Yup! Walmart got in flats of snapdragons and marigolds! So I have 144 plants to get into the ground today(sunday). So you'd expect I'd get up early, get dressed and out in the yard, planting away and being productive!

So it's noon and I've gotten the "put on a shirt" done. And well, I did read a book a little and ate some peanut butter puddin.

I'll get it done. No doubt. I have a huge list of things to do this weekend. I've already shaved and washed Marmoset, washed dishes, washed the dog laundry once(it gets about three times through the washer), swept and mopped some of the floors and fed the monitor lizards some chicken parts.

I've been eyeballing my back yard. I keep telling msyelf that I have PLENTY to do with the front yard and the house. But I still keeping looking at it and thinking "I should fix it up". One day.... one day I'll get the house presentable. One day my front yard will look inhabited.

One day I'll get to it.

Today...

Work was busy! I had a lot of dogs to groom. Chelsea and I got a lot of critters cleaned and groomed. I gave more of the coffee distillate to one of the vet techs. I think she's addicted. Nice.

I stopped at Walmart and they had some new toys in, I picked up a trooper I'd been looking for. I also got what I needed for peanut butter pudding. I made a giant mixing bowl full, then found out no one at work wants any. Oops. Good thing I like peanut butter pudding.

I moved all the potted plants outside, even the bananas. Then I planted all the bulbs I've bought and 5 heads of garlic(about 30 cloves) and about 30 potatoes. Then I watered everything. I did not uncover the bananas, but I'll do that first thing in the morning.

Tomorrow I have a lot of dogs and a cat to groom, then I'll go by Walmart to pick up some snapdragons. They have them for under $2 for a 6-pack.




And here's a pretty sunrise picture I took some time ago.

Soooo work was crazy. A lot of baths, less grooms. A lot of "I'll pick up late" but they show up early. Linda came by to get the big rats, brought a giant cookie! Yum. It's oily on the underneath which is tasty.

I decided on the drive home that I will attempt to actually get many things done when I get off work. I don't care if I'm exhausted and feel run down... I'll still bust my ass to get things done anyway.

So today I worked, I stopped at Dollar Store on the way home to get lightbulbs and of course ended up with 2 bags of stuff. I got a couple small bins for my art materials and some rice and the lightbulbs.

Then I bagged up all the plant blankets and put them away in the shed where they belong. I threw out the trash bin of rat bedding. I cleaned all the small rat bins. I fed the pythons and cleaned off the counter and set up the rice steamer with a leftover pork chop cut into pieces, a can of black eye peas and it was tasty. I also had to go back out and cover all the plants again, since I checked the weather and it's getting down to 35F tonight.

Now I'm playing GI Joe Jeopardy in Terrordrome chat, and fiddling with the fics a little. Tomorrow I have to try to get a hold of Seph and ship out 3 action figures to someone else.



HEre's a picture of the cabbage fields I'm driving past every day and a picture of the sun through fog I saw while driving.

Whew. Woke up all kinds of kinked. I think I slept with my jaw unhinged. Terrible. Work, I had 3 bichons and a poodle with fancy clips from one client, and a yorkie mix with a shavedown. It took m all day because that guy's four dogs ALWAYS takes me all day. Chelsea left slightly early to go get her younger kid, and I left without running the credit card machine! So I had to turn around and go back. Luckily I wasn't far away, so it really wasn't a big deal.

Home and it's not as cold now. I have leftover lobster ravioli. It wasn't very good at lunch and I'm having it for dinner. Why? I dunno.

I wrote a postcard to Harve, since he's still laid up in ICU with his broken ribs and lacerated kidney. I hope he gets better. He's a big tough bullrider though, I'm certain he'll crawl out on his own way before the doctors think he should.

I wrote a little bit last night, going to attempt some more tonight. I'm tired though. Been tired for over a week now, and no end in sight. Maybe I need more vitamens.



What one of my poor outside planted bananas looks like right now. Sad.

IHOP rules.. and here's why...

So I gotta say.. IHOP ROCKS. I'll tell you why later..

