, I am a total eyeshadow addict.  That's my real problem - eyeshadows, I cannot get enough of them.
I also stopped by the Bare Minerals section, I was wanting to try a different brush for my foundation - the two that were included in my starter kit I was beginning to absolutely despise, so I found one that everyone seems to love, the Heavenly Face Brush.  I also picked up Pure Radiance all over face color - I've been wanting to give this a try over my foundation, and I love it - so sweet looking.
Yeah, that's it. Pfft.

As usual, I got bored. Ignore the mess; I'm working on it now. Thanks!

I feel like I've been gone forever!  It's been a very busy week, obviously, Tony's birthday was this week, and that's always a huge deal.  Everyone expects me to pull off something crazy and fun - last year, for his 40th birthday, we had this humongous surprise party for him at Olive Garden. I got all kinds of dressed up, we did balloons and a big present and the whole restaurant, plus a few extras, showed up.  Cake, flowers, the whole nine yards.  And we had a blast - I think we had something like 30 people in all.  So this year, I had to do something equally as fun and exciting.  We decided on a southern style food buffet, and he's been pestering me for a barbecue grill since we moved into this house last November - so that was the goal.  Well, I collected a big pile of money from everyone, and we had just enough to cover the grill I wanted to get him at Lowe's.  So then I went and got him a tool set, grill cover, and gas tank.  Amanda came across a cute card, Leanne picked up the cake, and we were ready to go.  The only thing I had to do was get my cute dress and the makeup to go with it.  You know, I blame this whole makeup obsession on _sweetkitty, Reenie.  I used to just be about eyeshadow and some mascara.  Now, I'm still completely obsessed with eyeshadow - it's worse, now actually, but I am getting into the other stuff now - mascara, foundations, eyeliner, lipsticks and glosses, blush. So I found a really cute orange dress - kind of coral colored, great for spring, I already had heels to go with it.  The problem was finding the perfect color orange eyeshadow.  Rimmel turned out to have the solution - I found two trios, one a powder and the other a gel, both were gorgeous.
We didn't have the huge turnout this year that we had last year, because there was so much going on this time around.  We had it the Monday after his birthday, because his birthday fell on a Saturday, and it was harder to get everyone together on a Saturday than on a Monday.  I was still pleased with the turnout, and he was so happy with everything - the food was great, the cake was chocolate, lots of friends came, he got a great big sword, and then at the end I put a pile of extra bits in his hand and told him that was his present.  Hah, if I had a picture of his face at that second, it was great - so we took him outside and showed him his real present.  That reaction was utterly priceless, the grill we picked up is about middle of the line, but since it's just us most of the time, we didn't need a $500 one. It's awesome, I tell you.
At the end of the night, one of the girls came up to me and asked me to help her put something together for her boyfriend's birthday.  Maybe I should start a party planner business.  It's a lot of fun, really.  I took quite a lot of pictures, most have been uploaded and placed in a Flickr set, if you'd like to view it.
I'll finish up with recapping the good things this week, and then I'll go into my depressing news - it kind of follows, so here's the second part of my busy week.  My promotion came through!  I've been officially placed in the manager trainee program, and my rate of pay has been upped.  Yeah!  If I put in the required hours, I should be making between $550 and $600 a week.  More, if I do any overtime.  The only thing about that is - I have to work more than 55 hours a week for it to be overtime.  I've already been doing the six days on and two days off already, so that's not going to be much of an adjustment, but I'll need to stay until around 4:30 to make my hours.  Which is okay, because I've a stack of 5 books to complete, and once I finish my shift, I'll be working on those. I have so much to learn!  The computer system, how to do all the extra stuff on the grill, paperwork, hiring, you name it. I'm willing to take it on, because it means our income just doubled. Which is good, because the bad news is next.
When Tony was promoted last year, he forgot to change his taxes until about two months later. He claimed the right amount, once he did, but it was too late - we were worried we'd have to pay out this year, and sure enough, we do.  Sadly, yesterday was April 15th. I've never been stressed about tax time before in my life, but now we find out we have to pay federal approximately $2200, and state almost $800.  We have made arrangements to pay federal off in monthly installments, which will take us about ten months, but state doesn't have that kind of arrangement.  So that will have to be paid off in a lump sum this month, luckily I think we'll manage to get at least one of my new paychecks in before that will come due.  The bad thing is we'll be paying the amount that some folks use for a car payment on taxes.  That money could have been saved to buy a house, and we both need new(er) cars.  Oh well, it's a painful lesson to learn, but we didn't make that mistake with mine, we changed my taxes today the instant the new pay rate went in.
I have another dentist appointment tomorrow, he's going to finish the rest of my fillings and then the last visit I have scheduled, next week, will be my fourth wisdom tooth extraction.  I really am not looking forward to that, it's not coming in right and still covered by a lot of flesh. But my teeth are looking SOO pretty! I don't even mind smiling anymore.  I curse my mother for sharing that part of her genetics with me, but then again, I'm lucky.  At 18 years old, she had to have all of her teeth extracted, they were in such horrible shape, and my uncle had the absolute worst problems with his teeth, I can remember at least five root canals he had to have done. Plus, mom was totally gray by 25 - I've still got a good 90% of my dark hair.
Gods, the pollen this spring is absolutely killing me.  I've never had a worse spring, of course, I never experienced this when I was up north, I'd never seen a car turned green overnight by pollen.  They mowed the enormous lawn today while we were at work, all the way down to the pond. We did our first grill tonight - barbecue beef short ribs, corn, and potatoes, and being outside grilling has got my eyes itching and watering.  Even the dog is having problems with it, he keeps rubbing at his eyes with his paws, like a cat.
Oh! I got some goodies in from BMG this week - I'm still missing a five cd shipment, but I got an email yesterday saying my order had shipped, and they showed up in the mail today.  I got Guns N' Roses Use Your Illusion I & II, David Bowie's two disc Best of Bowie, Introducing Joss Stone, and the Eagles double disc Greatest Hits.
I think I've about finished rambling.

