It looks like BratCinderella had a dispute with one of her doctors today (Wednesday). They had been promising her that she could go home today as long as all her tests remained good. Her one doctor came in to see her, told her he had written up some prescriptions for her to continue treating the groin infection but he was releasing her. The second doctor didn't make his rounds until after 5pm and he told her that it was late and she should stay another day. She went ballistic and told him he had PROMISED her today and today she WAS leaving. So she signed herself out ADA but couldn't get her prescriptions because the one doctor wouldn't sign the release. It was a battle of wills and was HER mental state that was at risk.

So tomorrow she will call Nova and her psychiatrist and tell him the story and let THEM deal with the problem. They should be able to get the prescriptions and probably even get the other doctor to sign off for her so there are no insurance problems. That's something she didn't even think about. But she had tried to keep a good attitude and was very cooperative the whole time she was there. But to her, a promise is a promise. If they had found something bad, she would have been able to turn her mind to a new problem but there was none and her infection was easily handled with oral medication according to the first doctor.

What was the point of the second doctor thinking that it was late in the day so she might as well stay? Don't doctors think about a patients mental state at all these days? Not many people enjoy a hospital stay....or the *lingerie* BratCinderella has a semi-fragile mental state anyway. Or, at least, that is the way she is viewed by Medicaid so we shall see what we shall see.

I tried very hard today to not strain myself at all due to the flare-up of my IBS. I just kept hydrated and rested when I felt like I needed it but, little-by-little, the meds started kicking in until I was able to move around more and more and sit up straight. That's where I am right now. Otherwise, there would be no post and I probably would have been in bed for some time.

Today was another windy day and it took it's toll on one of the nectarine trees that was loaded with fruit. It was of such speed that we had to tie up a few of the trees that were in danger of being blown over due to all the rain we've had. They are still young and haven't spread their roots out to really secure themselves. The one nectarine tree has fruit spread all over the ground underneath it. The Beast is in mourning for them. The others seem to have held on to most of their fruit so we still have hopes for a good yield from them. We lost some of the plums but that one was due for thinning anyway. The poor thing still looks like a weeping willow from last year because the Beast didn't want to thin it like he should have. The fact that the poor thing LIVED still amazes me, let alone that it is bearing so much fruit once again.

The apple trees and their fruit are fine. None of the pears have fruit yet and I'm not sure they will this year. The Alberta peaches look wonderful. My mouth waters just thinking about them. They will be early ripeners. My garden is doing well so far. The cantaloupe is starting to look like it needs some daily *direction* and I have to watch carefully for the fruit so I can lift it off the ground. My tomato plants are also doing fine and the Early Girl is still producing blooms so it should start showing tomatoes in another week or so, I think. The squash is looking great and one of them has a bloom on it. I'm about ready to put the lines up for the cucumbers to follow to the trellis since I saw some of the small tendrils starting.

Well, enough of that. It's about time to wind this up and get my butt to bed. I want to leave you with this one thought: Wrinkled is not one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up but here I am. Oh heck, another one: Being over the hill is much better than being UNDER it. It's a fact of life, plain and simple.

Okay, enough. Love you all. Have a wonderful day. I wish you good health, happiness, a happy, sunny and warm day with lots of love.

It looks like something knocked me off my feet yesterday so that I spent most of my time sleeping. It was accompanied by both sweating and then chills. Tough for me to tell if I had a fever and the Beast is useless when I am sick. His idea of being helpful is to turn off lights and quietly tiptoe away. Oh, and he will take the dog out of the house for a run or two when he gets frisky and *noisy*. *sigh*

I did try to rally for a bit and managed to get up and eat most of a steak I had bought the other day. The Beast cooked them to perfection and I ate most of mine then gave the little Beast the bone and the rest of the meat. Shortly afterward, I ended up in the recliner with a heated blanket over me and drifted off to sleep until midnight. I made my way to bed and slept until almost noon today. I still feel awful so I am not going to be upright for very long. I've learned when stuff like this happens, the best thing I can do is just rest, rest, rest and drink lots of liquids when I can. I've loaded up my desk with stuff to drink (so it will be room temperature) and I don't have to depend on the Beast for anything.

