Last Straw

Have you ever had one of those days, and I know you have, where there seems to be an endless number of hurtles between you and the simplest task? Well, today was one of those days for me. It started when I needed to go to the ATM to withdraw money to transfer to my other bank to pay the mortgage (don't ask why I have two banks). At the ATM, the armored truck was parked in front of the ATM. Undaunted, I decided to try another branch. When I finally got to the new branch, the ATM was not working. I then turned around and went to the drive thru where I had to write a check for cash. Once that was done, I went to my other bank which was down the same street. I deposited the money and afterward realized I was a few dollars short of actually covering the needed amount. So, I drove around the building and went inside where I deposited the extra $15 I thankfully had in cash (I don't carry much cash ever). Then, I was on my home thankful to have all that behind me when I came upon a train which was stopped on the tracks. After sitting for about 15 minutes, I decided to try other roads that may not be blocked to no avail. Finally, after about nearly 40 minutes, the train started to go backward. I then tried to go ahead of the train and eureka I made my way across and finally got home. After that, I just wanted to lay down and sleep 17 hours straight. You may think all of this seems minor but when you start off aggravated this does nothing to help.

I sorry you had bad day. Let's touch paws.

Lazy

Show Off

Today we had our first official showing through Brealtor. I have to say it was stressful as hell. I only managed to wrangle two cats, Ike and Eli. Cooper ran from me and disappeared and I was out of time. I'm not even going to try to get Izzie out. These cats are smart and know what is up. I only catch the first one by surprise. These people better decide to buy it because I can't do this too often.

-My bedroom's gonna be bigger than yous

-Nuh uh. Is his bedroom gonna be bigger than mine?

D Day

Today has been busy at Chez Ragged. In an attempt to sell the Chez, we have been cleaning, rearranging furniture, boxing up excess clutter, mowing the yard, and whatever else we can think of to make the place look better. Of course, we are only showing the house to the realtors, but they will be the ones to bring the prospective buyers. Unfortunately, they aren't thrown off by the cleanliness of a place, but it has to help at least a little bit.

Tomorrow, as I've told you before, I will cart the cats across town for two hours to allow for a house free of cats. This is causing me mucho anxiety. I was originally going to have to leave them there alone, but now I will get to stay with them. Hopefully they will calm down at some point and I won't have to hear their cries for two hours. Tonight I did some work work to make up for the time I will miss out tomorrow. I'll be so happy when this is all over.

I'll hide in here from Brealtor

Shew

The weekend has been quite eventful. We have attended a wedding, celebrated a birthday, attended open houses, moved stuff to storage, brought a couch up from the basement for staging purposes, cleaned, caulked, spackled, painted, washed clothes, grocery shopped, etc. So much for a restful weekend. Tomorrow I'll have to do some heavy cleaning for the realtor open house on Tuesday, mow the yard, and wash the algae and bird poop off the garage. On Tuesday Brealtor will bring her company over for an open house. It will be for two hours. I have the priviledge of carting all the cats and taking them over to Ragged's dad's rental property for the duration. I hope all the trouble this is going to be is worth it. We'd better sell the house the first week or I'm gonna...I'm gonna....complain...ALOT.

I ain't gettin' in dar

Life Is Bigger Than You and Me

Yesterday was more eventful then I disclosed in my previous blog entry. I forgot to mention that I took Cooper to the vet and it took me a good 20 minutes to cram him into a pet carrier. We have a small one which is preferable for transport, but for the life of me I couldn't get him in it. He fought me tooth and nail, mostly nail because he clawed my hand pretty good. So much so that I had blood on my pants after all was said and done. Anyway, I had to opt for the larger carrier which is actually a dog carrier, but any of you that know Cooper understand that his size is probably more in line with that of a small, rotund dog. So, I got out the taxi, opened the door and went to retrieve Cooper who had run downstairs. When I came back with him, Eli was inside the taxi and Ike was standing at the door. I went ahead and shoved Cooper in and luckily Eli ran out just afterward and I was able to shut the door. I was afraid we would miss the appointment but we managed to arrive on time and get another steroid shot and a flea treatment. We're hoping there is some kind of flea or mite issue and that's the reason for Cooper's allergic reaction. Cross your fingers.

