A sunday drive.

We drove by the house in Danville. It's really out there. Goodness. It's only about a mile away from SM and JM. On the way to Ma and Pa's we took back roads. It was nice I saw some countryside and cows. Some baby cows. I realized I got sunburned yesterday. Not fun. But it was a nice sunday drive and I enjoyed it.

I ended up taking a sort nap at the house. We had pizza for lunch and tacos for dinner. Yum!

I've started watching the second series of Full Metal Panic. Really, Souske and Chidori really need to just do each other and get it over with. I do like the show though. I want a big paper fan.

Three day weekend next weekend. Yay! Can't wait. Really can't wait. I really don't want to go to work tomorrow. I guess I have a case of the Sunday blues. Life goes on. Laters! Savvy?

-Aislin

Words from Tsubaki.

So, I you know how I was bragging about how well my laptop was running after all these years? Well I shouldn't have opened my big mouth, because my dell decided that it couldn't run the Internet anymore. Sucks huh. That's Murphy's law for you. Well I promptly got on the phone to Staples and asked if they had the same laptop I got for Brett. They didn't but they had a HP that was similar and was cheaper. Sold! I drove down there, bought it and was back to watch the Kentucky Derby pre-race. BTW when a long shot like Mine that Bird won the race, it just further proved that you shouldn't bet on the big races.

So now I have a swank new lappy that I named Tsubaki, which after watching the latest episodes of Naruto Shippuden, mean Camellia Flower. I like the word that and Tsubasa, which means wings. But back to the subject. I love Tsubaki, she runs so well and her wireless card rocks! Don't worry, my dell still has a purpose, we are going to turn her into a library computer to store things. Waste not and all of that.

My poor Brett is in a lot of pain right now. We are going to an orthopedist Tuesday, but I still wish there was something I could do for him. If they can't fix what's wrong, I'm going to change the way I look for a house. I'm going to have to find a place where it's easy for him to get around with a cane, so no stairs.

A place where I can handle most of the work myself, since he is limited on what he can do. I'm sure I can find a place, but I would prefer to have him better and not in pain anymore.

I found a website called Sailor Moon Abridged. It's hilarious. They took the Sailor Moon episodes and dubbed there own words over it. Everyone needs to check it out.

I watched a show on hulu for the first time. The quality was amazing. Yes the buffering was annoying, but it's nice to go full screen with something and not have it all blurry and pixelized. I definitely recommend it.

I had to slosh through the yard to pick up sticks so douchbag magee that my aunt hired could come and mow. Seriously, what moron mows after tons of heavy rains in a yard with standing water? I swear if the grass was a foot underwater, he'd still try to mow it. Then accuse me of not picking the sticks and asking him to keep it down. That f'ing pisses me off.

Brett wants everyone to know that he won the Indy 500 on Batracer. He's silly.

Well I'm going to continue messing around on the next, drinking Black Cherry wine. Laters! Savvy?

-Aislin

The rain does have an end.

I figured I would let everyone know that my life isn't all shit. Other than having my Brett Brett and fuzzy children. There are good things that happen every once and a while. Brett got his new laptop so he is happy about that. I was able to set up wireless on mine so I can move around the house with it, but for some reason my reception goes down some in my bedroom. I currently have my laptop on my stomach while I'm in bed. Hey it works for me.

Brett's car is running better than when he bought it, so he is very pleased. I have a feeling a oil change is due soon for me. I'm afraid of what they will find when I take it in. But for now that is all behind us.

We go to look at some houses tomorrow, hopefully that will go well. I would like for things to continue to look up. Maybe we had enough lows that we have earned some much needed highs.

Well I need to get to sleep. I can't sit up all night typing and watching anime, as much as I want to. Laters! Savvy?

-Aislin

No pickles.

Well today was interesting. Getting up at 5:30am tends to foreshadow that. I had to take Brett to get an MRI on his knee. Of course it happened to be pouring outside, so thanks to the leaks in my car, it was raining inside and out. We get there early, and that goes ok. I treated him to breakfast at Bob Evans, then we head home. He grabbed some Zs and I just snuggled with the cats till it was time to take his car to the shop.

Ok, so far it doesn't seem to be a interesting day, but just wait.

We dropped his car off at the dealership repair shop, since no one else can tell what's wrong with it. They are overly polite, not being use to that we were a little surprised. We head off home and an hour later we get the diagnostics call.

