love is all you need

I've never experienced a cross-country move before. In fact, I've lived in the Dallas area since I was 6 months old. Sure, I've done the small move to a college dorm, and to many apartments since. But I've never moved 1,550 miles before! We're closing in on about a month until our big move and so many things are whirling around in our minds.
Joey, his brother Aaron, and a friend Eric are all flying up to Brooklyn this weekend to hopefully succeed in finding a safe, affordable apartment for us to rent. Fortunately, they're staying with a realtor-friend of Eric's, so that will hopefully help them zone in on the good stuff.
I'm going down to my parents' farm this weekend for a girls knitting weekend with my mom and sister. My mom scored a few bags of wool from a neighbor who raises sheep and we're going to try to clean it and spin it. And no, none of us know how. I've printed out a few instructions I found online, but we're just gonna see what we come up with. I'm sure hilarity will ensue. I'll make sure to take lots of photos for you guys.
In other news, we've still been fighting off a few remaining mice. About a month ago, Joey and I purchased "The Rat Zapper," in high hopes that we could just get these mice out of our house already. Basically, you throw some dry dog food into one end, and the mouse gets a high-voltage-battery-powered-so-quick-its-almost-pleasant-zap on his way to the food. Within four hours of setting it up, we had our first contestant. He quickly won the grand prize all expenses paid trip to mousie heaven. For the next few days and then weeks, nobody else showed up and I thought we were in the clear. Then one night as I was snuggled on the couch watching my new Elizabeth Zimmerman Knitting Workshop DVD, Daisy started freaking out and sniffing under and behind the couch that I WAS LAYING ON. She sniffed and circulated that thing for hours that night, so I brought the Rat Zapper in and set it up near the couch, hoping our little friend would come out for some food and entertainment. Apparently this guy was being a couch potato and did not wish to compete in our little game show. Then a few nights ago my brother in law, Aaron told us he had seen "Ratatouille" (as we so affectionately call our mousie friends) in the kitchen. I moved the Rat Zapper Game Show set to the kitchen and waited a few nights. This morning I found our next contestant. Let me just nicely say to you that the Biggest Winner of All Time, was in fact, the Biggest Winner of All Time: he wasn't a cute little mousie at all. He was a 5" long (not counting the tail) rat. In. My. House! I'm still shuddering as I recount this tale to you. Now, my dilemma: I can't just go on and pretend that I did not catch that thing in my house, but I cannot go on to catch more of them, because that will just freak me out further. Good thing I'm moving in a month. Please, oh please don't let our apartment in Brooklyn have rats. (Go on and laugh at my naivete.)
Moving on, we found out last week that Henry is heartworm positive. The vet said that he was in great shape and his heart sounded excellent, so he was probably still in the early stages. (Meaning they probably hadn't done much damage to his heart.) She said she would have no worries at all putting Henry though the painful and somewhat risky procedure to kill them. We took him in on Monday morning and received his first injection. We called the vet and checked in on him later that day and they said he was doing fine. He received his second injection yesterday morning and we were able to pick him up last night. The injections are extremely painful, and Henry is sore as all get out on his back. He really doesn't feel up to moving much right now, which is a good thing because he has to be extremely calm and inactive for the next two weeks. The injections are a form of arsenic that kills the worms and also a little tissue at the injection sites. Henry has disintegrating worms and arsenic floating through his bloodstream right now. He even has to eat a special dog food to help ease the load on his liver. He's pretty mopey and tired, but I've taken the next few days off of work to take extra special care of him. "I don't feel so good, guys."

As I was leaving for work this morning a storm nearby was thundering a warning of impending gloom. I knew my strong and smart Daisy would weather it just fine as she likes to just sit in her doghouse and enjoy the view, but I knew I couldn't leave my little Henry to fight off the storm with his tail shivering between his legs and not enough sense to coerce Daisy into sharing the doghouse. What else to do but set up the living room for a Doggie Slumber Party? Couches were battened down with anything nearby to keep shedding doggies at bay, while comfy beds and blankies were brought in to help snugg-ify the remaining areas.

Nope, not spoiled at all.

I’ve never considered myself as having good luck, but I did win a radio contest once.  Joey and I were driving down the highway listening to the radio and the DJ mentioned something about calling in to win a 6-pack of Lenny Kravitz CDs.  I had my cell phone in my hand and for some reason got a wild hair to call in.  Surprisingly, I won.  I was pretty non-plussed as I gave the DJ my info to send out my free CDs.  Then about a week later, I got a call from the radio station telling me that my name had been put in the drawing for the Grand Prize and that I had won.  The guy was kind of put-off by the fact that I wasn’t screaming with joy.  “Do you know what the grand prize is?” he asked me.  “Actually, no” I said.  Turns out, I had won an all-expense paid trip for two to Miami to see Lenny Kravitz and his band perform at their practice studio right before he kicked off his 2002 World Tour.  I was pretty surprised; as I hadn’t even heard anything about that when I called in.  It turned out to be an awesome trip, we stayed at a really cool art-deco hotel right on South Beach .  Mr. Kravitz was actually really sick the night of the “intimate show,” so he ended up performing acoustic, but it was really fun.

 

My good luck streak has resurrected itself this week, as I won Leah’s blog contest.  As my prize, she is going to knit me a pair of socks!  That has to be the most generous prize I’ve ever come across for a blog contest.  I have to say that I’m really excited as I’ve never had someone (other than myself) knit me a pair of socks.  I can’t wait to see how wonderful they are!

 

Oh, and my mom sent me some better pictures of Doc the horse, so I’ll share one of my dad riding him.

 

 

My grandparents from Arizona are down at my parents farm visiting for a few weeks, so Joey and I were planning on heading down there on Saturday.  I was awakened by an excited phone call at 8:44 Saturday morning with my mom screaming, "I got a HORSE!!!"  Joey and I quickly got ready and made the hour and a half drive so that we could meet Doc, the 10-year-old paint horse. 

As soon as we got there, Daisy rolled in some cow poo and Henry rolled in some dead fish guts.  He smelled so bad that if he walked within 5 feet of where you were standing, you would start gagging from the smell.  Ah, dogs.  You gotta love 'em.

Doc is such a sweet and gentle horse.  He was completely comfortable meeting everybody and was really easy to ride.  (I've only ridden one other time in my entire life and found him really easy.) Another really cool thing about Doc is that he has light blue eyes.  He was hard to photograph, because the sun was setting and he was moving around a lot while eating, so you get a blurry pic.