Yesterday afternoon, our realtor who I will call Brealtor from here on out, came and we did all the paperwork to get our house on the market. I have to admit the woman is a spitfire and if anyone can sell our pile of bricks, she can. She took pictures, hammered down the sign in the yard, and measured the house for a more accurate square footage approximation. During all this, two Mormons came by wanting to talk to me about how the Lord had blessed them. I would certainly love to have sat down with them, not so much to discuss God but to learn what it is like for them to be Mormon and doing their mission work. I find that religion fascinating and as Ragged has talked about, we watch "Big Love" and I worked one summer with a Mormon kid and got to grill him pretty heavily about his religion. Anyway, I had to politely tell them I was the spawn of Satan and I would appreciate if they didn't come back. Just kidding. I was very nice but told them I didn't have time now and I was Baptist anyway, at least in name if not in practice.

Moving on, we will have a realtors open house on Tuesday which I'm dreading because I will have to cart all the cats out of the house for two hours while it takes place. I've been trying to be extra careful not to make messes around the house, but being here so much, it's difficult sometimes. I hope this process goes quickly and we don't have to take cart all the cats out too many times. They are smart and will eventually learn what is going on and if I thought getting one cat in a cart was difficult, four is a whole other matter.

Also, last night Ragged and I ran out to Target after she got back from dinner with a friend, and we bought a wedding gift for a wedding we'll be attending on Friday evening and a gift for my dad's birthday which is this weekend. I grabbed dinner at the Pizza Hut that's in the Target. Not exactly fine dining, but it filled the hole and sometimes that's all you can ask for.

So today, Brealtor was supposed to come by and put the lock box on the door to allow other realtors to access the house and to take another photo of the front of the house as yesterday there was too much sun which caused alot of shadows in the photo, but I had laid down for a nap and did not hear her open the front door as she was trying out the key she had made nor did I hear her call my cell phone twice. I was so embarassed because firstly I wasn't supposed to be napping during work hours, and secondly because I slept for two and a half hours and missed her call and knock on the door. When I finally did talk to her I sounded like a crazy nut as I was trying to cover for my behavior, so Brealtor probably thinks she has an insane client to deal with for the next six months.

You know, when you write it all down, it sounds crazier than it actually seemed while it was happening. So anyway, here's to a long weekend full of rest for everyone. I wish we were camping this weekend, but I don't think I have it in me to prepare for that, too.

I thought I was having a bad day

To The Market

Today Ragged and I officially put our house with a realtor tonight. The process was simpler than I thought and I have to admit I'm glad to be done with the marketing part of it. Having to be all cheerful when people call and think of all the attributes of our house was getting old. With the new level of marketing we will get, hopefully we'll see a quick sale. Fingers crossed everybody. The hard part is there isn't really anything on the market that we like that hasn't sold already. Hopefully once our house sells, our dream home will fall into our laps. Yeah, right. Things just don't work like that around here. Wa wa waaaaa.

Moving where?

And One More Thing

I am annoyed by alot of things in this life and I mean ALOT. One such annoyance I tolerated today. I went to the grocery. When I go to the grocery, I always take a cart some other careless shopper has left somewhere outside the cart corrals. First of all that makes me so mad that people are so lazy and do that and secondly, the people that are coming to the grocery could easily retrieve the abandoned carts and get them out of the parking spots that they inevitably block. I mean aren't these shoppers getting a cart anyway? Instead, shoppers will go right past these perfectly good carts and grab a cart from inside the store. I know they have pimply teenagers who retrieve these carts but sometimes the retrieval of the carts are only during peak hours, so that leaves alot of time where stray carts are blowing around the parking lot, dinging cars, and generally taking up space. I implore you, the next time you go to the grocery, choose your cart from the stray ones that have been left in the parking lot. You will save someone time, give someone a clear parking lot, and generally make the world a better place. Also, start using reusable bags. Those plastic ones contribute to our petroleum issues, not to mention clutter our environment. Thanks. I'll step down from the soapbox now.

Next to Nothing

Saturday started out as a day I was going to accomplish alot, but alas that didn't happen. I did manage to clean the bathtub, take out the trash, clean the litter box, get a quick nap, and go to an open house. I had every intention of mowing the yard and cleaning out the gutters, but no dice. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get to all the yard work. Ragged went to the Big E for some birthday fun with one of her friends, so she was gone a good portion of the day.

Upsidedown Boop

Springfield Trip Pictures: Part 2

Purely Presidential

Former President Bill Clinton is going to be in our little town tomorrow to campaign for his wife. Originally it was going to be a block from work, so I was going to sneak down for a peek of Bill, but they moved his appearance to a college a long way away, so I won't be able to see him. Don't worry Bill, I'm still voting for Hill.

