Yes there was some food in the sink. And he was determined.

Mercury and Hubby relaxing in the afternoon.

Four Happy Dalmatians!

This is me and my two Dals, Tigger and Mercury one lovely Fall afternoon a couple years ago. This was a pretty quiet birthday, but the good wishes from my Tv.Com friends have made it fun! I had a nice shrimp and corn on the cob dinner with hubby. We got shrimp at the supermarket and wonderful white corn. Hubby ate too much and came upstairs and fell asleep. Oh boy. I watched Survivor and ER and am trying to catch up on Lost posts. Oh boy. Oh and hubby got in big trouble with me. While watching Survivor in the other room he pulled the pepperidge farm "birthday" cake out and ate a big chunk. Didn't call me from the other room to tell me, just ate away. So I didnt' get to share birthday cake with him. Wah!!! The brute. What a male thing to do. So he went up to bed and I sat at table and ate birthday cake by myself. Oh well. I am 44 now, I should get over it. But 44 is scary a bit. What have I done at 44. Not as much as I wanted to have done when I was 22. It is slipping somewhere and I don't know how to catch it. I will not spend the last five minutes of my birthday depressed. I will look at what I HAVE done in the last 22 years. And that makes me smile! I really enjoyed rescuing Dals and want to do that again. Soon. Hugs everyone and thanks again for the good wishes!!!

Well, we went on the 'walk thru' last night and picked certain items to go and some to stay. It was a LOT easier to get him to see my view then he originally made me think. We went room by room and when we got to the bookshelves, we are bringing 2 of the 3. I used the "what will I put my books on till you MAKE the new onse" line and its true, and he said "oh good point" but made a face. And you all must know that IF he does come up with some nice bookshelves, I will have no problem switching over. These are not family heirlooms. But I don't want my books in boxes and I don't want them on the old cinderblock and piece of wood shelves. We did go room by room and there were things that I didn't want that he wanted. So compromise was our Name last night. It is a good thing to have in a marriage and it stuck its head up in a positive way. I must say, in a devious female manner, that yes, I will be the one packing, so I will know all that goes. But more importantly, I do believe I can wear him down on a couple items, now that I have a better idea of what HE is thinking. Example is the wood workstation we have. Perfect for a garage or shed or something like that. But we have used it as an upstairs entertainment center in leiu of anything else. Now, he says it stays. I am thinking...."hmmmm" because every place we looked at online had backyard sheds or garages - a place to put this and have him actually use it for building the new shelves on! I will bet it will be coming with us by the time my female logic beats his male...(um...I can't call it logic...men don't have logic)..his male emotions down a bit. I was also laughing at how many things we BOTH agreed on that should not go with us. That had done their duties and were down. There is a 1940's style filing cabinet in the basement. HEAVY and big. But I brought it to this house 16 years ago when I moved in. A thrift store find. It now stores our old boots and one drawer is cat food and cat litter bags. It is staying. It will never see the light of day again. There is the hose. This may seem like not much, but this hose had to have a special hole drilled in the house to reach the line for water hook-up. This hose has its own little wrapper upper thing from Home Depot. This hose is staying. It is made for this house now. But the grill he wanted to leave....is going. That was my present to myself and its mine. I use the darn thing more then him. He got to say it 'its staying' once and when I countered with 'no' and why. He was fine. Good boy!!! The list of what in each room goes and stays was an idea from some of the reading I have done lately on how to make it an easy move. Lists and more lists! I am good with lists, so that won't be difficult. And it will make it easier when the time comes for packing the truck up. Each room will have a color on its boxes and that will help tell me what is what. Of course, will this last? I dont know, I see myself getting tired half way thru the packing process and just tossing stuff in boxes and writing "bett's dal junk" on the box. That could mean almost anything. Oh boy. The battle is not over for what goes and stays, but it has not been the battle I envisioned a day ago. Of course, we did the house walk thru AFTER dinner and after the Simpsons and after he had dessert. So he was a bit more easy going. Books are important to me. I laughed when he asked me 'how many I have read lately'. I said 'I go thru them and reread. Oh and how many of the dvd's there have you watched lately' He saw the point. We each have our 'loves'. But really, we did agree on a lot of things....once I got the 2 out 3 bookshelves are going down. I feel better.

