Crawford Party Blog

I'm going to write a book: The Dog Who Wasn't Choking

2011-12-12T15:00:00.000-06:00

I am not a morning person. I do not regularly see clients. Not in the morning. Not without appointments.

Mr. Still-Has-All-His-Fingers-But-Not-For-Lack-of-Trying brings in his ~~horrid~~ lovely dog. We'll call her Nancy. Mr is adamant that Nancy has been choking "all night" since 5pm the night before. Through his panic over Nancy's immediate risk of choking death, he never felt the need to call the clinic's emergency number. Instead, he waited 16 hours before bringing her to the clinic. Without bothering to call. Once in the exam room, he informed me that when he first noticed she was choking he stuck his finger down her throat and "definitely felt something down there." And "I must have touched it because she tried to bite me." She must be choking.

I did a quick exam on Nancy, who appeared to have a slight, intermittent cough. I didn't get my finger very close to her mouth, much less "down her throat" before she tried to bite me as well. She must be choking.

I tried explaining that if Nancy really was choking, she would gasp for breath, possibly turn blue and eventually stop breathing. No, she has been choking.

I tried explaining that if Nancy had been choking since 5pm the night before she would most likely be dead. Well, what did he feel down in there then, if not whatever is was on which she had been choking?

I tried explaining the anatomy of the larynx and the fact that a person sticking his finger down a dog's throat might encounter various cartilage projections designed to keep things other than air out of the lungs. Well, why did she try to bite him, then, if he hadn't touched the thing that was choking her?

If you stuck your finger down my throat, I'd probably bite you too.

I tried explaining to Mr that Nancy, having been very recently adopted from the animal shelter, was most likely suffering from the dog equivalent of a common cold: kennel cough. Presented with a classic, text-book example of a common dog affliction, easily treated with antibiotics Mr remains adamant. No, she has been choking.

How can you argue with that?

I'm going to write a book:The Woman Who Wasn't Wearing Pants

2011-11-19T01:00:00.000-06:00

So, you don't usually know what to expect when you work an overnight emergency shift at the KSU Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, but I, at least, usually expect the clients to be wearing pants. But no, this lady comes into the hospital, in a panic, convinced that her dog has been "gored" by a deer. Not a bull, not a moose, not some other horned or antlered animal. Not bitten by one of the two other dogs she had at home or even a coyote. No. Gored. By a deer.

Oh, yeah, and she wasn't wearing pants. And she kept telling me to sit down. And I kept asking her if she wanted to move into an exam room. You know, sort of out of the whole waiting room area where people were staring. Because she wasn't wearing pants. Really? Not. Wearing. Pants.

She did eventually explain (which I didn't really want to know) that she had recently had an abdominal surgery and wasn't wearing pants due to the fact that her colostomy bag would be constricted. TMI. And it wasn't like she was wearing, say, a dress or a robe or something that would cover important bits while still leaving her waist unconstricted. No, she was wearing a man's shirt. And no pants.

Incidentally, I believe the dog was bitten by another dog (maybe a coyote). I happen to think this mostly because there were multiple tooth-shaped puncture wounds in the dog. She continued to insist that the dog had certainly been gored by a deer. You know, she's seen them out in the yard before. Fortunately, the intern on duty did eventually manage to move the pants-less woman into an exam room, out of the substantially crowded lobby.

Gored by a deer. Hey, it could happen.

2011 The Year in Quilts--Winter

2011-08-13T14:20:00.000-05:00

Apparently I have been busy with the quilting this year. The list does get shorter...and then longer again.

JANUARY

This quilt was for Lucy. I made it just barely in time for the baby shower. But then I had to take it back home because I forgot to sew the tag on the back. Oh, well. Good try.

FEBRUARY

This one was for Lucy's older brother, David. It was a little late (2 years or something...). But, I felt bad that Lucy got hers first, so I worked hard and got this one done quick.

FEBRUARY/MARCH (yes, I know that's not a month)

This was another slightly (only like 1 year this time. Are you noticing a trend?) late project for Colten. Did eventually ship it off. I couldn't resist this funny fabric, even though it has guns on it. Or maybe because it has guns on it. Don't tell my mom. I don't think everyone approves of gun-fabric.

More to come...

Stupid Things Lindsey Says and A Word I Never Heard Before

2011-06-01T21:10:00.013-05:00

"Dad, can you help me move the coffee table over there? Just somewhere it will take up less space." As my father so kindly pointed out, the coffee table cannot possibly take up *less* space, regardless of where we put it. Unless we take it apart first.

"Oops--I mean, perfect!" I'm always telling the girls at work to clip nails as close as they can, so when I cut one almost close enough to bleed I just needed to remember my own advice. I guess it sounded funny. Try saying it at your place of business. I bet you get a chuckle.

"pettifoggery" (n) to bicker or quibble over trifles or unimportant matters. Tell me the last time you used that one in casual conversation.

