Now it’s snowing pretty good, though, and several days later we now have about 2 or 3 inches of snow. I’ll take snow over ice any day but I’m feeling like I’m just so over winter. Of course, I’m trying not to rush it, I am NOT ready for summer or heat.

I am, however, hoping I’m not getting sick. Today seems to have blessed me with a stuffier head than normal and a new cough. I need to go take my allergy medicine, could just be the fact that we’re getting precipitation.

So what else?

Elijah keeps informing me of things such as the definition of “double date” and the fact that he not only knows who Justin Bieber is, but can’t stand him. This kid is like a sponge…

Kayleigh’s been extra snotty this week. Not in the literal sense but in that she has been throwing her food more than normal lately. I don’t know if she’s just not as hungry or if she’s gotten sick of Goldfish (after I bought her a new huge carton), or what.

Here it is Saturday and I haven’t been out of the house since a brief run to the grocery store on Monday. Snowing again and we need milk and roast beef because I am completely obsessed with sliced roast beef right now and Kayleigh’s love affair with milk continues. Also need baby food as I’ve been shoving more than usual down her throat due to her throwing more food lately.

I don’t know if it’s the weather or what but I am feeling extra-like not doing anything lately. I desperately need to fold some laundry and I just can’t find it in myself. Or I start and get in only three articles of clothing before I get distracted. Also need to clean the stupid bathroom. I want a bathroom that cleans itself. And a dish washer. Yeah, a dish washer.

Anyway, since we got involved with that, suddenly the floodgates have opened and we’re getting mail from the Missouri Department of Social Services.

They’ve been sending me these little booklets called “Healthy Start, Grow Smart” and each one is for a month of a kid’s life. So there’s one subtitled “Your Newborn” then there’s one month, two months, etc. I think we’re supposed to get these for a year.

But I’m looking at them and it’s like… these things are useless to me. I’m sure someone out there somewhere has found these things to be useful, but anything I’ve seen that could remotely be helpful to me doesn’t apply because of the whole preemie thing. It’s a completely different ball game with preemies, I’ve learned. (For instance, these booklets instruct me not to add anything whatsoever to baby’s milk/formula. Guess what? I HAVE to add 2 cc’s of SimplyThick per ounce to her milk or my baby will choke and maybe die.)

Not to mention, these things are kinda goofy. For example, page 14 of the Newborn booklet is titled “What’s It Like To Be a Newborn?” Yup, capitalized Just Like That. There’s a picture of a little baby followed by a bullet-ed list, the first three items are:

– I need others to take care of me.
– I can’t decide things for myself.
– I need someone to love, feed, hold and play with me.

Um, yeah??? The rest are just as obvious. Hello, McFly?

I had to just laugh and laugh and laugh at page 7 of the three months book that was titled “Your Baby Is Sleeping Longer at Night.” Hill.air.ee.ous.

Then (and this is the best part) these things haven’t even been coming to us at the appropriate times. The other day I got one month and four months together, today I got three months, etc.

I guess I’m a little bit cranky, but there’s our tax dollars at work, folks. I guess it’s the pure waste that gets to me. They should have this on an opt in basis. Ask me, do I think I need this? Then I could tell you, no, I’m not a first time mother, everything is different with preemies, I have other books that doctors and hospitals have loaded me up with (and have recently given away 90% of them), etc. But the genius government we have that is already so much in debt is continuing to be wasteful.

Fail.

(No, actually I have nothing else to say and I’m tired of hearing the crickets chirping around here.)

Let’s see, anything new? Probably not.

Um, last week I had bean sprouts on a sandwich. Can you believe it? Me? Yeah I never thought I’d see that day either. They were too hard to pull off though, mixed with lettuce, so I ate it anyway and it wasn’t half bad. Might as well have been eating grass, but it wasn’t too bad. However, today, I traded the bean sprouts for roast beef. Yum.