I went to dinner with hubby and tonight learned that we are not taking all that I talked about in my last blog. I have learned that hubby has DECIDED that this move will the be move to lighten the household. Um. Hubby. You need to talk this out before making rash decisions. Yes, yes, I know I let you decide we were moving without really talking to me first...but we had run the scenario at least. But this. Um. No. I want some input. I have been LUGGING this stuff around with me for many many ....many years. So I want to decide if the really wobbly and cat clawed 1950's record storage end tables that have no real purpose except to give the cat a place to lay, go or stay. You can't just arbitarily decide. Yet he did. He announced at dinner (we were eating out) as I went thru the list of rooms I made up today, which items would stay in the house. We are renting the house to a college going daughter of a friend. The reason he wants to leave the rolltop desk - it was too darn hard to get up the stairs. (You all remember THAT blog!) So being MALE and such, he said "oh we will just buy what we need when we get there." Um. We are NOT the Rockefellers as my Dad always said. We are not made of money and we will be spending a chunk already. So now I get to try and redirect my thinking. I pride myself on being flexible and thinking outside the box. I will. We will figure out what goes and what stays and what is trash. And no Hubby. Sorry not the china closet or dining table that has been in my family for 40 years. Yes, I know it doesn't look like much, but it does to me. I had Thanksgiving at that table for many years and straight from my Mom's hand that turkey was cooked. I did look at him funny when he said no bookshelves are coming. They have been moved too much and are wobbily, he would build some. Um, yes, when? not for a few months. I think I will be moving some bookshelves. Yes. It should be an interesting couple of weeks. Hubby leaves me on Oct 8th for his lonely trek to Texas. Then it just me, two dogs and a cat to pack the rest of the house up. Oh Boy!!!!

Wow. I started to make a list of things to do - you know to get ready for my move to Texas. Wow. I really do own all this stuff? I know, my husband has helped me acquire it. Lets see 4 tvs (one 12in, 3 regular size) 3 dvd/vhs players 1portable dvd player, a stereo system, lots and lots of DVDs, Vhs tapes and then there are BOOKS, books and books. We are not big for organization, so I want Books to come visit me for a week. I am a packrat, but I can pack really well. I just want to pack it all! Who knows what two people and 2 dogs and the cat may need. Heck, I may start my own truck load of stuff to take with me just to give to the people in Lousiana. I wonder if they will take it? I don't know quite what to do with my Dalmatian collection. Plush and fuzzy and warm Dals stuffed and in all shapes and sizes. But only one color - black and white. And then there is my collection of HULK memorablia. I really liked the Hulk movie when it came out (I was one of ten) and got a bunch of Hulk stuff. We can't talk about the Star Wars stuff - it will probably be donated to the Star Toys Musuem that my friend owns and operates. A place all things Star Wars. http://www.readersadvice.com/museum/museum.html My books and my husbands comics have their own boxes so that is easy. We have 10 comic boxes and need to get more empty boxes to put the comics in piles into. Isn't this fun. I started a list of what is in each room. By the end of the list I was gasping and wondering where did it all come from. Will we need the snow shovel in Texas or should I give it to a neighbor? I wonder who I can trade a snow blower for a grass mower for the new yard we will have? I think U-Haul will love us!