I don't think this ever happened to James Herriot...

2011-05-25T10:54:00.003-05:00

Yesterday when our assistant got to work in the morning (she was the first one at the clinic), she found an unmarked plastic bag tied to the door. So she is thinking, "hmmm, maybe someone left us some cookies." No, it was dog poop.

Isn't that supposed to be in a paper bag. And on fire?

Who does that?

In other news of yesterday, the people up the street from us just threw out their Christmas tree. It was very brown. Bobby tells me it still had lights in it. All I saw was the stand still screwed to the bottom.

DOG POOP UPDATE 5/26/11: Apparently a client called on Wednesday to see if we had received the dog poop they left tied to the door. Only, they tied it there on TUESDAY. What?? Are we going to leave a bag of dog poop tied to the door for 2 days? Really?

X-MAS TREE UPDATE 5/27/11: So there was a U-Haul truck in those people's yard this morning. Evidently they wouldn't have bothered to trash the old Christmas tree, except that they are moving. Nice.

Lindsey's Poetry Corner

2010-05-19T15:42:00.011-05:00

There once were two bloggers quite poorly
For over a year they needed an update sorely
Till finally one day
A clever post in May
How could anyone ask for more-ly?

It’s been so long since we’ve posted
We’ll go back over the year that we’ve coasted
Remember fun times
And try a few rhymes
Or else by complainers we’ll be roasted

Graduation from Vet school came not a moment too soon

Hateful studying and overnight duty made me feel like a goon
I wore a funny hood
They said I “did good”
So, Arrg!! A pirate party to celebrate me boon!

This year so quickly flew by
Many new things we needed to try
Away to Alaska
With a quick stop in Nebraska
A night in the airport? We wanted to cry

But we finally arrived a day late
When Ann picked us up at the gate
And saw a mountain at last
When the clouds had all passed
And we never had to eat fish on our plate

A sad farewell to good friends with whom we were huggy
But not without everyone’s favorite – a Snuggie!
Marino’s we miss you
And Cherry’s gone too
Now who will we drive buggy?

A new job in Wamego I was ready to start
Tuesdays and Thursdays, I work only part
Spays and neuters, that’s it for me
Until the big bison we needed to see
Now I’m not sure if that choice was so smart

So what do I do with all my free time?
Quilting and crafts, I think are quite fine
Biking and weeding
Painting and seeding
I work on my project list line by line

We drive through the night, drinking lots of soda
Nutters, that lot, up in MinneSNOWta
My family, the crazies
Watch TV ‘cuz we’re lazies
And play some board games till we fill our quota

At home we watch on our Blu-Ray machine
All the Netflix we could ever hope to have seen
Top Gear is a show we’ve recently met
I say watch it any chance that you get
We’re rolling in laughter at the Brits on our screen

Lost is still Bobby’s favorite TV show
Now in its last season, how far will they go?
They’ve sort of killed Locke
And Sayid’s on the block
But what about Kate and Jack and Hugo?

Hope you’ve enjoyed this update overdue
Please forgive my bad rhymes, don’t sue
Sorry it has been too long
Maybe next I’ll try a song
So much for my limerick debut

Warning: This Post Contains...

2009-03-03T10:31:00.003-06:00

...Pictures of horses. Kim--proceed with caution.

As usual, no one has posted on this blog for about 10 years. We could make up all kinds of ridiculous and lame excuses, like "I've been really busy studying for my board exams," or "I had to work a lot of emergency shifts in the hospital," and "I've been in Omaha for 3 weeks," but we all know that eventually you run out of excuses and just have to write a post when you're finally on vacation.

So, in the past 8 months I have been busy studying for my board exams (which I passed, in case you haven't heard), working a lot of emergency shifts in the hospital and recently I have returned from 3 weeks in Omaha (which is fired, by the way--everything we tried to do there was super lame). I spent a little time in December and January visiting some friends from high school and my family in Minnesota. I have been through rotations including Anesthesia, Necropsy, Pet Health, Orthopedic surgery, Advanced Feedlot medicine, Lab Animal medicine, Equine surgery and medicine, Small Animal Internal medicine, and 3 weeks of externships in Omaha. Now the only thing I have left is Food Animal...and finding a job.

In any event, here are a few of the pictures I have from the past few months.

This was a really big horse called "Mike," whom I cleverly referred to as "Big Mike."

One day he decided he was tired of being in the stall and tried to run at the gate like he was going to jump it. Fortunately he couldn't get up enough speed to make it over. He settled for kicking the gate instead. I think the horrendously loud noise that made hurt his ears, because after 2 kicks he stopped.

On Feedlot Medicine we spent a lot of time in a school van driving across Kansas. I would have posted a picture of that, but you would probably fall asleep just looking at it. I managed to avoid any serious problems with car sickness (with a little help from my friend Dramamine).

Kansas is the #2 beef cattle producing state...after Texas, which wouldn't be #1 if it weren't so big.