One good thing happened. BratCinderella is on her way to recovery. She is out of ICU, in a regular room and has had most of her IV shunts removed except for the one used to treat her stomach area. For 20 minutes or so, she has to be hooked up for a massive infusion of antibiotics. I gather they are just waiting for verification of the type of infection she got in her groin area before they will release her to recover at home. She said she has to take little, tiny baby steps (imagine a Japanese woman with bound feet taking teeny tiny steps) in order to walk but she can now manage to go to the bathroom on her own so she's happy. By now, I hope, she's received news about when she can return home. It will not be a fun walk for her and her recovery will not be fast since she's been told she will be taking 4-8 antibiotic pills per day for TWO MONTHS. It makes me suspect they are afraid it's a staph infection. That monster of hospitals, the ugly, resistant to most antibiotics, staph infection. I hope they are wrong there or this could be a really ugly time ahead for her.

Since my tummy now feels like IBS is rearing it's ugly, painful head, I am going to take the med for that and a pain pill. If I have a bug of some sort (seems like it always happens whenever I head out into the world and get exposed to gobs of people), I want to get over it as quickly as I can. I'm going to head back to a prone position right now for a bit and see if I can't shake some of this malaise off.

Love you all. Stay healthy. Hope your day is much better than mine. Hugs and good wishes headed your way.

The Beast started complaining about not feeling well yesterday and, I have to admit, he looked like hell. When the Princess called in the morning, I told her we weren't going to be able to go and why, she suggested I just leave him there. I told her that, with my luck, he would die and I wouldn't be able to enjoy it. But, it's also my luck that he DIDN'T because I WAS here. Go figure.

He still looks bad and is still complaining he doesn't feel *right*. It doesn't seem to be flu (thankfully) or a cold. I have no clue. I have to go for some blood tests tomorrow and I will make an appointment for him while I am there. He needs to have his prescriptions renewed and he MIGHT actually tell the doctor about how he is feeling. Stranger things have happened.

I am also going to make an appointment with the urologist for him and I am sure it will piss him off but he needs to keep an eye on that bladder since it has already had one tumor. He would ignore it and I am sure that is why women live longer than men. We will do the things needed to try to stay healthy. But not him. It's a *man thing* all my friends and family say. I know it is but it still makes me mad. What IS he thinking? He wouldn't even drop by the office to pee in a cup so they could send it to the lab to look for free cancer cells in his bladder. Don't you think he would be able to figure it out??? Prevention is always better.

My *spare* cucumber plants were starting to get too big for the small little containers they were in. If you remember, when I first planted ones in my garden, we had several fierce rains and high winds. It beat the hell out of them and they were history. I decided to go ahead and get some new ones planted. I dragged the bag of Miracle Grow garden soil over there, dug some nice holes and packed the plants in with the garden soil. I then put the damn Alabama clay, or whatever the hell it is, over the top so it wouldn't wash away during the next rain. All the other plants seem to be doing well. I need to get the hoe in there and weed part of the garden but I think I will wait until after it rains sometime during the next few days. It makes it so much easier.

It's going to take a while before I really feel like I'm not going to end up with Chewlee. I'll probably get used to it just about the time I will have her back and this time it will be for the night. I told the Beast that I may end up having to sleep with her but I am not going to start that if I don't have to. I just don't want her wandering the house late at night or early in the morning getting into things. And get into them she would. At least I can bring her over to her house around noon so Johnnycakes can spend some time with her (after she takes her nap in her own bed). He will bring her back before he has to go to work and that will be our schedule for the week the Princess is in training in Birmingham.

I'm looking forward to when she can put her in day care. Mostly because Chewlee needs to be around kids her own age. It should be good for her and give us all a break. Johnnycakes should be able (with his schedule) to pick her up if the Princess works until closing. Otherwise, the Princess can do it herself. I will only be on Saturday duty because AT&T closes their offices on Sunday. That works for me.

