qmwillcand's Journal

Oliver and the SPCA

Nov 06 2009 17:46

Monday night

Got home from Oasis at 830, as we do every Monday evening. This one was different, though, as there was a kitty in our driveway, sitting there as if he were waiting for us. We had never seen him before (typically with strays, you see them hanging around off and on for a few weeks before they'll approach you), but we let him in the house for some food and water, then sent him on his way. We figured (and hoped) that he would mosey back on home.

Tuesday

He didn't mosey any further than underneath our shed. We let him in the kitchen while the kids were getting ready for school, so he could get warmed up a bit and have some food/water. He hung around inside the shed all the rest of the day. When I got home from work, I saw that the kids had set out a water and food bowl for him, and had made a kitty bed as well. He's very obviously a recent family pet as he is very friendly, not at all skittish, not undernourished, and knows how to beg for people food.

Wednesday

As now seems to be the regular schedule, he comes in the kitchen while the kids are getting ready for school. When it's time for the kids to head out, I go in the LR to let them know, and there was kitty, curled up beside Dear on the love seat, sleeping very contentedly. So I let him stay in while I get ready for work. The kids go back and forth between the names Ginger and Oliver, but in the end, we decide that Oliver seems a good fit (after Oliver from the Disney movie)
That night was a cold one. The inside was cold, so we figured it was just too cold for him to be out, so we got him set up in the cellar with a litter box and took down the food and water bowls.

Thursday

Spends his morning in the kitchen having breakfast with the kids. That evening, we let him in the house. He spent the whole time sleeping either on the love seat or the carpet runner. When it is our bed time, hub asks me what we're going to do with him. He mentions about putting him out. I tell him to go ahead. Which was a joke, because I knew hub wouldn't- Oliver was curled up, asleep with his paws covering his eyes, purring like a chainsaw. We get the litter box out of the cellar and put it in the kitchen near the food so he'll know where to find it should he need it.

Today

Oliver has spent the majority of the day inside. I did send him out for awhile, just to get some fresh air. Our kitty Molly seems to not mind him, except if they're in close proximity, and then she hisses/growls. He acts as if she's not even around. He'll be spending the night in here again.

Ideally, my parents will take him. I really don't want another cat. Especially not a male (not sure if he's fixed or not), since we have a female (who is fixed). Talking to my mother this morning though, I don't think he'll be living there. She's too into not having a cat to have one. So I think I'll talk to my next door neighbor, who has barn cats. Usually people with barn cats don't mind adding another to the mix.

So where did Oliver come from? No idea. My dad thinks that someone brought him here and abandoned him. I think that is probably what happened. And if so, it appears that someone recently was in our driveway and lost their cell phone charger...wonder if it belongs to the abandoners?

SPCA

We've been thinking about getting a little dog for over a year now. Yesterday I was at the SPCA and looked at the dogs. They were all too big for our families needs (we want a dog that is small, so we can take it with all 5 of us and a cat- maybe 2 cats- when we go on vacation). It just so happened that there was 1 little dog inside the buildig, separate from the other dogs. A little Shih Tzu. She was just brought in 30 minutes prior.

They placed my name on a list, saying that I wanted to adopt her.

I called back this morning to see what they had to say, and apparently, although I was the first person to speak up for this doggy, my name is waaay down on the list. Because there is a list of people who want small dogs. So whenever a small dog comes in, the person at the top of the list is given first crack, etc.

So. I understand, but at the same time, I don't. Whatever happened to "first come, first served"?

I went from being really excited to have found a perfect little doggie for the fam to giving up on the idea. I won't pay $400+ for a new little doggie from a breeder, but neither do I fancy the idea of being placed on a waiting list. And waiting. And waiting.

So we'll just let what happens happen. If a little doggie happens to cross our path, it was meant to be.

Clodhoppers

Nov 01 2009 23:03

Are in the freezer, where they belong. It's lucky for the hub and kids that my deep freeze is downstairs, otherwise they might find all the Halloween candy in it.

Way too many tempting things around today. My cousin gave the kids 5 boxes of chips! Yes, 5!! And that was just the first stop!

*shudder*

Jillian Michaels. She wants to get her hands on me, I can feel the pull. But I am resisting. Maybe because it's ttom? Who likes doing jumping jacks when insert graphic sentence here?