First of all when we took the car to Becks by home for a tune up, they put the wrong coolant in the car. This isn't some fly by night place, they came recommended by my dad, because he knew them. Well they FAILED! It turns out that the problems with the car are nothing related to the codes pulled from the car. A couple weeks about we spent $100 bucks for them to find out what was wrong with the car. Their diagnostics, that it was a faulty EGR valve. The same one that was replaced back in January. Brett asks the tech 3 times, is there anything else that could be causing this problem. They said no. Pissed off, Brett tracks down a new EGR valve and replace it, and gets a refund for the so called faulty one. The problem keeps happening, getting slightly worse. Brett goes to Auto Zone and gets the codes pulled on the car. It says a number of things, like a bad EGR valve and O2 sensor. I finally had enough and we take the car to the dealership, because they would know that type of car better than anyone.

They said it was exhaust valve leak, a problem with the starter, one of the engine mounts collapsed, and it had the wrong coolant in it. None of these things Becks caught in the inspection. Fail 1!

Becks is known for their mufflers and exhaust, and they didn't catch a exhaust valve leak? Fail 2.

Becks flushed the coolant when they did the tune up, so they put the wrong coolant in the car. Fail 3.

Brett calls Becks and tells them that the dealership said that the coolant was wrong. Asshat at Becks pull the paperwork and says they used the right coolant, (the coolant is supposed to be blue, and it was green) and that sometimes dealerships can put one over on you, and that if you shine a light into the system, it can make the coolant look green. Asshat says they put the right coolant in but if we wanted to bring the car in they would flush it and put coolant in it again. Brett calls the dealership back to get that the wrong coolant was put in the car in writing and double checks to make sure that the coolant was indeed wrong. The dealership tech that it was no problem getting that in writing and they just drained to coolant to flush it, and it was indeed green. Ok, what color blind Fuckmook, tech can drain coolant from a car, see that it is blue, then turn around and put green coolant in? (the color tells the type of coolant) Fail 4.

Tomorrow we pick up Brett's car and get the paper saying that Becks fucked up. Then we are trotting ourselves over to Becks with paper in tow and demanding the money for the diagnostics and the coolant flush back, because they have now cost us $1450 in repairs on the car that should have been caught earlier. Who knows if the fucking EGR valve was bad in the first place, which "needed replaced" when the car was in the shop for the tune up, so these problems could have been there and they didn't notice. We will simply tell them that if they don't refund the money that we will file a complaint with the BBB. We are also going to inform them that we are no longer going to take our vehicles there and neither are my parents. That's 4 cars they will never work on again. Lest see if they hit Fail 5. Fuckmooks.

Getting back to the timeline of the day, my mother decided to come over and bring her friend from up north. I by the way hate this friend of her's and can not stand the woman. They come in and fawn over the Roar, and Shank hides. Shank hates my mom, because she torments him and calls him fat kitty. Shank lets Brett hold him so my mom's friend can see him. He knows he's safe from torment in Brett's arms. They chatter on and on, telling up horrible stories. Then they left. Only to have my mom call me during my "yearly exam", embarrassing the hell out of me.

We are going to see a couple of houses Thursday, and one we were excited about already has an offer on it. Which sucks ass. But I did research on it. What they have is a First Right to Purchase agreement with the owner. Which means they put in a offer, but they won't commit to buying until they sell their house, if they can sell their house. It's not solid. If little ol' me comes along and likes the house, I can put an offer on the house, if the owner likes the offer and accepts it, then the people with the agreement have a set time like 24-48 hours to give a definite yes, we will buy it, or they fore fit their right to it. Then the place is mine. Muahahaha! But seriously there is hope in that situation, or the owner can tell us to fuck off. And the people with the agreement might go ahead and buy the place. But there is hope, and if people don't want to buy a place till their sold, they might not have enough money to own both and be forced to give up their right to it.

Well I've been up since 5:30, so I'm going to bed. Laters! Savvy?

-Aislin


Yes I know that the picture has nothing to do with what I wrote in the blog, but they are cute and I wanted to show them off. ;P

Life is a boat.

Sometimes it's calm waters, other times some idiot comes by and rocks it and you end up falling in the drink.

