thotlady.com » Family

Vacation

thotlady — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:31:16 +0000

I know I have been absent. No excuse what-so-ever. Well, maybe laziness.

Last week we went on our first cruise. It was such a nice vacation. We went with my in-laws. Six adults and two children. Holland America Cruise Line. We stopped at St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, Grand Turks and Half Moon Cay. The ship held 2500 guests and 900+ staff. A large ship.

The weather was wonderful, in the 80′s most of the time. Two pools, a casino many bars and lounges, a spa, gym and a few shops. Our room was wonderful. It had a verandah so we could sit out and watch the ocean/sea to our hearts content.

Here we are, all except Bogie, he is taking the photo. I am the one in the middle.

The Family

-thotlady

Quick visit to Wisconsin

thotlady — Wed, 18 May 2011 18:51:46 +0000

I recently took a break and spent a long weekend with my family in Wisconsin. It was great seeing everyone. It was a bit colder there than here, but that is to be expected. I live in the south after all. No photos to speak of, I did take a couple with my phone, but left the camera at home. Bogie did not go with me, he stayed home with our sweet dog, Brammy. I missed them both very much.

I find as time moves on that I like to leave home less and less. Is that normal?…I don’t really know, but I always want to come back home after a couple of days. Even though I miss my mom and sisters a great deal, I also miss my home. I don’t travel well. I don’t think I ever have. That’s not to say, I haven’t traveled, I have, a great deal. I have been to London, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Mexico, California twice, Seattle many times, Vienna, Geneva, Switzerland, Paris and even New York. It makes me tired just reading the last sentence. Most of this traveling was pre-dog ownership. I do hate to leave my puppies behind. Here is what is waiting for me at home.

oh, and him…

-thotlady

Back from vacation

thotlady — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:10:31 +0000

I had a glorious time in Wisconsin. I was able to visit with my family and also catch up with five of my friends. I went to a small music festival with my brother and his friends on Friday night and I went again with my sister on Saturday. We also were able to see a band that I thot was very entertaining. A rock band no less, not my usual cup-o-tea, but they were very good.

The mosquitoes were out in full force in Wisconsin. Here in Virginia, we have been lucky with very few mosquitoes due to dry weather this summer. I also ate too much on vacation…but I guess that is to be expected.

I miss living in Wisconsin. A week just isn’t enough time, but I will take what I can get.

Upon my return home I found out I have jury duty in October. I am not sure how I feel about it. I have had jury duty twice before and only sat on one jury. For only one day.

-thotlady

New Job

thotlady — Mon, 03 May 2010 20:18:22 +0000

Well, it has been one full week at my new job. So far so good. The noise level is much lower here than at my previous department. I used to work a lot with students here at the university, but my new job does not give me as much access to students on campus. I think for now, that is a good thing.

Sometimes students are a bit needy. A lot of our students are very pampered by their parents. Many attended private high school, and were coddled quite a bit. They tend to have a sense of entitlement that grates on me after awhile.

I work with approximately 10 people in our office. We also have 19 police officers that are in and out of our office all day long. Many of the staff are men, which is a nice change from the previous department where I worked on campus here.

Last week I spent working with my predecessor, she retired at 68 years of age. She was very nice and helpful. I also work closely with the Director of Parking Services who has been working in this department for 26 years…yes, you heard that right 26 years. Wow. She is very friendly and helpful.

I did get a raise moving to the University Police department, so that makes my decision to transfer a little easier as well.

The lighting here is a little better as well. Which may not sound very important, but when you are working at a desk and computer all day long the lighting is very important.

My mother is visiting for a week and we also have my in-laws in the area until the end of May. It is so nice to have family around. Makes life so much more enjoyable.

Hug a family member today. Hugs are priceless and hugs are gifts you can give and receive all at the same time.

