Moonblog Journal

To say that I have been errant in keeping up with my blog entries is a slight understatement.  Tough.  I’ve written hundreds of blog entries.  It’s not my fault you’re not in my head to read them since I rarely post them.

At any rate.  Merry Christmas!  I pray everyone has a blessed day, and that everyone remembers it isn’t about the gifts we’re giving/receiving, it’s about the one we were given long before any of us ever drew breath.

Soon now, my husband and I will leave for India for a 2 week mission trip with our friend/youth minister at our church.  Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers, and pray for good weather whenever we’re traveling!

While it wouldn’t hurt my feelings too much to be stuck in London an extra day or two on the way home.. I’d rather not have to worry about dealing with trying to get another flight and all that jazz.

We’re nervous, but excited.  None of the three of us has ever been farther than Canada, which I don’t really count as out of the country.    I’m not sure when I’ll post next, but I’ll try to when we get back from India at the very least so that everyone can see the trillion pictures I plan on taking while we’re there.

Again, God Bless and Merry Christmas!

Fare thee well ’till next our paths cross.

Yes, yes.  I know.  I’ve posted twice within a month.  *gasp*  This post is to ask for prayers.  My Mother, father, and brother (in law), along with several other members of our church, are going to Colombia on a short term mission trip, and they leave Saturday morning.

I ask for prayer: Pray that they are able to get everything done that they need to before they leave the country.  Pray for safe travels to and from and everywhere in between.  Also, please pray for fertile hearts to sow the seeds of the Lords word.

Well… I am headed off to bed.  I just wanted to ask for prayers to be lifted up for all those involved.

I’ll write again later.  I don’t promise it to be soon. 

Fare thee well till next our paths cross. *Waves as she slips back into the silent shadows of cyber space*

Hmmm.. So it’s been a bit longer than I expected.  I’ve thought about posting… I’ve even written the posts in my head.  I just never got them from my head to the keyboard.  Oh well.  Those who really wanted to know what was going on, called me or spoke to me when they saw me.

I’m not narccicistic enough to believe that enough people read my blog to notice when I don’t post for a month.  *wink*

Anywhoo… Well.  Origins was great, and we had a blast.  I got to play some of my newer favorite games with the creators of said games, so that was pretty spiffy.

As far as my marriage goes: Joel and I are doing quite well, and I don’t forsee that we will be doing the opposite any time soon. 

I have lots of things that I want to rant about, and to be quite honest, I don’t have the energy to do it right now.  So be forewarned..:  Rants to come in the (near?) future.

Well, I’m tired.  I’m rambling.  I’m going to bed.  Fare thee well till next our paths cross.  *waves as she slips  back into the darkened shadows of cyberspace*

Okay, Okay.  I know.  It’s been quite a long time since I posted last.  Sorry.  Life has taken precedence over the internet, and my poor blog has been neglected.

I am writing to announce that Origins Game Fair has once again alighted upon us, and once more we head to Columbus for a week of little sleep and lots of gaming.  *grin*

Excited?  You bet.  But I can’t decide which I’m more excited over.. Being at Origins for a week, or NOT being at work for a week.  It’s a hard toss up. 

I’ve been trying to get Heather to agree to come stay at our hotel for the weekend when she gets off work on Friday.  I think anyone reading my blog should encourage her in my comments section to do so as well.  And because I’m the blog owner and manager, anyone dissuading her will have their comments deleted.  *smiles innocently*

Well….  It’s midnight.  I’m tired, and I have a lot to do today before we hit the road.  Heather, don’t forget to force Jake and Nessie to adjust to human contact, then hit the road for Columbus on Friday. *hint*

Fare thee well till next our paths cross.  *waves and slips back into the shadows of cyberspace*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigmented_villonodular_synovitis

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/394649-overview

Bev asked what surgery I was talking about… Here’s the long awaited response.

Sorry it has taken me so long to reply!  If you follow the links above, you will see what Joel has.   He had arthroscopic surgery to remove the synovium in his right knee.  The doctor told him it will come back.  We just don’t know when.  When it does, he will have the surgery done again, and wait for it to come back all over again.  Eventually, it will result in a full knee replacement.

