"Time won't let me....oh no..."

Well, the song actually says "wait that long" but my problem is more like "let me do what I want". *L* I apologize for not posting again - It's been a busy past two weeks and if it has slowed down at all it's not by much.

Last weekend we were in OKC since Eric had Small School All-State Honor Band on Saturday. On Sunday morning he was flying out for Vision Weekend at Rice, so we decided to just spend the night down there. We had a really good dinner at the Red Lobster right near the hotel, did some shopping, dropped him at the airport Sunday morning, and spent the rest of the day shopping at Penn Square Mall. Then on Tuesday he flew back into Will Rogers so Laura and I made a trip after work to get him. That pretty much blew Tuesday night. The rest of the week was work and the Y and then I had to work for a few hours Saturday morning. Phew...I'm REALLY glad today is Sunday. Except for doing laundry, I'm catching up on emails and basically being a slug.

Oh...okay...well...I fibbed a bit. Apparently we are also going to clean the aquarium. *L* I have a choice of now or later so I'm sorry dear Sisters...I believe I will choose now so that it's over with. The remaining fish - Daemon the angelfish, Blueberry the fruited tetra, Glowee the orange glo-fish, and Albert (Algae algae eater) will thank us. Hey! It's just about the only way I get near water around here! *LOL* Well, aside from shower water anyways. So, gonna go and make the fishies smile. Love ya's!

"And Windy has stormy eyes..."

And we've gotten both lately. I know this is Oklahoma - where the wind comes sweeping down the Plains - but give it a rest! It feels like we have 2 or 3 days of WIND...not wind, mind you...but WIND and then 2 days of storms. The winds are generally around 20-30 miles an hour, sometimes stronger, and when it rains, it RAINS. The other day we got about 4-5 inches in a 12 hour period. And that was just the latest in a long line we've had so far. The trees are bent in the wind's direction and the grass is pretty battered down. The farmers are crying...I know, farmers always cry about something...but this time they have reason. At least the wheat farmers do. They might get one or two good days to harvest then they have to wait another one or two to let everything dry out again. You walk outside and don't dare open your mouth most times because all you'll end up with is a mouthful of grit and dirt. Everything is dusty both inside and out - the house, the office, the people. Even the OK natives are saying they've had enough for now.

Okay...I'll stop whining and complaining now. *L* But speaking of OK natives...there was a piece on the radio the other day about how a transplanted Oklahoman knows they've really become a true Oklahoman and I'm rather proud to say that I've made it. *LOL* I can't recall everything they listed but I've definitely been within a mile of a big tornado (had two F5s pass closer than a mile on both sides of me when I lived in OKC), I've taken shelter in a small windowless room during a storm (different tornado), I've been a good Samaritan (stayed with a lady I worked with while waiting for her son when her car died), and I know by habit which station to turn to as soon as I hear the weather radio go off. I also know not to panic every Wednesday at noon when they test the sirens. Oh, and I've chosen a in-state college football team to root for....GO POKES!! *L* I reckon that makes me an Okie good enough.

It doesn't mean that I don't miss the water though. We have plenty of lakes and such but there's nothing like the ocean...and there never will be. And of course, I don't mean that big thing out west that has no personality. I'm talking about the grand old lady Atlantic. Now THERE'S personality and character! The storms out here can be awesome but still don't beat a good hearty Nor'Easter blowing in. Out here the storms eat wooden houses....back East they chew concrete and spit it back out! *G* And I guess that's enough waxing nostalgic about my ocean. *sigh*

Sadly, we lost two fish within a day of each other recently. One of our fruited tetras and one of our Sunburst wags passed away. I hope there isn't something going on in the tank. We have very nice fish at the moment and I'd like to keep them that way. It still leaves us with 3 fruities, 2 Sunbursts, 2 chefs, Deamon the angelfish, a few guppies, all 6 of the Glowfish, and Al...who is huge and sassy as ever. Richard swears Al is a girl because every time we clean the tank, Al redecorates. Doesn't matter where we put the plants and rocks, Al moves them to where ever he wants them to be. And for a big old carpy looking thing he sure is cute when he tucks himself across the bubble curtain stone and gets his spa treatment. *L* He's quite spoiled and quite happy to stay that way.

