jack rabbits, enrollment forms and enough sodium for a small country (of teeny-tiny ant-sized people who have no taste buds)

saturday i got a text from nafia, and she, nicolette and i got to go do some errand-running to find some essentials for her cousin's bridal shower. good times! i love going to hobby lobby for anything, but this was a fun little task, and we were able to find the necessities to help pull off a very creative gathering! and then we stopped by bath and body works to get a little gift set for the event in question. and i was able to stock up on more smelly things for my smell-diffuser-thing and for my car. love the scents!

touched base with sarah on monday to make sure that everything was "a go" for thursday and friday before making the flight out to lubbock. took the boys into the vet early tuesday morning (i always drop them off around 7 to get them set for their comprehensive and dental cleanings, thank you banfield). due to the fact that banfield is located inside petsmart, i always say a little prayer that i will make it all the way to the back of the store before one of the boys (usually bruno) does his business in the store...i mean, i usually walk them around for a bit outside, but they are tricky..they always wait to get in the store and smell what the other dogs have done. jerks.

then in the afternoon i made my way into the office because i needed to speak with our HR vice president. i wasn't sure how to play this one..and not because she's scary, in fact, the vp of hr is fabulous...it's more that i'd been putting off the inevitable. so i stopped in and talked to lori first, trying to get up the nerve to go in and talk to her to see how bad it was going to be...so lori took the edge off by buffering while providing the introductory "here, do something, julie's blonde." (ok, i know that wasn't what she said, but that's what i heard mostly because it's what i was thinking in the moment!). i was dreading this more than the dentist, because i'd been over-thinking it for too long, and avoiding the unavoidable. and we all know that when you do that, it just sits and simmers on the back burner and the brain just makes it even worse!

it was a relief to know that we were within compliance, and i wasn't going to have too severe of consequences...paperwork. just paperwork. so that was good to hear..chills just thinking about how good it was to hear! music to my ears (good music, none of that toddler screamo-crap i referred to in the previous post!) so my duty is to contact the dentist to make sure they are a part of this in-network plan...unfortunately, the receptionist is a little ditzy, but so nice, that it's hard to be upset with her...one of those "bless-your-heart"s. 

yesterday i dropped the boys at joannes because it was going to be a longer trip, and she said fudge was wanting to party,

this is them when i dropped them off at joannes for a visit-they were pretty excited to get there!

then i went to the airport, in my flipflops, in the rain. (didn't think that through)...and arrived in beautiful 80 degree, light breeze weather in lubbock. after i called for the shuttle, it only took about a half hour for him to arrive. cool. then, as we pulled out of the airport, something caught my eye in the shade of the trees...jack rabbits! i can't say that i've actually seen them in person! i'm sure that if i keep my eyes open, at some point i may also see a jackelope...c'mon sarah, let's see if we can't find one on the way to tulia tomorrow!
                                            
so, i'm staying at the overton in lubbock, and it is a very nice hotel,

but the walls seem thin, or something because i can hear laughing in the room next door and full conversations of people walking down the hall...maybe the hotel in leavenworth really did shoot the supersonic hearing beam through my ear...(although more likely, it may just be some of the elderly visitors speaking loudly due to loss of hearing, who really knows #notgoingtoask). there are two things that are minor-there is a noise in the bathroom from the vent-like the wind is causing it to open and shut. no problem, last night, i just turned on the cello music...tonight, i will leave the light on because it is connected to the fan and the noise stops-it will just be white noise, and if i close the door, the light won't be an issue. the other 'bother' is that the t.v. always reverts back to the original LUBBOCK SPECIAL channel, so i have to do some flipping of channels to get back to the station i was watching if i turn it off at any point. (i mean, it's the little things...who needs finger cramping from playing with the remote unnecessarily? NOT ME!!)  

today's session canceled and apparently wanted to reschedule last minute, so i went down to the restaurant for a leisurely breakfast and took my notebook with me. i probably should've just gotten the buffet, but i'd seen the menu up in my room and had my mind set. in the room i was thinking blueberry pancakes with a side of egg...i ended up getting the waffle. who am i? anyhoo, the meal arrived and i decided i needed some salt on the eggs, so i reached over and grabbed the salt while looking at the pepper shaker and noticing that it was a grind mill pepper-shaker, so my instinct (ok, learned behavior...i know the difference) i tried to ground the salt-thinking about my sea salt shaker at home, and the freakin' top came right off, leaving a heaping pile of NaCl all over my perfectly done eggs. not being one to make a big deal of things, i was in an obscure booth, so i tried my darndest to wipe the eggs off. to a casual observer, one might think i was petting the eggs, and they remained too salty, so i tried to eat them with the syrup-still too salty (not the same mix as caramel and sea salt-my fave!!)nope, so my next try was to pour some of my water on them, giving them a little bath, in hopes that the ice water wouldn't ruin the warm egg-effect. i still like the yolks a little runny. it worked, but it was not ideal. and as soon as i moved the eggs to the waffle plate and finished the eggs and the waffle, i poured the water from the egg plate onto the waffle plate in order to hide any traces of the situation, as the water mixed with the syrup...