Laura and I had a lot of fun riding in the front of the van, mostly sleeping so we wouldn't get sick. We never did stop for our "Wind Farm Souvenirs." I'm sad.

This is a feed mill at one of the feedlots we visited. You don't even want to know how much grain they process there every day. It takes a lot to feed 10,000 head of cattle.

We have been through a busy year with a lot of challenges. I know I am really looking forward to graduation (May 15th!) and a nice trip to Kodiak, Alaska. Wish me luck in my last 6 weeks of school and give me a shout if you know of a veterinarian who's hiring!

Wish They All Could Be California...

2008-07-01T20:46:00.007-05:00

This is the view from the balcony of our condo on Mission Bay. Thanks for the digs Grandma!

So, Bobby and I got a chance to visit San Diego for my cousin's wedding. The wedding was great and we decided make it a regular vacation by taking in a few sights while we were there. We took too many pictures to post, but here are the main highlights!

We had a real blast cruising around in our pimpin' rental ride. It was only slightly embarrassing.

Our first stop was the San Diego Zoo (well, our first stop was actually Taco Bell, but I didn't take any pictures of that). We got up early to see the Pandas...apparently there can be long lines. It was interesting to compare the SD Zoo to the one in Kansas City. KC has about half the animals on a gazillion times the land--it's a long walk. We still got tired walking around (Bobby fell asleep on the bus tour).

Hippos were my favorite!

After the zoo ("if the zoo wants you...") we went to SeaWorld. If any of you know the story of the last time I was at SeaWorld you'll be happy to know there wasn't a repeat of the Infamous Cheesecake Incident.

The Manatee resue was closed, but we kept trying...We didn't see any real manatees, but we saw a lot of other shows.

Sadly none of the Shamu pictures turned out well. But it was kind of a hokey show anyway.

This was my favorite show Cirque de la Mer. It was pretty cool with the crazy circus acrobatics and the goofy alien mime people. I laughed a lot.

Then the wedding festivities kicked off with the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner at the Padres ball park. We were only slightly delayed by a trip to the hospital. I only missed the first 3 innings.

The wedding was in the Japanese Friendship garden in Balboa Park. It was a very nice ceremony, but it was pretty hot that day!

As part of a Puerto Rican tradition Rocket was the "coin bearer" instead of the ring bearer. The coins represent qualities of a good marriage like harmony, joy, etc. My favorite quote of the trip was "Give us the money, Rocket". After the ceremony Rocket was looking for his money.

The day-after-the-wedding brunch on the beach was followed by a trip to the boats in the harbor. They have a couple of boats (or ships?) that you can tour. Bobby was very excited to see the boat from Dirty Jobs where Mike cleans out the boiler. Sadly, that boat made me seasick.

Here we are on the deck of the boat that was filmed in the movie Master and Commander. I heard one of the bicycle taxi men say it was only a replica.

I had to take a picture of this pirate man. I'm still not sure what he was doing.
We also toured the Midway, an aircraft carrier that is now a museum. It reminded me of the TV show JAG. It was very big, and not much better for me since I was still seasick.

They have an audiotour that you take through the ship. You listen to a man tell you all about the different parts of the ship as you walk through. Of course you have to carry around the little radio thing and wear those fancy headphones the whole time, too.

San Diego gets 2 thumbs up from me! If you ever get a chance, you should definitely visit. We didn't see everything, but we saw a lot! And it's a good thing, too, since I think this vacation will have to tide me over until after graduation! It is almost back to the grindstone for me! Wish me luck on Anesthesia!

So what if it's been 92 years...

2008-06-06T08:03:00.003-05:00

As always, we wait forever to post anything. I personally haven't posted anything in about 92 years, but whatever. We've had a few things happen since the last post.

Lindsey hit a milestone in Vet School. She passed her third year and at the end of the third year they have the "Whitecoat Ceremony" which is like a graduation from bookwork to clinical work. Some old guy gives a speech and all of the students walk across a stage and receive their white coat (instead of a diploma).

Since then she has started her rotations. Each rotation is three weeks long, typically. The first one she had was radiology. Here is a picture of her with her radiology textbook.
She has since moved on to her next rotation, soft tissue surgery. Now, from that name, I deduced that there must be a hard tissue surgery, but I was obviously wrong. Anyway, today she gets to do a surgery - I think it is on a dog - to remove an abscess from its prostate. In fact, I believe she just started the surgery. I know she is looking forward to her next rotation, which is one of three vacation rotations, and we are going to San Diego for her cousin's wedding (and staying a few extra days for fun).

Out in the Little Apple, we've seen a lot of rain recently and even some hail. Our neighborhood doesn't have storm drains, though we have some pumps that move the water to get it out, it isn't anything but ideal. Here is a picture from earlier this week of our driveway:
Part of it would be to about my knees, so probably not a good idea to drive in it if you have my car. These next few pictures are from last night. We got a lot of rain then as well. Sorry the pictures are hard to see because it was dark. The first one is the back yard and most of the water is in our neighbor's yard (lucky for us, not for them).