No clue about how BratCinderella is doing because Buttmunch called today and, by the time we hung up, my phone was low on it's charge. I plugged it in, laid down to rest and fell asleep for a couple hours. I've done that a lot lately because the damn dog is waking me up a couple times during the night. Either he needs to go out OR he thinks he hears something outside. And he has a BARK that would wake the dead. I doubt that anyone who hears him would even attempt to enter the house. Then he jumps on the foot of the bed and spends a half hour licking himself and all you can hear is the tinkle, tinkle of the metal tags on his collar. Needless-to-say, I don't get back to sleep quickly.

The end result is that I take naps late in the day and that means I'm not ready for bed until late. Then I get up early and, well, you can figure out how much of a round robin that can be. I need to get to bed now, regardless, since I want to get into the doctor's office as early as I can for the blood tests. It means no coffee in the morning and how am I supposed to get my heart started without it? I know. But fasting blood means no nothing after midnight.

Love you all. Have a great day. I wish you warm, clear and sunny weather.

The bad news is that BratCinderella had a setback. She had an infection in her groin area from one of the shunts she had. They immediately removed it and started her on massive antibiotics. She had a rather bad night since these antibiotics took their toll on her intestines and she said she was either pissing or shitting every 15 minutes. She had to do it in a bedpan and said she felt so sorry for the poor nurses who had to keep running back and forth. Her blood pressure plummeted again and they had to give her more blood in order to try to get it back up to a reasonable pressure. She IS back in ICU but her attitude is good and she is now eating regular food. At least that's what she said. At this point, what IS regular food? Anything that isn't liquid or pureed?

She thinks she will be able to go home on Tuesday but I think that's wishful thinking on her part. Even she admitted that part but said it WAS something to look forward to even if she ends up having to postpone it for another day or two. She did say she can get up, sit up and even walk around now though so that's hopeful anyway. Much will depend on the type of infection and how she responds to the antibiotics, I'm sure.

Poor Frankenstein is missing her. He feels a bit lost and lonely without her and I can understand that. They have been together for a long time now and he's not used to doing without her for more than a few days at a time.

The Princess ended up quitting her job at Radio Shack. No, it wasn't because she has the job secured at AT&T but because her manager did a no-no. He whacked her on her butt and didn't even apologize when she was outraged. So she took her store keys off her key ring, threw them on the counter and told him *I quit!* She filed a complaint with HR and then called the District Manager to tell him what happened and why she left when she did. He told her she wouldn't be *black listed* and was always welcome to come back to work for them. He would not, however, put her in a store with him IF he remained a manager.

So, she showed up here early to pick up Chewlee and I now have until June 1 or 3rd (not sure which for sure but I will check tomorrow). That is when she starts her training classes in Birmingham and I will end up having the baby overnight for the first week she is gone. Johnnycakes will be working nights on a regular schedule so I will get her before he leaves for work, keep her overnight and then drop her off around 11 or 12 the next day. Or maybe I will be dropping her off at Kym's for a while, not sure. We will all pitch in to help out while she is gone. She will be gone one week, then back at home to work at the corporate office for the next week. The week after THAT, it will be back to Birmingham for her for another week.

THEN, hopefully, the Princess can make arrangements for Chewlee to have regular day care. It might even work out that Johnnycakes can pick her up from day care and bring her home when the Princess works until closing. I should only have to take care of her on Saturdays which is an easy schedule to take. Even Kym might fight me for that one day a week. We will just have to wait and see. I'm just not sure what they will do when I am gone to Chicago for the 10 or 11 days (that includes traveling and one night stop over at my daugher Buttmunch's....each way). How the Beast will do, I'm not sure but he did fine when I was staying in Port Charlotte because of the Princess being in school and only getting up here once a month or so. It's just been a while since he HAD to do that.