ay-ya-yai...(not sure, but in my head, that's the way i pronounced it maybe with a little more flair and some other words you may or may not recognize)

not my smoothest breakfast adventure...but i can guarantee lesson learned! besides, it was granular salt, duh, of course you don't grind it otherwise it'd be the consistency of powdered sugar.

i did get this in the mail before my flight, confirming that i had made the first status mark! go me.

 and in other news, i found out that the coffee shop will open tomorrow just in the nick of time for me to grab a latte to go at 6:15 on our mission to tulia. good times, i'm certain of it.

why the coffee shop sports a poster of factoids about armadillos, i am uncertain.

tomorrow will come early, so i must iron my pants and get some sleep-gotta' be my best version of a shadow tomorrow!

julie

how is it that i can cut my own hair, but make chaco look like frankenstein's monster?

on friday the contractor came by to fix the mess that the water damage left on my ceiling. i was showing him what needed to be done, and pointed out the sprinkler and need for the patch job, and i wasn't sure he was getting the entire message, because he responded in broken english...so i continued in spanish-which surprised him. it usually does, so i explained that i was from HONDURAS. he smiled and said his wife was from HONDURAS, so i asked what area. when he told me tegucigalpa, immediately visions from my jr. high era flooded my memories and i told him that i had lived there 2 years. (a great two years, and i still keep up with some of my friends from there!)

he said he needed to go to home depot to pick up some supplies, so i figured i had enough time to give chaco a trim and i began. well, apparently he didn't need to go all the way to home depot, because just a few minutes later, he returned with another guy; they taped off the area they were working in, and i continued to work on chaco, but he got fidgety and i accidentally nicked him in a very sensitive area on his hind leg. poor guy. and it may have been a bit of a hatchet job because i got in a hurry...so he had a couple of little patches that made him look like he had skin problems...oops. how do i know? well, a lady in the parking lot at petsmart said she had problems with her maltese, and they had her on a special diet, "and it cleared her skin right up!"...ugh.

bruno is fine with the ride...chaco-not loving life.

i took the boys into the banfield vet and dropped them off to check on their vomiting issues. i got a call from the vet saying they wanted to do some blood-work to make sure, and also they were giving an anti-nausea injection that would last 24 hours, as well as some antibiotics to help keep them from licking their paws and clearing up any skin issues. it took several repetitions for me to understand what in the world he was saying. i am just not as good at deciphering accents from india...banfield must have some sort of exchange program, because the last 3 vets i've had there have been from india. anyhoo, i told him it was my fault, i'd done a hatchet job (i had to explain that term-because nobody wants doggy cps coming after them!) i had gotten in a hurry when i was shearing chaco. sigh.

i left them and ran several errands. office depot for some office-type thingys...i was in dire need of a calendar; umm...i don't quite know how i got this far through the year without one! when i picked them up, they were fine-they didn't throw up last night, which is a plus (because it saved me from having to clean up).

it was good to see that all of the work was done, and the drywall had been replaced in the bedroom by the sprinkler! go me! after i brought the boys home and got them settled in, i went to sip-n-doodle to meet up with 4 other teacher friends. when i arrived, denise and kim were already there, so we got to do some catching up--they follow my blog, so they had a basic idea of what was going on, which made it easier to fill in the blanks with the details. we had fun painting our designs and chatting, and catching up. i'd seen nafia and nicolette at summer school, so there wasn't as much to catch up on, but kim and denise had news to share, and it was good to see what all was going on with them as well.

we searched through all the painting models for one that we were interested in, and found our places, prepared our drinks and got our popcorn! i was really wanting to do a different picture, but i couldn't locate it on my phone-boo. the owner quickly gave instructions and let us get to work! when we finished, we had our masterpieces (which will not be hanging anywhere in my apt). for real, it was all about just hanging out and being together to catch up and keep in touch. we'll need to schedule another get-together before summer ends!

the owner loved jumping in to help!

kim making one of many stops at the blow-drier station

nafia with her work of art

nicolette working her artistic skillz

fun night-something new and different

 i noticed there was a problem friday night when i got home, because chaco kept licking. well, i think he made the spot that i nicked worse, and it was pretty raw, so i had to break out the CONE OF SHAME. he was not happy about that. but i am going to have to keep the cone on because it is very red and tender right now. hopefully it will clear up a little by tomorrow and at least be a little less red...i do NOT want to have to take him into the 24hr vet care. note to self, next time: scissors around the legs (i should have paid more attention...that's a tender area for all of us!). bad mom...it's the equivalent of giving your boy-child a bowl haircut. (no offense to those of you who think that's cute...but in my book, not real cute).

today i was going to go to kaboom-town addison, with some friends, but that ended in a bust. (not like i'm going to go down and hang out there by myself-it's one thing to go to a restaurant or coffee shop alone, or a museum, but a fun event or celebration. no. not as much). fortunately i can see the fireworks from my balcony, so that's how i'll be watching tonight's fireworks. i wasn't planning on much for tomorrow, but i am slightly intrigued by the plano fourth of july event--mostly because they will have foodtrucks. i know, what's the difference between addison celebration and plano celebration? foodtrucks. but then there's also fairpark. their event was actually editor's pick. let's just wait to see if it's an out-and-about day.

alright, remember, FREEDOM isn't free-thank a vet (and i'm not talking about animal vets, like my doc from india)!
julie