Bet you can't guess...

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too much stuff, not enough time

So, no, I didn't die or anything. But between the dog and the AC and the dryer and the fans and the turtles, it's been a busy few weeks. Also there's hockey to watch. And on a completely unrelated note, my a key and w key (and probably q and 1) don't work well anymore, so I keep typing words like nd, nyy, and tch. So keep in mind while you're reading this that spell check doesn't catch all those words.

The Dog

I've probably mentioned the girls behind us that like to lean over the fence and tease the dogs. We've told them many times to stop because Zephyr might bite if they irritate him enough. So anyway, a couple weeks ago we were at Lowes (buying the fans, a different story)and one of the girls came over and told our neighbor that the girl who lives back there had her hand over the fence and Zephyr had bitten her. I should mention that the Saturday night that this happened, they were having a party of some sort at that house...lots of noise and lots of unsupervised kids in the backyard. Anyway like I said, this girl was at the party and had just come over to tell us what had happened, and not being home, she told Travis. Note that she said that the girl had her hand over the fence.
So later Sunday evening, after we came home, the girl's dad came over and told Mike that the dog had bitten her. Mike told him that we ere sorry that it had happened, but we've told those girls over and over not to put their hands over our fence. He got mad and drove off. After that the cops came. It seems that the dad told the cops that the girl as on the ground on her side of the fence and Zephyr had leapt over the fence and bitten her hand. So Mike took him into the yard and showed him the fence which is about six and half feet from the ground to the top. Not only that, but we have the facing side of the fence...all smooth and nowhere for him to put his feet to climb it. Added to all this is the fact that at the time that this happened, Zephyr weighed in at one hundred three pounds. I would think it would be physically impossible for him to leap into the air with all the force necessary to accomplish the feat and then hang on to the top of the fence (or whatever the hell he as supposed to have done) reach down and grab the girl's hand, bite it, and then come off the fence on our side of the fence, all without damaging the fence. Not to mention the girls' history of teasing the dogs which it seems her dad is conveniently forgetting. Speaking of which, I went and asked our next door neighbor if she ever saw the girls hanging over our fence. She said, yes, she sees them antagonizing (her exact word)the dogs all the time. She said they bother her dogs too and added that one time she saw them getting her dog Dory (who's the sweetest dog ever)to jump up on the fence and then were hitting the dog on the head with a brick. And I thought the clods of dirt they were throwing at Zephyr (this was a different time) were bad!
Later that night the cops showed up again because they had not gotten all our personal information hen they came the first time. He told us then that in a case like this where the dog as in his yard and the girl was essentially invading his territory, he figured that the worst that would happen would be that Zephyr would be quarantined for ten days to watch for rabies. He did add that the guy was really adamant that something be done about the dog.
So anyway, since Zephyr's shots had lapsed, he had to be quarantined at the city pound and we had to pay fifty dollars for his room and board during that time, but we got him back home last Wednesday. I'm expecting a fine from the city for the rabies lapse any day now. And who knows, probably a lawsuit.

The Dryer

I know that I've mentioned that our dryer has been broken. Anyway, our neighbor had come over to look at it and make sure it as just the heating element (he's got one of those electrical continuity things, I don't know what they're called. The gauge thing.) That was the problem with it, and he told us where to go and said if we couldn't get it for about twenty dollars to let him know and he could use his strings to get it for us cheaper. In the midst of this I learned he did AC work, which comes in handy later. Anyway, after a few days (had to wait for payday, you know)we called the place and they quoted us like sixty five dollars. So a couple days after that Mike went back to talk to Joe. His wife answered the door and said she hadn't seen him in a few days since she had ticked him off.
Awkward.

So we ordered the part for cheaper online and finally got the dryer fixed. Yay!!


The Fans

We ere gonna have Joe come look at our AC but since he was AWOL we decided the next best thing would be to get some ceiling fans for the bedrooms, which we'd been talking about doing since we bought the house. So we went to Lowes (yay) to look at fans.
There's cheap fans and expensive fans. Nothing in between.
So we got two twenty dollar fans for the kids' rooms and a nice one for our room (with a remote...it's fun)and took them home to install. e started with Autumn's room. We took out the light and managed to strip out one of the screws in the light box. Which was just s well because we found out when we started to install the fan that the light box screws were too long for the fan. What a pain.
It took us two days to find the right screws. And even then they ere still a little too long, but three washers per screw fixed that. So we finally got Autumn's fan in and moved on to Brandon's.
I broke one of the screws in his light box. Not stripped, completely broke the stupid thing. I couldn't get it in or out. I had to get Mike to go in and twist the light box and drill a new hole. After that I was able to install his with no problem.
I got to ours and one of those screws was broken before I even started. The builders must have used the world's cheapest screws. So after lots of hassle and a repeat of the light box twisting, we finally got the stupid thing installed. It was nice and cool.


The AC

The AC story isn't really that long. After Joe came home (about week ago) he came to look at our AC. It took him several trips between his job and softball and all, but he has it mostly fixed. He says we have a freon leak somewhere, but he recharged it and said it should last till he has time to find the leak. So now it's really cool.

The Turtles




We had a turtle show up in our pond. A tiny baby turtle. For reference, those bricks are six and a half inches long. It's bizarre. I can't imagine it got there by itself! It's a slider, like they sell in the pet stores. So we had this tiny turtle (Hector)for three or four days when the boys across the street said they had to get rid of their turtles and would it be ok if they put them in our pond? So I said sure, that's fine, so now we have three red eared sliders plus some fish they let go in there and also what they said was a crab. I haven't seen that yet and I've never heard of a freshwater crab. I wonder if they meant a crawdad?

So anyway, that's my life so far this month.

Hair and more hair

Brandon wants hair like Ashton Kutcher. Which is fine with me, but not Midlothian ISD, which states specifically that hair cannot touch the ears, eyebrows or collar, and cannot be curled or otherwise styled away from those areas. So I think he's out of luck, but I bet the stylists who've worked in this ton for awhile cn help with comprimise. I'd imagine boys have been trying to get round that for years.