Had to have more tests the end of last week. It’s gross, I know, but had to do this 24 hour urine test then get my blood drawn. I think the tests have something to do with my blood pressure or kidneys. Yesterday, we all rejoiced over the fact that my blood pressure was better than my grandpa’s… but only by a little, lol. But learning a bit more about it from his girlfriend (who took my pressure), I know I am going to double my efforts of keeping it down now and hopefully not having it be very high once mid-spring or so rolls in.

And, yes, as I mentioned before, we’re having a girl. At least the ultrasound lady says she’s positive. My mom’s been the only one to question it. She says they told her my littlest brother was a girl but, of course, they turned out to be wrong. All I can say is I hope ultrasounds have come along at least somewhat in the last 20 years!
I’ve never seen so many people expressing excitement, though. People are yelling my name across the church lobby then hugging me and saying, “a girl, I’m so excited!” heehee Today our music guy told me that I needed a girl after all of Elijah’s boy energy to which I had to respond, “Oh, by the way, that’s what they said we’re having.” lol I forget who all already knows.

And, yes, she has a name already. Yes, the same name I decided on before Elijah was born. No, I’m not changing it. Yes, I’m spelling it my way, but not the way I really wanted because that way would only confuse people. Yup, still naming after ancestors! And I’m happy I can finally put to use GIRL digiscrapping kits… not that I’ve been scrapping much but that should change when I start getting some more photos and being able to do things outside more.

One thing I find at least slightly strange is that people are already asking us if we will have more kids or if this is it. Maybe they ask that because everyone assumed Elijah was our first and last. He is going on 6 years after all. But either way the answer is I don’t know. I don’t really feel it’s MY decision in the first place and we’ll probably continue to neither try to nor try to stop but, dang, I’m wondering if my body could handle this again. I really feel fine but tired most days but I just feel like I’m going through a big fight for this kid, a real big ordeal.

Elijah got to take Valentines with candy to church today which was fun for all the kids (not so much for me, the one who had to prepare it all). But now he won’t stop saying, “Happy Valentine’s Day, Mommy!” He doesn’t believe me that VDay isn’t for another 6 days. However, since we changed the candy we were going to send due to finding out one boy in his class is allergic to peanuts, I now have lots of chocolate to snack on. I am not allergic to peanuts (hallelujah).

I’ve been practicing with the flash and 50mm lens where I can. I think that this week I’ll get to go see the church where my sister-in-law is getting married so I can get a feel for how the flash and lens and what not are going to take it all on. I’ve also recently printed her wedding invitations and they look GREAT. Seriously, you can’t tell they’re “amateur printed.” Also did her reply cards and the reply card envelopes, need to do the main envelopes very soon, once I get all the addresses organized.

Steve is not working all this week. I’m sure I will be insane by the end of the week. We’re hoping he can go back to work after that. Basically, his job is caught up and they are now waiting on other trades to finish their junk so the electricians can get on with theirs. But in the meantime, there is nowhere for these guys to go so they are forced into taking the week off. What’s the difference, though? He was already down to 3 days a week. He’s hopeful that if they can get through March, things will pick up again. It’s always slower in the winter for construction trades, and, as everyone knows, this year is the worst in recent memory. We are hoping he doesn’t get officially laid off to the point where he has to sign the books at the hall. If that happens… he says he’ll probably never get work this year as he’d be over #420 to have to sign. So that means over 420 guys get work before he does. I know everything will be ok though. Might have some hard times and will probably have to change the way we do things but it will all work out.

I’m hungry. But what else is new?

At least yesterday was humorous though. I went for my second doctor’s appointment and took Elijah and Sarah back with me since I knew they wouldn’t be doing anything “personal” to me. As the nurse is taking my blood pressure, she says to Elijah, “so are you ready for Santa Claus?”

Elijah said, “Yeah, well, my mom says he’s not real.”