This is from the morning after (this morning) and the water has receded a lot because the pump has been working all night. We happen to have a pump at the corner of our lot. You'd think that was a good thing, but all it means is that a lot of water flows to it, thus to our yard. I'll have to make sure these pictures disappear when we sell the house one day.

We'll try to let you know what Lindsey is doing on her rotations, but let's be honest, we'll probably fall of that track in a matter of minutes after this post. What's more likely is that we'll have one from our trip to San Diego, but you won't see it for three months. Talk to you then.

Where have we been?

2008-03-23T14:45:00.009-05:00

Where has the time gone? It has been such a long time since we posted, so I thought I would just try "the last five months in pictures." I'll give you a few comments to get you up to speed on our lives since our last post.

October- Bobby buys a robot. There are just too many comments we could make. I will resist.

December - Ice Storm. During finals week. Here I am studying with my mouse-killer head lamp and all the candles in the house.

This tree normally stands up straight. We recovered power in our house after about 4 days.Christmas vacation - Ann flew down from Alaska, so we got to spend a few days with her at our house and at the farm.A Christmas vacation is never complete without snow sledding fun. Bobby and I rode down on the same tube a couple times and managed to avoid any serious injury.

Here we are at my aunt and uncle's house, opening lots of presents!

January - I was happy to chop off about 10 inches of my hair to donate to Locks of Love. It had been almost 7 years since I cut off so much hair at once.

February - My dad and I tied for the Biggest Losers of the Big Loser Football Pool with my family. My aunt wrote a funny poem about Bobby's BLFP season (something about "when his wife wins he'll be crabby").March - Carolyn and I celebrated Easter with some old-time egg-dipping fun!
There is, of course, a bit of a twist. Not just any egg kit will do for me!

I tried to think of all sorts of clever names for our Star Wars egg characters, but "Yolkda" and "Egg-2 D2" were the best of my sad attempt. Sorry to pain you.

The epic battle of good versus evil wages on... I'll leave you with a few pictures of our chubby kitty. Hopefully it won't take so long to post the next set of adventures. Take care!

Not For Sissies!

2007-10-03T14:41:00.000-05:00

Bobby and I had a great time on our canoe trip to northern Minnesota this summer. We spent about a week camping in the woods with my parents, my brother and our friend Cherry. This was no trip for the faint of heart (or short of breath). We spent a whole day paddling across Sawbill Lake (that's a big one) and then portaging and paddling on to Cherokee Lake (not as big). It was a lot of work and it was HOT! I know you're thinking, "Minnesota? How hot can it get?" But let me tell you, it was hot. Here we are at my parent's house packing all our gear. Bobby would tell you this consisted mostly of food.
Here I am double-packing in the livingroom, which I never even tried on the trip.
Some of those packs are really heavy. We took 3 canoes and six packs. Here we are unlaoding so we can put in at the launch on Sawbill Lake.
Here are Stuart and Cherry paddling over a beaver dam. This one wasn't as bad as the one when we had to get out in the mud and carry the canoe over.

This is on our way out to Cherokee Lake. We decided to canoe through Cherokee Creek instead of carry all our gear on the super long portage.
Bobby and I got along really well when we shared a canoe. He really liked all of my helpful advice.
Here I am in the front of our canoe. I don't like to be in the back of the canoe. Never do that when my dad is in the front. He likes to race.

I went in on my own; Cherry got thrown in the lake by my dad.
Cherry and I are experts at pitching our tent. This is the Taj Mahal of tents. We got the privelege of storing Bobby and Stuart's gear since our tent was way bigger than theirs.
We did regular camping-types of activities like cutting firewood...
...and baking muffins (muffin...muffin what?).
And more muffins. And also biscuits.
And yet more muffins. My dad likes to bake muffins on his Coleman stove. We were really sick of muffins by the end of the trip.

Bobby and Stuart went fishing in the cove where are our campsite was. We don't think there were any fish in there.
We were so happy when it rained and cooled down. Too bad we were out on the lake and had to "race" back (that was the day I was in the back of the canoe with my dad. We won). We did all make it back to camp before the downpour.
Butterscotch pudding is the best. I think I hate all the other kinds of pudding.
Hey, we were on vacation. You have to relax sometimes.
I think we have enough memories to last until the next time we attempt a canoe trip with my crazy family!

Adventures in Homeownership

2007-09-27T19:10:00.000-05:00

I know what you're thinking, "Two posts in one week!?!!" You thought you knew us...