Because my husband had to get a disease that is rare (they don’t even have a 15 year case study on it), they don’t really know the most effective treatment.  So they just treat the symptoms when they develop by removing the diseased lining in his leg, and go about their business until it comes back.

His surgery went well, and he went back to work on Wednesday of this week.  Now he’s learning to live without the lining in his knee, which causes pain, but he’s doing pretty well with it.

Any further questions, ask and I’ll answer.  I’m kind of in a hurry right now because I’ve got to leave for church.

Fare thee well till next our paths cross, blog readers. *Waves as she slips back into the silent shadows of cyber space*

Okay.  Too much has occured in my life to put it all down here and now.  Suffice it to say.. Life goes on whether you’re ready for it to or not.  I found out yesterday that a friend of mine got laid off in my department because they couldn’t afford to keep her.  It sucks.  If there was someone I wanted to see go first, it definitely wasn’t HER.  I pray that she’s able to get unemployment to help suppliment her child support because she’s got three kids to care for and now no job.

We’ve already been cut down to 32 hours a week, and if our department doesn’t pick up in business, I’m sure we’ll be forced to drop more hours.  *sigh*

On the plus side- I’ve reconnected with one of my best friends.  This friendship stems from Highschool, when I was fourteen.  We drifted apart when we broke up.  I never should have allowed myself to date one of my best friends, but one of his gifts is persistance, and after 8 years at the time, he wore me down.  The only regrets I have from that relationship is that it failed and screwed our friendship up in the process.  Now I’m married and he’s got what sounds like a great girlfriend, so here’s hoping they work out!

On another “plus side”- The Beach waterpark opens in 2 weeks.  While I don’t think there’s enough sunblock in the world to prevent me from burning since I burn easier than toast does, Heather and I got addicted to the waterpark last summer so it’s worth the trouble.  By the by, Heather, YOU’RE GOING ON OPPENING DAY!  NO EXCUSES.  NONE!  I’ll tell Mark to shave his head if you don’t go, so there!  *sticks her tongue out*

Well, while this hasn’t been entirely informative on the goings on of my life, it’s all you’re getting for now.  Please pray for continued healing for Joel after his surgery on April 6th.  The swelling continues to go down, but it’s still causing him a lot of pain.

Fare thee well till next our paths cross.  *waves as she slips back into the shadows of cyberspace and back ‘neath her velvet lined rock*

I went to Mom’s place last night, because Walgreen’s has decided to ignore my husbands availability for yesterday and today and he is working until 11:30pm, despite the fact that while Friday is an annoyance, the reason he can’t work late on Saturday is because we have church early, he teaches Sunday School, and with school/work during the week, it’s one of the only days he has to prepare his lesson.  They are doing this to everyone this month, and this may be the only time they ever do it, or they may decide to do it once or twice a year.

Regardless of my annoyance, that’s why I went to Mom’s.  I didn’t want to sit at home all evening by myself, so I went and kept her company.  My Aunt Cindy and cousin Crystal came over while I was there, and eventually we decided to go get some food.  I said Friendly’s sounded good, because we don’t have them here in Cincinannti.  (Woe is me.)  Everyone agreed on the choice, and off we went.

We were seated and the girls went off to go play with the claw machines and stuff because they didn’t want to sit with the “adults”.  Meanwhile, the three of us started bantering back and forth and kicking up a good old time.   We haven’t gotten a chance to get out together in a while and we were goofing off and just having fun, and Cindy was proving she could be the “guy” of the group, belching on command whenever she felt the need, and then went back to the “girl” as she giggled afterwards. 

The waitress we got was inept to say the least.  She came to take our drink order, and apparently that was too much for her.  Missy and Crystal ordered some blue raspberry nastiness, Mom ordered a diet coke with vanilla syrup added, and Cindy and I both got water with lemon, but Cindy also ordered a cup of coffee.  Simple enough, right?  Wrong.  Apparently the girl not only talked like she had marbles in her mouth, but she had them for brains as well.  After several minutes, she finally brought the drinks out and informed Cindy that they making a fresh pot of coffee so it would be a couple minutes yet.  Cindy said “Oh, that’s fine” and went back to talking to us.  The waitress was sent away as we had no idea what to order, and that happened several times.  (It took us a good 15 minutes for me and Mom to decide on our food).