Neen for President

Grill Me

Today the weather was very nice and I found it difficult to focus on work. I was at home all day, but I completed what I wanted to. I pulled out the old grill and cooked some hamburgers for dinner. It was the first time this ye ar I used the grill and I have to say I want a new grill. Ours is old and only has a couple of hot spots on it. At any rate, it was nice to be cooking outside.

I've barely made a dent in the old DVR backup. I think we're up to 27%. It's amazing how much TV you can watch if you just focus.

Boop's back from vacation

Fo-dee

Today I went back to work. It was a busy day catching up on all the crap that accumulated while I was gone. After all that, Ragged and I went out with her parents to celebrate her birtay. After dinner, we went to The Creme, our new coffee shop, for, what else, coffee. We were going to try to go spend some of Ragged's gift cards she got but I have strained a muscle in my back so I can hardly walk. Oh, to be young again.

A cliffside at Fantastic Caverns

Trienta Y Nueve

Happy Birthday Ragged!

Sunday Wrap Up

Last night at 12:30 a.m. a pizza delivery guy knocked on our door. I would have loved to eat some pizza, but he obviously had the wrong house. You would have thought the dark house would have been a little bit of an indicator that he had the wrong address, but after you smoke so much pot it's difficult to pick up on signals such as that. Anyway, today Ragged and I got up and I went to the grocery while Ragged went to get her church on. Once I got home, I made some pasta salad for Ragged's mom's mother's day celebration. After Ragged got home, we went over her parents house for a lunch celebration. After we finished up there, our realtor showed us a house. Unfortunately, the house was previously rented and the occupant had allowed her cat(s) to piss all over the house. The house is in a nice neighborhood but had been poorly cared for for years it seemed. It would be a perfect house to make it how you wanted, but at this point Ragged and I don't want the fixer-upper type of house. Discouraged, we went and drowned our sorrows at Starbucks where I finally finished off my last gift card. Now we're at home watching television, interneting, knitting, and preparing to watch "Dan in Real Life". I'll let you guess which one of us is doing which activity. The weather is really nasty here and tomorrow is our first workday since vacation. Need I say more?

The Boop naps

Ketchup

Today Ragged and I went to the Promised Land for Mama's Day for a cookout. We didn't find out about it until we got home last night, so we were caught offguard. We stopped by Kroger and picked up some baked beans, watermelon, and pineapple upsidedown cake for the festivities. My sister and brother-in-law provided steak and salad fixings. Mom made some ditch nanner puddin'. After all the food we've eaten over the past week, I need to go on a fast, but it was good anyway. We didn't stay a long time, we came back home and Ragged continued cleaning the cat puke up while I mowed and weed eated. We also picked up some mutton and pork for Ragged's mama's celebration tomorrow. I will need to go to the grocery to pick up some groceries tomorrow also. The fun never ends. Ragged and I are also set up an appointment to see a prospective house. Not to mention that our DVR is down to 10% available space on the disk. I believe we have a 100 hour disc, so that means we have 90 hours of television recorded. I don't think we've ever had that much television recorded at once. That's an embarassment, but I'm certain we won't ever watch it all. Some of it will likely be on there for awhile or get deleted or some sleepless night I'll blaze through alot of it. Fast forwarding through commercials will make it go much faster.

A shot of the inside of the Mudhouse (AKA Mudhut) Coffeehouse

Springfield Trip Pictures: Part 1

The arts fair from our room window

The rock house where Laura Ingalls and Almanza Wilder lived for 8 years

The Stonehenge replica at Missouri State University-Rolla

The living room at our inn

A shot in our room

Pottery at the art fair

A bridge in St. Louis

A shot from the top of The Arch

Afterwards

After breakfast this morning, we set out to head back home. We stopped at the Loopy Ewe outside of St. Louis for some last minute yarn purchases. I think everyone was just ready to go home because I expected to have to carry out garbage bags full of yarn but Needles and Ragged skipped out with two small bags o' yarn. Ragged got the distinction of becoming a Loopy Groupie, so I guess the psychedelic van will be stopping by soon to collect her for a road trip. Anyway, we finally made it to Sumner and Ragged and I decided to go ahead and come on home. A few "we're almost home" calls to friends and family and we eventually arrived at our homestead. We had cats to clean up after, clothes to wash, stuff to put up, floors to sweep, mail to sort through, and dinner to get. Our yard looks like a jungle and I still have my bag to clean out but we are for the most part settled in at home. I'm absolutely wiped out and I'm glad to be home with the cats who were very excited to see us, particularly Eli who cried and cried and cried. We had a wonderful time, but now I need to rest from vacation.