-thotlady

The family

thotlady — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:15:04 +0000

Our Family...in all its glory (January 2, 2010)

I am in the middle-front, Bogie is in the Virginia Tech sweatshirt and our Bramwell has his head in Bogie’s lap.
Also in the photo, Bogie’s brother and family and behind the couch are my wonderful MIL and FIL.

Great times!

-thotlady

Whew…

thotlady — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 15:54:00 +0000

Well, the house is ours again. My husband’s mother and grandfather were visiting us this past week. They drove cross country from Seattle. They spent some of their time in DC visiting my husband’s brother and family and some of the time with us.

We have four birthdays to celebrate at the end of September and beginning of October. It was nice to see my husband’s grandfather. He is 87 years old and I haven’t seen him in over four years. His wife passed away last February.

My husband’s family is wonderful. They made me feel like I belonged the moment I met all of them. His mother’s family is originally from Kansas and Missouri. My family is from the Midwest (Minnesota/Wisconsin). So we seem to speak the same language…if you know what I mean.

Two weekends ago we traveled to Washington D.C. to spend Saturday night with my BIL and his family to celebrate the birthdays. We brought our two dogs with us. They had a full house, but it was nice to have all of us together.

My SIL works in downtown D.C. and her husband is a stay-at-home dad to their two boys. Their oldest boy started kindergarten this year. He had to switch schools since they moved to a different area of the city. I think he is adjusting well. Their youngest is two. They are both great boys. It is so nice to have some family living a few hours away. Since my family is in Wisconsin and the bulk of my husband’s family is in Washington state it gets lonesome sometimes…especially around the holidays.

My MIL and her father planned to head back to Seattle this past Monday, but my MIL somehow hurt her right knee and could hardly walk on it. So, they decided to postpone until she saw a doctor here. She visited three different doctors and finally the orthopedic doctor examined her, gave her a shot of cortisone, and said she should be well enough to travel by Thursday. She felt much better last night and so, this morning they decided to head out. My MIL does all the driving since her father is older and he has a hard time getting around. Plus his eyesight is not the best. It puts a lot of the traveling burden on her…hopefully they will get home without any other problems. It will probably take them 5-6 days to get home. They have been gone for 3 ½ weeks. I know both of them are anxious to get back to Seattle.

Well that has been my last week and a half in a nut shell. I love having family visit, but it’s always nice to get back to the old routine when they leave.

On another note…I will randomly pick the winner of my give-a-way tomorrow morning and post the results tomorrow. Good luck all.

Thursday blahs

thotlady — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:07:34 +0000

Don’t forget to sign-up for my give-a-way over here.

Well, I took a 1/2 day of vacation yesterday. My MIL, FIL, and my husbands grandfather are here visiting. It was my husbands 41st birthday yesterday. This year was a little better than his 40th, but not by much. He thinks he is getting old…dah! You are getting old. We all are. As they say…it’s better than the alternative.

Yesterday afternoon my MIL and I went around looking at condo’s. They are thinking of relocating here from Seattle. They are not sure when, so right now we just look around to see what is available. It is always fun to see what is out there and the different asking prices. Especially in the economic climate we have now.

In the evening we all went out to eat at Outback Steakhouse. It is the first time I have had a steak in probably 11 years. We were vegetarians until this year. We started the whole ‘not eating meat’ thing in 1998, so it’s been awhile since I have had a good steak. It was delicious.

The only down side to yesterady, my MIL and I had a little tif about gift giving. But that is for another time.

It has cooled off a little here. In the 50′s at night and the 60′s and 70′s during the day. I love it. No humidity. Yeahhhhh!

Simply beautiful. Don’t you just love the Fall?

Three Weeks

thotlady — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 15:51:39 +0000

And two days since I started my diet. I have been very good. Only cheating a couple of times. I had a lite beer twice. Hopefully that won’t mess me up too much. I have updated my diet page, go over and take a look.

I haven’t been able to get back on track with my exercising though. I used to walk on my treadmill pretty regularly (3-4 times week). But several months ago my female dog, Charlotte developed a serious condition that threw me off track. I guess any excuse to stop exercising.