I am happy to announce that sometime around the middle or end of October, I will be moving. Moving West. To Dallas Texas. Anyone know anything about Dallas, please PM me. I need info and I need it from a source other then the tourist bureau. My husband got offered an upgrade position with his company and we are moving. Lock, stock and barrel. It is exciting because it means I get to go west. I have never been west of...well, west of WV and that was the East side of WV. So this will be some kind of fun. I am good at moving. It seems to be a thing we do, every 6-8 years, we have to move. It sure helps clean out the house of junk. Though, I will be honest, there are boxes that I have from when we moved 11 years ago, that I have not unpacked yet. I have boxes of books from when I was single that I packed up and hoped that someday I could put them out on a shelf. Instead they get moved from one basement to another. Waiting. I know, I should ditch them, but geesh, now they are a family heirloom almost. And you know, I see all these shows on TV about organization and I sure wish they would come to my house for a week. Not a scrawny little ole weekend. A week damnit! I need a week or more of sorting. And some time to say good bye to things. You can't just toss stuff without goodbye. But back to the Westward Ho'ing. And I mean that in a non Ho related manner. I get to tell my boss on Monday - she hasn't been in for the last two days. It was not an easy decision to make. Lift up our roots and move again. I am a gypsy I guess, but I am a packrat gypsy so it makes it more interesting. More to come. I am looking at houses for sale in the North East area of Dallas. With a pool would be fun too!

Well, today I celebrate my 13yr anniversary with the same company. A retail chain of stores in the MD, VA and DC area. (was up in boston, have left MA now) In 13yrs with one company/business I have moved from full-time employee in the lowest volume mall store to Manager of that same store and making it not the lowest volume in the chain to Manager of one of the top 5 stores in our chain then on from there to relocating to a new City to run first one and then the other stores and bringing it up to number 3 in the chain for sales to a wild surprise and a moral choice to leave - but with my resignation another door was opened - to work in the home office doing phone sales and office asst and developing their internet sales dept, then being passed right over with no chance for dept head and being relagated back to office asst. - (yes the bitterness comes out here) finally to settle behind a desk and opening mail and trying to be happy because I have a job and am not homeless or jobless. 13 yrs. phew. I made the company lots of money and earned a bit myself. But not quite enough. It never really is. Because I also didn't get in with the 'right' crowd that is politically correct in the company and watches out for each other. Nope, I am not one of them. I know too much I think too. Or at least I can think I do. Little personality quirks about other older employees. I am ready to move onward but am not sure how to take that huge step and what happens if they don't like me at the next place. Yes, sounding whiney, but its my blog so I can. 13 years is a lot of time to put in, but it was always a moving vibrant and fun place to work. Till recently. Now it is much more a drudgery type job that makes me wonder why I am here. And I wonder what I did with those years. Why didn't I do something different and be something different? Why? Well, I know, I was having fun for many many years. Now, I just want a door or window to open and show me a reason to go. Or something to go to. It will happen. 13yrs and one stinking 10 yr plaque. And a bunch of really cool knives (what we sell and carry) and some great memories.

There was some heated debate about what to call the misplaced New Orleans residents. Evacuees or Refugees or Lousianians w/o homes? I watched one reporter actually say on camera they don't like being called refugees. They don't like being called evacuees (it sounds like a body function) and that they are Displaced Lousianians. I am going to lean towards Evacuees till I get corrected again. I will try to shy aways from refugees as that does have a negative connotation. And this was not their doing. It was Katrina's. News of immense donations to the Red Cross and other places has been wonderful. I hope that it can go to the right places and into the pockets of the people that need it. Within a week after news and images of the chaos left by Hurricane Katrina were broadcast, Americans donated over half a billion dollars to charities aiding victims of the flood. The speed of the money raised has outpaced the rate of donations offered to victims of the 2001 terror attacks and could hit $1 billion, according Stacy Palmer, editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a publication that tracks nonprofit organizations. "It is unprecedented in scale and speed," Palmer said. "This outpaces anything we have had," said Ryland Dodge, spokesman with the American Red Cross. "The 9-11 donations ended up being $1 billion dollars (collected) over a long period of time."