Things That Make You Go: Hmmmmm...

Today on my way home from work, I stopped at Wendy's (I was treating myself after my first week of my new job... okay? okay).

The interaction at the drive-thru went like this:

I order the best sandwich in the fast-food-spicy-sandwich world, with a Coke, of course.

Girl at window #1: What other drink do you want? The Coke is out.
Me: The Coke is OUT? (if you ever catch me drinking a soda, it will more than likely always be a Coca-Cola Classic).
Girl at window #1: Yeah, what other drink do you want?
Me: ................................... I don't want another drink, I'd like a discount (oh yes I did!).
Girl at window #1: ...................... a discount?!
Me: yes please, I don't want any other drink besides a Coke, so I'd like a discount.
Girl at window #1: oh, the Coke just got fixed.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....

Now, why couldn't she just have said something like:
"I apologize, our Coke is out, we are replacing it, do you mind waiting, or would you like another drink?"

I don't know.

I do know that I tasted that coke before I drove off because sometimes when you get the first drink after the syrup has been changed, the coke comes out tasting funny. This one tasted fine, the Girl at window #2 had the smarts and said "I let it run before I fixed yours". I was happy.

The Fair

The other night we went to the Georgia National Fair! (which by the way I'm going to go ahead and put out there that the fairgrounds are like 15 minutes away from our house!!). We went on opening weekend, so it appears that many of the animals hadn't arrived yet - or they were somewhere we couldn't find. Yes, we did look in the big barns that said "GOATS, SWINE, SHEEP" and "CATTLE" and "HORSES". We did, however, get to see a few:

He might have been singing to the sheep...

the goats reminded us of Cali for some reason

Check out this cow's markings!!

There were rides, but we didn't get on them because we had 2 missions to accomplish. Mission #1 - scarf down as much fair food as possible. Mission #2 - not be late for Tammy Barton's hypnosis show (which was absolutely interesting and just as funny). We had to get all of that done (mainly the eating) before the storm that was rolling in hit. Which it did roll in and hit. And we did get wet. At least come storm time, we were done eating our "entrees", Pablo and Norm were eating a cinnamon roll each the size of their own face.

It is amazing to me how the food trucks (and rides too) are beautifully tacky at the fair. If you look close and take it all in these structures are beyond tacky. There is no way on earth I would eat out of these things in any other context besides the fair.

this must have been the vegetarian
 food stand

they were intensely watching
the guy with the sugar

they were watching him 

And saving the best for last... a trip to the fair is worth nothing, it's a waste of money and time UNLESS...

UNLESS IT INVOLVES FUNNEL CAKE!! 

Needless to mention we ate funnel cake. Because the polish sausages and onions, corn dogs, roasted corn, coke, and cinnamon buns the size of our faces wasn't enough food at 8:00pm.

New House, New Tricks

These dogs really do render me speechless from time to time. Today I was in the kitchen and I could hear Pellet snooping around in the guest bathroom. What did I find when went looking for him? This:

Of course it didn't take long for Cali to show up and start a party in the bathroom:

All Pellet wanted to do is relax... I guess. Regardless, he was quite happy hanging out in there. And the odd thing is that there's not even bad weather outside!

The Differences

I’m not sure to consider ourselves fortunate for having had the ability to live out in the country for almost 8 years or deprived from civilization for having spent the past almost 8 years of our lives out in the middle of nowhere.

By all means, I wouldn’t consider Byron, GA a big “city”, but it does have a whole lot more going on than Lake Oconee, GA does. Things like Target, and having the ability to not be suckered in to always shopping at Publix because it is convenient, and having options of which Mass time to attend, and cheaper gas. With this life also comes traffic and waiting in lines and (at least for us, at the moment) neighborhood living.

I went to the bank the other day and I had 2 cars in front of me at the teller (before you make the comment "you should've gone through the ATM!" I'm going to say that I had to go to the teller, couldn’t do transaction through the ATM). I must have waited in line for at least 20 minutes. Back at Lake Oconee, it was a rare occasion if I came across more than 2 cars in the whole parking lot of the bank – let alone at the teller!

As I drive around these new areas, I realize that our house is not the only one with limited backyard privacy and it’s not the only one with neighbors that chat out on the street (which drive the dogs crazy). Back at the lake, it almost felt like an invasion of privacy when people walked past our house (which sat several yards from the street) – now we feel like we are up in everyone else’s business (specially the backyard neighbors…).