Switching gears…my husband has been having a rough time sleeping. Stress from work is the main cause. I keep trying to talk to him about it to try and come up with a solution. He says that he doesn’t know what I can do to help…he doesn’t even know what he can do to help.

Now, I love my husband very much, but he tends to solve some of the more serious problems of his life by burying his head in the sand, looking up from time to time to see if things have improved. As you can imagine this doesn’t work too well for him…or me for that matter. I am a problem-solver, I want to analyze the problem and then find solutions. He doesn’t want to analyze…I think this is due to his Y-chromosome. Help me out here ladies.

What can I tell my husband that will help him sleep better at night. He already works out at the gym 3-4 times per week and runs the other days…so exercise, for him, is not the problem. He has even tried OTC sleeping aids. No go.

I keep telling him pretty soon, if this doesn’t let up, I am going to hit him over the head with a hammer to knock him out each night (kidding). It is a little lot frustrating.

I also told him, until you do something about work, the problem will persist. He doesn’t want to talk about it. Stone Wall!

Very tired,

What a find

thotlady — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:23:54 +0000

On Friday, I went to Target and found something wonderful…

These little beauties made me so happy. Especially when I put them on. Not on me, and don’t get excited it’s not what you might think. I am definitely past that stage in my life. They are for my sweet little dog, Charlotte. Do you see the grippies on the bottom of the socks, they are little paw prints. Too cute! )

You want to see how they look…

You can’t see them very well…why didn’t you say so…

Aren’t they just the sweetest things. She is so cute when she is walking around in them.

I will explain briefly why she needs them. She has been through so much in her short life. My Charltotte is 6 years old. Two years ago, she ruptured a disk in her back and had surgery to remove it. We didn’t think she would ever use her back legs again…but she is a fighter and after several months we started seeing her moving them in a walking motion. I will post about this some other time, but she recovered well enough to be able to go on our walks and to get around the house pretty well. She can’t go up stairs, but she is able to go down stairs.

Then about three months ago, we started noticing a problem with her jaw, again I won’t go into the long gory details, but her immune system was attacking her body. We had to put her on steriods, and let me just say, the side effects of steroids are almost worse than her condition. One of the side effects is muscle waste, so her poor muscles in the back were shrinking. She found it difficult to walk again, so when she walks she doesn’t pick up her right leg enough to completely clear the ground, so it scrapes the top of her foot and she has two little sores that bleed everytime she walks any distance. So we have started putting socks or booties on her.

The reason I was so excited about these little babies, is that they have the grips on the bottom, which really helps her when she is walking on our wood floors. Otherwise she would slip and slide and fall on her bum.

So I am very happy today, because I found socks that are not only very functional but cute to boot.

P.S. The Vet shaved the hair above her tail due to hot spots, that got a little out of hand because sterioids suppress your immune system. But, the hair will grow back.

Finally

thotlady — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:55:31 +0000

The saga started last Wednesday. My female dog, Charlotte (my little invalid) had somehow gotten diarrhea. Well, each morning between 2 and 4 a.m. my husband and I would wake up to the most awful aroma of…you guessed it diarrhea. It was very difficult to get back to sleep after we had gotten up and cleaned up the mess. Early every morning like clockwork for four mornings we went through this. We fed her rice for two days, then on the fourth morning I decided to give her an Imodium. One other time our Vet said we could give her Imodium when she had diarrhea. Well, we waited until the following morning, expecting the worst. Then…nothing. Yeahhhhh! Now we had to wait until her next bowel movement to see what we would see. Two days later, still no show, then this morning when my husband woke me up for work, he greeted me with the long awaited good news, it had arrived and it was solid…ahhhh, music to my ears. :0)

It is pretty sad when I live by the regularity and consistency of my dogs you know what. When you are a mother of puppies, such is life.