Took sonnyboi (aka Dear) into town today to get his Air Cadet uniform. They really set them up! Here's what he was fitted for/ brought home:

slacks
mock turtleneck
t-shirt
tie
dress jacket
gloves
epaulettes
patches
parka
toque
boots
wool socks

On order is his dress shirt, new boots (as these ones are just barely the right size), and a wedge. This is what he'll look like when he's all put together.

We had another motive for going into town today...we bought a Wii for the fam for Christmas. Found it used- it included the Console, Sensor Bar, 2 nun chucks, 2 remotes, 2 remote covers, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, Mario Party 8, Super Paper Mario, Naruto Clash of Ninja Revolution 2, Dead Rising Chop Till You Drop, Far Cry Vengeance, and Wii Sport.

Before I tells ya how much it cost, let me tell you we were planning on buying it new for $209 (plus tax) which includes 1 remote and Wii sport...we got all of that ^^ for $240. We were going to try it tonight after the kids went to bed, just to, you know, make sure it worked (we weren't gonna play it for fun, that's for sure!), but hub wasn't feeling well, so he went to bed and I did some cleaning before coming here.

Ok, Jillian will be denied no longer.

Here I go.

What if I don't want to put a title in here? hmmm?

Oct 31 2009 11:58

So yesterday was great (read sarcasm). Good day, actually, but had to go straight from work to town (didn't have time for supper), so when we got there, I had Chinese food and later in the evening, a small Blizzard. And when we got home, I had some chips. And there was no exercise yesterday. The only time I had to do it was when I got home at midnight, and there was just no way.

Today- going out to do wood for the afternoon. Tonight, trick or treating! After the kids are in bed, time to do the Shred, then I think hub and I will watch Broken Arrow, haven't seen that movie for years!

Hopefully the rain holds off :)

Day 1 back was full of poor eating but good exercise...day 2 brought;

Oct 29 2009 22:32

Even worse eating!!

How on earth did this happen?? ~~Besides the fact that I kept opening my mouth and shoving food in it?~~ I don't get it! ;)

I was fine, perfectly on track. Until my boss rolled out the food for an office party of sorts. There were trays upon magnificent trays of beautiful sandwiches (turkey salad for me, thanks), a marble cake with loads of store icing (know what kind I mean?), and chips.

Please. Do I look like Hercules? No? Then I can't be expected to have his strength either.

I ate it all. 4 sandwich quarters (in other words, 1 whole sandwich). 2 pieces of cake. Chips. The only things I didn't have was pop (cause I'm on a diet- duh!) and I took nothing from the veggie tray.

Did I mention that I ate my lunch that I brought with me, as well?

So ok. Not good but recoverable, right?

Came home from work, visited my mom for an hour, came in the house long enough to listen to Noey sing some songs and to change into work clothes, and I was out the door, getting wood to throw into the cellar.