But seriously I love the song 'Life Is A Boat' by Rei Fu, it's a good song. I'm loving my iPod. I listen to it at work, and I listened to it during the Indy Car race yesterday. I also listened to it on the way home. I was still buzzing good after drinking nearly a bottle of wine and Brett's parent's house so when Caramell Dansen came on Sakura I started dancing to it in the car. Eventually Brett told me to stop, because it was distracting. They should consider the Caramell Dansen dance a workout routine, because it wears you out an used a lot of your muscles.

Yesterday I went out with Ma (Brett's Mom) we drove by a house for sale that I wanted to look at. After that she drove me by one other place she saw and then we went to the book store and Target. At Target I got one of those big bag purses. It's white with big pink flowers on it. Ma said that it wasn't too fru fru. When I asked Brett about it, he said there is nothing wrong with girls having fru fru stuff. I do like the purse though. It's big and it doesn't look like I have as much stuff anymore. I could keep my makeup bag in there and still have a ton of room. That would imply I wear makeup on a regular basis, and I don't.

Ok, first we had Mad Cow Disease, then Bird Flu, now we have Swine Flu. For goddess sake, what's next Equine Flu? And you got to wonder how these things just pop up. If they were there all along and can spread so quickly, why haven't we attacked by it long before now? They say if you exhibit flu like symptoms that you should notify your doctor right away. Great, I bet every doctors office is flooded with calls of people thinking they have the Swine Flu.

Then there is the trend in Japan of wearing a surgical mask, to keep germs out, or in. Now Mexico has adopted it. I read an article about how it's almost a fashion statement in Japan, and they aren't sure it helps anything. Maybe it's like a placebo to these people, since they think they are protected, then they don't get sick. I really don't know. I saw a girl walking down the street the other day with a colored surgical mask. I'm all for following Japanese fashion, but I don't think that will catch on, and if you are doing it just for a fashion statement, well you've got problems. But of course growing up, there were some pretty weird fashion statements. *shudders*

Brett goes in for his MRI tomorrow. We've got to find out what's going on with his leg, before he turns into House. We are stopping by J's to get his earrings taken out. They really haven't been out since they were put in. This is going to be fun. After the great earring extraction, we are going to drive by a couple of house options. I'm currently waiting for my mortgage lady to call me back and let me know what Mortgage Insurance is, and why do I need it. Because that thing is making possible Mortgage payments that are livable, turn into OUCH. And I will have a real hard time convincing Brett to go with OUCH payments. And if that doesn't work out, then we fall into the desperate level of things. *sigh* Why is this never easy. If this keeps up we are going to end up living in a van down by they river. If we can't find anything with acreage, then we will have to looking into a cheap enough house where we can still afford to board Katelin. I would really hate to ask a family member for money to help with a down payment on a place, just so we can afford the payments. I'm betting on the van down by the river. Laters! Savvy?

-Aislin

A cat's leap of faith.

Lands him right on my sleeping husband. Yes Shank was using Brett as a trampoline last night. No clue why, maybe he thought he was taking up his space, or he's just feeling better. I don't know but he kept leaping from the pedestal to the bed, even after Brett got up. It shook the bed so it started ticking me off. Maybe I should explain. My oldest cat Crookshanks, Shank for short, weights 16lbs. He is no longer a fat cat, that's all muscle. He's a little bulldozer. And my bed is a antique Iron bed with the original box springs. Which makes for an ultra bouncy bed. Now factor in a 16lb cat jumping on it from about 3 feet away and you get a very bouncy bed and a not so happy me. He's a little fart.

We are bringing Shiner home for the weekend. I feel like a divorced parent with weekend visits. But she just can't stand to be alone. Mom tells me she is green from running in the yard after it was mowed, so she gets yet another bath. I don't want green dog in my bed. Then I will have green sheets, and that's not fun. Since it didn't rain yesterday and it won't till next week, I can pick up doing the laundry and take an actual shower, not just a run and scrub. I need to get caught back up with the laundry, and we need a long dry spell to do it. It's supposed to be nice out, so I might save the electric bill some and hang some clothes out to dry on the line. Never did that before. Kind of looking forward to it.

It seems the more I blog the less everyone else does. But if I don't for a while there is a bombardment of other bloggers. It's just weird. Also, since I have this new fancy blog, I've noticed I still haven't gotten many visitors. That sucks, but I hope more people will visit soon.

I'm feeling better today, I think it was getting out in the sun after so many days of gloom. Even if all I was doing was trudging around a soggy yard, picking up sticks. Rory really liked me opening up the sliding doors so she could smell the smells through the screen.

