Browsers

I'm not sure what browsers everyone is using these days. But I myself use Google Chrome and Maxthon 3. If you haven't tried either of them, give them a whirl. Maxthon 3 has a nifty little feature that I find to be invaluable when I am designing blogs and websites. With the blog I can have my dashboard or control page on one side, and the actual blog site on the other. The split screen function is fantastic. I am always flipping back and forth between the site and the dash in order to get a real time view of how it looks. I generally don't talk about products etc because i don't want to turn my readers off the blog. But honestly, you should give Maxthon 3 a try. You can get it from www.maxthon.com. I was originally told about it by a friend who uses it for everything he does. But this is also the same friend who uses Safari, Chrome, Firefox and other browsers simultaneously lol. Yes, he is a nut. But then if he wasn't then he wouldn't be my friend now would he? LOL
 

Fruitful Friday

 As I sit here I am listening to the sounds Mother Nature is screaming. The thunder indicates that she is about to unleash some of her fury on us. I have always loved watching the chase take place. The thunder rumbles its demand and the lightening takes chase after it. Such a beautiful sight to see. But then I am the one that you would call insane. Instead of taking shelter when a tornado hits, I am the one out there with my cameras taking pictures. Back in 2008 I watched a wall cloud form right over the house. I was so busy snapping off shots of the cloud forming that I failed to hear the neighbor scrambling about to open his storm cellar. Until he shouted for me and the kids to take shelter in it with him and his wife because a funnel cloud had just dropped down two streets over. Then the most amazing thing happened. I was able to capture a smaller funnel drop down three houses down. Scary yet beautiful at the same time. The destructive power of Mother Nature is an amazing power to behold but very terrifying at the same time. That particular storm spared my home and the neighbor's home. But it all but destroyed a house three doors down.

  So today I sit here inside the house, watching thru the windows. Unlike Oklahoma storms, Florida storms are bit more...scary? When the sky opens up around here, it opens and pours. The rain is usually welcomed but not this time. We are still recovering from Hurricane Debbie around here. Hurricane, Tropical storm. Whatever she was when she made landfall. She became stagnant for days on end. Dumped too much rain on us. There are still areas that are flooded. Just when my land starts to dry out, Mother nature rears her head and unleashes her wrath on us again. I now have a rather large dip at the end of our driveway. Needs to be filled. I told Daniel that we need to consider pouring a cement driveway instead of the lime rock and dirt that we currently have. But, first on our list is a 8-10ft privacy fence across the back and sides of the property, with a 4-6ft in the front. I am installing a gate with intercom as well. I am fed up with the neighbor behind us and its gotten old relatively fast. There is no excuse in my book, that could ever excuse her making death threats against the kids. There is no excuse for her killing our livestock and domestic animals. None. What scares me though, is she has two very vicious dogs. She is the kind of dog owner that gives pitbulls a bad reputation. I grew up with pits, dobies and rotties. I know how sweet natured they can be. But she teaches her dogs to attack without teaching a stop command. Dangerous. Very dangerous. Her dogs have bitten people on three separate incidents. To the point that she is required to carry insurance on them now. And if they bite again she has been told they will be put down humanely.  It's a shame that those dogs will suffer the consequences of their owners behavior. The reason the privacy fence will be higher in the back of the property is because of her dogs. She has the female in a pen right on my fence line. Which at this point does nothing to stop the dog. The fence line back there is only 4ft if that. The dogs both attack the fence line when anyone walks in the back. No matter how far out they are. I can open my back door and they start growling and attacking the line.  -shakes head-

Later today Cherokee and I are going to make some no bake cookies and possibly some Cafe au Lait ice cream. Sounds yummy doesn't it?

 

Thoughtful Thursday

 

 

Bad day all around

 At this point, I seriously need a nice stiff drink. And that's saying a lot given I don't drink.  For the last few months we have had some serious issues with the neighbor behind us. Serious enough that I have called the Sheriff out several times. Serious enough that I contemplated taking a murder charge because the b!tch made death threats to my kids. Well said neighbor has been poisoning my birds. So far the death toll is up to 10 chickens and a goose. At this point we have no idea how she is doing it, or what type of poison she is using. Now, she has killed one of our cats. I just got done burying our 10 month old cat Caillen. And soothing three very emotional daughters. Chenoa is highly upset as Nefertiti was HER hen. She raised her from an egg to 2 years old. Nefertiti was our 25lb Rhode Island Red hen. Shawnee is very upset because Caillen was HER cat. Do you know how hard it is to calm down a emotional 15yr old? And toss in a very emotional 16yr old on top of that with a emotional 12yr old. My head hurts. My heart hurts. I don't like seeing my babies upset. This is too much emotion.

All I can say is, KARMA. She's a bitch. And she WILL come knocking on that witches door.

I'm back...

 I am finally able to sit down and possibly write a newer blog post. The last three months have proven to not only be total chaos but filled with things I didn't expect to deal with. and certainly didn't want to deal with in the first place. Honestly I'm not even sure where I should even begin. I could start at the beginning but even then my mind seems to wander off into the chaos and get lost. Distracted. Sidetracked. Whatever you want to call it, I don't like it. I find myself struggling to write a decent blog post.  I suppose I can start back in April/May.

 

April 3,2012-

  I had not gotten our electric bill in over a month, despite having called and asked for a copy of it so that I could figure out the bills. By this time no new copy of the bill had arrived and I was staring at a field rep from the power company, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I ended up telling him to shut the power off and I would deal with a supervisor at the main office. I spent several hours on the phone and the end result was me telling them where they could shove it because I was not going to pay a 5th deposit on the same account, simply because they can't figure out what they did with the first 4 deposits. (BTW, we ended up getting Solar panels and converting to off the grid.)

 

 May 2012-

 I won't bore you with recapping may. There is a small post for may on the blog. Not much to read I suppose.

 

June and July 2012- 

  I spent most of June preparing for the following school year. We had a few mishaps with the kids. Such as Liam hurting his foot because he refused to wear shoes. June was actually a relatively quiet month aside from drama with Daniel's family. I just don't get them sometimes. They have the potential to be good people. But yet they choose not to be. Often times it seems like they would rather create drama and see who they can screw over the most. 

 

 I hate the rain. For two weeks straight we had nothing but rain caused by Hurricane Debbie. She flooded so many places. The river near us reached flood stage (24ft) on a Sunday night (10pm) and by Monday it was 8ft over flood stage. My land looked like a lake with several smaller lakes. We spent about an hour in the rain moving the goose enclosure to higher land. It was much needed rain but we went from drought to flood in no time. The ground couldn't soak up anymore rain. It was over saturated within 3 days. Talk about cabin fever. Being cooped up in the house with 8 kids and all the dogs...got old real fast for everyone. By the time the rain stopped we all were glad.   During all the rain I slipped down the deck steps and broke my foot. That was not in my plans this year. Being on crutches for just over 5 weeks puts a serious crimp in your wardrobe. I lived in capri pants and minus one shoe. 

 

-To be continued when I can form more coherent thoughts. 

Quickie

I thought I would stop in for a quick minute. And when I say a quick minute...I mean a quick minute. H,L and D are getting ready to start back to school on the 20th. I am teaching C, S and Ck about the Holocaust and they seem to like learning about it. Aside from the total chaos around here, there isn't much to say right now. Hopefully I will have our internet back up and running by the end of the month. -Cross fingers-