Wildlife

Here's another new picture to the right. This is from last week when B and I drove the foot of the mountains just west of our neighborhood. If you click on it, you can see the neighborhood waaay in the background in the valley between where we were standing and the next set of mountains. It looks really far away, but it really only took us 5-10 minutes to get there, and that was partially because we had to drive slow on a bumpy dirt road. There are quite a few little dirt roads winding around these mountains, but we didn't have a lot of time to explore them that day, so we'll definitely be going back, maybe with our bikes.

We've been talking about places we want to visit soon, like the Grand Canyon and Zion in Utah, and I suggested we go to Vegas to celebrate our anniversary in May since we got married there and have been there for several other anniversaries. So we got tickets to see "O" at Bellagio and we're going to stay there in Vegas that night (not at Bellagio, though, because it's too expensive). It really blows my mind that we're going to be able to drive to Vegas for the weekend.

We met our next-door neighbor a few days ago. We really only have one next-door neighbor because there's only one house on our right side. The other houses close by are behind us. He brought over some canned apples that someone else had given him and suggested using them to make a pie, so I bought a pie crust at the grocery this past weekend. I guess I was supposed to bake the crust (graham cracker crust) before I used it, but I didn't know what the hell I was doing, so I just poured the apples in and baked it enough to warm it all up. Oh, and B suggested I melt some butter with sugar and cinnamon and drizzle that on top, which I did. The pie crust kind of dissolved into the apples, but it actually tastes really good. I've been just dishing some into a bowl, putting it in the microwave and eating it with a spoon. It's more like an apple crumble or apple mush, but it's yummy.

A few days ago I decided to get back on the horse with the exercise and B dragged the treadmill into my computer room for me. I've been walking a mile in the morning after breakfast every day and then B and I usually take a walk around the neighborhood in the afternoon, so that makes about 2 miles a day. The treadmill is set on an incline and my quads are really feeling it. I used to have a 2x4 under the back of the treadmill to make it level, because it's on an incline by default, but I don't even know where that 2x4 is or if we even have it. I figure it's a better workut with the incline anyway. It certainly feels harder and I feel sorer.

I'm still working on downloading Ayumi's concert DVD. It's going sooo slow. I probably could've had them done by now except I keep losing my internet connection. This wireless thing I have seemed really cool at first, but I cannot figure out why my internet connection drops after a while and I can't reconnect. It's like my whole computer kind of loses functionality and none of the programs will work right. It's especially inconvenient in the middle of my workday when things start crapping out and I have to restart. I returned the first wireless adapter I had and got a supposedly better, faster one, but they both have this same problem. Right now, this is my only choice in terms of having an internet connection because the DSL modem is in B's computer room and none of our cords are long enough to reach, but I may give up on the wirelss thing and just get a longer cord.

The bug bites/stings/whatever seem to have stopped itching for good and the scabs are healing. I have yet to see any scorpions or any other scary desert bugs here yet, but I've seen lots of rabbits and these crazy looking birds called Gambel's Quail. You can see a picture of a male here:

http://www.gc.maricopa.edu/biology/aznature/images/thumbs/birds/gambels1011.jpg

They are always running around in the back of the house and they make a noise that's like a cross between a turkey and a dove. They're fun to watch because their walk looks like a pigeon, but then suddenly they run really fast across the ground like a road runner.

New pics

I changed some pics on the layout. The picture on top was just taken this afternoon by B when we took a walk around the neighborhood, and the one on the one here and the one to the right are from when we had that snowfall the other day. I don't know if you can actually see the snow on top of those mountains or not with the pic being so small.

Thank you p. kennedy for your comments about my possible chigger bites. Since you don't seem to have a blog, I'll ask you here: Do you think they were indeed chigger bites or something else?

The damn things were itching again today. B said they looked like they werne't healing well, so I put some Neosporin on them. I also have been having really bad restless leg syndrome the past several nights and now during the day today. No connection with the bites/stings/whateverthehell. Any of you ever experience restless leg? It is the most horrible physical sensation I've ever had. I would almost rather be in pain than have restless leg. You've probably seen the commercials for whatever drugs they're marketing for restless leg and thought, "Restless leg? Is that real?" Yes, unfortunately it's real and it SUUUUUCKS. I really need to get some sleep tonight because it kept me up most of last night.

The weather here was really nice, around 70 degrees and sunny, but it was windy. When B and I went for a walk, I had my hair in a ponytail and had a hat on, but the wind was so persistent that somehow I still had hair blowing into my eyes.

B is waiting for me so we can watch some TV together, so gotta go!

The Itching

Heather reminded me that I forgot to write about those bug bites on my left hip. I don't know if they were bugs bites or stings or just what they were, but they showed up on Tuesday morning in the hotel in Knoxville and continued to itch all week. Then over the weekend the itching got even worse and became this burning, stinging itch that was driving me crazy during the day and keeping me awake at night.

