Can you check this as a carry on?

This is what happens when we get the suitcases out. Actually, its why we don't ever pack for a vacation until very close to when we are leaving. Chiam hates suitcases. Usually he takes up residence inside and refuses to leave. One of these days he's accidentally going to GO on a vacation with us.What's in here?Hmm...
I'm going with you!
This is actually one of the main reasons we have two cats. Chiam is so sociable that he hated when we left on vacation, even with Chris' aunt coming to visit every day. The first time we went to Michigan for a week, he followed us around the house whining for 3 days after we got home. Once we had David, they barely glance at us when we come back from somewhere. He still doesn't like to see the suitcases come out though.

Just in case...

I don't make it back to post this week, its because I'm keeping an insane work schedule for the next 3 days. Assuming no one cancels on me, I'll do 18 visits in 3 days. Besides that I have a supervision meeting and a 2 hour training that I'm supposed to be teaching. I'm starting at 9 every morning (which means leaving by 8:30 at the latest), and the earliest I'll be home is about 6:30pm. Somewhere in all of that we need to clean the toys out of the Elantra and pack. I seriously hope that the 5 days off will be worth it.

I Need a Vacation

Fortunately, we have one in the works. I took some time off the end of next week (Thursday, Friday, and the following Monday). Our original plan was to go to Texas to visit with Chris' dad, but he's going to Michigan that weekend. Our next thought was to just get out of the valley for a night and go to Flagstaff. After some consideration, though, we have a new plan (I always say plans are meant to be changed). We're going to Utah to see Stephanie! She and I haven't seen each other in...probably close to 2 years or maybe 3, so I'm way excited. Chris is looking forward to just getting out of the Valley and to somewhere cooler. We aren't sure yet what we'll do there, but I think some hiking may be on the agenda. I'm still debating whether or not to bring my laptop, but I'll definitely be taking pictures to post when we get home. I think the drive is about 11 hours, so wish us safe travels. I'll be busy before we leave- I get to try and do as many visits as I can possibly cram into three days, one of them being Memorial day. That doesn't even account for time doing paperwork or anything else.
We had a going away party at work today for my supervisor and another department head who are leaving. Its official. I work with a bunch of people who like to cook. Its funny because we do potlucks for Christmas and Thanksgiving, and everyone has their own specialty that they like to bring. I didn't bring anything this time because I wasn't planning on being there until things were well underway. I had a cancellation though and ended up getting there earlier than I expected.
I have another book review that I need to write for Thomas Nelson, especially since they finally have some interesting looking books up for review. I also keep thinking about starting a hiking scrapbook since we were taking so many hiking pictures for a while. I really don't have time to be taking on any new projects though. I'm having a difficult enough time trying to keep up with things I've already started. By the time I get home in the evening its dark and I'm wiped out.

I just had to post this

From Yahoo- original here.

Linkity Link

Some interesting reading and freebies.

Christianaudio free download. Each month, one audiobook that they sell is available to download for free. Its something different every month- this month is Foxes Book of Martyrs. You do have to sign up for an account, but there really is NO charge. I haven't listened to all of the downloads, but I've enjoyed the ones I have listened to. They are mp3's, so its easy to transfer them to an ipod or whatever else you like.
I really want to try making these cheese crackers. Only 5 easy ingredients (well, plus a tablespoon of water). What could be better than that?
Cheerios is currently in hot water with the FDA for claiming that their cereal MAY lower cholesterol. The FDA claims that this is misleading advertising. Michelle Malkin argues that the same standard for advertising should be applied to the US government. "Well, how about the bogus marketing of the fiscal “stimulus?” President Obama and the Democrats promoted the trillion-dollar package as job creation salvation. The White House claims 150,000 jobs have been “created or saved.” But since February, the nation has lost more than 1.3 million jobs. The current 8.9 percent unemployment rate in the wake of stimulus passage is worse than the 8.8 percent unemployment figure Obama’s economists darkly predicted if Congress didn’t immediately adopt their recovery plan"
For my friends and family in Detroit, the Red Wings Beard-A-Thon. I wish I could convince Chris to do this, but he says it gets too hot and itchy, especially right now. Being half Lebanese though, he grows a beard in no time flat.
Getting back at telemarketers. How much revenge should be allowed? I'm ok with calling their phone lines repeatedly (after all, isn't that what they're doing to people?), but not with harrassing people themselves or putting pictures or home addresses online. I wish the Do Not Call list actually worked- we've been on it for years and still get soliciting calls. We've even filed a few complaints, but I don't know if anything happened or not. I REALLY wish I'd thought of the idea of taping postage paid junk mail envelopes to bricks and mailing them back. We used to mail them back empty, but then they started having a bar code that I assume was used for tracking. I bet if the USPS would raise the bulk mail rate instead of making it more and more expensive for people to mail a letter or send a birthday gift, they'd make a lot more money AND we'd get less junk mail. It'd be a winning situation all around. Well I guess except for the people who send junk mail, but they need something else to do anyways.