Of course, he will have his *buddy* here with him, which he did not have back then. The two of them are bonded to the point that the dog doesn't believe it when the Beast goes ANYWHERE without him. I kid you not. He will whine, cry and then come into my room and plop down at my feet so that he can be sure *I* am not going anywhere. If the Beast lays down to nap or for the night, he will jump on the bed and lay down next to him (in MY spot, of course). So, I am the *bad guy* when I go to bed because I have to wake him up, get him off the bed and put him in his kennel. We HAVE been trying to get him to choose to lay on his padded bed that we put down next to the Beast but it really requires that the Beast gets more involved in it. I yell at him every time he starts to get on the bed when I am in it but, as soon as I fall asleep, he's up on the bed and has created a spot for himself between us. I told the Beast, *Oh sure! Let ME be the BAD guy because you just can't treat him like the dog he is. And that's what he is, Beast...A DOG!!!!!*

Bedtime for me. The Beast just informed me that he is feeling like he's coming down with something. A non-specific something. He has no fever but he said my hands were cold when they weren't. I'm going to have to keep an eye on him. I do, however, kind of know what he might be feeling. I am a bit nauseous right now. But it could just be that I am not sleeping soundly (mainly due to the dog and the Beast getting up at zero-three god AM to download stuff for the hard drive he wiped out the other day. He turns on the bathroom light every time and it shines right in my face because that's the side I sleep on most of the time. Pisses me off big time. And he really doesn't give a damn.

Oh well. Love you all. Have a good night. A great day. Good weather and a few laughs. Call someone that might not get calls all that often and tell them you were just wondering how they were feeling and doing. Then let THEM talk. We all know SOMEONE like that. Hugs and kisses.

There are times I could just scream at the Beast and the crap he comes up with. Like wanting to set off a *bug and rodent bomb* under the house while we are in it. I kid you not. He gets a bug up his ass and it's like his brain just shuts off because he has NO patience and must do it NOW. He also wants to put one in the attic because he knows there is a critter up there (we can hear it in the evening and in the early morning hours). It didn't sound very big at first but....it definitely sounds much bigger NOW.

He was all set to go put one off under the house (and probably would have done the same thing in the attic). I hit the roof and told him that this house is not build air-tight in the living area and what the hell are you thinking??? He got all pissed (of course) and I told him that is something he can do when we go out for the day so there will be no chances of our being poisoned but that stuff. Needless-to-say, life was not fun around here for the rest of the day with him being so pissy.

I also said to him...*If you end up killing the critter up in the attic, you ARE going to go up there to remove the body, right?* He gave me this blank stare and said, *Oh, I am sure it will just drive it out of there.*

Yeah, right. He can't figure out HOW it got into the attic but he is sure it will get out without him having to crawl around the attic to retrieve a dead critter (species unknown) before it starts to rot and smell. I can see it now. NOT!!!

I swear, he is suffering from some kind of mentalpause and shouldn't be left alone for any length of time. I am not, however, taking him on my trip to Chicago because I want to enjoy myself. I am so sick of every single trip *we* take together, even for just a few hours, it has to include the dog. He treats that dog like he's a kid or his best buddy. Well, in some ways he IS his best buddy. His ONLY buddy. He has no clue how to treat people so why would they WANT to spend time with him? I am amazed at the fact that his brother even wants to spend time with him. They inevitably get into some sort of argument within days and things get very uncomfortable. His brother's wife and I just look at each other, roll our eyes and ignore them. But, it does mean we often leave much sooner than we had originally planned because of it. It's one of the reasons I just love having to babysit Chewlee. It gives me the perfect excuse NOT to travel with him.

I actually get three days off next week. Monday, Thursday and Friday. If the weather is decent, I am sure we will be making that day trip that we had to cancel due to weather. Everything depends on the weather.

Buttmunch called me three or four times today. Twice to talk about her daughter, Big Boobs and another to time to tell me she had won either $150 or more (I was half asleep since I was napping while the baby napped) at off-track betting on a $2 bet. She was so excited about it. I really have to ask her about it when I am fully awake so that I understand what the hell she meant about something winning for the first time in 13 years on that track. I know it can't be a horse that old still running but she obviously backed a couple horses that others thought were losers.