When the waitress finally brought Cindy’s coffee out, she gave it to me.  I was sitting across from Cindy, and the dingbat had even spoken to Cindy about the coffee AFTER she ordered it, so there was no excuse for that in my opinion.  We finally put our food order in, and that is when we realized we truly got the dumbest waitress any of us had ever ecountered.  Cindy ordered her food and Crystals, and told her what Missy wanted, and confused the girl in the process.  So Mom spoke up, and ended up having to SHOW THE GIRL THE PICTURE in the menu just to get her to understand what she wanted.  After asking 4 times, we thought she finally had it right.   Mom and I both ordered sampler platters for our meals, and I ordered an Onion ring/Waffle fries basket as an actual appetizer, with cheddar cheese and bacon added on to them, sour cream on the side.  Easy, right?  Of course not.  I had to tell her 5 times what I wanted, and on the 5th time, she looked at me and said “Oh, you wanted the Onion Rings AND Waffle Fries?”  *Groan and grit my teeth*  (Me)- “Yes, this one, right here on the menu!”  And we had to point to the picture for this one too.  *sigh*

She left and we all looked at each other and speculated as to how much of our order was going to be wrong.  Oh yes! Please note, she had been to the table to take our drink order, try to get our food order a couple times, and once she got our food order, we did not see her again for 25 minutes.  We were just beginning to wonder if they were growing the potatoes when she brought the appetizer out, and were impressed it was correct.  She didn’t stick around to get drink refill orders though.  She hightailed it back to the kitchen before we could ask.  Another 15 minutes came and went, and finally our actual food came out, and Missy’s was wrong, mine was missing one of the sauces it was supposed to come with, and she tried to dart back to the kitchen again, but Cindy was able to get a coffee refil in and Mom and I were able to get another soda and water respectively.

After we got the drinks and my sauce (Missy decided she would live with the fact that they put her sauce on the side instead of ON her chicken strips like they were supposed to), she vanished.  She would walk by our table from time to time to help other tables around us, but systematically avoided us.  Now, me, Mom and Cindy may have been laughing and joking around, but we weren’t being rude, loud about it, or vulgar.  We were always very polite to our waitress when she was actually around, so we really didn’t have any idea what the bloody problem was.

The point is, through our entire meal, she NEVER came back.  We were done and needing boxes and finally flagged her down to get boxes, which she brought and left again without asking if we wanted our bill.  We were embarassing the girls, so they went out to Cindy’s car while we were still at the table, and Cindy decided she’d had enough of our waitress and went and got the manager.  He came and was apologizing all over the place, stumbling over his words and not sure what we wanted.  He ended up making some adjustments to our bill, which meant that for me, Mom and Missy, I paid 15 bucks instead of the almost 40 I would have.  After he had gone and come back with the adjusted bill, our waitress decided to come back and ask if we were ready for our check and if we wanted our check separated or not.  We informed her we had already had it taken care of and gotten our check and she said “Oh, well that explains why someone separated it already” and wandered off.  The three of us just looked at each other, bit our toungues and went to pay.

I gave the manager our check, paid for it and was waiting for change when our waitress came to the counter and asked if we’d been helped yet.  We told her the manager was taking care of us and she trotted off again.  He came back, and we told him that he really needed to talk to her.  Waitressing may not be a glamorous job, but if you actually want to earn a tip, you should do your bloody job.  He said he would, and we left to go driving around for a couple hours just chatting and goofing off before I had to make the drive home.

Needless to say, the waitress did not get a tip.  You know, I know that Kroger will hire the mentally inept to be baggers and stuff, and I admire that.  It’s an easy job that they can do while being productive members of society.  Wal-Mart occasionally hires them to be greeters at the door, again, easy job while being a productive member of society.  Apparently Friendly’s was trying the same concept.  I have news for ‘em.  They failed.  They need to send her back across the parking lot to Krogers.  She’ll make more and screw less up.