First break comes up. What do I do? ooh, what's this? Husband brought home 2 big bags of chips. Well, since I'm not a big fan of dill pickle chips, I'll have just some of those and a can of Coke Zero.

~~~10 minutes later~~~

there is maybe 2 cups of chips left.

*hangs head in shame*

BUT

I worked on wood, and as soon as I enter this journal, I have a date with Jillian.

day 2 of 30, maybe just breaking even. But probably not even close.

Silver lining for the day- I have been active today. There have been way too many days where I eat like that and do no activity at all.

Hi everybody, my name is qm.

Oct 29 2009 06:46

Thought I might need to do a re-introduction!
Time to get on track. For real.
Emotional eating has ruled for too long. Fortunately, it's only cost me a gain of up to 6 lbs, but I'm currently at a 4 lb gain from my goal weight (which I reached this past summer).
So, in that vein, I'm going to try to keep motivated to eat less (high cal empty junk) and more (fruits and veggies).
fmi

breakfast- raisin and spice oatmeal (170)
snack- 1/2 C grapes (50?), Halloween snack size box of Smarties (50)
lunch- pb sammie (200), apple (70), mocca bar (140)
snack- granola bar (110), box of Smarties (50), 4 chocolate eyeball thingies that my boss was passing around (140?)
home snack- crackers (200- booooooo)
supper- bowl of homemade vegetable beef stew (250)

total intake- 1430 :(
I still wanna eat!
Alright, so I know that I have several junky choices throughout my day, but I need chocolate. I just have to find a way to be satiated with less of it.
What else is going on...

Wood- I have GOT to get that done! Actually, I think I'll work on it this evening
dishes- half done. I have yet to consider styrofoam and plastic as an acceptable china set.
laundry- at this point, it might just be easier to treat it as disposable. The kids will be grown out of their gear before I can get it folded and put away :/
exercise- what is that? the last time I went for a walk was August, the last time I picked up a weight was sometime in the spring. As a result, I am the poster girl for skinny fat.
work- I was C R A Z Y to decide to work as much as I am. I have been on my new schedule for a full month now and my life feels very frantic and unrested. I am currently doing 2 weeks of training for a new (to me) account. 40 hrs this week, 40 hrs next week. I know that this is completely normal to lots and lots of people, but not to me. I am so very incredibly thankful that I work this crazy schedule out of my choice, not out of financial necessity. I truly feel for the many mothers who work a FT time job because they need to. No sympathy for the ones who don't need to work though! (like me...) :D After Christmas I think I will be requesting to work one less day.

Work is doing an incentive contest- the people who have the highest reservation conversions combined with highest monitoring score gets to have an all expenses paid trip to NYC. I want to win that. There are 16 people in the running and 4 will be chosen. I have a 1 in 4 shot, and I'm a good agent. The odds are against me however, because I am new (and will fumble a lot) vs the others, who have been doing the account for awhile. I still have high hopes though!

UPDATE- CC was having some issues last night (crashed while I was typing this out, unbeknownst to me at the time). Last evening I had some good moments and not so good ones.

Bad- I got back into the crackers, had another 200 cals worth. And 2 cookies, 120 cals.

Good- ranked 2 1/2 loads of wood.

Great- started Jillian Michaels 30 day shred! Day 1 of 30 complete! *crossing fingers that I will actually see this through to day 30*

Dandy

Oct 16 2009 12:16

Just got an email from Dears French teacher, he is being repeatedly spoken to about reading novels in class when he should be paying attention.

Out of all the problems in the world and out of all the things I could have gotten an email about, this one isn't world shaking. But it does have to stop.

He's starting to show some interesting thoughts and attitudes as he ages. Some are for concern but most are not. He still is very young and acts very young. Actually, he acts like how a 12 year old acted when I was his age. Which is very different from how many 12 year olds act/dress now, which is like punks and clubbers (<-- to put it nicely)

What else is going on in my world...

Not much I guess...

Sleep is my favorite way to spend the late evening
playing the piano is my favorite way to relax or let off steam
thrift shopping with the fam is a nice way to spend the afternoon
I won a restaurant gift certificate on the radio yesterday for a nice pub/restaurant
maybe going to get my hair trimmed tonight (it needs it, my cut is all grown out and looks uneven and stupid when I wear my hair down, so it's been a never ending style of buns, ponytails, piggytails, and piggybuns)
Still got mounds and mounds of wood to get in the cellar
we're thinking of getting a Wii for the fam for Christmas.

Oh- and the house is clean and beautiful and so enjoyable to hang around in! Or rather, it WOULD be, if we were ever home to hang in it. That right there is the reason it's clean, cause we aren't here to mess it up! :D

That's the latest in a nutshell, off to play the pianer for a few minutes before getting back to the wood.

The first snow!

Oct 13 2009 17:36

I love it! Which is good because there's gonna be lots more to come.

So let's see...since I last journaled:

my life is a big busy crazy jumbled up here and there kinda thing now. I'm like a hungry person whose eyes are bigger than their stomach. I've bitten off more than I can chew. I'm tired nearly ALL the time.

And I have myself to blame for all of it.