The nurse about died laughing and my blood pressure was probably high because I was trying not to laugh, too. She didn’t think his comment was strange, though, she said she never believed in Santa growing up, either. What’s funny is that I don’t know that I’ve used that exact phrase with Elijah in the first place. It’s funny how he puts things together himself.

After that, we went for a late lunch at Taco Bell. As we walked in, we spotted a woman from church who’s a nursery worker and her son who is Elijah’s age. So immediately, he’s pulling up a chair to the table they’re at with three other adults I didn’t know. And then he’s talking to everyone, quite loudly at that.

Someone asked him if he likes school. He looked right at me, from across the restaurant (where I was getting our drinks) before he answered! He always tells people he likes school, though, even if he usually fights me when I say it’s time to sit down for it. I didn’t hear his answer this time, though!

Then someone else asked him if he was ready for Christmas and he said, “Yeah!! It’s in six days!!” And the man at the table started nodding and cracked up because Christmas was, indeed, in six days. That’s another thing, I think the last time I gave him an ETA on Christmas was when we had nine days to go which means he’s been counting down himself in his head.

As they were all leaving, Elijah finally came to our table which was nearby. Then he yelled across the restaurant at his friend: “Hey, D, do you have a sister?!”

The kid kind of shakes his head and Elijah goes, “Mine’s in Mommy’s tummy!”

To which the kid’s mom says, “OH! Are you having a girl!??!” I said back that no, we don’t know yet (I’m 13 weeks), “but he’s insistent!”

And, of course, Elijah just keeps sitting there, insisting that he is getting a sister. A man sitting by himself now at the table E’s friend had been at started laughing and said that Elijah is “too cute.” Of course, then Elijah continued to entertain everyone in the restaurant until I gave him the toy from his kid’s meal which was a lame piece of plastic, a dinosaur body which you then put in these paper pieces for the head, tail, and legs. (I mean, what the heck!?) Then? He immediately shut up and sat down for a few minutes.

Crazy.

Thursday wasn’t as humorous. Elijah and I went down to see my sister-in-law who lives an hour south and not only did he start just eating all her fiance’s snacks while I was setting up her internet and router for her, but when we went shopping later, he turned into a butt. When we went to the mall he decided that he HAD to have a mall stroller. Now, I don’t get what the deal is. If we go to Walmart or Kmart, or the grocery store or whatever, he throws a fit when I put him in the cart, he wants to walk. But if we go to the mall, he insists on a stroller. I didn’t have our stroller, Steve took it out of the Jeep and it never made its way back in.

So when we reach the mall we went to where they have the strollers but as we approached, these three men took the last one. Elijah had a meltdown right then and there. Crying and screaming. My sister-in-law is kinda dragging him along (of course he wanted her and not me) and we kept telling him we weren’t going to be there long anyway and it’s a small mall but he just kept freaking out. So I headed to the bookstore on our way out to get a book for my grandpa and as we entered there Elijah spotted a stroller that appeared to be abandoned.

We didn’t want to take it in case someone was coming back for it and we were leaving after this anyway, so we just went on into the store. And Elijah had another complete meltdown. We did everything we could to shut him up but he kept throwing a fit. Even talks of being a big boy didn’t help. I mean sheesh, the kid is 5. Dang. Finally he started to calm down enough so I could think somewhat straight. My sister-in-law spotted a book that had a title that was along the lines of what I was looking for so I pretty much just grabbed it and bought it, spending more than twice what I’d hoped to spend on the book, of course.

I then dropped her off at her apartment and E freaked out again because we couldn’t go inside but she was preparing to leave again immediately for her soon-to-be in-laws’ house.

What was stupid though, was that he became an immediately different kid when I drove through the nearby park where they have little displays for Christmas with lights and stuff. Suddenly he was happy again. Oh. My. Gosh.