My son, Markus, called me to tell me about an incident they thought was funny. It seems Amelia Earhart, their middle child, who is 14, was going to the show with some of her friends. One of the *friends* was a boy. A rather good looking boy, as my son said. They wouldn't let Amelia just run downstairs when the friends showed up just because they could, as parents. So, the boy treks upstairs (and her mother tells me Amelia is not interested in this boy but he is a good southern boy) to collect Amelia. Markus begins giving the boy a drilling about where they are going, what are they going to see, when will they be home, etc. He did it just to see the poor kid (and Amelia) squirm. He finally lets them leave and, as they are heading out the door, their youngest daughter (age 11) yells out,
*Now you keep your hands off my sister!!* When the door shut, my son turns to her and says, *Trace, I love you!* and they all started laughing. I have a feeling poor Amelia will be totally pissed when she gets home from the show.

I did so want to call my sister, Cinderella, today to see how she is doing. But the Princess had to go to another city to take charge of a store there due to illnesses decimating the employees so I got the baby early and she didn't leave until after 9pm MY time. That meant that it was after 10pm in Florida so there went THAT idea. But....if I do have to watch Chewlee tomorrow (I might get THAT day off too if Johnnycakes doesn't have to work until late). So I will call her in the morning. I'm going to get my butt to bed early tonight (well, early for ME...LOL) so I don't sleep in so late in the morning. I feel like I've lost the whole day when that happens and I would like for the Beast to make us the steaks that I splurged and bought us when I did the shopping. I pulled them out and have them in the fridge. Even if the baby is here, we will ALL eat steak then since I don't eat all that much meat these days. But I do so love the taste of a steak that is charred over hot charcoal. Yum!

I have a feeling from a couple things that Tara's boys said that all may not be well at Tara-land. The Blob may not be living there again. I will have to find out more, perhaps if the Princess has a few extra minutes. They have become good friends and shop for their groceries together. Or it just might be that he is just spending weekends at Tara-land. We shall see what we shall see. I really think Tara could find a much better guy but that's just me. She seems to pick losers, one way or another.

Time to get to bed. The Beast broke down (again) and turned on the AC so sleeping will be comfortable anyway. I love you all. Take care. May you have good weather, good food, the love of family and friends and...no critters in your attic.

The Beast has been having a problem with his favorite printer for printing up his SI's (Significant Images to anyone who doesn't know). He determined that the problem was Vista. Now, he likes Vista with all it's security crap turned off (thank you, Teddy) and had all his Photo Shops on it. He's been buying Photo Shop since #4 and we have a huge investment in that. He also has the new program put out by Adobe which eliminates some of the many problems he found with his Photo Shop and he just LOVES that one. In order to use his favorite printer, he decided to put XP 64-bit on his second drive so he could just export his finished picture to that drive and print it up.

Now he needed to wipe that drive and it's no problem with the installation disk. He started it up on that drive and it did it's thing. However, anyone who has ever installed a program from Windows knows that once it wipes the drive, it restarts the computer and then installs the program on the now ready drive. Now usually, when the Beast is awake and aware, he disconnects the other drives he might have attached. He was not thinking about the fact that the computer was going to start up using the MAIN (Excel) drive which he had NOT disconnected because he was doing this late at night like an idiot. So, the computer starts up again, detects the drive has NOT been wiped so it WIPES OUT THE MAIN DRIVE. Yep, you got it. By the time it dawned on the Beast what he had done, it was too late.

Normally, this would not have been a problem because the Beast had an external drive that he had a backup on for all his programs, including all the updates. The operative word is HAD. He decided to use that drive instead to store his pictures in so he had wiped it clean a couple months ago. So, here he is. None of his Photo Shop programs, none of his updates for the Windows programs, no programs AT ALL. He was ready to slit his own throat. Worse yet, Adobe refused to activate his Photo Shop because it said he had it on two other computers. Duh. No he doesn't. He had rebuilt and expanded his computer capacity due to increased memory needs and he had wiped those drives to use on computers such as MINE. And I sure as hell didn't want Photo Shop on my computer. It's a hog for space and memory.