The Boop tattles on his brothers and sister

Springfield

Vacation finally came! We headed out Friday to Needles and Pilot's to meet up for our official launch of the vacation the next day. Needles and Pilot had fixed a delicious taco meal and we were graced with the presence of Rudy Toot Tooty, Brando and the youngins as well. Although short-lived, it was nice to get to visit with them a little. It wasn't long before the hour grew late and Rudy and Brando had to leave and we went to bed. We rose fairly early, snagged some breakfast and hit the road. Unfortunately, Ragged forgot our laptop so the trip started off with a sort of sour note, but after we realized there were going to be two computers available, it wasn't such a bad thing. (Just kidding about Ragged forgetting the laptop. I think it was my fault actually)

We were entertained by a dancing pig while in a brief traffic snarl on the way to St. Louis

Anyway, on the first day we stopped in St. Louie to do the arch. Like a virgin, Pilot got arched for the very first time. The rest of us had been up in the arch before at some point in our 35-40 years on Earth. I have to admit my claustrophobia reared its ugly head and I was more than happy when we we came down. It is a beautiful structure and we got some great pictures in spite. The weather was a little on the chilly side, but the sky was beautiful. I had the unfortunate distinction of being chastised by a security guy for putting my arm around a statue of Thomas Jefferson that stands in the center of the museum area of the arch. The blunder resulted in a myriad of jokes about my inappropriate relationship with the former president. Despite that, we got some very good pictures of the arch and the surrounding beauty however. After the arch, we sojourned on to Meramec State Park and settled in for the night. Our motel was a step away from a primitive campground and by primitive I mean there wasn't a phone or more than three channels on the TV, but we were comfortable and it was a very nice setting. We saw 6 or 7 deer near our motel which added to the ambience.

The Arch

Sunset at Meramac State Park

The next day we took off early again and after stopping at a Stone Henge replication at University of Missouri-Ralla and again at the Route 66 State Park which apparently had been pretty much closed down, we finally arrived at our inn. Our room was in the tippy top of the large home and has a grandma's attic feel. An art fair was happening on the street in front of the inn, so we got to walk the fair our first day in Springfield.

Nook at the Walnut Street Inn

The Walnut Street Inn

Day two in Springfield included celebration of Cinco De Mayo at Maria's Restaurant followed by some hanging out at a very cool coffee shop. I had the honey almond latte. We hung out a bit on the back porch of the inn and chatted as well. Also, Needles and Ragged got to visit one of several yarn shops we are sure to hit while we're here. You can visit their blogs for details of that.

The Mudhouse, our favorite Springfield coffee shop

Tuesday found us getting up early for some breakfast at the B&B. I find it odd eating at a B&B, but the food was very good and the environment very relaxing. We went to Laura Ingalls Wilder last home and learned a great deal about her life and saw some of the objects she wrote about in the books. We ate dinner at Lambert's Cafe Home of the Throwed Rolls. We nearly ate all our dinner before I decided to take a chance and have a roll throwed at me. Luckily I caught it. I couldn't eat it I just wanted to be able to say I had a roll throwed at me. I was a little leery of doing this after witnessing another patron spilling his drink all over his table, himself, and possibly some of the members of his party, but I went ahead and did it. After all that, we then went to Fantastic Caverns and went through the cave and walked around the hiking trail. We had dinner on the deck at the inn which was nice. We had a little rain today but nothing that interferred greatly with our fun.

A shot at Fanastic Caverns

On Wednesday, the heavens opened up and it rained pretty much the entire day. We started out with a very nice breakfast. After which, we bee bopped over to Bass Pro for some mega shopping followed by a nice lunch. I was gonna get a moon pie, but after lunch I just didn't have it in me. They had strawberry ones, too, which is a flavor of MP I don't think I've seen before. We also did several rounds at the Shoot N Gallery. Later we went to a book and knit store and grabbed some coffee with a white chocolate and cranberry scone. The rain continued to pour, so we headed back to the inn for some relaxation.

Real live turtles at Bass Pro

Apparently, some very important yarn

Thursday morning we rose and had some buckwheat pancakes with apple sauce, bacon, and fruit for breakfast. It proved to be a little more than my travel companions could do, but I managed to nearly clean my plate. We headed out for a little geocaching which was unsuccessful then a little meandering downtown. It misted rain in the morning. The rain cleared by afternoon but nagging illnesses kept us at the inn most of the day. I got two pretty good naps in.

Tomorrow morning we head back home. The week has flown by and we have had our ups and downs, but hopefully we'll only remember the ups. Vacation 2008 was a rousing success.