I'm taking a little break from studying to share with you all a little of the excitement in the life of a new homeowner. Yesterday morning as we were leaving for work/school, Bobby mumbled something and then started tearing stuff off the pantry shelves in an attempt to get at the water heater. This all was happening before breakfast, but I finally understood that he had seen some water near the front door and suspected the water heater was leaking. Long story short, we got a check from the insurance company today and Bobby is this very minute ripping up damaged flooring and cutting out water-logged dry wall. Even though we haven't known our flooring long, we had grown very fond of it and it is still sad to see it go. Not sure how much will need to be replaced. On the plus side, Bobby bought a new water heater, pulled out the old one, and installed the new one in about 2 hours. That's making good time, honey! Here are a few photos of our sad house.

There it is. The new water heater. Hopefully it will treat us better than the old one did.

Not everything is destroyed. Here are a few new photos of the kitchen (no boxes). Isn't it beautiful?

Among Bobby's more obvious talents are hidden skills: nunchuck fighting skills, computer-hacking skills, not to mention under-cabinet lighting installation skills. That's what those white cords are for. Another project testing his project juggling skills. Would you believe our list was getting shorter?
This is my favorite sink. It doesn't scratch, you don't need special cleaners, and it is white!

Our table isn't usually laden with pantry items or positioned at this awkward (what a strange word) angle, but that's what happens when that happens (Bobby, that was for you).

For my next amazing feat, I will post photos of the canoe trip we took in July! Hope you don't find water on/under your floor in the morning!

New House: Day 4+

2007-09-24T15:29:00.000-05:00

We are the worst bloggers ever. A lot has happened since our last post, including me forgetting my log-in info. I figured it out today. Here are a bunch of photos from continuing projects on our house. We have done a lot of work, but a few projects are lingering on...

This is in the middle of painting the kitchen cabinets. They were previously a hideous color of beige that blended into the wall color. I think we decided the wall color was some sort of greenish camel. Mostly it looked like vomit.
Bobby really likes the way I spread all my junk out everywhere. He's trying to go into the "basement"--really its the pantry. Though, I'm sure if we had a basement that's how you would get to it. We had to rearrange some of the bottom cabinets to fit in the dishwasher. I think Bobby is pulling out a dead mouse from under this one. In the end, this corner cabinet opens into the living room on the opposite side of the half-wall. The hole for it hadn't been cut yet.
Here's my mom and Cherry painting baseboards. There were a lot of them. In the kitchen you can see the finished cabinets and doors. The picture doesn't show it very well, but the effect of the white cabinets on the horrible wall color was really ugly. My mom made me paint the living room.

So, here's mom on the ladder (wobbly) trying to prime the wall. At this point we might have liked to try harder to get along with the pukey wall color.

Here you can see the handiwork of the geniuses at Home Depot (not my favorite store). They mixed 4 out of 6 cans of paint wrong and we didn't figure it out until around 11pm, when we were starting the second coat. The color on the top half of the wall is correct, the wrong color was almost as ugly as what was already on the wall.

Hooray for Lyle's scaffolding. We didn't have to climb the death ladder anymore!

Here's Kim tiling the laundry room. It was mostly done by the previous owners. They left the extra tiles for us to finish the work ourselves. They did some weird stuff.

These photos are from moving day. You can see the beautiful countertops my dad and Bobby stayed up until 4am installing. They were a little tired.

This is the living room with lots of boxes in it. You can see in the corner where our new game cabinet will be (the hole with blue tape around it).

This is our mostly finished bedroom with a little bit of furniture in it. Don't ask my dad or Kim how many times we rearranged it before I let them put the bed down.

Here's the finished upstairs bathroom. It's so pretty!Here's the downstairs bathroom. It's almost finished. If only I could get the towel bars to stay up...

So, we have a few remaining projects--like painting all the doors, trim and window moldings white. It's amazing how you can't tell the difference between cream and white when you go to buy a house...Until next time.

New House: Day 1-3

2007-07-02T07:49:00.000-05:00

So, this is our new house! We closed on Friday, June 29th, and started work on it immediately. The first set of photos are when we got there after the closing and then we got to work. Lindsey headed up the painting effort along with many helpful friends. I started tearing out the old flooring on the main floor on Friday.

From the entryway.

From the entryway looking at the fireplace.

Looking into the kitchen.

A look at the main floor bedroom.

From the main floor bedroom.

This is the Colonel Mustard master bedroom.

More of the master bedroom.

Part of the upstairs bathroom.

More of the upstairs bathroom.

A quick look at the other upstairs bedroom (which will function as the office).

So, that's what the living room looks like with no carpet and a pile of trash in the middle of it.

That's my toolbox next to the fireplace.

The kitchen tearout is underway here.

The new flooring in its packaging and some tools. These are in the main floor bedroom.

Downstairs bathroom after some priming action.

Another view of the downstairs bathroom after being primed.

The upstairs bathroom after being primed.

Another picture of the upstairs bathroom after some primer.

The master bedroom in the middle of priming. The vaulted ceilings made it more of a challenge, I'm sure.

