Ready for the weekend

After a long week, I am looking forward to a relaxing weekend. The best part is, my house is spotless going into the weekend, so I won't have to spend my precious weekend hours cleaning up.

As much as I've been longing for the weekend to come around, I don't actually have many plans. So here's a question for the masses... what should I do this weekend? Any good movies y'all can recommend, books I should read, or adventures I should pursue? My only constraint is teaching religious school on Sunday morning.

Dog update

Thanks to those of you who have asked about the pups. Both are doing okay now.

Apparently Rance had a pretty bad seizure on Sunday when we weren't home, and it took her a couple of days to shake it off. Last night, though, she greeted me with her favorite toy and her tail "propelloring" so we knew she was in the clear.

Then weenie had a stomach bug. We ID'd the source as some questionable food, and now that we've stopped feeding it to him he's fine. If by fine, you mean getting locked in the bathroom somehow during the day yesterday, having an accident, and then jumping around in it and smearing his filth everywhere for hours. Then yes, he's fine. John and I spent a couple of hours last night dealing with the aftermath. Damn dog!

More Wiley Pictures

I just can't help myself. Here are some more photos of the little dude.

Santa Weenie.

Alien Weenie.

Pictures of Weenie

We've had some close calls with the dogs the last week... all our pets have been down with something or other this week. And at Wiley's age, that gets us worried about losing him.

JMT requested I post some photos of the Weenie Man for posterity.


This was the photo that the pound posted of him... the one that made us go meet him.


And here's the little man last X-mas wearing his Feliz Navidad bandana.

Vacation

We finalized our plans for our Hawaii trip in April. We'll have 9 days and 8 nights on the Big Island. So send your activity ideas my way! So far we know we want to go on a helicopter tour of the volcano, do a kayaking trip that JMT found online, and ride ATVs at Parker Ranch in Waimea. We'd really like to go on a couple of hikes that aren't overrun with tourists. Any ideas?

We're only due to spend a couple of hours on Oahu, but we're talking about extending our layover there, so that we can hit up the Niketown in Honolulu and maybe get to see an old college friend I haven't seen in over a decade. A decade! Holy cow I'm old!

I also just finalized my plans to hit up Vegas with Rachel in *early* celebration of our 30th birthdays. Again... holy cow I'm old! I'm very excited about that trip too. I don't know what it is about Vegas that I like so much. I'm no a gambler... but I sure do like hanging out there.

How I felt this week

What a week!

It's hard for me to believe that this was only a 4-day work week. It's been so draining. I had a very challenging work situation the last two weeks, and it is finally resolved. When I took this job, I thought I was "ready" to be a manager, but I was woefully under-prepared for the magnitude of responsiblity. That said, I'm happy with the way everything has turned out. I think I've grown up more in the past two weeks than in the past two years. Or at least I now recognize and project my inner grown-up!

I'm looking forward to an interesting day tomorrow. It's the county democratic convention, and at my caucus earlier this month I was selected to go as an Obama delegate. It's been neat to see the insides of a system that we usually just look at from the outside. It will be a long day though, so I'm busy preparing my "survival kit". I've got reading materials, my ipod, granola bars, and a water bottle on the list.

The other good news this weekend is that JMT finished his most recent class, and won't be in class again until July. Now that there's no homework responsibility, we can start watching season 6 of 24! Go Jack Bauer!

My morning surf

Just in case you need to decompress with your coffee in the morning like I do, here is my list of blogs that I hit up every morning... just to see what's new:

Tricia's blog (college friend) http://www.thislifeofours.net/happygrl/
Rachel's blog (high school friend) http://crustaceanview.blogspot.com/
Andrea's blog (high school friend) http://theuneventfullife.blogspot.com/
Restaurant Widow (Columbus, OH stuff) http://www.restaurantwidow.com/

And then my 2 go-to websites:

http://cockeyed.com/
http://icanhascheezburger.com/

And the winner is...

Wow this is hard, Kristy was my first comment, but Andy B mentioned the contest. Hmm...

I'll call it a tie. So here are your prizes:

A haiku for Kristy (I'm assuming I have the right Kristy!!!)
Jasper and Juneau
Dogs that create happiness
She loves with whole heart

Haiku for Andy B
On Oxford Drive, Her
Mother taught me Calculus
Now she's a lawyer

Daniel

So more on Daniel leaving...

Dan is 20. I'm 29 (for 2 more months!) He and I were never close as kids because of our age difference. In fact, he was typically just a pain in the butt. I always had to babysit or clean up after him. Years after I left home, he and I finally began to talk and get closer.

Dan joined the Navy right after high school, and has had a tough time adjusting to Navy life. He's spent the past year in Gulfport, in SeaBee school and working on base. I've thought about the peril of him being overseas during this &%#@W war, but it never seemed like it would really happen. But now he's on a plane to Kuwait, having been trained to sit on top of a humvee and shoot people. And he'll be gone for six months.

I'm not one of those people to say "I'll pray for you." But I am hoping that my faith will be helpful in dealing with this. I miss him, I'm proud of him, I worry for him,and I really do hope that he'll be okay.

I love you, Dan.

And so it begins

A lot going on this week, and so my vision of starting up a blog has materialized.

Stuff going on:

• Dan left for Kuwait this morning. I have a lot more sadness over this than I thought I would.
• Had a lovely V-day with JMT yesterday.
• Planning mulitple trips and will need lots of input. Vegas and Hawaii in April, Ohio and North Carolina in May.
• Craziness at work. Blech.

Not sure what I want to say about any of these things, nor whether anyone would read it if I did! I guess I'll ruminate on these subjects some more and post again when I have something to say.

In the meantime, if you have any ideas for fabulous activities on the Big Island in April, do tell.