I went to the party. Was grand, got to see folks, people were friendly.

Lil Beachie went too, there's a couple pics I have to upload to his twitter(yes, he's been fussing about that, although he was QUITE happy to hit his bunk last night/this morning when we got home). Since the party was sort of short, I went back home, slept in my bed, and went to the Hoggetown fair setup this morning. It was a lot more convienant to be at home and only have an hour's drive to the fairgrounds.

So.. Hoggetowne fairgrounds we put up all the gigantic tents, went very smoothly. I managed to put in side poles, lay out ropes and poles, sledgehammer in stakes, etc etc. Lots of grunt work, which made me feel like I helped a lot.

Lil Beachie came along for that as well, and helped out. Pics also going up of that.

So after getting the tents all up, and crawling under the tent wall a couple times.. another thing.. I decided to reward myself for all my good deeds(I was social at the party AND helped at Hoggetowne, only yelled at one kid), with a waffle. Cause I love waffles. I've had a waffle iron before, but I have no waffle-waaaaa. .. cannot make them. It's okay, I can eat them.

So Lil Beachie and I went to the Clock resturant(greasy spoon) for a waffle. We were seated, and the waitress asked what I wanted to drink.. then snatched the 'extra' paper placemat almost from under Beachie's feet. I overlooked that.

After 15 full minutes, my soda hadn't arrived, and my order hadn't been taken.. despite the fact that there were all of 4 tables taken in the WHOLE DANGED RESTURANT. There were no less than 6 waitresses. No one brought the drink.. no one took the order.. even though I sat in full sight of them. So.. I plopped the menu back onto the front counter and left.

We went to IHOP. We were seated and a waitress came up and took my drink order. She brought it back quickly.. and took my order. She asked if I wanted anything else OTHER than just a waffle. Nope.. just a waffle.

She brings the waffle in a couple minutes. Lovely big waffle. She asked if everything was okay about 3 minutes later on another pass by the table, EVEN THOUGH the place was packed with patrons. PACKED. I told her honestly.. "The waffle is great, but Beachie is a bit annoyed you didn't ask if he wanted to order anything himself."

HERE is why IHOP rocks.

She looks at the tiny action figure who is standing on the far side of the table where a place setting would be. She says TO HIM... "I'm so sorry.. I assumed you were on guard duty."

Yes. So I pointed my fork at him and told him "I told you not to carry that gun into the resturant, that's a legit assumption on her part. He's fine, I'll let him have some of my waffle, he certainly doesn't need steak and eggs this morning." She nods agreeably and leaves again.

She comes back in about 4-5 minutes and asks "Okay.. who gets the check?"

Yes. I said I would pay, since he didn't order. Gave her a $20 bill. She came back with the change and I left it all for her as the biggest tip she'll be likely to see today(percentage wise). Because SHE GORRAM ROCKED.

Lil Beachie agrees, that IHOP is the bomb and we should go back there, despite it being across town for us to drive to.

Also went to Walmart to get a new pen to write letters with, because I've been going through all of mine and they dry up halfway through a letter. I forgot to check the toy department for the Lil Shipwreck, but that's okay, I'll be in town for Hoggetown next sunday, and I can go then, in garb.

Lil Beachie's twitpic page(you don't have to sign in to look at the pics and captions) cause a couple people asked me for the link recently.
http://twitpic. com/photos/ LilBeachie

That's about it, I'm back home, a bit tired, but thinking of a nap.
tayla

Hey! An update!

Well, here I am again... it seems every time I try to post a blog it takes me to something else, an automatic blog attached to a different email? Anyway...

Work is going well. IRS is sucking me dry. I still have to pay last years taxes(that are due before April 15) as well as quarterly payments on the coming year's taxes(2013) while still trying to pay off the massive IRS amount I have from previous screw ups thanks to a asshat who 'did my taxes' but really took my money and threw out the paperwork!