So he was up last night at 3am in order to download the service pack (760mb) for either Vista or XP (I don't know which one he chose to do first) because that is the only time of night when we can download an unlimited amount. Hughesnet allows it between 3-5am every day. That's usually not too bad (as long as you set the alarm and get your butt out of bed) because the download time is usually much faster than during the day. But it's the aggravation because he has no one to blame but himself. He should not have been doing anything like that late at night when he was tired. I really have no pity for him.

Then, to top it all off, he gets an email from Canon about his new (10K) camera, Its been recalled. Can anything more happen? He's got to call them to make arrangements to either ship it to them or take it in someplace to be repaired. He is NOT a happy camper.

I didn't end up having to take care of Chewlee today and it was actually a good thing. I have been in the throes of an IBS attack that is only NOW starting to ease up. I'm hoping it goes away and isn't winding up to hit me hard again. I spent most of the day flat on my back with a pillow on my tummy and swallowing the pain pills for it. It only helps a bit, it doesn't get rid of the pain. One of the bad things is that I start passing gas like crazy but.....I have to be very careful because sometimes it is NOT gas and I had better be in the bathroom when that happens.

I am going to go ahead and get this posted now and talk to my sister, Bratfink, for a bit. The Boy left for Indy this afternoon and she is alone with four cats for company and a tornado watch. It's going to be a restless night for her if the winds pick up. Worst of all, she really has no place to hide in the Cave. I've been there. I know what it's like. The Boy has too much stuff stored all over the place and all the good spots are just crammed with it. But, who knows? Maybe she will just tunnel into the mess and be safe. The cats will have to fend for themselves.

Love you all. Have a great day. Smile at perfect strangers for no reason and make them wonder what you are up to.

They moved BratCinderella into a regular room tonight (Thursday) tubes and all. I sent email to the family to let them know the room number and give them the phone number to the hospital in case they wanted to call her. She is in a very positive mood and feeling pretty good. They are using the feeding tube that she has to both feed her and treat her ulcer. I gather they are flushing antibiotics into the stomach. Has to be the bacterial caused ulcers like the Beast had several years back. But he was able to take the pills because his, although large (7cm), never started bleeding, thank goodness.

Nowadays, most doctors will take a blood test to see if this particular bacteria is present. If it is, then they know how to treat it. If Cinderella had ever told the doctor about her stomach, she might have avoided all this. Hindsight and all. Oh well. She DOES seem to be doing well but she will know more about the prognosis for going home tomorrow when she sees her doctor. I will pass the information along when *I* know. Thank you all so much for your prayers for her. I have much faith in the power of prayer.

It was a nice day here at Brat Farm. The Beast was busy trying to get this one program of his to work on his new(our spare) computer because a favorite program of his works best on XP. Then he found out that he couldn't use his printer with it because it didn't have enough RAM to take care of the program AND the printer. I figure he will be buying more RAM for that computer IF it can actually take more RAM without being rebuilt. It's always something with hm.

Looks like more storms in store for us over the next few days. We had one that was pretty back roll through here but it REALLY rolled through here. It was here, rain, thundered, had a couple lightning strikes and then it was gone. I know! It was really weird.

Tara and her boys stopped by this evening to pick up the laptop that BratCinderella (their grandmother) had sent to K2. She thought it needed a new hard drive but it was otherwise a good computer and I believe only two years old. Maybe less. The Beast fixed it. I kid you not. It works like a champ after he went into Bios and had it restore all the default settings. Then he got rid of a shitload of duplicated programs, several unnecessary programs and all the AOL stuff. That's the problem with AOL. It tries to completely take over your computer and a lot of it hides. She was using a whole lot of her memory even with all the programs that loaded at start-up. It's now a nice computer for K2 and K3 will now have the computer that the Beast gave them as HIS computer.