Last night though, was just weird. We went to the big display of lights and things at Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, IL and had a good time driving through the display then we went back and stopped at the petting zoo on the promise that Elijah would not throw a fit about riding the camel because I’d already told him I didn’t want to spend the money on it this year. But then he wanted to ride the Trolley so we did and it dropped us off at the visitor’s center where we looked at the Christmas tree display then went through the little area of stuff for sale. I purchased two pairs of earrings (a treat for myself now that I’m done Christmas shopping!) and Elijah said we should go back and ride the trolley. I thought he just wanted to ride it again but when we sat down to wait and I touched him (he’d been clinging to Sarah the whole time) I found that he was burning up with a fever. I think the fever is probably from his getting four vaccinations on Tuesday as he had no other symptoms and stuff but still, he was Hot.

Finally the trolley arrived again and we got on but this time had to go through the whole lights display again because it all goes in a certain direction and you gotta loop back around to the petting zoo area which is right near the beginning. It seemed like it took forever! And the three of us had to squeeze into one seat so he was on Sarah’s lap and he actually fell asleep. Finally we got back to the Jeep and he did not protest about leaving the trolley. I had something like 15 miles or so to get back to Missouri and then I located a Walgreen’s and got him some children’s Tylenol. Half an hour later? He’s back to his old self and complaining that we’re just gonna drop Sarah off at her house and not stay a while.

And as if this post isn’t long enough, this morning was even interesting.

I spent all morning finishing up the Christmas cards which I’ve been working on for days now and getting some other things ready to mail. We took those out to the boxes and then went for a late breakfast at Huddle House. Of course, Elijah wasn’t eating much of the food he insisted he was SO HUNGRY for. I was encouraging him to eat some more. I told him one more bite of his fried egg and he took it but was being a little butt and instead of chewing it up he started gagging himself with it. Next thing I know, he’s coughing and I realize he’s got more food in his mouth than just that bite. Apparently eating means saving a lot of the food in your cheek area and not swallowing everything. Why he does that I don’t know. So suddenly he’s puking up more than that bite and what’s in his mouth and it’s coming up full force. Talk about lovely.

Of course I felt really bad even though it wasn’t my fault and I’m sure our waitress thought it was my fault because I know she heard me trying to get him to eat some more. But what I am impressed with, however, is the fact that I didn’t start throwing up, too!

Oy. Interesting times these are.

– Elijah’s chin seems to be healing quite nicely. Poor thing though, having band-aids so much on it has made his skin very dry. I’ve tried moisturizing but it hasn’t helped yet so I’m trying to keep from putting band-aids on. As long as that scab holds, we’ll be good.

– We started, or rather, Steve started up the wood stove for the first time tonight. Ah, warmth. And fairly cheap, too. Too bad it’s all such a pain in the butt!

– I ate 3/4 of a box of Mike & Ike tonight (Elijah ate the other 1/4). Thank you, Sarah, for reminding the pregnant lady that those things exist! And thank goodness for fat free Mike & Ike!

– Oh, crap. Now I’m craving fried chicken for the second time in 3 days.

– I’ve done a little scrapbooking here lately:

Cute, aye? ;-)

— We put up the Christmas tree the other night. Or rather, I put the thing together and arranged the branches and put the lights on, then Elijah hit it with the ornaments. Most of the ornaments got put on the “front” of the tree (in the photo) and very few are on the “back.” He likes to group them together. He’s quite proud of the tree, though, so as long as it doesn’t fall over, who cares!?

– I did realize though, as I do every year, that our little collection of Dr. Suess’ Cat in the Hat ornaments are not complete. These things were sold by Burger King several years ago and I was able to get all but one, the fish. They’re silver plated or something, and of a good size, I love them. I wonder if I can find the fish on Ebay or something? Hmmm… Well that was easy, found several and not overly expensive, bought & paid for!

– I’ve been thinking a lot about my sister-in-law’s wedding in April that I am the photographer for. I’ve only officially done two weddings before, as you know, including the one in August. The previous one was several years ago when I was shooting film. So this will be my first indoor wedding with this dSLR. SO, I’ve already decided I need to get the SB-600, after research I don’t think that the increase in cost is worth it for the SB-800. But, I do think I will get this Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF Lens. Happy, too, to find that buying both of those at amazon will save me $60 over the prices at where I bought my camera (which at the time was cheaper than amazon, heh).