But in general, life is going okay. I'll be attending the 2013 GI Joe Convention in Indianapolis in April. I know you're thinking, "You just said you're paying off the IRS, how could you take time and money for a convention??" But I'm going on someone else's dime. I'm a buying agent for someone else, who is paying my registration and flight tickets. With any luck, I'll end up making a few bucks off the trip.

I'll be taking my latest custom, a female greenshirt Joe, to enter into the custom action figure contest and taking a print of one of my pictures for the artwork catagory.

The pythons are doing so-so. I've lost almost all the major animals in my breeding plans, so I have to catalog and revamp all the plans for breeding and see what's even possible. The rodent breeding colony is doing grand and I don't ever buy feeders at all. I pay about $22 for 50lbs of rodent food for a bit over a week of feed. That's down significantly from over $60 for feeders once a week.

Dogs are okay.

I now have 7 banana plants in the ground, 4 dwarf red, 1 Grand Nain, 1 Double Mahoi and a unknown(probably a Grand nain). I also have 3 bananas in pots. 1 Ice Cream, 1 Cavandish and my cream of the crop, 1 Gros Michal. The freezes have really hit the outdoor bananas hard, but I'm hopeful most will make it. The potted ones have come inside for freezes so they're doing okay.

Writing has been super slow. When I think of how I used to write 5K words a night, I feel like giving up entirely. Now it's like pulling teeth to get anything written and finishing anything is a complete trial.

Now it's getting chilly so I'll go shut up the windows and doors again, perhaps turn on the heater too! Laters!

Well hell.

I'm trying AGAIN to start keeping up the blog. MAYBE I'll be able to keep signing in to post. It's always such a fucking trial. I usually have to jump through all the hoops and reset the password, after I figure out which of the emails or things it wants me to use this time.

AnYWAY.

The boss fired the other groomer right after christmas. The new one starts on wedsday. Suck. I didn't like her to begin with when she came by. Work has been slow to okay, not super busy, not making tons of money. I can pay my bills and I love my job, and I adore my boss. So life isn't bad at all regarding my work situtaion.

In other news, I have a broken tooth that needs to come out. I've put it off through Xmas so I wouldn't risk not being able to make it to work. Now I put it off antoher week hoping that I'll have enough funds to have 3 taken out, rather than taking out the painful one, then needing to go back in a week or two to have the 2 abcessed ones out. Also, I have a complete terror of dentists to begin with.

I painted the CoverGirl figure into her old tan uniform. I forgot to get brown paint for her damn boots though, so I have to go to Hobby Lobby and get red and brown. Red for another figure, brown for her boots. ALso, I broke apart two figures and used the parts to build a Kamakura figure, which I'm painting. The paint job looked factory perfect, until I took it out into strong sunlight, where it looks like shit. Lucky I have to change the color to a more grey-blue and a lighter Army green. So the last coats to change the shade will finish the coating. Hopefully.

The house is still a disaster, although I have made a LOT of progress! The bedroom's display cabinet is completely cleared off, a cloth cover put on it, and the Joe vehicles displayed on top. The bookshelves over it are almost cleared off and reset. I have to decide which books are going where before I can set them up. I'd like to also put my favorite action figures up there, or put them with the vehicles. That'll get done along the way. Still need to find a new bed for back there.

Writing is going along quite well. I'm currantly working on the Rendezvous fic and the male pregnancy story. I finished the crackfic and posted it. Lots has been posted in fact, including the smut fics.

Joined a cool GI Joe site, theterrordrome. Very nice folks there, friendly and mostly G-rated, so it's not like the hiss place with all the vulgar people who just bash everything in the universe. The only positives I've seen there were people praising some custom figures. Otherwise, they bash everything in nasty ways, and so I don't go there anymore, just stay over on TD.

Snakes are breeding, and I'm hoping to get some nice eggs. I just paired up the geckos to see if they'll breed too. Hoping for that to go well also. The monitors skipped this year for eggs it seems. Wilson is being a total ass like always. Moggie is mostly mellowed out and hangs out or eats or sleeps. Typical.

That covers just about everything for now. I'll be updating along the way much more, I hope!