I was a real slug this morning. I had gone to bed last night at 12:30am and I actually slept until 11:30am this morning. I got up shortly before the Princess dropped off Chewlee. Oh, and she really made me laughed today. In this months Readers Digest, there is a page that is black and only has two round eyes on it (like doll eyes). Chewlee sees it and says to me *Geico*. Sure enough, that was the first of three pages devoted to Geico and was the eyes seen on the money in some of the newer commercials. But, it cracked me up that she looked at it and recognized it.

Okay...time for me to get this posted. Love you all. Hope your weather is better than ours is supposed to be. Stay healthy. Stay happy. Laugh often because it's good for you. Call an old friend and enjoy reliving old events.

We awoke to a dismal day. I checked Weatherbug and the radar showed showers happening down in the Birmingham and Talladega area, too. Now way was I going to be rained on, sprinkled on or have leaves dropping their hidden water treasure on me. So we stayed home. The Beast actually looked relieved. I have a feeling he wasn't all that eager to go as he made out. I can usually tell. He lacked some of his normal enthusiasm and never once showed me any pictures of the area on his computer (which is what he usually does so that *I* will get excited).

About 10:30am, my cell phone rings and it's the Princess. She is excited and tells me that she got the job with AT&T and needs to come over to the house to fill out some papers they are emailing her. Just basic information like her resume' usually contains. Someone was going to phone her once they decided where and when she would be going for her first week of training. She had heard from the AT&T rep that came into her store that it would be Atlanta. However, when she got the call today, it's in Birmingham. The classes start at 7am so she will go there on the 2nd of June to check into her hotel room. The classes go until Saturday and then she can drive back home (it's about a 2-1/2 hour drive from here). She then spends the next week at her new store under someones tutelage. The following week is another training week in Birmingham and that should be the end of THAT portion at least.

She won't be making her regular wages while in training but since it's over $10 an hour, it's no hardship on her. The nice part of her having the job with AT&T is that she will be able to afford day care for Chewlee without waiting for an opening at the reduced rate she can get as a college student. Unfortunately, there are only so many spaces available and you have to wait your turn. Chewlee needs the socialization with kids her own age.

What's really kind of cute is Johnnycakes swears he's gonna get Chewlee potty trained before the Princess finishes her training. It's going to be funny since I will have to keep Chewlee overnight when his work schedule keeps him there until late at night. He volunteered his mom for some of that but Chewlee is used to sleeping here so it would probably be less traumatic for her. I've also handled kids that miss their mothers in my life so I won't be overly stressed over THAT when and if it happens. Chewlee is very much a mommy's girl right now. She WILL miss her mother. It's just a good thing that I can go with little sleep these days. It will catch up with me eventually but I CAN do it when I must.

I did my grocery shopping today and I can't believe the prices on some things. Everything has gotten so high. I'm beginning to appreciate my dad's attitude about some things. He would drive 25 miles to save money on food items. He watched the sales and knew the prices. I've just gotten lazy because in Margate I KNEW where to go for what and who had the best prices on things. Of course, there were more stores to choose from and that had a bearing on the prices. Nothing like competition to keep prices down.

Time to get this posted so I can get to bed. I am soooooooo tired. I haven't been sleeping well the past few night. I pretty much tossed and turned last night until I finally got up and laid down in the recliner. I actually DID fall asleep there. I kept waking up the Beast and the dog, too, when I changed positions in bed so I figured I might as well try that. Turns out it was a good thing for my back and shoulder. They felt really good for once.

Love you all. Have a great day. Live life to it's fullest, love deeply, forgive easily and laugh loud and often.

Since I am no longer worrying about BratCinderella, we are going to go ahead and drive down to the Talladega National Forest where they obviously have some waterfalls. Before I go to bed, I will look it up and see what the heck I am in for and if I am even going to get out of the car.