Another not-so-happy thing - I think our rose bushes have aphids. Looks like a piranha went chewing on their leaves, the poor things. The yellow bush is leafless at the moment and the pink/white bush is fairly chewed up too. We put some stuff on them to take care of the bugs, any diseases, and to feed them. Just waiting to see if it works. Most of the other plants are doing well. Ruby seems to be dropping some of her leaves but I fertilized her the other day as well and I'll see how she does with it. We can't really plant anything else at the moment - anything small or young will get drowned before it can take hold right now. The tomatoes seem to be loving the storm-heat cycle though.

Well...I think my head is empty for the moment so I'll hush for now. Back again soon if I don't blow away or float away. *LOL*

"Mamas, don't let your babies....."

"...grow up to be Sooners!!!" *LOL* Well, I'm batting 1000 here. First the Mustangs go down in flames, then the Cowboys fall off their horses. Yes, yes...Georgia whupped the Pokes 35-14. *sigh* I still say "GO POKES"!!!! *G*

I'm watching our new angelfish at the moment. Yep...got 2 new angels! They're both white with a touch of "goth" - they have a fine edging of black on their dorsal (back) fins and tail fins and they both have a black stripe through each eye. Pretty cool looking actually. Their names are Daemon and Lucivar - it just didn't seem fitting for true Angel names like Gabriel and Michael had, since they aren't pure white, and we didn't want true "Devil" names like the two short-lived black angels that we had before. We settled on ones in the middle from "The Black Jewels Trilogy" by Anne Bishop. I said that if you could tell females from males in angelfish I would get a pure black female and name her Janelle from the same book. *LOL* They have acclimated very well and seem to be getting along just fine with the other fishies. Daemon has longer whiskers than Lucivar, just like Mike and Gabe when they were small. Not sure if they'll get as big but they're very pretty when they do. Now all I need are two red velvet swords and the aquarium will be complete again.

"And the thunder rolls..."

Yep...it's thundering outside. We could be in for a decent storm this evening, or it could break up and flow around Enid like it usually does. *L* We can be really lucky like that...unless you're in the mood for a good old fashioned noisy blow. Then it sort of sucks.

I called the Poppy on Monday to see how he was doing and since Sunday was their anniversary. He sounded pretty good actually. Neither of us brought up the anniversary although we did talk about Nan for a bit. I saw a beautiful plaque in a Harriet Carter catalog just yesterday and it made me cry, but the sentiment was sooooo beautiful: God saw her getting tired, a cure not meant to be, so He put His arms around her, and whispered..."Come with Me". Okay, every time I read it my eyes spill. I know Nan wasn't a big believer in God but I'd really like to think that her moment was kind of like this. My heart speaking of course, my head tells me that faith is for the living because those who have gone on know the truth.

I warned you that this would be whatever was going through my head. 'nuf said.

Changing the direction (but not changing the topic completely), we've lost a few of the fishies lately. First it was Gabriel, our big white beautiful angelfish. He lived a good long while though and was absolutely huge with long flowing underwhiskers. We also noticed that one of the Chefs was no longer in the tank. Not sure where he went but the other Chefs have been accused of practicing their sashimi skills again. We really couldn't tell them apart when we got them so we decided that, to remain true to the show, Michiba was the one that left. And after outliving his two women our red velvet sword, Inigo ("My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die"), has also left us. I definitely want to get more swords, they are gorgeous, and this time I want to try and raise some sword babies. Last time we raised fancy guppy babies and those have done quite well. We're starting to get low on really cool names though...and let's face it....our fish have had some of the coolest names EVER. *LOL*

Have you ever noticed that sometimes a YooHoo totally hits the spot?? Bryan says that YooHoo is my "beer" - he could be right since I hate beer (bitter, ick) but I LOVE YooHoo. Sometimes it can completely de-stress me. *L*

Well...I guess my head is empty for the moment. See you back here when it fills up again! *G*