– Um, that’s it for now!

Pretty much the rest of Friday for me was spent at the house with some of the others while Steve went out bow hunting (since rifle season doesn’t officially start until Saturday morning). We in the house saw three deer come right into the back and then front yard, a little doe, a spike buck with one spike, and a small six pointer. After Steve returned, we ran out and got our rifle tags at the local Walmart. I swear that’s the last Walmart in the country that’s not open 24/7. Then it was back to the house where everyone sat around jabbering on into the night, telling stories and jokes. J, man, he’s knock down drag out hilarious. It’s not necessarily that his stories are funny but the way he tells them is great. For one, imagine a southerner making fun of someone with a northern accent. Yeah, I about peed my pants. :P

So it was off to bed later than I’d wanted. And then, I realize: horror of horrors, I’d forgotten my earplugs so I lay awake listening to Steve snore. It was pure torture. At midnight thirty, I got my butt out of bed and headed to the couch where it was QUIIIIIIIIIIIIET. Luxurious. I snoozed until one of the guys came upstairs about 4:20am. By then all was lost.

So I’m dressed in my under layer of hunting clothes and Steve won’t get up out of bed and I’m getting ticked because if I didn’t get any sleep, why should he? LOL. But when I mentioned that Grandpa had threatened to wake him up with The Chicken, he literally jumped out of bed.

Fully dressed, I felt like the Michelin man, and probably looked like him, too. Besides me skivvies, I got a pair of sweat pants capris, a huge pair of men’s jeans over that, my t-shirt, a camo long sleeved shirt, heavy camo shirt, orange vest, orange hat, big mitten gloves, Steve’s long socks, and these big heavy boots. I hate those boots, they’re so heavy, they’re hard to walk in and I guess the arches are off or something because after a while they hurt something fierce.

We head out about 5:30 when all is said and done, it’s still dark out and it takes us about a half an hour to get to the tree stand. We drive up to the barn (not a far distance, though longer by road, but it was easier to walk from there than to cross several barbed wire fences from the house), leave the Jeep and start walking West. We have to go through one gate and walk walk walk, then through the next gate and now we’re in the field that the cows are in.

It’s at this point that I decide I’m afraid of cows.

Cows is stoooopid and they think “O HAI HOOMAN, YOU CAN HAZ FOODS???? GIMME GIMME GIMME!!!” And as we get about halfway through that field, they literally start surrounding us. Steve is talking to them because he’s saying they don’t know what they are and that talking to them lets them know we’re human and not there to harm them. Whatever, they wanted food, I know it. Because of my big boots I’m falling behind and I start to freak out, I’m like, “Get! Get!” Steve says, “stop it, don’t raise your voice!” Well, uh, then get these things away from me! I’m really no stranger to cows, we had one once when I was growing up. But it was also then that I saw how cows might react to people they don’t know (that particular cow, when my friend and I were going to walk the trails that were around the field and we entered the field, started going nutso, bucking and running around and jumping, it was really freaky). And cows is big, even the little ones are big. So it was pretty unnerving to have them surrounding me. Steve came back and saved me though, and we crossed through the next gate. The cows then gathered RIGHT up against the gate and fence there and literally stared at us until they couldn’t see us anymore. One of them was mad/angry/sad/happy/ticked/lonely/fillintheblank and kept doing this weird mooing all friggin morning long. I showed great restraint by not shooting her.

So then it’s descend down the hill, around the next pond, up the hill, up up up, down down, up up up, then to the tree stand. And THEN I have to climb my fat butt up that ladder to 15 feet off the ground through this little hole and sit my still fat butt on a hunting cushion on a –

omg, Steve just did a deer call in his sleep. I’m dying.