Looks like I am stuck waiting until we get there and get the actual guide from the Ranger Station. I can't find any details on the waterfalls there except a few references to *rugged mountain trails* which probably means I am going to be sitting around with the dog a lot. I've learned my lesson. I would rather go to the zoo in Birmingham and enjoy the wildlife in a civilized manner with sidewalks and places to comfortably sit down and rest. Let us not forget bathrooms. Yes, bathrooms are nice, too. And there are no ticks laying in wait for the unwary.

Poor Baron had quite a few on him and I have never seen ticks quite like the ones taken off him. We had bathed him in a shampoo that killed off the ones that had burrowed down under his hair and when they started dying, they actually looked like skin tags. When we took him into the vets office, she just started plucking them off him. She said we had obviously used a good shampoo. I had no idea that the ticks here (unlike the Rocky Mountain variety) are so small. She also told us the only way to keep them off him is to use a good repellent and then to feel his coat for the small *lumps* they make and treat those. We thought we had been using a good flea and tick repellent but the Beast got some from the vet and she applied one of them on his coat after checking him over well.

The Princess and I have been having some nice conversations these days. I think since she has made that transition in her mind from *grandmother* to *mother*, she has relaxed a lot and we talk like two women. She still calls me Gram but that's okay. We are making inroads in understanding how we really feel about various things and why. It's kind of a nice time here at Brat Farm, at least for me.

The Beast seems so *driven* these days. He MUST MUST MUST be busy. I swear, I am totally convinced that he feels he will die if he ever goes without having something on his platter to do. He's been either making shelves (again), working on his trees, mowing the grass, taking little Beast out to various parks in the area so he can run free for a while to his hearts content or he's busy planning these various *day trips* to places of interest for us. I have, however, made it very clear that I am not a mule or a camel to help him carry his crap down some trails like I used to do when I was young and stupid. No, no, no. Not me. I bring my own camera and that's plenty. Funny how he isn't bringing as much when he knows HE has to carry it, too. He even bought a backpack to carry his camera and lenses to make it easier on him. Even his tripod has a special case and strap for it. I remember the old tripods and what a pain they were to carry.

I really should have gone to the store today to pick up some things we needed but I had an IBS episode that had me prone for several hours before it calmed down. It's much easier now that I know what it is and I have the pain meds and the meds for calming it down. I can tell when THAT is happening, too.

Bratfink got her glasses this afternoon and is so happy to be able to see things again without having to use the zoom feature on firefox. She can also crochet with her thread again without squinting so I am sure she will be doing more of the projects she has lined up for herself. She's so talented that way. I love making my afghans and will just stick with those. I have two I NEED to make and a request for one from the Princess. Since I seem to be watching Chewlee a bit less now that Johnnycakes can do it on occasion, I might actually get to get some of that done. The Princess told me that he can now change one of the baby's chitty diapers without a problem. I told him that breathing through your mouth really DOES help.

Time to get this posted and me to bed. We will be up early because it's a two and a half hour drive to the forest tomorrow and that is just to get to the Ranger Station. I'm hoping the Beast will be able to get some of his SI's (significant images) easily so that we can be home before dark. I just hate driving in the dark, especially with the Beast driving. If it's dark, I can't crochet so I end up watching him drive and it makes me nervous. He's not as *specific* as he should be and drifts over the line a LOT. I know!

Love you all and I wish you a wonderful day.

Just a quick note to let you know that she had the surgery unbeknownst to her partner, Frankenstein btw.....he can be such a dork at times. She is recovering and doing well. I spoke with her and she sounds good. I told her how she had scared the shit out of us and she said, *How do you think *I* felt?*

She should be out of ICU tomorrow and in a regular room. She has already sat up (which is good after a major surgery). They had to go through the stomach muscles so her recovery will not be as quick as it might have been. Sister B is going to call her since she emailed me for the phone number there. I am hoping she will discuss Bratbaby's coming down there to help out for a while. I told Cinderella about the possibility and told her to accept the help because she KNOWS that Frankenstein cannot tend to her needs and meals. She agreed with me so I hope that will work out well and we can be a bit less stressed over her.

Just so you know.......love you all.