It's a good thing we could borrow this extension ladder because it got lots of use in this room.

It's good to be rid of the yellow color that was in this bedroom.

In the middle of laying the laminate flooring.

Lyle hard at work. Looks like he is trimming some door molding to fit better.

And now he is reinstalling it.

Phil and Bethany painting the master bedroom. We decided to do two colors with a chair rail in the middle.

Carolyn painting the ceiling fan, so I am told.

Cherry painting in the upstairs bathroom. It's kind of a yellow with a hint of orange.

She's so good she doesn't need to tape off.

Around the door in the bathroom.

None of us wanted to get up after we finished eating. Our knees were in sad shape from all of the time spent on the floor.

Lots of company showed up for a good time. Mindy and Luke came in for a quick visit and got to see the flooring after it was as close to done as possible. Jenny and Jim-Bob also pictured along with Carolyn. The kids enjoyed the sound of the flooring under their feet.

A picture from the top of the stairs. Yeah, I thought Cherry was there, too (window).

Lindsey did do a lot of work, including taking most of the pictures. She's doing some final touchup work in the master bedroom.

She was afraid of the ladder, but she still decided to smile a little bit.

Getting the last of it done.

We had a lot of good help this past weekend, which is why so much got done. Thanks for all of the help everyone. I hope we didn't work you too hard.

One-Eye Markey Salute

2007-06-21T07:34:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to put up a video of Lyle's birthday bash (he's an old fossil). So here it is:

Memorial Day Weekend and More

2007-05-31T09:17:00.000-05:00

Mostly this one is going to be pictures. We did go to Minnesota for the weekend and we had a wedding to go to. Lindsey's brother got married, her cousin got her PhD, and we were exhausted in the end. My sister, Ann, came with us, and we had a pretty good time.

Before that, though, we had a surprise party for Lyle's 50th birthday. It was a pirate theme.

On to the pictures (I apologize for the random order of the pictures, but Blogger lets you upload five pictures at a time and they always go to the top and so that would explain it)...

This is Stuart and Dorothy Williams

I think my camera is on drugs.

If you look closely, you'll see that the bridesmaid has purple hair (in the front)

This is Lindsey with Sam. Sam has crazy hair, too.

Stuart and Dorothy coming in to the reception (which was in a cave).

First dance.

Second dance.

Lindsey made this afghan for Stuart and Dorothy.

This is Lindsey's niece, Anastasia.

Captain One-eye Markey.

Lyle about to get some treasure (I had to be careful how I worded this one).

Pastor attacking the playground.

Jim gearing up for the treasure.

Who took this picture?

The cat in my shoe box. He's 13.5 pounds now.

Captain Jack Sparrow (Lindsey) and myself.

Lindsey went all out with her costume.

Lyle getting ready to cut the cake and talking to his parrot.

Going to the Post Office...

2007-05-17T07:42:00.000-05:00

...to pickup some change of address forms! That's right, we're moving. Wednesday was a big day for us. We sold our trailer and we have an agreement on our new home. So that was a load off for me anyway. Now, we're not moving anywhere exotic (like Germany), but we are moving about a half a mile up the road from where we are already. Here are some pictures of our new house:

Here is a link to a visual tour of the house.

We're closing on our new house on June 29th, so we do have some time to pack. Anyway, we're pretty excited. We will miss the party trailer a little bit; it was a good little home for us.

New Babies = New Quilts!

2007-04-30T17:20:00.000-05:00

I promised photos of my latest sewing project, but not until it had been delivered. Annie's baby shower was this weekend and she got lots of exciting gifts for her coming baby, including the quilt I finished over spring break. This is a big accomplishment for me...It was the first baby quilt I fiinished BEFORE the baby was actually born. It ends up with the fringed raw edge of the fabric showing on the front, but only clean seams on the back. So, here's the front.
And this is the back. I ended up with an extra star block, so to make it look right I had to stick one on the back. I still like it, though. Gives it a little character, I think.

Here and in the background of the quilt you can see our very exciting new area rug. This is a part of our new livingroom look that wasn't included earlier. I had to steal the picture from Kim's flickr account. Anyway, our rug is awesome and the kitty likes it too!

In other news (which isn't really news), Bobby and I are both facing a pretty busy week. He has a project deployment with his big job, and he thinks he'll be working late this week. I have my first of 6 finals on Tuesday and I really need to get some studying done.

This past weekend was real busy, too. We had a fun time packing up Josh and Annie's house and moving their stuff into storage on Sunday afternoon. I brought the camera to take pictures, but then I didn't take any. I'm fired. They still had some work to do, but we made a big dent. It was too bad we all had to rush off after church, though. Amber and Ben were up for a visit but we didn't get to spend any time catching up! Boo for missing good friends! We love you all and miss those who aren't here with us! God bless.

We're Boring.