Blabbity Blab

No, I haven't abandoned this blog. I've just been so busy that I'm more or less in survival mode. I had 6 parents call and cancel appointments this past week, and I STILL did 20 visits. My caseload currently stands at 28 kids (although I have 2 who are turning 3 by the end of May). I aged out another one of my kiddos this week. I've been seeing him weekly for just shy of 2 years. When we started he wasn't walking, and Mom was pregnant with her second (she actually had him the week we started services). Now he's using sentences and into everything, and Mom just had her third. There are still some ongoing issues, but he has a great foundation for doing well in school. And it makes me want to SCREAM at the politicians who don't realize that NOT having him get early intervention (and speech) would have left him much further behind when it was time to start school.
Once hockey playoffs are over (go Wings!), Chris and I will almost certainly be cancelling our cable TV, and probably be cancelling our landline phone service. Really, we don't watch much tv anyways, and between Hulu and a Netflix subscription I don't think we'd miss it. As for the phone, we both have cell phones and most of the calls we get on our home phone are soliciting. We very rarely MAKE calls on our home phone. When Chris and I sat down and figured it out yesterday, cancelling just our cable would save us about $60/month, and cancelling the cable AND phone would save us around $90/month. That's even after adding in a few dollars a month for a netflix subscription. That's a LOT of money, and I could certainly think of ways to put it to better use than watching TV. Like paying off the air conditioner that we replaced last year. Fortunately, the loan on it is 0% interest, but who knows how long that will last.

With some time to relax today after we got home from Edible Arrangements, I picked up Playing for Pizza by John Grisham. Its been on my shelf for a while, and I just haven't had the inkling to read it. Its a quickie- in just a few hours I'm 2/3 of the way through. Pretty light, compared to Grisham's usual writings. It definitely isn't great literature, although thus far its a fun read. It did, however, make me want to go to Italy. And eat. A lot. Why is it that any book set in Italy devotes huge amounts of time to describing the food? As if my wanderlust isn't bad enough already!
I'm also working my way through the library's online catalog of audiobooks, and using their setup to make a list of books that sound interesting. I've been having trouble browsing for interesting titles lately, and its frustrating because I don't think they order very many new books on casette since most people who don't drive 13 year old cars have CD players instead of tape decks. I thought I could use their list to keep track of books I want to place on hold. Thus far I'm up to 52 books, and I'm only 1/3 of the way through the list. Its a rather eclectic selection, which I guess shouldn't surprise me any. Here's just a few:
The Girl who Owned a City. Post-apocalyptic type fiction, which I don't normally like, but we started reading this in...middle school, I think, and I never got to find out how it ended.
Several classics, including Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. Books I feel like I should at least attempt if I want to be able to call myself well read.
All Creatures Great and Small. I read this one around age 12 (along with most of the sequels), and I think its time for a reread.

What do you walk past?

These people walked past one of the greatest violinists in the world performing in a subway station. Its almost unbelievable; until you actually watch the video clips. The guy is going to town on the violin, and people just walk past like they don't even hear.
Read more here. I admit it, I was watching the clips solely to hear him play.
In all honesty, I can't say for sure that I would have stopped either. I can walk around and not notice what's going on nearby, especially if I'm in a hurry. Most people treat their morning commute (whatever form it takes) as something to be tolerated, and something to distract themselves from. I admit, one of the first things I do when I get in the car is put on whatever audiobook I happen to be listening to. Granted, its harder to see interesting things when you're going 50 mph, and way more difficult to stop if you do. So what do I drive past everyday that I could be missing?

I'm giving up on titles

Sitting here with NO good ideas for what to write about. I wasn't feeling well all weekend (no it was NOT the swine flu, or anything else contagious). I forgot to drink all day on Friday, then went and took 3 Excedrin when I got home. FYI, Excedrin (caffeine) turns fairly minor dehydration into major stomach pain. Of course, when my stomach was upset I was eating crackers and drinking tea, which did nothing at all for the dehydration. It didn't dawn on me until Saturday morning that I hadn't had anything to drink all day Friday (I was in the office all day, so I wasn't hot or sweaty), and that caffeine is a diuretic. Word to the wise on that one. I spent most of the weekend sleeping or eating little bits of chicken soup. I'm feeling better, but my sense of when I'm supposed to be hungry or thirsty is still off kilter, and I'm trying to make sure and drink lots of water (its supposed to hit 100* here by midweek). I'm still mostly eating chicken soup and dry cereal, but that's as much because its easy and sounds good as for any other reason.
Chris bought 2 new board games with some of his birthday money, so at least we had that to do when I didn't have energy to do anything else. We've been playing Talisman. Its all right, but hard to keep it interesting long enough to actually finish a game. We also have another game that we haven't started figuring out yet.
Besides that, we are the proud owners of a huge pile of yardstuffs. Remains of a monster-sized bush that Chris' aunt and uncle helped us take down, a half-dead Joshua tree, some dead pine branches, etc. We called the city to see if they'd do a special pickup for us, but they charge $99(!). Funny, I thought that's why we pay taxes. Of course, if we don't get it gone quickly enough they'll also fine us, so we'll be searching the phone book for someone who will haul away yard scrap for cheap.
Apparently, its time to start gearing up for another fight with the state of Arizona. The state courts overturned the injunction. You know, the little one that was forcing the DES to follow federal law and continue providing services to kids/families with disabilities. Not to mention keeping all of the therapists employed. Yeah, that one. So far nothing official has come from the DES, so we're in wait and see mode.