The Quadruple Whammy.

I've mentioned before that our dog Max is a former shelter dog who has come to us with some fears, namely, brooms, sticks, balls, balloons (anything inflated) and pool noodles. After VBS my son brought home and inflatable dog toy that he won as a prize. He told me that Max was scared of it and said that it was a quadruple whammy for Max. I asked what he meant and he he said that 1. It's inflatable. 2. It's another dog. 3. The other dog is holding a (eeek!) ball and 4. It has a whistle on it. I don't think Max is actually afraid of whistles I think he just hates them for the same reason I do, they're loud and annoying. Anyway, the inflatable dog has been banished to the kid's bedroom where Max doesn't usually go, so the poor dog can have a little peace. He's already had a traumatic week with getting his ears cleaned and his nails trimmed and now we've gotten a new kitten ...
poor Max!

You Won!

The other day I was playing a game of UpWords with my parents and I had to leave before we had quite finished to pick up my oldest son from the library. It was a very close game. We were all in the 120s, score-wise and we all had 4 letters left. As I left, my mom said they'd play my letters when it was my turn and finish the game for me. I said, 'okay, let me know how I do!" Today, I asked her and she said "Oh, you won." Apparently, I'm a pretty good player when I'm not there, LOL.

My typing expander woes.

I use an expander to do my medical transcription. It's called Shorthand. It's very good. What expanders do is raise typing speed by letting you just type a few letters and the whole word will go into the document, sort of like you can do with Auto Correct, only much better. I used to use one called SmartType, which I really liked, but when the company I work for went to a MS Word based system, I had to change. The biggest difference for me is that unlike SmartType, Shorthand stays on all the time even when I'm not working, unless I turn it off. That means that a lot of the time when I'm blogging or emailing or surfing it's on and I'm too lazy to turn it off, knowing that I'll just have to turn it back on in a minute. I can choose to not let an individual word expand by pushing the CTRL key but sometimes I don't hit it hard enough or something and I end up typing in web addresses like www.craigslist.organomegaly and typing I'MEDICATIONS: instead of I'm, Marshall-Marchetti instead of Mama. It's kind of frustrating but sometimes it's quite funny.

Our kitten.

Finally a picture of the kitten we got a couple of months ago. He's half grown up now and very cute. He's about the most playful and sweet kitten ever. His name is officially Sam, but his nickname is Sammy Sam Sam. We're even thinking of adding couple more syllables. ;-)

Grouchy.

I've been incredibly grouchy the last few days. I'm frustrated with how long some things are taking and how some things seem never to change, while other things change too fast and I'm not ready. Sounds like I'm having a fun week, doesn't it? I bet you wish you were here, don't you?

Anyway, the housework is kind of moving along. I haven't had a chance to do much planning for the new school year, but I think I can take a day next week and get that done. The public school kids here are starting next Thursday, August 2. We may start that same day, the Monday after or just one day the following week. I think I should wait until I get my good humor back. Hopefully, it's on it's way.

What I saw the other day.

Fortunately I had my camera in my purse and I just stopped in the middle of our street and took this picture.

A loss of momentum.

I'm just here. I'm not blogging, not cleaning, only working the minimum that I have to. Just here. Not doing much. The kids have been kind of learning a bit of science from watching Mythbusters. I'm not sure how scientific it is but it's fun to watch. My oldest son has finished the book and has moved onto working with his lego mindstorms so his brain is getting a workout. (unlike mine!) I'm trying to decide whether to go to the city pool tonight or not. Maybe I should check a weather report? I'll try looking outside first and see what the sky looks like. That's probably just about as accurate!

Mmm, let's see.

What's new here. The two younger kids are attending VBS this week. (for the 3rd time this summer!) The oldest, along with DH, is reading Harry Potter. They're sharing the book. When son goes to sleep, Dad gets the book and starts reading. It's cute. My Dad is reading it too. I've been making a little progress on my things to-do list, not as much as one would hope, though. ;-) I am going to make an agreement with the kids that we don't start school until that cleaning list is completely done, so that I will do it. Last year we started school with the house in chaos and I do not want to do that this year!

I'm getting the few textbooks I've ordered for my oldest, little by little it seems. The algebra books arrived in 2 different shipments and now the history book is coming in 2 shipments. I didn't realize it took 2 textbooks to do the whole of American History but it does. Thankfully, I was able to get them both second hand and very inexpensively.

For some reason I've got the song "Welcome to my crazy life..." running through my head ... no idea why.