This is indeed a rant - and a celebrity one. I'm going to post it under a cut for anyone who doesn't want to read about it on their flist, or just isn't interested in the subject.  I'll also try to be eloquent as opposed to stooping to cussing, but it may involve some of that, as anyone who knows me knows I have a mouth like a truck driver.

So, this is from anniebean's journal.  If you want to participate, you reply to this post, and I pick 7 of your interests.  You post (roughly) this in your journal, and explain the seven interests I've picked.These are the interests Annie has picked for me to explain:
1. astrology - I have been interested in astrology since I was little!  My parents were hippies and were into all kinds of unusual stuff (well, I guess then it was unusual, coming from the era of the fifties, now, not so much) - and they had a ton of books on astrology.  I have learned that I am a Sagittarius, but not only that, I have seven of my planets in Sag - so I'm REALLY really Sag-gy! I know all of these little tidbits about all of the signs.  I don't know as much of the technical aspects, as that kind of eludes me - it involves quite a bit of math, and I get bored with that, but I like reading up on the personality traits.
2. coffee - and not just coffee, but lattes, iced lattes, cappuccinos, flavored coffees - you name it.  I ADORE coffee. And I'm a snob - I cannot drink Maxwell House or Folgers. YUCK.
3. Ferris bueller's day off - Oh haayyy. That is my FAVORITE eighties movie. I can practically quote it line for line.  Worse, I can do some of Ferris' dances, and definitely his singing.
4. paganism - Yeah, I'm pagan.  I'm not a witch - because that just doesn't fit with me. It's so hard to define versions of paganism, but I'll give it a little try, just for myself.  Mostly for me, it means that I believe not only in God, but Goddess - the feminine face of God.  I feel so much that it's lacking in traditional religions - maybe not so badly in Catholicism, because they do have Mary to pray to, and that's another version of the feminine in religion - but, overall, it's a big half that's missing.  A long time ago I realized that I couldn't fit myself into organized traditional religions - I just didn't believe!  So I started doing more and more research, and found out that there were alternatives.  This is more me - I practice I guess what would be basically termed an earth centered religion. What's funny was, before, I used to be terrified of death and dying.  I mean, nightmares at least once a week, couldn't talk about it, nothing.  Now, it does not even bother me in the slightest, I feel some comfort because the path my spirituality has taken makes me much more comfortable with it.  I don't know if that makes sense? Wow, this one has been kind of random, and not a good overview. Sorry.
5. penguins - Yeah, this kind of goes hand in hand with Bloom County, because Opus is the main reason I fell in love with penguins.  If I could have one in my house, I so totally would.  Oh, not just Opus, but there was this adorable article in Ranger Rick one year when I was a kid.  SO CUTE.  WANT.
6. quotes - And not just literary quotes, but movie quotes too. I LOVE MOVIE QUOTES. "I call all you guys Jack." - The Family Man
7. writing - Something I procrastinate on, but I love doing.  I should be working on my book ideas. I have soooo many.