As for the house hunt, still hunting. *sigh* It's the Chinese hell of house hunting. Sorry, I watched Big Trouble In Little China last night. Well that's all for now. Laters! Savvy?

-Aislin

Hurricane in a wine glass.

Well I just plunked some mega money getting Shiner and Shank's teeth cleaned. Now Shank is walking around the house like a drugged up hobo and it's freaking Rory out. Owning animals is never cheap, but it is amusing.

No work today because of the vet appointments so that is yay. I can only imagine the mess that we are going to run into when we return to work tomorrow. Well there is only 2 days left in the week so that's good I guess and the guys are going to be doing a Jerks in the Back Row recording Friday so that will be fun.

Life is a little nicer since Brett can start drinking again. He's no longer walking around grumpy when people are drinking. And he is drinking very responsibly. So I rewarded him with 2 mondo bottles of wine. I got Captain Morgan 100Proof (which is very, very good) and a jug of Bacardi Hurricane. That's good too, and because I'm a lazy bitch right now, We have no clean normal glasses so I broke out a wine glass to drink it in. I know that's just weird, but it took me nearly an hour to scrub burnt on Begal Bite off the pizza pans so I could cook pizza for dinner last night. I just didn't feel like finishing the rest of the dishes.

The house search goes on. I'm so frustrated. I really don't know what to do. I know it will be really hard to convince Brett to go out and see anymore houses, and with every disappointment, my drive for it is diminishing. I wonder if we are ever going to find a place, and be stuck in limbo forever. My mom is as cold as ice. Her suggestion is to sell Katelin. Like that is even an option. It's so easy for her. If I told her that she would be just fine if she just got rid of the dogs, she would be furious at me. But that's just how she works.

I'm really not looking forward to going to work tomorrow, but that's just my defeat talking. I might go to bed early tonight. It might make going to work easier tomorrow. But for now, I'm going to find out what to do with a drugged up kitteh. Laters! Savvy?

-Aislin

Wine, pipe, and a good script.

Well yesterday was the same as any other day. Brett and I got home tired and all blah. After giving my dad a call warning that a storm was coming up from the east, I plopped on the couch and watched some recorded NCIS. Brett took a shower and called JM back. And for once I tried not to listen in on a phone conversation. Don't get me wrong, I trust my man, I'm just naturally that curious. So I didn't know when he started talking to me. Rule #1 of talking to me while I watch TV, say my name first. I'm too tuned into the TV to realize someone is talking to me. For 23 years my dad had trouble remembering that rule. Poor man, many things didn't get done because of that. So after Brett realized I wasn't hearing what he was saying, he got my attention and told me that we may be going to dinner with JM and SJM Thursday. Woot! Haven't seen them in a while. I'm excited. So after that little bit of fun, I went back to watching my show and keeping a eye on the lights which would dim from time to time. They were working on the lines, so I was afraid we would lose power.

As fun as that all was, I finished up the day with Chicken Pennie, a glass of wine, and a pipe of chocolate flavored tobacco. While I read Brett's script for the comic we are making. Yes I smoke a pipe, and I also smoke cigars. But we will only smoke pipes indoors, because they have a pleasant scent as opposed to cigars and cigarettes. But anyway, it was a nice evening, but I wish the wine buzz lasted through the night instead of me waking up at midnight and not being able to get back to sleep until 3 in the morning. *sigh* The cats didn't help much. Rory knew I was tired and not to be messed with this morning, so she stayed back and watch Shank try to wake me up. If cats could laugh, I'm sure she would, because Shank was dangerously close to getting thrown across the room. I just didn't want to get up this morning, and he was annoying the hell out of me. Needless to say, we were late for work, but we eventually got there.

Well we are going to go look at another house tonight. This one looks like it might work. It's only 9 years old so it shouldn't have any big problems. Our mortgage agent already sent us a good will statement to let us know how much it would be a month, if we gave full price for the place. I'm not really getting my hopes up, because we have been disappointed too many times so far. Mom seems excited though. We'll see if the place impresses us. I really hate house hunting. Its full of lies and half truths.

When we get home I'm to work on character drawings for the comic, so far I've only did a rough sketch of one character. I need to get to it.

Brett is making me take my meds like I'm supposed to. I hate to though. They give me the medicated shakes.

Well I think that is all for now. Laters! Savvy?

-Aislin