Okay, that’s my venting for now.  Heather keeps telling me I don’t post enough, so I made two posts within a week of each other.   Don’t tell me I don’t ever give you anything, Heather.  xP

Fare thee well till next our paths cross, blog readers. *Waves as she slips back into the silent shadows of cyber space*

Sorry it has taken soo long to type.  February was a hectic month, to say the least.  My ceiling collapsed in my old apartment after leaking for a week, and still we had to call the health department before they would agree to move us into a different building, and then we signed a new lease which we are paying 80.00 a month more for the new place because it’s a townhouse.  The dishwasher has been broken since we moved in, and a month later, their 24 hour maintenance hasn’t come and fixed the pump.

It’s been a nightmare, through and through.  We’ve had problems getting the utilities switched over, the rental office even gave us an apartment someone already lived in on “accident”.  I don’t have the time or energy to get into the whole story right now.

I wanted to let people know that this blog owner has not dropped off the face of the planet.

Right now, we both still have jobs (though I am losing about half my hours right now), Joel is going back to school to become a pharmicist, and we are planning to go to India for a short term mission trip.  We’ll be there for around ten days.  Please pray that we’re able to raise the funds we need, and for the saftey of those going, and especially those who live in India.  Also pray for a trip some members of our church are going on to Colombia this fall.

Well, I am tired and am going to bed.  I’ll fill in the blanks later.  Fare thee well till next our paths cross.  Until next time!  *waves as she slips back into the shadows of cyberspace*

All right,

I have lived through a few presidential elections now, and have been old enough to know what was going on since the Bill Clinton reign o’nonsense.   Never, I repeat, NEVER, have I ever seen as much absolute crap about a presidential inauguration as there has been with the upcoming of Barack Hussein Obama.

Does anyone else feel like this he is being treated like the messiah?  The way the media and all his followers are treating him, you’d expect him to raise the dead, heal the sick, and bring salvation to the world.

I am so bloody tired of all the propoganda.  I’m tired of turning on the T.V. and seeing “Barack Obama commemorative coins” with his visage in full color overshadowing the likes of Washington and Lincoln.  If I walk into the store, I have a 60% chance of seeing Barack Obama “special collectors edition” plates and cards and blankets.  There’s even one idiot in Cincinnati selling coasters with newspaper clippings from the day the media gave him the presidential election win.

I got off work early today, and turned the T.V. set off shortly after I turned it on because I had absolutely no interest in seeing all the news coverage about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with splices of B.H.O.’s various speeches mixed in.

I have a question:  What has Barrack Hussein Obama DONE thus far in his political career?  What’s that?  You don’t have an answer, do you?  Know why?  Because he hasn’t done ANYTHING!  Why has this country become so obsessed with this man who has NO accomplishments under his belt?  He’s being compared to all of the greatest leaders in our history, but he hasn’t done one blasted thing to EARN it.

People are acting like he’s going to fix all of our nations problems, when really, he’s going to lead our country into the biggest financial deficit it has ever seen.  He’s going to punish those of us who work hard for a living, and distribute our wealth to those who sit on their backsides leeching off the system, and ENCOURAGE them to do it.

It makes me sick to hear people talk about how great things are going to be.  Does this country have a giant pair of blinders on?  Can you really not see what’s going on?  This is not a historic inauguration  because it’s a man with colored skin taking the presidential seat.  No, this is historic because a man has managed to brainwash the majority of our country and walk into office to run this country into the ground, and people are just saying “Go ahead sir, do what you like!  Oh, wait?  What you promised you would do in 100 days now you’re saying you can’t even get done in four years?  Well, if you say so, then it must be true!”

I took a call at work today and at the end of the call, I asked the lady if there was anything else I could do for her today.  Her response was “You can enjoy the inauguration tomorrow!”.  Excuse me? I can what?  This woman hopes I can enjoy this three ring circus of idiocy knowing that the next 4 years are going to be some of the worst years the country I live in has ever seen?  I’d enjoy getting a root canal with no Novocaine sooner than I’m going to enjoy tomorrow, let alone the next 4 years.

My prayer in all this mess is that God will take the situation and work good from it.  God is the master of miracles, right?  Even this that seems impossible is not for God.

Well, that’s all I have for now.  Fare thee well till next our paths cross.

*waves as she slips back into the shadows of cyberspace*

Okay, so I meant to write yesterday,  and didn’t.  So, now I can wish everyone a belated Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year all in one fell swoop. 

