Lovin' Dixie

We went to visit Dixie today to see how much she has grown.   It was fun seeing her again and playing with the other puppies.   Her eyes are open now and she's getting "fluffy!"  Dixie weighs a pound and a half  (up from half a pound) and has a tiny little voice.  I put her on the floor to see if she would walk around, but she just laid down where she was. 

 

Dixie literally has Tony and I wrapped around her little paws!   Here's our baby:

Her face is getting more brown

She's checking out "Daddy"

Here she is with "Mommy"

 

With her eyes open

 

Here she is on January 12, when we first saw her

Still January 12, with the breeder

Her backward "J" marking

 

The Hospital

I finished my hospital orientation today.  It was 2 and a half hours of walking around the hospital, meeting people and finding departments.    I saw the Nursery, ICU, Post Op, Surgery, Waiting Rooms, Security, Registration, Emergency and all kinds of support areas.  Brunswick Novant Medical Center opened on July 5, 2011 and is a beautiful facilty. 

 

My assignment starts on February 6.  The hospital converted to a computer system for volunteers to sign in and out and half of the volunteer population is freaking out because it's a computer.  Seriously, you type in a six digit numeric code, touch "continue" confirm your name and then hit "enter."   That's it.   The volunteers want someone to stand next to them as they sign in because they don't trust computers and "don't know how to use them." 

 

At any rate, I won't have a volunteer ID in the system until tomorrow and I have signed up to work on Wednesdays so February 6 is the first Wednesday I will work.   I will either be in Patient Registration, signing people in for X-Rays or Surgery, or I may end up in Marketing and Administration (which is more likely) helping with presentations and advertising campaigns.

 

The volunteers are really nice, but I'm sensing that I am the youngest one again.   I got my photo badge today and an older gentleman who is a volunteer took my picture and put my badge together.  He asked me to spell my name and then with one finger, he  typed in each letter on the keyboard.  I told him that I had a hyphenated name and began to spell:                M  O  R  G A  N...and then I said, "now put in a hyphen."    He looked at me and said, "what's a hyphen?"    I had to reach over him to type in the hyphen and then type in  Swegle because he kept leaving out the "g."  He wasn't the  most keyboard savvy person I have ever met, but he was very nice.

 

We had to take a computer based education course on hazardous material.   The length of the course was 59 minutes and 55 seconds.  I finished in 59 minutes and 10 seconds.   The volunteers I was speaking with were amazed that I completed it in that time--they told me when they did it,  it took them 3 to 4 hours!!    They really, really don't like computers.   I hope Tony and I don't digress to that level when it comes to computers as we get older.

 

It was a beautiful day today, getting up into the mid 70's in the afternoon, but when I got to the hospital at 9:30, the building was shrouded in fog and the temperature was chilly.  Mockingbirds were on the roof lined up and spaced evenly like clothes pins on a clothes line. 

 

After I got home, Tony and I went to the driving  range to try out Tony's new clubs.   I sucked, so I quit quickly.  David will be visiting this weekend and he and Tony  will be going golfing. 

 

Not much else going on.  I'm going to call Lori, our breeder and see if we can go visit Dixie and get some updated pictures.  

 

We have started the birthday cycle already--my sister, Lynn turned 62 in January, Jon will be 34 in February, Tony will be 66 and Coleton is 6 months old now.   How quickly time goes by.  We will blink and 2013 will be a memory.

 

Here's the front of the hospital. 

Here is the side view, this year they are putting in an outdoor cafeteria where you see the windows on the side.  There will be palm trees, wooden benches and umbrellas. 

 

 

And All Is Right With The World

All of a sudden all is right with the world.  Birds are singing, I'm not waking up every hour at night, the burglers are gone, food is cooked well, my morning cup of tea appears on my night table in the morning and groceries are in the fridge.   And, you all know what that means--Tony is home. 

 

I thought he was gone forever-I know, I know, it was just a few days, but they were long and empty days.   I'm so glad he is back.

 

We hit the ground running after his return.  We found a new attorney to re-do our wills, we had lunch at Charlie Macgrooders--a favorite of ours, we're going to Gallery Walk on Friday, Tony had a physical (he's in great shape), I'm going for the volunteer orientation at the hospital, we went to WalMart to check out dog stuff  and we're counting down the days until we get Dixie.  

 

I enjoyed hearing about Tony's visit with the kids and was pleased that Ellie remembered him and that Zach is getting big enough now to play with Papa too.  I wish I could have been there.  Tony saw Chris, Shannon and Emma while he was in Cleveland and had a nice dinner with them.  Emma is as beautiful as always and getting bigger. 

 

It will be March before we go back to Cleveland and maybe June after that. 