2007-04-19T08:19:00.000-05:00

Going good here. Same stuff, just another day. Lindsey is getting close to the end of her fourth semester of Vet school. She's looking forward to some R&R this summer. We're going to be heading up to Minnesota next month for Lindsey's brother's (Stuart) wedding.

I went to my parents' farm for my mom's birthday. They had some new goats born recently and I took some pictures of them.

Lindsey posted these pictures into a draft earlier and wanted me to include them:

Here are some pictures of a quilt for Jimmy.

Anyway, back to work.

Crafty...Like a Fox?

2007-03-17T12:43:00.000-05:00

Spring break is finally here! Sorry we haven't posted in a long time, but I've been a little swamped with schoolwork. The life of a vet student is nothing if not busy. Bobby has no such excuse, and I don't know why he hasn't posted. I am really looking forward to a chance to relax and stop studying for about 5 minutes. This semester has been pretty difficult so far, culminating with the sleep-reducing horror of 5 exams in 7 days.

Not so much has been going on in our lives other than the usual school for me and work for Bobby. Bobby is still diligently working toward watching every single episode of Stargate SG-1 and I have still not yet watched a full episode.

After Christmas I was very busy being a little homemaker-type of bee and I actually completed a few of my long-term projects. Most of my inspiration comes from HGTV's Design on a Dime, and with a little help from Jenny and a lot of help from Cherry, the living room is finally coming together. No comments on the fact that we've now lived in our house for almost 2 full years, and I am just now getting the curtains up. All of the Townies have probably seen all of this in person by now, but for those of you (you know who you are) who don't live in Manhappiness anymore, here are some photos of our new living room stuff! And our one new bedroom pillow.

Hooray for new curtains! I'm sure there are other people with 20 yards of fabric sitting in a closet somewhere...Home decorating projects are so much cheaper when you don't really have to buy anything.

New lamp! This one was really fun, and I didn't even burn anything with the hotglue gun!

This is my favorite new pillow. I shouldn't say I didn't have to buy anything, but the iron-ons were really cheap! And I forgot to mention that my mom helped too.

And this is how nice everything looks!

Here's the new pillow to match our quilt. And Cherry's thumb even survived all the pokings when we sewed the button in the middle.

Even though I have accomplished all this, there are still more projects in the works! Good thing my mom is coming this weekend--I'm sure I can persuade her to help me finish them up!

Here are some pictures of what we've been up to...Thanks to Carolyn for photos from Bible study.

Bobby and Jamie are fast friends...er, sort of.

And here is the celebration of our "Community"--the club we formed in honor of Lyle Markey's new kick...Global Warming. Lyle is actually in this photo, he is just hiding behind me. Coming soon, a new campaign: "Don't be a Gore-on!" (based on Lyle's new favorite joke: What do you get when you cross Al Gore with an idiot?).

Until next time...

Recap of Travels and Return to Snowy River

2007-01-23T21:10:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the first post of Lindsey! Warning: This will be long.

Bobby's last update left us right before all our holiday travels. Travel was a challenge from the start. We decided to take my little mini car, none of whose advantages includes an oversized trunk. I managed to stuff all the presents in when I packed the first time...

We had some very excellent adventures traveling with the Duke of Whiskerton. He was not a big fan of the Missouri roads we traveled (for the record, neither was I). We both managed to survive the trip to the farm to spend time with Bobby's family. We played games and ate yummy Christmas dinner and watched some movies. I experienced my first work-out video...Let's just say we're all glad there are no photos of that!

For someone returning to his former home, Charlie the cat was not too friendly with the other animals. Woe to the unwary kitty who ventured too close! He may be a little runt, but Charlie was very intimidating to all the cats who lived there and didn't care that he was hissing at them and trying to scratch their eyes out while maintaining a safe distance. Oooohh. Very scary!

When the kitty wasn't "frightening" the locals, he was busy causing trouble of another sort.

Our new favorite game is Killer Bunnies. Watch out for Area 51 Bunny Abduction and The Cyber Bunny who kills them all! Try to keep your bunnies alive and hope your carrot wins!

Everyone loves presents! Brooke was more than ready for her first Christmas! She can really tear the paper off those presents!

We eventually made our way to what we thought was going to be the Frozen North, but 10 hours in the car and they barely had ground cover snow for all our efforts! Nevertheless, we were happy to spend the rest of Bobby's vacation with my family in Minnesota.

The kitty was no better behaved for having spent all that time in the car thinking about his bad behavior. He managed to climb into the ceiling in my parents' basement and then fall through one the lighting tiles. The only evidence he left was a tile on the floor. Good thing we brought his spray bottle! Bad kitty!

We raked in the presents at my parents' house!! Tiff actually got a money dispenser! Heehee. This box dispenses $1 bills one at a time so she can rent movies from the RedBox. Hint: the movies cost $1.

Bobby is very proud of his new Tigger fishing pole! My dad bought it for him to bring on our trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area this summer.