B suggested it might be chigger bites, which I've had before and treated by covering the bites with nail polish, so we got some nail polish and the itching did seem to lessen ever so slightly after that. It still drove me nuts during the day, but I was able to sleep at night. By the time we finally closed on the house on Wednesday, I'd say the itching was probably 50% better. Then by the weekend after that it was 90% better, but I have some nasty looking scabs on my hip that I know are going to leave scars.

After we got out computers running and online, I did some research to try to determine what those "bites" were, and the only thing that sounded close were bed bug bites. But strangely, B had no such "bites" or any itching. Also of note is that I was actually having some itching around that area for about a week before those "bites" showed up. I don't know if that's just a coincidence or what. I thought the initial itching was just some kind of nervous reaction to the stress of moving, and maybe it was. I'm just glad it's gone now. I was almost ready to go to the ER when it was at its worst.

I'm downloading Ayumi's latest concert DVD right now. I don't know why it's so late in coming, but this concert is from her 2007 tour which ended last May. You might remember me saying that I was expecting the DVD to come out in the fall of last year, but it took until now. Anyway, I always really look forward to her concert DVDs, so I'm eagerly waiting for this download to finish. That's the cover of her latest single at the top called Mirrorcle World. It's a remake of a song from her last album called Mirror, hence the weird name. I'm hoping to see some new music videos from her soon, too. Is it really fair that someone can look as pretty as she does? ;)

I'm not feeling very well today. We went grocery shopping earlier and I sometimes get so tired after grocery shopping. Bone tired is what I call it, because I'm tired right down to my bones. I've also been very cold today and I can't seem to get warm enough. Even my feet are cold in the down booties I was given for Christmas, and that never happens.

Oh, speaking of those, today is my dad's birthday and I sent him a pair of those same down booties. He's cold natured like me and I think he'll really get some use out of them. They're not supposed to arrived for another week and a half or so, unfortunately, so I'll have to wait and see what he thinks of them. I called him earlier to wish him happy birthday and he was getting ready to go out for dinner because he's 3 hours ahead of me there. He quit smoking 6 weeks ago and he said things are going well with that. I'm really happy that he's decided to quit, but this is the 5th or 6th time he's quit. Hopefully this will be the last time. He used to smoke before I was born and then quit because the price went up to, like, 40 cents a pack or something (ha!), then he started again when he and mom got divorced and smoked for years after that. Then his place of employment went totally smoke-free and he decided to quit again and didn't smoke for probably 5 years, but then suddenly I went to see him one day and he was smoking again. I said, "What are you doing?!" He said something lame like, "Oh, well, I just decided to smoke again," or something like that.

Anyway, I'm happy that he's quit again. It can only be good for him. I've never been a smoker myself, though for a period of several years I used to have dreams about smoking. It was weird. I was always kind of scared of cigarettes because I felt like, if I started, I'd be addicted right away and never be able to stop. I doubt that's true, but I'll never know for sure. I've never been much of a drinker, either, because alcohol puts me to sleep and/or gives me a headache.

I took some more pictures today and I hope to have them here soon. The mountains still have snow on top and they look awesome, so I tried to get some nice pictures of them.

Whew!

I am sitting at my desk in Kingman, Arizona, looking at the mountains outside my window. Actually, I'm looking at my monitor at the moment, but I'm enjoying the fact that I can look over and see this view at any time.



This morning we woke up to snow falling outside. That was unexpected. In general the weather here has been very nice. This was the only day we had any kind of inclement weather. I took some pictures of the snow earlier, but I don't know how well it will show up. There wasn't much on the ground, but it was snowing really hard at one point. There's still some snow on the mountains to the northeast, but what little fell here earlier has melted.

The picture at the top is a picture of the front of our house. I think the moving truck was still in the driveway at the time, so B took the picture with the house all the way to the left so the truck wouldn't show. The small pic on the right is a picture looking northeast from the front of the house.



I guess I'll just go back to the day we left Greensboro and try to describe the trip as best I can remember. We finally finished packing and left on the afternoon of Feb. 25. The guys B hired to pack our crap into the moving truck showed up around 9:00 a.m. and B and I were NOT finished packing yet. In fact, we were still packing pretty much the whole time the guys were loading the truck. I really didn't like that, but we just had so much stuff left to pack.

Around 2:30 or 3:00 p.m. the guys finished loading the truck and we gave the cats some tuna with their tranks in it, but only Miki had some, so Spice didn't get tranked. We had to make a stop at the bank to get everything out of our safety deposit box and another stop at the cable company to return our DVR box, then we headed out of town. We were both exhausted before we even got on the road. My feet, legs and back were killing me, but I couldn't take any of my good pain meds because I don't feel I can drive while I'm on them. B took the first leg of driving that day and then I drove us through the mountains of Tennessee to Knoxville, where we stopped for the night. I think it took about 5 hours to get there. We let the cats out of their carriers in the hotel room and we were happy to see them eat and drink a little bit and also use their litter box.

