If It Wasn't For Bad Luck...

...I wouldn't have no luck at all.

Last week at our house was a little nuts. Still nuts even. Right now I'm sitting at the Library using the Internet and touching the greasy keys that have been touched by Lord only knows how many people because our computer is sitting in pieces on our kitchen counter. The motherboard slowly died by first making connecting to the Internet impossible then giving us the blue screen of death. Seriously, that's the technical term. Either that or those geeky guys over at our local geek squad just love to be dramatic. Anyhow, after we figured out what was wrong, a friend ordered the part for us and we should be back online in a few days. My husband is convinced he can swap out the old motherboard for the new one. We'll see...

We had another blow last week as well. Less than 24 hours after I posted those photos of our dog Rocko wearing a hat, he was gone. Wednesday night when I came home from the farm, I noticed that he was laying out in the back porch and not in the kitchen with the Gardener and the girls. Odd. it looked like he hadn't eaten yet that day so I made up a bowl of his dog food with some warm chicken broth poured on top. Generally that's his favorite, but he wouldn't touch it. I cut up some leftover medium rare steak from the night before and he reluctantly ate it. Otherwise, he looked fine and we thought that he possibly ate something that didn't agree with him and if he wasn't better in the morning, I would take him in. By morning he was so weak he couldn't walk on his own. His ears were cold and the color had drained out of him. I called the vet right away to get him an appointment. I also called my brother to come and help me. He conveniently stayed home sick from work the night before (he's works nights), and by morning he was rested up and feeling better. Plus he loves me. The vet ran a blood test and some x-rays and determined that Rocko had some internal bleeding. He said it was most likely cancerous tumor on his spleen. The vet said if the surgery was successful yet cancerous, he would only have a few months left before the cancer took him. He had 9 good years and we didn't want him to suffer so I asked the vet to put him down. It felt like the right thing to do but it was still hard to process it all since it happened so fast. My brother and I both had tears in our eyes when we said goodbye to him. Goodbyes suck.

The vet's office gave us his body with no questions (I thought maybe they would have rules against this) so we could bury him out at my in-laws' house next to Oliver. By noon, Rocko was in the ground and the three of us, my brother, my father-in-law and myself, cracked a beer and talked about how just yesterday, or last week we all saw a healthy and happy old pooch, and now he's gone. So quick. Then, like freakin' clockwork, the school called and said Mae wasn't feeling well and had a slight fever so I should come pick her up. It was a day of not being able to catch my breath. Thankfully, not all days are like that and things are looking up. Mae's bug went as quick as it came without having to go to the doctor and we're talking about getting a puppy. Yay!

Since I'm computerless this week, I won't be doing Garden Monday or Wardrobe Wednesday. I'm crossing my fingers for next week. I'm also thinking I should get off of this computer and wash my hands. The parking meter is probably expired too. A parking ticket would round things out nicely, don't you think?

Fixed!

Last week I posted about that annoying box that appears every single time I want to comment on blogger blogs. Ring any bells ? I had pretty much given up after going through all of the security settings on my security software and all of the blogger settings.

Along comes Super Blogger Rachel who found the link for instructions to fix the problem. Once again, THANK YOU RACHEL! For all of you who are about ready to bash in your computer screen if that silly box comes up one more time, here's the link Rachel provided me. It works! No more secure or nosecure content warning box!

Does This Happen To Anyone Else?

When I leave comments on blogger blogs, a little security window opens and asks me if I want to display unsecure items (profile photos, I think). I always click yes and the profile photos pop up and everything is fine. Is there a way to avoid that message and the (huge, annoying) hassle of having to click yes every freaking time? I looked around in Blogger a little, but found nothing useful. Thank you.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

After almost 6 months of blogging I finally decided to add a header photo. Right on top of things, huh? What do you think? I know some people think that feet are gross, but I felt that I needed to incorporate the name of my blog in my blog. And seriously if you haven't been grossed out by now, you've probably got an iron stomach.

Weirdness

2 recent google searches that turned up my blog:

Lard on feet
&
Farm girl in the straw

I don't even want to know what these people were looking to find.
Any weird searches to your blog lately?