It's okay to get the same present 3 years in a row! Especially if it is actually the same present!

We finally got to see some snow...When we got back home to Manhattan!

...And now the kitty is trying to help me with my homework now that I'm back to school for the semester.

And this is why we tell you all about our cat...He's just so darn cute. Mostly when he is sleeping.

Christmas Travel Here We Come

2006-12-22T16:00:00.000-06:00

It's 4:02PM, I'm at work, and I have about 10 days of vacation ahead of me. Blogging probably doesn't count as acceptable use of company time, but they (my superiors) can deal with it.

We're going to "the Farm" tonight after I leave work. We'll be there for a few days and then we will head up to Minnesota to visit Lindsey's family.

Have a Merry Christmas, stay safe, and remember to watch how many cookies you eat!

By the way, I've been scolded for not having any pictures of Lindsey and I up here, so I must put some up soon. They will be Christmas pictures for sure.

Picture from the Farm

2006-12-14T10:47:00.000-06:00

My old man sent me this picture the other day from the farm.

I guess these are guineas. They mysteriously appeared out of nowhere and won't leave now. I don't think the rest of the zoo minds too much.

The Last Two Weeks...

2006-12-11T09:41:00.000-06:00

I've only just started this blog and it has already been two weeks since I posted. Not a good start some might say.

A recap of the past two weeks: paintball, basketball, Dookie, cleaning out 418A Lowe Court, new glasses, and finals stress.

Some of us, Josh, John, Mike, Chris, and myself, played some paintball again. It was probably too cold for it, but did it anyway. We started off at my house and made it over to Josh's property near Wamego. I'm pretty sure we've marked most his trees with paint. It seems like everytime we play, there is a "serious" injury. This time it was John. Anyway, we must have had a good time because we played from about 8:45am to 4:30pm with very little break time. Lots of ammo, and lots of gas were involved. Who knows when we'll get out there again.

One of my friends gave me some basketball tickets for KSU Men's basketball against Cleveland State. The game was on Dec 5th. It was fun to watch as we crushed them like a bug. After the first half, CSU only had 24% in field goals. I was really stupid and wore my green KSU shirt with a black Powercat in the middle of it. It turns out that one of CSU's colors is the same color of green as my shirt. So me and the other guy at Bramlage wearing green felt really cool, I'm sure. I ended up with three tickets and went with Chris and Pastor Pat. Good times.

I have to mention the cat, who I refer to as Dookie, despite his real name. I mostly mention him because we have pictures and because I could vent about him since he makes us mad all the time. Yesterday, he knocked over some plants (which are/were Chris and Mindy's) and got dirt all over the carpet. We were pretty close to killing him...

On Dec 7th, Chris needed backup for cleaning out his on-post housing. I think I speak for everyone there, but that was the best time I've had in a long time. I mean, who wouldn't want to get high off cleaning chemicals? It probably beat having Chris stay up all night. It really wasn't that bad since there wasn't any furniture there. After Chris cleared housing the next day, he came and stayed with us for a couple of nights. Let's just say that Lord of the Rings is awesome.

After Chis left, I ended up going to Walmarts to buy new glasses. You probably don't care, but I have a pair of glasses right now and they are falling apart and are also six years old. I decided to get a pair of prescription sunglasses, mostly for driving, also because I don't really wear contacts anymore, and even if I did, I don't have any left. I'll have my new pimp glasses in a week or so.

Lastly, Lindsey has been working hard on studying for her finals. Her hardest one is today...in fact, she is taking it right now. Pharmacology. I don't think she likes that class. I helped quiz her last night for a while. Even I learned a few things (I've already braindumped them by now...let's just hope Lindsey didn't).

So, there you have it. Hopefully I'll get at least one more post before Chrismas traveling.

First Post

2006-11-27T10:06:00.000-06:00

Well, I have been convinced to start blogging. I'm not necessarily going to be good at this, but I'm going to give it a shot. The immediate reason I have for blogging is to keep in touch with friends (who may or may not be staying much longer), so I might have the proper motivation to keep it up.

So far today, I have gone to work. Nothing really new about this, but I'm not quite as bored with what I am working on anymore. I've been bored out of my mind for months because of the cleanup effort we've been doing on a recent project. Not very exciting/stimulating. Change, in this case, is very welcome. I won't bore you with any more details, but know that I could, and you wouldn't like it.

On an entirely different subject, it looks like this upcoming summer will bring some excitement. Lindsey and I will be going to the Boundary Waters with her family, probably in late July or early August. I've never been there, but it sounds like fun. About a week of canoing, camping, and no showers. What more could I ask for?

This next couple of weeks will bring some change as well. We have to say goodbye to some friends who are moving away, and even though they will be missed, the change is needed for them. Their time here is over, and moving on is the only choice as they start a new phase in their lives. We will miss the Rozenbooms and Scotts (but their blogs will live on...or something like that). Goodbye and farewell.

Until the second time...