Aren't we done with this yet?

I will never regret my days as a goth. In many, rather, most ways I still am. I just don't have the look any more.

Why would that be, you might ask...

Because I'm BORED! The style hasn't changed in 30 years. Its gotten more predictable, it's terribly mass marketed, it's just overall DONE.

That isn't to say that I am not still attracted to it. It is a beautiful style. It's just that, well, can't we do something new?

The My-Little-Pony look was the last one that really made me excited. But that's done now, too. Been done for a while. The historical look is always wonderful, but c'mon - there's only so much you can do with black and burgundy satin. Yes, it will always be beautiful, but it's just so damn ordinary now. And then there was Gothic Lolita - another adorable look, but it's - you guessed it - DONE.

The other one that I love but is also getting terribly boring is the pin-up look. Yeah, the chicks are damn cute, but oh my gosh...it'd DONE.

So what's next? What are the options?

As I'm back to losing weight and starting to feel better about myself, I'm thinking about such silly things again. I have a look in my head - some cross between my-little-pony-goth-pin-up-farm-girl thing. We'll see. When we get settled again maybe I'll start exploring it...

Love to you all,
Petunia

So far so good.

Excellent on the diet this week so far. I've had a deficit of 200-500 calories each day. It won't be rapid weight loss but it will be healthy. And I'm focusing on eating *right* - good quality food, good flavors, minimal processing if any at all. Whole grains. Yum.

I'm dealing with some bad cravings, but they're not as bad as I expected them to be. Just keep on trucking.

Love to you all,
Petunia.

Susan Powter?!

I'm afraid that I'm obsessed. She's an absolute NUTCASE, annoying as hell to listen to, but I ADORE her. Susan Powter is absolutely gorgeous, she's got more energy than I've ever had in my entire life all put together, and I WANT TO BE LIKE HER! Okay, yeah, except for the abnoxious self-adoration.

Love to you all,
Petunia

I love Sundays.

Well, really I love weekends in general. Who doesn't?

Yesterday I got all the menu-planning and grocery shopping done, and we both packed a couple of boxes of books. Jason doesn't like to admit it, but he really does seem to be getting excited about our move. Especially now that Mom and Bill are working on the basement. That will make all the difference for him, I think.

Last evening I dropped by Morgan and Nikki's for dinner, had a lovely time just chilling in the living room. Morgan made dinner with strawberry shortcake for dessert. Love that. And I did get *all* of the bedclothes washed yesterday - even the blankets and duvet cover - so sleeping last night was glorious. My dreams were all so pleasant - probably from the fresh clean smells.

This morning Dexter and I went for a nice long walk - I think it was about two miles. He's crashed now on his throne, and we're getting ready to take him to meet Molly at the doggie park. He's going to sleep well tonight!

Just a lovely weekend...

Love to you all,
Petunia

Been a while...

Whoa - I completely forgot about my own blog. And so much has happened!

First off, we are *definitely* moving. Mom's making reservations to come out at the end of May to help us pack up. I'm finalizing plans to reserve moving pods from U-pack and today I'm going to talk with our building manager. We're definitely headed off to my mom's in Lebanon, Virginia for the summer. When Jason finds work we'll move again, but at least we're the hell out of here.

Secondly, we've managed to acquire a new family member, Dexter the Miniature Pinscher. Our neighbors found him in the canal outside our apartment. He was a mess, a little skinny, smellier then hell, and scared out of his wits. He hated everyone, until he saw me. Just like Godfrey (our cat), as soon as he saw me he knew a sucker. He made himself completely at home as soon as he came over. We spent about a month looking for his people, but he had no tags, no chip, nothing. We couldn't find any missing dog posters, and none of the shelters knew of anyone looking for a miniature pinscher. We did find one person who had lost her dog, but Dex wasn't him. So, meet Dexter:



We've never considered ourselves small dog people, and we both tried really hard not to fall in love with him, but oh well. He's absolutely terrific. He's smart and training beautifully (even though he *is* a terrier), he's great with other dogs, and he's not yappy at all. In fact, he's amazingly quiet. Some barking at the neighbors, but nothing out of the ordinary. We're really in love with him. Even Godfrey is starting to accept him. Yoshi, of course, loves having a dog in the house to terrorize.

I've also never posted about our quail. I picked up three quail from our friend Rich Jones, who were supposed to be training tools for a coopers hawk. Well, the coop went out the window (no more late trapped birds for me) and a kestrel came in. The quail have stuck around as pets - I adore them. I'm not attached to the particular individual birds, but I am attached to having quail around. I really want my game farm. Here's a pic of two of the quail. The blond one has since died - the other two killed him. But we now have a male and female brown coturnix, and the female lays an egg almost every other day. Coturnix don't incubate their own eggs, and I don't have an incubator, so these eggs go in my omlette. Keep in mind that it takes about five quail eggs to make one regular chicken egg...



Work is fantastic - I love my job. In fact, if there's any reason to stay here, that's it. I just love it. I'm now eligible to work on ALS units with a paramedic, and that is by far the best part. I worked a 24 hour shift on Sunday and we had a great time and had some super calls. I've still never seen any serious trauma or had anyone die on me - we'll see how I handle that when it happens. But we've had some serious ones, and I think we even may have saved a woman's life at the end of that shift. I won't ever know if she actually made it, but we certainly gave her a better chance at making it. I sure hope so. And it feels really good when ER doctors and nurses congratulate you on your treatment - usually they're totally indifferent or even annoyed at us when we come in. When you get those kudos, it really means a lot.

Well, that's enough for now.

Love to you all,
Petunia