Current score: Cats 1, Cris 0

Round 1: Crissy sprayed small amount of pet deterrent on Christmas tree. Phoenix climbed into said tree and flattened/bent downward two level 1 branches, and one level 2 branch. Phoenix also seen chewing on branch tips.

Outcome: Crissy doused tree in pet deterrent spray, regardless of her own health (some wheezing and coughing shouldn't hurt, right?). Round 2 to come after ornaments and garland are hung.

Holiday Spirit

It's officially the holiday season now. We received our first Christmas card in the mail today. Many of our neighbors have their outdoor holiday decorations up. And the busiest shopping day of the year has passed (I only went to one store during that day).

For some reason, though, I just can't seem to get in the holiday mood. I think it's taken me longer this year than any other to put up the holiday decorations. So far I've been working on it for 4 days, and am still not done yet (trust me, we don't have that many things to put up-it's just procrastination). I also haven't even started writing my Christmas cards yet.

I've been on jury duty this week, and have had an irregular schedule. For the past 4 days I've been working evenings (and it's been very busy at work). In fact, Sunday night I worked till 10:30pm, then Monday morning I had to go in for jury duty at 9am. Then I had to work my normal job in the evening from 3-11pm (although I ended up staying until midnight since we were so busy). Luckily today I had the day off, but didn't get much done as I slept more than half the day. Tomorrow I go in at 1pm for more jury duty (even though it's my only other day off from my normal job this week). I don't find out what my schedule is Thursday until tomorrow evening (ie, if I have to go for jury duty or work my normal job shift from 7am-3pm).

I don't think I do well with erratic scheduling. I haven't been able to eat well, don't feel like exercising, have had bad headaches all week, and haven't been sleeping well. I guess you do what you have to, though, to get things done.

Maybe tomorrow while I'm sitting in the jury room, I'll start writing Christmas cards.

Sleep

Grr...for some reason lately, I seem to need more sleep than usual. Most people I know generally need 8-9hrs of sleep a night, and they ususally get it (luckily for me, since I don't like dealing with grumpy people). I usually only need about 6.5-7hrs of sleep, which is more than adequate. I don't need naps, and am not tired with that amount of sleep. However, in the last 4 days, every time I have a spare minute, I seem to be falling asleep. It's rather annoying, especially wasting half your afternoon or evening taking a 2 hr nap. I don't think I'm getting sick, so why should my body tell me I need all this extra sleep?

Hmm...most likely it has something to do with bouncing back and forth between working morning and evening shifts (Thursday and Friday I worked evenings. This week I work mornings for 3 days, then evening for the weekend. Next week I swing back to mornings again). I have a feeling it's going to be a long, sleepy next few weeks.

Big Plans

For the first time in over 3.5 months, I have an entire weekend free (ie I don't have to work one day during the weekend, and there are no football games, plans to travel, or friends visiting, excluding Dagny's owners). This means I get to try to accomplish things. Let's see how many things on my list I can accomplish:

- Update my computer address book
- Transfer files from my old computer
- Organize the garage
- Organize the house closets
- Find things that have been missing (ie CO2 cannisters, etc)
x Bathe the rest of the dogs
x Hang outside Christmas lights (weather permitting)
- Print photos from the computer
x Make Christmas gift list (for myself and others)
x Go see a movie (haven't been to the movies in a very long time)

Hmmm, guess I'm going to have a busy weekend!

Upgrades

I love my new computer, but it definately has it's down side. I haven't gotten all my programs uploaded or preferences set. In fact, today I tried to print, and realized one of the printers still needed drivers loaded. Grrr....

Also, blogger is trying to get me to upgrade to the newer version as well. I probably will shortly, but why do all these things need doing when I don't have time?

Christmas in November

After such a ho-hum, depressing, boring, bad week, it's finally Friday. And what a good day it is!

Between being sad about my vet school friends returning to their respective cities, the dog eating 1.5lb of chocolate and needing treatment, sleep deprevation, waking up late for work, and Chuck being gone, it's been a really long week.

Now things are going so much better. The December schedule came out, and I have Christmas Day off! (I wasn't really expecting that). And even better, I got my biggest Christmas present early. Chuck returned from Chicago and apparently decided today would be as good a time as any to give the present to me. I finally got my new computer (as I type-online, no less-I'm sitting at the kitchen table not attached to wires). It's bigger, faster, and all around better than my old one, and even has a built in camera.

Can you tell I'm excited?

Photos are up

Chuck has finally updated the photo album on his website, so photos from the year's tailgates, weddings, and social events are up.

Photo Album

Rat Poison

I never realized how certain toxic substances could be so cyclical. For example, around Valentine's day and Halloween we get a lot of calls about candy and chocolate (big surprise). August (aka start of the school year) we get tons of calls about ADHD drugs. At the beginning of summer, it seemed that stimulants and weight loss drugs were slighly more common. And over the last 2 weeks, at least half of my calls at work are about rat poison. In fact, yesterday I only had 3 calls that were not about rat poison.

ATTENTION PEOPLE: please keep the rat poison outside, and keep your pets away from it. I am not a mind reader, and can't tell the type of rat poison based on it's appearance. Why do you keep trying to describe it to me? Also, when your pet gets into it, don't panic. The pet is not going to die immediately from it. Give me a chance to help you before wailing about how you've killed your pet.

Grrr....

Overdue

It's been a while since I last posted. Sadly, not much has changed. The dogs are all feeling fine again, and getting along great-I think they'll be very depressed when Dagny returns to her original family in a few weeks.

I missed out on the fitness bonus at work. It's hard working out for at least an hour a day, every day. I was doing good at the end of the month, but by the time I got motivated, it was too late to make up the time I missed. Plus, I decided the $25 bonus wasn't worth killing myself over. But I have every intention of keeping up with the working out so I'm in shape for the January cruise. All of my talk about working out has motivated Chuck as well (about time!).

For Halloween, I dressed up in a Greek Goddess costume for work. My friends were game for going out in the evening, so one of them dressed in an Army uniform and another as Darth Vader. The rest went as themselves. Apparently if you're wearing a Darth Vader costume, lots of random people will talk to you. There was talk about next year everyone dressing up as Smurfs, and me as Smurfette-that would be a sight, but probably won't happen.

This weekend can't come fast enough. One of my old vet school friends is getting married outside of Champaign, so a few other of my friends are coming back to town for the wedding. I haven't seen these girls in almost 2.5 years-in fact, the last time I saw them was at my own wedding-and I can't wait to catch up with them. Tomorrow is a mini girls' night out to celebrate (haven't had one of those in a very long time as most of my friends now are guys). Unfortunately, the football game Saturday is in the afternoon, so we're missing out to go to the wedding (originally we thought the game was in the morning, and would have been able to go).

I'm really looking forward to the next few months-so much is going on. November brings Guitar Hero 2, a concert, and Thanksgiving in Michigan with my extended family. December brings holiday parties and Christmas. January is the Caribbean cruise with my family, Chuck's family, and about 50 of their friends. February is the ski trip and the car races. As I said, lots to look forward to.