Holy Crap I've Been Tagged

I'm glad you taggers left directions because I had no clue what this tag business was about.


Three great bloggers, Skyewriter , True Blue Texan and Musings of a Wandering Elf tagged me which means they must either love my blog, or they were forced to by their tagger and if they didn't comply the world would end, or something like that.

This is how it works:

1. Link to the person(s) who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they were tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six random things about me:

1. I work at a dairy farm 2 nights a week (yes, I milk cows and pitch shit. Very glamorous)
2. I was raised Unitarian but now don't practice anything on Sunday mornings, but instead test my dogs on how long they can hold their pee.
3. I have an uncontrollable mouth.
4. I hate it when people are unfaithful.
5. I love an Irish coffee any time of day.
6. I can paint (almost) anything.

My 6 tags are:

1. Engineer for Hire


2. My Life As A Trailer Park Mom


3. Naked Opinions


4. April's Little Family

Yeah, you can count that's only 4 but all of this copy, paste stuff was starting to get to me.

Here It Is

Today there was a google search that turned up my blog

Ready?

snow thrower keeps dying out when plowing deeper

This was what I couldn't live without

More snow today!

Why My Hubby Loves Me

Several months ago my husband started talking about getting an ipod. That would be my cue to purchase, load and whatever else you do to an ipod and hand it to him- ready to go. Easy right? So, I order one direct from Apple, complete with his name and phone # engraved on the back in case it gets lost, but shit, it's an ipod and once it's gone, it's gone. I imported many of his cds and many more (shhhh) of mine, and downloaded a few choice podcasts. I'm a sucker for "This American Life" and a friend turned me on to "The Savage Love Podcast" which by the way is not appropriate listening while driving the kids to school, uncomfortable questions sure to follow. "Mom, what's a 3-way?"

While searching on itunes for other podcasts, I came across one called "Hot For Words" with the word clean behind it, honest right? From the description I assumed it was a program about words and definitions, and actually downloaded it for my husband who is, one day at a time trying to make himself sound like he learned the English language from books and not conversations from the barn. I had not seen the podcast (yes it's a video podcast) and kind forgot about it, until last week.

My hubby comes home from work and says "Honey, you just made me the hit of the job site." Now usually that means I sent along some great cookies but no, evidently I sent him to work with soft porn. Oh yeah, that's me the big porn watcher. I think I was 20 before I had seen a real pornographic movie, and I think I laughed more than I was aroused. So I said " I gotta see this" and charged straight for the computer, hubby following close behind because god forbid he miss an opportunity to watch a barely dressed woman define words.

This is what I saw:



Do you think the guy asking the question was trying to impress the hot for words goddess with the bottles of booze lined up behind him and the ever attractive basketball jersey? Now that's hot.

A work in progress

I'm new to this whole blogging thing, although I have been reading blogs for a long time. The hardest part for me so far is not really the writing, it's the whole knowledge of computers and this crazy Internet thing. I know that google and many others have made blogging, email and whatever else they offer so easy that my lazy St. Bernard (who by the way is snoring so incredibly loud right now- do dogs get sleep apnea?) could figure out how to use it, but I'm a bit overwhelmed. What really is HTML code, and how can I crack it? I only discovered how to copy and paste recently and I'm even not sure if I'm doing that right. Surprise, surprise, I have had no formal training.

So, my latest brain benders:

1. I read many blogs that reference stats like- search words people use to find their blogs. Mostly cited for comedic reasons- but hey, I hate to miss out on a good laugh. How do I find that?

2. How do I obtain buttons, badges? I see many sites that have free buttons to stick on the sides of the blog but I can't figure out how get it in a gadget. Like this one. I want to tell the world that 1.20.09 is get rid of your Bush day, but I can't figure out how.

I'm not really looking for a hand to hold, because I probably will figure it out on my own...eventually. I'm just wondering if there is something I'm missing. A google search isn't always helpful, and hitting the keyboard with my fist doesn't help either

This blog has been a lot of fun for me so far. I have been able to connect with many people and besides, it's just plain therapeutic.

If anyone has any simple suggestions let me know in the comments.