This is work related, so if you don't want to hear about that, feel free to skip this entry altogether *lol*
So.  Already, weekends suck.  Last weekend I cooked because Cris needed the weekend off, which was ordinarily fine, but this time everything that could go wrong, did.  I got burnt three times on my hand - the one on my knuckle is quite painful, and this weekend I hit it so many times it wasn't remotely funny.  And then I got popped in the eye by hot oil while flipping an egg.  Oh, and I got egg from an omelet in my hair, eyes, all over my face, and all over my shirt while flipping an omelet.  And speaking of flipping eggs - apparently, in the spring, eggshells get really thin, and eggs have a lot more water in them than usual, thus creating problems for cooks everywhere - at least, if you're trying to flip an over light or over medium egg.  Forget it - they're just going to break.  And they did, all weekend long.  Gah.  It was nonSTOP. Then the grill stopped cooking. Literally, the temperature just dropped off, and hashbrowns were taking ten minutes to cook - they ordinarily take like, two minutes. It was ridiculous.
So this weekend, Cris was back and on the grill, and the same kind of mayhem ensued.  He actually took the grill down in the middle of the rush to brick it, and that still didn't help.  Oh - and it was the "I'm going to be an ass" customer weekend. Luckily, it really didn't affect me - my customers were exceptionally nice.  It was my coworkers who go those types.  There was a couple who came in today.  At first they stalked my section for a good fifteen minutes, and when nobody got up and left, they finally went and sat at the counter.  The last couple who sat in my booth had already ordered, and I had put the order in, by this time.  They were almost done eating when the woman at the counter started flipping out and cursing - "What's taking my f__king food so long?  If my f__king food is cold, I'm going to be pissed....those people came in after us and they're almost done (and then she's pointing at my customers)!" I swear to God, my customers shrunk in their seat.  They looked at me, I looked at them, and we had a serious moment of commiseration.  First of all, you sat down probably fifteen minutes after my customers - of course you haven't gotten your food yet.  How do you think that works? You think if you stand by the door, we can take your order by ESP? Or perhaps osmosis - you can transfer it through the walls.  Pfffft.  I mean, seriously.  I guess she thought if she ranted enough, her food would be cooked faster.  This is NOT MC DONALD'S, it's a sit down restaurant, we prep all of our food fresh, and you can sit up there and keep your mouth shut and actually watch your food being cooked, if you had a lick of sense.  You screaming at your waitress is not going to make it cook any faster.
I'm not really sure what it was, but people were just kind of snotty, if not to the extreme that this woman went through.  You know what - when they finally left, the guy with her slammed our glass door open so hard, it vibrated the building.  I turned around and looked to see what happened, and he stares at me - like he's going to come back in and "beat me down".  Then he goes out the second door and does THE SAME THING.  Oh, and when they get in their vehicle - 2007 Ford F-150, NC license plate number (yup - I wrote it down!) - they slowed down by the front entrance, almost at a dead stop, and did the staring thing AGAIN.  *rolls eyes* I guess what they failed to realize was that half of the staff working today were third shift trained staff - we've dealt with a lot more drunk and belligerent than you could possibly imagine, buddy. That staring thing? SO not scary. I think they were really mad at me, because they kept going on and on about my people getting their food first, and I was tired of them pointing down at them from the counter, so I said to them that they sat down after my people - naturally my people are eating before you.  They didn't like being contradicted.  Well, sorry.  Stop trying to intimidate everyone in the restaurant with obvious lies and cursing in front of children.
Honestly.  I was never so glad to go home in my life, I swear it.

