As promised, waterfowl eye candy

Ah yes... spring has sprung. Love is in the air. Waterfowl are gettin' busy. So far we've seen two families of goslings on our lake. One won't let me get near them. Silly geese -- I'm bringing saltines! The other one... well, the parents hiss a bit, and honk a little, but you can tell they're just phoning it in. Mostly they hiss when they want me to throw them another cracker.

Voila!Me convincing the geese that it's ok and I have crackers. They're wary; I don't blame them. They need to have a healthy fear of people. There are a total of 6 goslings. They are soooooo cute when they peep. I wish I could record the sweet little sounds they make so you could hear them. They just make me melt all over. (as an aside... seriously, am I that white-headed???)A closer look at mama and papa goose and their babies. How cute are they!!! I talk to them while I'm feeding them to reassure the parents that we have the same goal: making sure those babies have full bellies!Before I talked 'em up on the shore, I threw a few crackers in the water. I'm always amazed that these little guys are hatched out swimming. I know that's God's plan for them; He didn't have the same one for me, considering I never learned to swim and I sink like a brick. That's why He made life jackets and gave me enough sense to stay away from the deep end.Here I think you can see all six babies. Sooooo cute!

I wish I had a picture from the day after these were taken when the geese were up on the bank. I crunched up some crackers -- the goslings can't handle a whole cracker yet -- and one of them just laid down in the pile of crunched up crackers to eat his fill. Just made me want to pick him up and love on him, but I know that would not have been the best idea on earth. Plus Oscar was jealous enough (he was with Richard at a respectful distance while Richard was taking these pics).

What else have I been up to?? Spending some time in Rome with Mom, who continues to improve after the Ugly Drug Mixup. She's busy planting her garden on the deck. When it starts growing up, I'll try to post some pictures -- it's really amazing how many veggies she can grow there! I've been busy knitting socks for Warm Woolies as part of my Guilty Pleasures/Good Karma swap on Ravelry. I was very excited to win the Dancing With the Stars pool on Ravelry -- I had the good fortune to draw Kristi Yamaguchi -- and as my prize people are sending me skeins of Cascade 220 so I can continue the sock knitting for Warm Woolies. Good cause, and the socks make good traveling projects.

Got to take another class with Cat Bordhi at The Whole Nine Yarns. As you may recall I took her class in November, but I decided to re-take it because the subject matter was so complex, and November wasn't the best time for me since it was before my shoulder surgery. I'm glad I made that decision, because Cat had re-worked how she was teaching the class, and her presentation of some of the concepts were different and a bit easier to master. It was an enjoyable day because the class was good and I got to hang with my buddies up at the yarn shop.

In the meantime, I took a private crochet class with Caryn at TWNY and I am in the process of learning to make amigurumi -- those disgustingly cute little crochet toys. I've almost finished my first one and will post a pic here when it's done. :)

So, it's the Memorial Day weekend -- the unofficial beginning of summer. While you're out having fun and griping about the gas prices, take a moment to remember those who gave their lives so that we can have the freedom to have fun and gripe about the gas prices. Sometimes the reason for a lot of the holidays we have gets lost in the hoopla surrounding them, right??

Tag!

I was tagged today by DF Jill. This is a kewl idea -- thanks for including me!

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themself. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 0r 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blog and leaves a comment letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you've posted your answer.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago??
Let's see... that would be 1998 (!). I had just quit my job at the managed care company (Georgia Health Plus+) in Rome to go all out to get my CPA license. Richard and I had moved into this house the year before. So I was between jobs and careers at that point.

2. What are five things on my to do list for today?

• a. order water filters for the fridge
• b. get a haircut
• c. pick up dog food for HRL
• d. go to church for the Presbytery meeting
• e. pick up refills at the pharmacy.

Geez, I bet you wish you had an exciting and glamorous life like mine!

3. What are snacks I enjoy?

• Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms
• Sour Cream Dip made with Lipton Onion Soup Mix and some type of low fat chip (gotta save where you can)
• Triscuits
• pretzel Goldfish

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

• set up a trust to donate to my church
• make sure my mom was taken care of
• make sure my business partner Bob was taken care of
  
• make sure my stitch group was taken care of
• buy a condo in Highlands, NC
• sponsor Dale Earnhardt Jr. for a season (or two)
  

5. Places I have lived:

• Rome, GA (born there; lived there through high school)
• Atlanta, GA (graduated Emory and Georgia Tech)
• Marietta, GA (lived there for a year after we got married)
• Kennesaw, GA (going on 23 years here....)

6. Jobs I have had:

• Assistant at Boys Club of Rome
• Janitor at clothing store in mall in Rome
• Waitress at the Hungry Bull restaurant in Rome
• Sales clerk/switchboard operator at JP Allen clothing store in Lenox Square in Atlanta
• Bank Teller at Trust Company Bank
• News Internship at WRNG Radio in Atlanta
• Student assistant to professor at Georgia Tech
• Documentation Analyst/Software Analyst
  
• PC support and systems trainer
• Computer systems coordinator
• Refund Loan Department manager at tax software company
• Part time instructor at junior college
  
• Dubious flirtation with life insurance sales (I was *really* bad at this)
• Customer service manager for managed care company
• Accounting manager for managed care company
• Indentured slave to get hours for CPA license
• CPA/small business owner

(Whew! Even I didn't know I'd done that much.)

7. Peeps I'd like to know more about:

Min
Nancy
Karen
Kathe
Tammy
Kristan

Woo Hoo! It's my Blogiversary!

