Phone Drama

It feels like forever since I've blogged, but there hasn't been much going on here.  Christmas break was much needed but over too soon.  In the couple of weeks since we've been back I've settled into my normal rotine of work, hiking the hound, watching some t.v. and sleeping.  Not very exciting, but it works for me.

This morning there was a little bit of snow on the roads and I didn't want to drive up to the trail head, so I took the dog for a walk here through town.  We walked over to the high school and I let her off leash to run around the football field for a while, then we walked back home.  Once at home I decided to shovel the half inch of snow off my driveway and walks, and since it wasn't all that hard I did Jean's driveway as well.  When I was done I came in and reached into my jacket pocket to take my phone out, and it wasn't there.  I always take it with me, but just in case I looked through the house to see if I could find it.  When I couldn't find it, I went over to Jean's house and asked her to call my phone just in case it was somewhere in the house and I wasn't seeing it.  I had no luck with that, so I decided to drive over to Jo's office and borrow her phone then retrace my route while calling from her phone and trying to listen for my ring tone.  At this point the snow was starting to melt, and even if I'd found my phone it probably would have been water damaged beyond repair, but I figured I had to try.  Once again, I had no luck.

Back around Thanksgiving time Jo and Denise were giving me crap about my lack of a texting plan and my lack of texting skills.  They were also giving me crap about being with T-Mobile when nearly everyone else in the family is with Verison.  When I replied that I was too cheap to upgrade to the texting plan Jo offered to add me to her family plan.   We never did it, but when it became clear today that I was going to need a new phone she offered again.  Since it only costs her another $10 plus taxes per month to add another line I was more than happy to agree to pay her $15 each month instead of having to pay $50 each month on my own for a plan without texting.

The bottom line is that I am now the proud owner of a new Samsung Intensity.  It has a qwerty keyboard so I can hone my texting skills, and it has a bright reddish-orange cover so it will be clearly visible if I drop it into a snow bank.  (My old phone was white, which did not help when I was looking for it in the snow.)  The bad part is that since I couldn't find my phone they couldn't transfer my data, so if you want me to have your cell phone numbers you need to e-mail or text them to me.  I was able to keep my old number, so you should all have it.

Sadly, there were a few photos that will be forever lost since I never got around to downloading them onto the computer.  My favorite was one of the coonhound with a frozen squirrelcicle in her mouth.

Christmas 2009

It MUST be Christmas!  There were reindeer hoof prints and boot prints on the sidewalk leading up to my front door.

Christmas morning started with a hike for me and the coonhound.  A little storm had cleared out all of the icky inversion and it was a glorious morning. 

When I returned from my hike I checked my cell phone and found a message from Mom letting me know that her plane was on time and that, because Rick had forgotten to take his employee ID badge to the airport, he and the dogs had been forced to stay behind.  We missed you Rick, and we missed meeting the wiener dogs.

After I picked up Mom from the airport we stopped at the Hugoe/Tilley home. Colton arrived home from spending Christmas morning with his dad not long after we got there, and we were able to watch him open his presents.

After the presents were opened Colton wanted to have a Nerf gun war.  Me, Mom, Denise, Brian and Colton had a great time shooting at each other with foam bullets.  Jo was sick and Sean was out fixingsomeone's furnace, so we didn't see much of them

 

After the war it was time to eat.  Once again, Brian deep fried a turkey for us.  When he originally pulled the turkey out of the fryer after about and hour and a half it was still pink on the inside.  He put it back into the fryer and unfortunately we left it there a little too long.  When he took it out of the fryer the second time around it was burnt to a crisp.  We were able to salvage some meat by cutting deep into the bird.

I found another source of meat that we could use, but Denise was not amused.

After spending the day in Woods Cross we packed up some more presents and went to the

Thompson home in Ogden.  Unfortunately most of my pictures at their house didn't turn out, so I am hoping that someone else took some pictures that they can blog.

The girls each got a My Generation doll either from their parents or Santa, which they insist on calling Liv dolls.  Grandma gave each of them a horse to go along with their dolls and they spent the evening bathing, grooming, and putting make-up (my contribution) on their horses.

On Saturday we spent all afternoon at the Murray house eating yummy food, chatting, and opening gifts.  I forgot to take any pictures at all, so again, I am hoping that someone else thought to take pictures for the blog.  After we left the Murray home we went over to Sean's house for some seafood gumbo and another Nerf war.

Sunday morning we relaxed a little bit, then we went out to lunch with the Thompson's before I had to take Mom back to the airport.  It was a whirl wind weekend, but lots of fun.

Life With a Coonhound

So, nothing much has been happening lately.  My life consists of going to work, walking the dog, and cooking.  Since I'm cooking for myself I decided to get crafty and see if I could make some dog treats too.  I found some recipes at http://www.twodogpress.com/ and I got to work.  I made a triple batch of the big boy beef biscuits and as far as I can tell they turned out well.  Shady certainly seems to like them.  Next time I will try the peanut butter bones.  Mom, as I was doing research on dog recipes I read that grapes and raisins are toxic to dogs.  I think it was you  who told me that you had been feeding your dogs grapes.