Yeah. SUX for me. I quit.








Didn't I ?

Man, I thought I could type faster than this:


54 words

Speedtest

So Brownie had a vet appointment on Friday, with Dr. Munn.  He's been given his rabies and distemper vaccines, been checked for heartworm and ticks, and of course, the biggest thing: microchipped!  So now, right below his collar between his shoulderblades rests a nice little set of information.  *phew* We really liked Dr. Munn, we had a lot of questions about his eye injury (evidence of trauma, but nothing to impede his vision), the change in eye color (nothing to DO with the injury, and not a medical thing, just kind of weird), getting him on heartworm medicine, etc. And he answered all of these.  His coat, we were told, is gorgeous, so what we're feeding him is good, we're doing good with the chew treats, because his teeth are amazing, and overall he had such a great personality they fell in love with him.
Now, here's where things start to go wrong.  We took him home, and when we got there, the neighbor was out with Shelby, and of course Brownie wanted to go play with her at the pound.  He didn't go for a full fledged swim, but he did get in and wade around.  That night, he was doing a lot of whining, and he seemed kind of down.  We attributed it to the vaccinations and thought he'd pull out of his little funk the next day.  Not so much!  The next day he seemed to have a kind of cough or a tickle in his throat, he wasn't throwing up, but he was gagging and hacking a little.  Seemed okay other than that, but still a bit down and sleepy.  Sunday, he was worse, he seemed really unhappy, had actually thrown up a bit, didn't want to be out and playing ... slept away most of the afternoon and night.
Today, when we came home, he was MISERABLE. He had doggy snot, he was hardly able to breathe while up moving around without coughing, and it seemed the stuff coming up was phlegm.  I put him out to go to the bathroom, and he went - but five minutes later, I peeked out to see if he was done, and he was standing under the big tree, head down, tail tucked.  I called the vet.  When we took him in, they immediately said, this is not the same dog we saw on Friday.  Poor baby!
So, after an exam we have discovered he has PNEUMONIA!  Holy cats, I cannot believe it.  The vet put him on some antibiotics, and gave him a fluid....treatment, where they insert a needle into his skin, with some fluids and B12, and just fill up pockets.  It was weird looking but I think it's doing him some good. We took him home, let him get some rest, and then fixed him some boiled chicken breast and white rice.  He managed to get a good bit of that down, considering he hasn't much appetite, and even got his two antibiotic pills down! But he's still quite lethargic, miserable, and dog snotty.
I hope he's feeling a bit more himself tomorrow!  I think he shouldn't have been playing in the water after his vaccinations. I wish I'd have thought more thoroughly about it.  I really don't know how he could have gotten it other than that; maybe his resistance was down?? I'm going to bed soon, hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.
______________________________________________________
So, the next day:  He's still sick, but wow, my boy's feeling so much better.  All kinds of perky, up, tail's wagging, ears perked up, drinking water on his own and going for his food bowl unassisted.  The antibiotic and fluids are working! YAY.