This week was definitely an improvement over the past two weeks.
To recap the bad week:
My great aunt died, her 92nd birthday would have been last week I believe. I hadn't seen her in forever, but when I was a little girl she left quite an impression my my sisters and myself. She had long, beautiful, steel grey hair - down at least to her waist is what my perhaps exaggerated childhood memory tells me - and she and my grandpa were the ones that got me into art. I remember drawing a snarling dog with both of them (yes, I was drawing rabid dogs when I was somewhere around 7 yrs old). When I think of her, I can almost see her strength and attitude and stubborn personality, as opposed to a specific event - as a child, and even now, I just remember her "aura". My sisters and I definitely can tell where we got our attitudes from. Depending on who you ask, we're either strong and confident, or stubborn and difficult. ;)
Wilbur my turtle died. :( And much to my dismay, he hadn't eaten all of his feeder fish... so I still have 3 pathetic goldfish swimming around in the aquarium. Seeing as I'm enviro-conscious, I can't just flush them alive - goldfish (aka carp) can live and compete with native fish in the wild. And I can't just kill them, because I don't like killing things. To top things off, my sister's iguana, Godzilla, died also. He had been sick and she had spent so much time and effort trying to excercise him, take care of him every few hours, those vet bills... But she tried. Now Godzilla will be swimming laps in that big swimming pool in the sky... :)
Our other dog Tiny almost died. She was rough housing with Lucky, who is a bit bigger than she is, and he slammed her into the ground. Linda said she stopped breathing and moving! She even gave her CPR and they rushed her to the vet. She came out of it, and we still aren't sure exactly what happened...
Then our Scotty dog Wilson had had knee surgury a few weeks ago, and lo and behold, just as the vet had warned, his OTHER knee went out! He couldn't walk at ALL! And this was after him enduring a huge cast on his leg and wearing that terrible halo around his head so he wouldn't rip out the stitches... He went thru his second surgury last week. It went well, but he still needs to be carried everywhere. He was quite depressed, but he's been in better spirits lately. I think he'll get the cast off in a week or two; then, it's rehab time!
I had put anoffer on a house and they wanted too much for it, but I countered it... and they sold it to somebody else. I'm bummed because I really want to find a nice house, but it really wasn't worth what they were asking. But I'm getting very discouraged!
I haven't been able to ride my motorcycle much lately. I've been learning about bikes so I could do a decent inspection on it and make sure it's REALLY road worthy. So far, looks great! Haven't taken it on the freeway yet, but I have taken it on a little 35 mile trip. :) It's hard finding accessories for my Super Magna, because it was only made for 2 years and is very unique. I'll have to post a photo of it soon.
This past week, I had forestry training - and it was great! Our instructor was Sean, a 4 or 5 time tree climbing champion from Minnesota. Joe and I went two days for tree climbing, then Joe left and Tim joined me for chainsaw class. I am HORRIBLE at throwing my line into a tree, but I did get down the footlock decently and climbed a nice big oak with Joe and Sean, and I even walked out on a limb. Nothing like sitting the in the top of a tree, feeling it shake and creak in the wind. Seriously. It was so fun! Chainsaw class was very useful too, and I did a textbook perfect open-faced notch. Two nights, I went out with Sean, plus Bill and Dereck from Illinois, and drank "manly beer" from the Big Buck Brewery. Needless to say, this was a very sleep deprived week and I'm still recovering! Of course, Tim just had to draw little hearts on my class evaluation for Sean... hee hee.
Totally unrelated news:
Natural golf courses redefine green - I had thought about going into native landscaping/landscape architecture; I absolutely love this idea, because traditional golf courses are uber-water-intensive, chemical-hungry monsters!
Insurance pricey now? Just wait for warming - Global warming is gonna do some bad, expensive things
Drilling debate over another Alaska refuge - NOT AGAIN! You don't even know how angry this makes me, especially since I've worked for a wildlife refuge
Bush: Kyoto treaty would have hurt economy - Yeah, ok, whatever.