Shady is loving the snow and I am tolerating it.  I broke out the snow shoes earlier in the week when we had our first good snowfall.  Since then the snow has settled and I have just been trudging along in boots.  It snowed again today but we only got another inch or two.  You would think that spending an hour racing around in the snow would be enough to wear her out, but it is not.  She has been very interested in playing fetch lately.  The other day I was in the shower when suddenly her head popped around the curtain and she dropped a squeaky ball into the tub.  She then proceeded to bark at me until I threw it back out.  We spent the next several minutes playing fetch while I finished my shower.  That dog exhausts me sometimes!

Thanksgiving

This year our Thanksgiving feast was held at the Hugoe/Tilley household.  The participants were Sean, JoLyn, Denise, Brian, Brian's friend Cody and me.

Here we see JoLyn slaving over a huge vat of mashed potatoes.  You wouldn't believe how much food these people prepared.  Sadly, the rolls deflated before they could be baked, but since I couldn't eat them anyway I didn't feel too bad about it.

Here we see Brian lowering the Cajun spice infused turkey into the deep fryer.  For me nothing says redneck like a deep fried turkey, and it is the most heavenly bird I have ever tasted.  We were all relieved that we didn't end up with some horrific deep fried turkey explosion disaster like you see on the news every Thanksgiving.

In this picture you will see JoLyn's oven roasted turkey in the foreground, Brian carving the deep fried turkey, and beyond the warming pans you will notice a plate of ham.  Did I mention that only six people were there for the feast?

After dinner everyone settled down in the living room to watch a rousing episode of Speeders (some reality show that follows the highway patrol) and before you knew it Cody and I were the only ones awake.  Unfortunately I forgot to get a picture of that.

After their nap we decided to go to a movie.  It was 4:05 and Denise asked if I thought we had time to stop and feed the horses before the 4:50 movie.  Since I thought we were going to the theater behind Shopko I said yes.  I didn't realize we were going to Gateway.  The movie sold out while we were standing in line for tickets, but Brian had already picked up popcorn and drinks.  We didn't want to see any of the other movies playing there, so here we are outside the theater while Denise was on the phone with Information trying to get the number of the Bountiful theater.  The Information lady could find a number for the Bountiful theater so we just drove over hoping to find something that we were interested in, but instead we found that the theater had gone out of business.  Long story short: we didn't see a movie.

Okay, this has nothing to do with Thanksgiving, but isn't she a fine looking coonhound?

Thanks for the Birthday Treats

Thanks to my family for the birthday treats.  Grandma took me out to lunch and Denise and Jo took me out to a movie.  Mom sent me a Target gift card which I used to purchase a George Forman Grill, and Angie sent me some gluten-free brownie mix.  The brownie turned out surprisingly well.  I will remember that brand in the future.  The best surprise came from Steph and Brian.  The came over on Saturday to install a drainage system next to my retaining wall.  While I was having lunch with Grandma they also installed three new doors on my 2 upstairs bedrooms and my bathroom.  Those of you who have never seen the old plastic accordian door on my guest bedroom door can't appreciate how exciting this is for me.  The other two doors were the flat, cheap sixty year old doors that were installed when the house was built, so it was great to have them replaced as well.  I will be doing some painting this weekend to get them looking nice.

On Friday Brian brought Ava over  while he was digging a trench for my drainage system.  I took her on a little hike and we collected all of the cool rocks that we could fit in our pockets.

Here is my coonhound with her latest prize.  It appears to be the pelvic bone and part of the spine of a deer.  She was thrilled with this find, and Jef will be pleased to know that I didn't make her put it down.  She carried it for about 20 minutes before she got sick of it. 

We had our third coyote encounter today.  I tried to take a picture of it, but I only had the camera on my phone and it doesn't have a zoom feature, so you couldn't really see the coyote.  Shady is very excited about the coyote scent and she bays about it.  It was funny to watch her today because she was following her nose and she never did see the coyote, but I watched it for several minutes before it ran away.

Hmm...

I posted a blog earlier this week, and while I can see it if I click on my blog I notice that it is not showing up as a new post on my blog list. Nothing much, but I wanted to see if this would show up.

Not a Lot

I was downloading some pictures from my phone the other day and realized that I had taken pictures when we were at the horse show a few weeks ago.

Here are the adults both texting as they watch the show.

Butch and Cindy Lu enjoyed a little extra attention.

I spent some time leading Grace and Ava around on one of the horses. Ashlyn wasn't interested.

I just like this tree. If you look close at the trunk it is all broken and cracked, but it's still alive and flourishing.

The leaves in the mountain have all changed now, and they are falling like crazy. They will be bare pretty soon.

Here is my sleepy weasle lounging on the bed. She started chasing a coyote today but she came back as soon as I called to her. I was very proud. I have been worried about what would happen the first time she saw a deer, but I figure a coyote is every bit as interesting as a deer so I think we'll be okay.