Believe it or not, boys and girls, I started this silly blog a year ago today. :) Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to read it, and many thanks to all of you who have taken the time to leave a comment. It's always quite fun to see what you have to say.

I'm celebrating tonight by watching the NASCAR All-Star race. With any luck, the #88 will move to the front rapidly and stay there.

I promise to be back later with a little waterfowl eye candy....

Gotta get one of these

Thanks, and an Update

First of all, thanks to everyone who has called or emailed to ask or express concern about my mom. You have no idea how much it means to this only child to know that I have a network of folks far and wide who are thinking of us, and I appreciate each and every one of you more than you'll ever know.

Mom had what I thought was a serious neurological episode on Saturday -- a sudden, severe headache accompanied by nausea and confusion. I went up there then, and she pretty much chased me home, saying she had a "stomach bug that's going around" and would be fine. There was no improvement Sunday, and today when I called her, I decided it was time she saw a doctor. Her doc and I have an arrangement where I text him, and he calls me and makes arrangements with his office staff to see us. It works very well, because frankly, a lot of the front office people there are goobers.

The doc decided she needed a CT scan, and I went to pick her up. Mom allowed that the problem had started a couple of hours after she took her Aciphex pill that she normally takes for reflux. But she had noticed the pill looked a little different. She gave me the bottle. This is what I saw.Granted, I'm not a pharmacist, but danged if that doesn't look like it says "Aricept" and not "Aciphex". And according to the label, it had been "double checked" by the pharmacy before they gave it to my mom. She didn't look at the bottle outside of the label on the other side -- why should she??

Off to the doctor's office to show them the bottle. Their eyes got wide as saucers, and the doc said that yes, the Aricept could have caused the symptoms she had, but let's do the CT just to be sure there was no permanent damage.

Then off to the pharmacy. With my mother going "be nice... be nice", I asked to speak to the pharmacist and showed her the bottle, with the label showing the double check and the fact that they had clearly filled it incorrectly. Those of you who know me would be exceedingly proud. I did not have a total meltdown. There was no yelling, cursing, or questioning of parentage. However, there was a serious one way flow of information from me to her. She apologized profusely (what else could she do??), gave us a bottle of the correct drug, and marked Mom's account as "brand only" so pills wouldn't suddenly change shape or color with generics.

Then to the hospital, where Mom had to endure bloodwork and the CT scan. Fortunately the CT operator elected to do the scan without contrast first and let the radiologist read it, so if there was no problem evident she wouldn't have to deal with having the dye injected. Praise God the scan came out clean.

By the afternoon Mom was much more alert and less confused, so I'm guessing the drug was finally working out of her system. Late in the afternoon the pharmacist called her again to apologize. I imagine she was afraid we were going to sue her, but as I had explained earlier, we're not litigious folk. Mom explained that it was a mistake -- a serious one, no doubt -- but that her God taught her to forgive. And Mom says if it had to happen, she's glad it happened to her instead of someone it could have really hurt. And just maybe they'll be a little more careful next time.

Me? I'm still working on the forgiveness thing. And my hair's just a bit greyer than it was on Friday.

The Good, and the Not so Good

Things are trying to get back to normal here.... whatever "normal" is. Finished up payroll taxes (yay!), and the next big deadline is not-for-profits on May 15, and those will probably go on extension. At least that takes the work pressure off for a little bit. Bob and I have renewed our tax and accounting software for the year, so the big cash outflows are finished (and boy, are they big.. I about had heart failure when I renewed the tax software -- and they don't even give us any kind of break for paying early, which I think sucks).

On Friday, my friend Kaye came down, and we had a belated birthday lunch for her. I met Kaye in Rome through the cross stitch store that used to be there (the store has now closed and sadly, the former owner was killed in an auto accident). We've kept in touch and have gotten to be good friends. We went to Tea Leaves and Thyme, a nice little tea room in Woodstock. They have a wonderful salad sampler platter, and I tried cream of artichoke soup (I know DF Andy would be ever so proud of me for actually eating something resembling a vegetable). Most interesting was the flowering tea that I tried. It came all neatly bound in the shape of a teapot, like this:When you put the tea into the hot water, it expands into a very neat looking little flower like this:How does it taste?? Well, frankly, like...tea. There's not much of a distinctive flavor. The big deal with this stuff is the presentation, which was very kewl. Kaye enjoyed some blackberry tea that she said was very good. And since we were celebrating her birthday, we got the dessert sampler afterwards that was just the right amount of sweet.

From there, we went to The Whole Nine Yarns for a class with Lucy Neatby. What a wonderful teacher with a delightful personality! Lucy lives in Nova Scotia, and she was covetous of my iPhone, since they don't have service up there yet.
Yes, she made that incredible sweater she has on. Her first class was on color work, and I'm now kinda wishing I'd taken it. The class we signed up for was on double knitting, where you get two different fabrics at the same time on one needle. You can either use it to make a tube or to do color work. The class did not disappoint.Lucy has a series of DVDs on knitting techniques, and she used the one on double knitting to help in teaching the class. I suggest you go to her website now and purchase it. And I'm not getting any kickbacks either.

Unfortunately, the rest of the weekend hasn't gone as well. On Saturday I had to make an emergency trip to Rome after I met with a client. My mom isn't doing well again. I'm not sure what's up, and I ask that you keep us in your prayers. I have a hunch that we're about to be in for some very difficult decisions in the near future. Thanks.