Quite a bit has happened since I last wrote.  I bought a new hamster, so that brought my total to 6.  There are the 3 little ones I got from Missy- Lily, Rose and Zinnia and 3 bigs ones, Jack (I wasn’t sure if she was a boy or a girl, and lo and behold, she’s a girl, but I never changed the name), Honeysuckle, and Bramble (Bram), my new boy.

Saturday night, I cleaned the big ones’ cage, then I got ready to clean the little ones’ cage.  I have always put the 3 little ones in the big cage so that I can clean it, and never has there been a problem before last Saturday night.

When I introduced Bram to the girls in the big tank a few days ago, Jack got very territorial.  Honeysuckle, on the other hand, decided she’d get frisky with Bram and they started mating.  (Incidentally, I’m now I’m on baby watch.)  I don’t know if Jack ever mated with Bram or not since her favorite thing to do seemed to be to chase Bram right back up to the second level if he dared to come down below.

I put Zinnia in the big tank first, and before I ever got the chance to round up the other two to put in the tank, Jack went after Zinnia, and it was for keeps.  By the time I was able to break them apart and get Zinnia back out of there, her belly had been cut and she was bleeding, not to mention terrified.  I took her into my bedroom and put neosporin on her belly and on her paws where there were defensive wounds, and that is when I noticed she couldn’t use her back legs anymore.  They just kind of hung behind her, and she dragged them.

This, of course, made me feel terrible.  Not only did I put her in the tank, but I inadvertantly got her crippled to boot.  I put her back in with her own cage mates, and they started cleaning her off, and the first night, they took good care of her.  (Zinnia is smaller than the other two, so they always picked on her a little bit if they felt she got in the way).  I checked on her Sunday, and she was doing OK, minus the fact that her legs still weren’t working.  I was so afraid she was going to be dead in the morning, I was just releived she was still breathing.  Monday, Rose and Lily went back to picking on her as usual, but when it came time to sleep, they slept with her because she couldn’t get up the tubes any more.  Tuesday, I went to work, and she was still OK, she was eating and moving around the cage.  I took her out and held her, kissed her on the head and went to work.

Tuesday Evening, I called Mom and was talking to her about getting their little cage from them to put Zinnia in because it was small, one level, and that way, the other two couldn’t pick on her.  Mom and I talked for a while, and she started telling me about Alice, their newest hamster that they added to their collection, when I started looking for Zinnia to check on her.  I started getting frantic when I couldn’t find her, and put Mom on speaker phone so that I could use both hands to look in the bedding for her.

I had run my hands around the bedding several times, and finally, I found her.  I burst into tears and Mom asked what was wrong.  I told her I had found Zinnia, but she was dead.  Not only was she dead, but there was blood in the cage by her, so that meant that either she was killed by one of the other ones, or she died and they started to eat her.  Her head was obscured by the bedding, so I couldn’t see where exactly the injury was, and I didn’t really want to for that matter.  I don’t think that they would have just killed her fighting, so I’m guessing that there was more wrong with her than I was able to see, because they decided to put her out of her misery.  I wish they wouldn’t have, but there was nothing I could do about it since she was already dead.  *sighs*

Jack was still being snarky to Bram, and still being territorial, and after what happened to Zinnia, I knew that I was going to have to put her in another cage because I knew that Honeysuckle and Bram had been mating, which means there is a very good chance that Honeysuckle is pregnant, and I didn’t want Jack to just eat the babies to keep more usurpers from invading.

Now Jack is in a CritterTrail Treehouse, Bram and Honeysuckle are in a 10gallon tank with a topper on it so it has two levels, and Lily and Rose are in a CritterTrail 2, which is rather large for just them, but who knows?  Maybe I’ll be able to use that cage for babies and move them to another home.

Joel buried Zinnia for me because the ground was frozen Tuesday night, so Wednesday morning when I was at work, he put her in the ground for me.

Honeysuckle is sleeping a lot, and Bram is staying on the second level, so I don’t know if she’s pregnant or just getting used to having a different mate in the cage.  I guess I will know by next week. 

Now, that’s my depressing news for this blog entry.  Mayhaps I’ll blog again before the new year.  I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and I hope you have a Happy and Blessed New year.

Fare thee well till next time.. *waves as she slips back into the shadows of cyberspace*