 

We have lost our warm front and are experiencing "winter" in Wilmington.   We've gotten up to the mid-60's after starting in the 30's.  Today is super windy (translation:  no corn hole) and there is a chill in the afternoon air. 

 

Already the year is going quickly by.  It's the end of January and I just got used to it being December.  I have been here a year now. 

 

No matter what--changing weather, new wills, getting a dog, it's all good.  It's all right with the world.  Tony is home.  

 

Day Three--The Adventures of Julia Child

Day Three is shaping up to be a mirror image of Day Two--warm and windy, but today the clouds look like islands in the sky--long and wispy with points and bumps.  I did some more cleaning--how does a house with only two people living in it get so dirty?  We have  white baseboards all around the house and they get really dusty, so I spent alot of time cleaning them and our white windows and of course, job hunting.

 

Remember my first blog where I wrote about cooking?  Well, I realized that after 24 years, I'm no better at it now than I was then.  We have tons of shrimp in the freezer and one of my favorite meals is to just have cold shrimp and cocktail sauce.  Since Tony prepares the shrimp I decided that in case I wanted to have some, I would have him go over the preparations with me--good thing too, since I was going to boil the shrimp for 20 - 30 minutes--Tony said I could bounce them off the floor if I did that and to only do them for 5 minutes or until they were pink. 

 

So, what could be easier?  Boil water, insert shrimp, put them in the fridge until they are cold.

 

And so that's what I did. 

 

But, I have to talk to Tony about his directions because something went wrong--twice.

You see, I put the burner on high, waited until the water was boiling and then put in the shrimp.  Well, we have clocks in the living room, so I went back to watching TV with an eye on the clock, ready to check on the shrimp in 5 minutes.

 

Then, I heard this hissing sound.  Swell, our house doesn't usually hiss, so I wondered what I was going to have to deal with--at least it wasn't a garage door that only went a quarter of the way up. 

 

Still mindful of the shrimp and the time, I went to the laundry room--no hiss.  I checked the bedroom---no hiss.  I decided that it must be the computer, so I headed to the office--by way of the kitchen.  There I found boiling water spewing over the top of the pan, down the stove and on to the floor.  

 

I quickly moved the pan off of the burner and started to clean up the mess.  And what a mess it was.    Now I wasn't sure how long to cook the shrimp because I didn't know how long they were in the water before it boiled over.

 

I looked at them and they were "sort of" pink, so I moved them back on the burner and finished cleaning up the mess.  The paper towels I used to clean up smelled like shrimp and I didn't want them sitting in the kitchen garbage, especially after all of the cleaning I had been doing, so I decided to take out the garbage. 

Did I mention that I forgot to turn the burner off of high when I took the shrimp off of the stove? 

I came back into the house from the garage to the same hissing sound.   And, being the culinary genius that I am, I actually wondered what the noise was. 

I decided to deal with the  hiss later and  went back into the kitchen to check out the shrimp only to find that the water had boiled over--again.   Does anyone want to guess how much I wanted to eat shrimp now?

So, I took the shrimp off of the burner again but this time remembered to turn the dial to "off."

I cleaned the very same mess that I just finished cleaning and took the latest paper towel victims out to the garbage.  I came back and looked at the shrimp.   They were "pink-er."

So, one last time, I put them back on the stove and stood over them daring the water to boil over.  It didn't.

I put the shrimp in the fridge and kicked myself all the way back to the TV.  I served them up later and found that there was no cocktail sauce in the fridge.  Are you kidding me?  I went through all of that and there was no cocktail sauce?  Shrimp with no cocktail sauce, swell.

Then, a little voice that sounded strangely like Tony whispered in my ear and said, "I told you dear, look in the pantry.  You never listen to me."   And there it was. 

Tony was right, we could have used some of the shrimp for tennis balls, but some of them were good. 

For the rest of my meals, I've decided to stick to my Smart Ones TV dinners, at least they don't boil over.

Julia Child, I am not.

Day Two

Well, I see the "Day One" blog is one big word mess again.  We'll see how this one turns out.

 

It is day two of Tony being gone.  I had a terrible night last night--I couldn't sleep.  I kept reaching over to Tony's side of the bed to make sure he was OK.  I do that if he's really quiet at night--I want to make sure he's still breathing!  I never have been able to sleep well when he is gone. When Tony is gone, so is the feeling of security--even in a gated community.   I was up on the hour last night and finally turned on the TV at around 2:30 a.m.  I was wide awake at 8:15, which for me is really unusual, especially on a Saturday.  Even more amazing, I actually got up!