But that's alright. Each activity as an individual is good, but on the whole it wears me out. I'm still hoping to hit my stride with the whole new schedule. My body (which is only used to sahming) is protesting. The days of sleeping in and spending the days puttering are no more it seems. I've heard that keeping busy is a good thing. I dunno about that...I kinda miss sitting around reading and such.

*looks at watch*

gotta go to Awana now :S ....when we get home at 815pm, I have to help my kids with their homework...afterwards, although I should fall in bed, I think I might just take the time to sit in the chaise with the iPod playing in the background, curled up in a blanket with Lawrence Watt Evans and his tale of a misenchanted sword :)

I just don't feel like it!

Sep 21 2009 11:32

counting calories
weighing myself
journaling
eating vegetables
doing wood or any kind of manual labor
drinking water
trying to swat at the silly fruit flies
turning on the heat
quilting
playing the piano

But, strangely enough, I WANT to do these things at the same time as not wanting to. I just won't.

Maybe it's partially due to the crazy fall schedule.

Mondays- king works, Dear has soccer practice, I babysit a friends daughter for 2 hrs after school, King and I youth group leaders

Tuesdays- king and I work, Dear has soccer game (over an hour away from home), babysit friends daughter, I'm a preschool leader at a church program

Wed- king and I work, babysit friends daughter

Thurs- king and I work, babysit friends daughter

Fri- king works, babysit friends daughter, Dear has a soccer game

sat- I work, Dear has soccer practice

Sunday- REST!!

then throw in extra stuff such as days were there's Dr appts. Crazy. But I really did bring it on myself.

I'm only babysitting for 3 months, and it's not hard by any stretch, as she is the same age as Noey and the 2 girls play together the whole time. As soon as soccer season is done, it's badminton and then basketball. I was hoping to enroll Dear in Cadets and/or music lessons this year, but I just don't see how it's possible. Maybe next year :/

a quickie update about my double d's

Sep 11 2009 18:56

Dear came running off of the school bus today...his gym teacher (who is also the soccer coach) asked him why he didn't try out this year. He told her why, and she told him to come to practice tomorrow. She told him the time and he said "I might not remember it, could you write it down for me?", which she did.

It was this note that he ran to give me!

So glad for a few reasons:

perhaps he's learned the importance of writing down things he wants to remember
even if he isn't on the actual team, glad that he'll have the exercise of being at practice

Big big sigh of relief and happiness that maybe I made the right decision. Sometimes parenting can be like a crap shoot, you never know if you did/said the right thing until the consequences of the decision come along.

Dad didn't have a very restful night last night. At about 2am he got out of bed (he hadn't been able to get to sleep) and took his blood pressure (they have their own monitor)- it was 190/80.

He was given a BP med scrip when he left the hospital, ad he had it filled, but he has never taken it. Apparently he believes that it actually raises his bp and there are side effects that he doesn't like.

He's so busy with the farming, he called the hospital to get his stress test rescheduled.

If he ever has a heart attack and lives, he's going to be one unhappy man. Diet change, meds (which he currently takes not a single one- the nurse at the hospital told him that they only see about 1 or 2 men per year the same age that aren't taking any meds of any sort), and no more heavy lifting. That alone will drive him around the bend.

I think he literally wants to work himself into the ground.

Looking for a new car, spare time, and my sanity. So far, nada

Sep 11 2009 09:00

Our car. Poor stupid thing.

We bought it when I was expecting Keyto. On Halloween day. The guy who sold it to us told me that his son pees out of two holes in his peepee. Truly these were signs saying that we should not buy this car, but we did anyways because we needed one.

It worked fine until a year later when we had a fender bender with it. It never seemed to work the same afterwards. We had problem after problem. But at least it still ran.

November '07, it decided it didn't want to run anymore. Mostly because we let it run dry of oil and the engine seized. That meant we needed a new engine in it. So we sat on it and went ahead with the "new" engine deal in June '08. It cost us $1000, approximately double the value of the car itself.

Then this past November (2008), it needed inspected, but wouldn't pass in it's current state, needed a bit of minor things worked on. So again it sat. Until June '09. We got the signal light fixed (yes, that's all that needed done), got it inspected, renewed the registration and back on the road.

4 days later, it stopped and wouldn't start again.

We had it towed to a mechanic and lo and behold, it needs ANOTHER engine in it! This one is toast too! Apparently, the engine we got put in a few years ago was from a salvage yard. Well, I knew that, because you would never get a brand new engine and labor for $1K.

Here's what I didn't know- that the engine that was selected from the salvage yard may have actually had MORE km's on it than the original engine that was in our car to begin with! Can you just imagine!

Hence we are looking for a new car. I simply do not want to pour anymore money into that thing. And it still sits it the mechanics yard.

Spare time- I've heard of it. Lately the only time I allot myself is what I'm doing right now.

Sanity- more elusive than a vehicle with decent mileage, year, and cost.

To top it all off, the kids want to have a $450 puppy.

Yeah.