I’m not sure where I’m going with this post – I guess what I’m trying to say is that every living environment is different; each living environment has its pros and cons and we should appreciate what we have at the moment. I think it will be a good thing to experience “real life” even if it’s just for a year (length of lease).

Pellet, Cali & The Move

It is crazy to think that all Pellet and Cali know (as far as living quarters) is the old house... For their whole lives, they have always eaten out of the same bowl in the same location, they have slept in the same bed in the same location, they have gone to the bathroom in the same backyard, etc. etc.

With that in mind, it is no wonder that the move can potentially affect them more than it can Norm or I.

Here is a glimpse of the car ride to the new house (please keep in mind that Cali does not handle the car very well, she's whined like this since we first brought her home when she was 5 weeks old):

When we got to the new house there was a whole lot of this going on:

After about two hours of pacing and panting, they each finally laid down:

After three days of insane behavior (Cali busting out of her cage, Pellet wanting to jump through the window, and them not wanting to go outside without me), they finally started warming up to the new house. Notice how the backyard neighbor's backdoor is clearly visible from our porch? yeah...

Surprisingly enough, Pellet has been handling the neighborhood noises quite well - relatively speaking. We are still working on "hush", but for the most part (unless he actually sees a person - like the neighbor cutting the grass) he doesn't bark, he sits and listens to normal noises such as other dogs barking, kids playing basketball...

I could probably write a post just on the "Cali and her cage" dilemma... It seems as if Cali has completely forgotten about her cage and what a wonderful little place it is. The second day we were at the house, I had to step out, so I put her in her cage and she threw a fit. This involved crying, whining, jumping, kicking. I gave her a treat and left. I came back to find her out of her cage.

The next day I tried putting her in her cage in the middle of the day (luring her in there with treats and silly comments such as "good girl!" "good cage!"). She must have lasted about 3 minutes in there before I actually saw her get out of her cage... not sure if you can notice, but if you look close enough at the picture below, you can see how the front of her cage is not straight...

The following day we decided that perhaps Cali has reached the time in her life when she can be cage-free. So we did not even attempt to put her in there at bedtime and yesterday I did not attempt to put her in there at all during the day.

Last night we were watching TV and I heard tapping around in Cali's cage. I got up to find this:

So I gave her a treat... I'm so confused.

Busting a Move

This past weekend we finally moved. 

The process involved a car in front yard and everything - notice the speaker sitting on the roof of the car. Quite classy.

At one point we had all of our furniture out in the driveway...

Who says you can't have a little bit of fun when you're busting your butt lifting heavy things in a hot, humid day?

Truck is jam packed and ready to go. But wait, Norm is fitting more stuff in the cab of the truck!

And Ed is trying to squeeze one more thing in the back of his truck

We ended up taking 4 cars down. One was Ed in his truck (below, and yes, that is the trash can... do we belong in central Georgia or what?), I had the Escape with the large, fragile things (TVs, mirrors, etc), Kerrie was driving my car (also packed to the rim) and Norm was driving the truck.

Unloading the truck was a breeze - thanks to Pam, Kerrie's mom, we had one more set of helping hands. Unfortunately I do not have a picture of the mini flash mob that took place in the driveway as we all started dancing to Katy Perry's Hot and Cold (with Just Dance moves). I'm sure all the neighbors that saw us just shook their heads at us...

Thank you again to our super helpers for spending their day off helping us move.

The kicker of this whole process is that due to my hardheadedness, we rented the 20' truck instead of the 24' truck. So what? Well, our garage back at the lake is still full of things... mainly garage things and attic things which I am pretty sure would've fit in a 24' truck.

Where were Pellet and Cali in this whole process? That's a story for another post.

YouTube Channel

I just created a YouTube account. I've been meaning to look into it for a long time (because it's easier to upload videos to the blog from YouTube than it is from the actual computer) until finally today I took a video with my phone of Pellet and Cali playing outside and it was too large to get it out of my phone via text or email. I noticed I could upload it to YouTube so I said "it's time" and now I have a YouTube channel! Go find it (let me know how you find it, because I still can't figure it out). The name is: NormAndFern.

Once I created the account, I went into technology overload. Not only can you upload videos and like videos, but you can also follow people (and their videos) and then link your videos and activities to Facebook and Twitter...

I have to take this one step at a time. Here is the main purpose of why I created my channel:

Whenever Pellet and Cali play like this, my mom says they are playing like David and Goliath. Wait until minute 1:10 and you can check out our talented little Cali doing somersaults (two in a row).