 

Today is another bright and beautiful day. We have dark blue skies with wispy white clouds punching holes in the blue.   It is "brisk" as my mother used to say.  Cool enough to need a sweater, but warm enough to walk all over the development and enjoy the sunshine on my face.  I have most of the windows in the house open (yes, Tony, I turned the heat down!) and the breeze is moving the smell of cleaning supplies throughout the house.  The washing machine is making it's groaning noises and I'm searching for a marathon of "America's Next Top Model" on TV.    So far, no luck.  If Tony has to be away,  I am very grateful to be in this house,  not the one in Strongsville.  I don't have to worry about the garage door sticking, the fuses tripping in the basement or getting up a driveway full of snow.  Of course, on the flip side, I can't get to very places here in North Carolina, but I'm learning. 

 

Since I've been walking a bit more,  I'm seeing more and more birds in the trees and on the lot next to us.  I'm going to put on my telephoto lens and go out and see if I can get some good pictures.  I met another dog walker while I was out.  This one has a toy Yorkie, named Shadow.  Really cute, but not Dixie cute! 

 

I talked to Tony this morning and we have similar weather. It was 52 degrees here this morning with a breeze.   Tony  was meeting someone for lunch and tonight is the Retirement dinner.  He sounded happy to be back in Cleveland with his family.

 

So, I go into Day Three with a clean house and all of the laundry will be done.  Tony will be home on Tuesday and I can't wait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day One

I'm still having blog problems. My last post came out as one big blob of words, when in reality, there were several paragraphs. Go figure. Who knows how this one will come out. Anyway, Tony left for Cleveland today around 8:30 and I miss him terribly already. I've kept myself busy with cleaning, job searching and laundry, but not having Tony answer, when I call out..."Where Are You?" is depressing. But, I must admit, I did have a good laugh this morning. I had a 10:00 appointment at the hospital where I am going to volunteer, so after Tony left, I got up to get something to eat. I looked around the kitchen and it seemed like there was food everywhere. The fridge is stocked, there are mini muffins on the counter, I have enough Smart One frozen dinners to last me for quite awhile and there are vegetables galore! Maybe Tony changed his plans and is bypassing Cleveland to go to outer Mongolia! I guess Tony wanted to make sure I didn't starve. It reminded me of the time when Tony had to go out of town for business. It was pretty well known among the children at that point that Tony was a better cook than I. I remember one meal in particular, when I made meatloaf. The kids loved meatloaf--but, when we started to slice mine, it fell apart and turned into meat crumb and the kids laughed at me. I think I forgot the eggs to hold the mess together. When Tony Jr found out that Tony was going to be out of town for a few nights, he started to sob...."Oh Daddy, please don't leave, we'll starve!" The weather has suddenly turned cold. It was only 40 degrees when I went to the hospital. But, I guess it will be colder for Tony in Cleveland. It is cold, but sunny, so I got a in short walk and checked out the new construction going on around us. So, this is only day one of Tony being gone. I've got a long way to go before he gets back. I hope he has a great time at the retirement party and seeing his friends and I sure wish I could be with him when he sees the kids. Where are you DB?

A Few Updates

It's days like today that make me realize why we moved down here. There's a cold front that has been sitting just west of us for the past week, which means we're getting warm weather. Yesterday, it got up to 76 degrees, today, it's 72 with beautiful blue skies. We played cornhole today and I felt retired. I had laundry going, I had just finished cleaning the office and walked up and got the mail earlier in the day. Both windows in my office are open and there is a nice breeze coming in. Oh, I was still on the boards, but playing cornhole in the middle of the day just seemed so retired! I ENJOYED IT!! In other news, I went back to the hospital on Monday to have my TB test checked and I am negative. I have to have one more test on Friday and I should be volunteering by Wednesday. It's going to be great to get out of the house for a bit each week. Tomorrow, I'm going to an open employment call at Red Ventures. They are hiring phone reps, but hopefully, I will be able to drop off my Call Center resume and meet some people. On Friday, Tony leaves for Cleveland to attend Dave Henderson's retirement party (on Saturday night.) He'll be seeing Chris and Shannon and, of course, the grandbabies, so he is really looking forward to the trip. We will be back in Cleveland around March 9 to have our taxes done. We're going to call Lori, our breeder, to see if we can visit Dixie before we leave. She should really be big by that point. When we come back, we'lll take her home for good. Tonight, we're going to the City Club for the Networking Event and tomorrow, I'm going to the Compass Pointe Birthday Club dinner with 33 other people. We've talked about going to the driving range this week, but with everything else going on, I think that will have to wait until Tony gets back. At least we're not sitting around listening to our arteries harden! It will be odd here with Tony in Cleveland, but it's only for a few days, so I'm sure I will find stuff to do. He is packing warm clothes to take with him and checking the Cleveland weather on a regular basis. I hope it's somewhat warm for him. His system has totally adapted to the South, which means he'll be sneezing if the temperature hits 50 degrees!! I hope you all are enjoying the New Year as we are. Stay tuned for more Dixie news.