Tuesday morning I noticed that I had some bug bites or something on my left hip that were itchy. More about that later. We left Knoxville and drove all day, then stopped in Maumee, Arkansas for the night. We again let the cats our of their carriers in the hotel room and they were very curious about the room. After she got done snooping around, Miki got under the covers on the bed and pretty much stayed there. I think she was feeling overwhelmed and hiding under the covers was her only respite. We were able to watch most of American Idol that night, but we missed the beginning because it came on at 7:00 p.m. there, not 8:00 like we were used to. There was a Taco Bell down the street, which is where I got my dinner from, so that was nice.

Wednesday morning we left Maumee, Arkasas and drove all day, then stopped in Amarillo, Texas for the night. We stayed in a Quality Inn (I think) that night and that was probably my favorite hotel. It was actually a little suite and there was a big, comfy red recliner in front of the TV that I sat on while we watched American Idol that night. The bug bites or whatever on my left hip were still itchy and kind of irritating. By this time, the cats were getting more used to riding in the car all day, and rather than having to shove them in their carriers, they just calmly walked into them when it was time to leave the hotel.

On Wednesday we drove through Oklahoma and we passed through Chekotah, which B was very excited about, because that's where Carrie Underwood is from. As we got to the far western part of Oklahoma, the landscape suddenly changed to desert.

Thursday morning we left Amarillo and drove all day until we reached Kingman, which was around 7:00 p.m. (I think). Just as we were coming into town, P (our realtor from Kingman) called B on his cell phone. Neither of us expected to hear from her because she's not been very forthcoming in the communication department. B ended up having to hang up with her after just a minute because he had to negotiate getting off the highway and finding his way into town, so we drove to her office to talk with her in person. I was irritated about that because 1) I find her irritating and didn't really want to see her at that moment because I was already tired and cranky, 2) she has a tendency to talk our heads off, which I knew would make us late for Survivor and/or Lost that night, and 3) I was really hungry for dinner.

So we went to her office and instead of getting right to it, she started in with the small talk. B did his best to redirect her to the matter at hand and we finally found out that the closing was probably not going to happen the next day. Apparently the seller still had not sent over some paperwork that we needed to sign, and without that paperwork, we couldn't close. Supposedly they had overnighted it or something, so there was still a chance that it would arrive the next day, but it was looking doubtful. Before we left her office, she told us she would pay for our hotel there in town until the house closed, so that helped my mood a little.

P put us up at a Days Inn, which was a sucky room, and by that time we totally missed Survivor and half of Lost. The next day we did not close on the house. I don't even remember what we did that day except probably sit around and wait for P to call us. Since it didn't happen that day, we then had to wait until the next business day (Monday) to see if it would close then, so we spent some time driving around the area, buying some food and other supplies and just trying to relax. We stayed in that Days Inn for two nights and then moved to another hotel that was a little nicer.

Monday came and went and we did not close on the house. The paperwork seemed to be lost in the twilight zone or something because they had a tracking number for it, but UPS or FedEx or whoever said the tracking number did not exist. The seller overnighted the paperwork AGAIN and we were told it would get there on Tuesday.

Tuesday we made a trip to this place to sign the papers and they still were not there when we arrived. We were then told the papers would NOT be arriving that day because they were never picked up from the seller for some reason. By this time, B and I were both ready to strangle someone or everyone.

Wednesday morning we got up, had breakfast, checked out of the hotel and loaded up the car again with all our stuff and then went down the street to this park and sat in the car, waiting for someone to call us and tell us if the stupid paperwork arrived or not. We waited until 2:00 and still no one had called, so we drove over to the place we'd been on Tuesday to find out what was going on. Apparently FedEx or whoever had just been there a few minutes before we arrived and the infamous paperwork was delivered! We then rushed out of there and B started making phone calls like a madman, trying to get our moving truck driven out to the house (it was in a holding facility) and trying to get the guys he hired out there to unload it. We also had to stop at this equipment rental place to rent a handtruck, and we just barely made it there before they closed at 4:00 p.m.

We met up with the moving guys at the rental place, they loaded the handtruck into their pickup truck and then drove out to our house with us. I think they were here until about 9:00 p.m. unloading that truck, and then B and I pretty much collapsed on the bed and went to sleep, but we were so happy to finally be sleeping in our house.

Between then and this past Tuesday, we unpacked as much as we could and ended up driving into town almost every day for one thing or another. We both got back to work on Tuesday and it was kind of a relief to get back to our normal routines. The cats are doing well, although Miki is still spending a lot of time hiding under the covers, but she seems fine when she's out with us in the livingroom or whatever. We still have a few boxes in the garage that haven't been unpacked; mostly books and other nonessential things like that. We haven't hung up any of our pictures yet, either, but I did put up my Ayumi 2008 calendar in my computer room today.

That's about all the typing my fingers can take for now, and that's basically the whole story, though I know I probably forgot some stuff. Right now I'm going to get some dinner. ^_^