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yeah, so then on a hunting cushion on an upside down bucket. Hold my gun. My camera case is nearby. In my pockets I’ve got kleenex (which I’d also forgotten and had to buy at Walmart), stuff to suck on, lip stuff, and my cell phone. But a lot of good any of it does me because if I even move at all or have a cough or a sniffle, Steve’s like “STOP IT!!” And I’m hissing “you knew I was sick when you brought me out here!”

We saw two deer right away, but not soon enough.

So now we wait for hours.

Did I mention it was cold? And WINDY. Seriously windy. Like, hurricane windy. And when that tree shakes, talk about scary! The sun came out at one point and I started to actually feel a bit comfortable, but then suddenly, it got very dark, the wind hit again, and it started raining. Great, so now my so sweet camera bag is getting wet. And I’m cold again! Do I have any toes left?

Finally, I hint enough that I’m done. This is stupid. We’re not seeing anything and I think I’ve lost my ears to the cold, despite having traded out my cap for a sock hat earlier. It was 9 before we got to start heading back. But, alas, and woe is me, after all that work getting back down out of the stand, Steve wants to walk around a bit. He drops some of the stuff and we start around this group of trees with our guns. I’m following and I had this strong urge to go

SHHHHH I’m hunting WABBITS!

But I knew if I did, that would be the end of my life so I stayed quiet. We saw two deer again, it was one of those things where they popped up and stared at Steve and he at them for a split second, each of the three like OMG!!!!11!111 then they bolted.

We turned back and headed the way we’d come but once we were out in that field, Steve decided he wanted to follow the tree line. No way, I say, and I pick up the bucket he’d been sitting on (filled with supplies, has a seat on top) and start back to the next gate. I’m not crossing that gate though, of course, not to face the cows alone! No sooner has he walked off when it started to rain again… oh, nope, never mind, that’s not rain… it’s sleet. Twice I ended up sitting down on that bucket in the sleet before he finally met me at the gate.

Frozen solid, we return to the house and eat something and, in better clothes, I make my place on one of the couches in front of Grandpa’s big screen TV. I pretty much stayed there the rest of the day, haha, I was wiped out! The other hunters returned for food, I snoozed, and they all headed out after re-warming again, all were out by 2pm. Even my grandpa’s girlfriend went out, a 12-year-old they know who’s a really sweet boy, really wanted to take her out (he just adores her). So it was just me and Grandpa and we finished the movie that the rest had all been watching with us, John Wayne’s last movie (The Shootist) on AMC and then followed that up with Shenandoah which I’d never seen before but was really good.

We broke that up about halfway through, though, to take my cell phone to its charger in the Jeep because my phone is stooooopid and a quick run to one of his rental houses to check on something and back to the house before the hunters returned, again unsuccessful. I am convinced it was the horrid wind. It was swirling, not just blowing, in every direction and it was cold. If I was a deer I wouldn’t be up walking around in all that!

No, instead of who got the biggest deer, it was who had seen the most squirrels?

The rest of the evening was spent with music, dancing, checkers, and pool. It was fun but it ended fairly early, everyone was so tired.

I had obtained earplugs so I slept a lot better that night until 5am when we were woken by The Chicken. I about had a heart attack and Steve started laughing and telling me to chill out.

But seriously. I hate The Chicken. Here’s The Chicken:

How would YOU like to be woken up to that at 5am on a Sunday!!?!!?

That video is over a year old, by the way, Grandpa’s had that stupid thing forever.

But thankfully, I was able to go back to sleep after that for another glorious four hours. If it hadn’t been for the sun coming in the window behind my head I might have slept longer! I got up and showered and dressed though, and headed out and was surprised to see two people at the table that I had never seen before. And of course, no one bothers to introduce us either and at one point the guy, who could be my age or even younger asks me who my mom is. I tell him and he knows who I’m talking about. It’s like uhhhh. That’s how it is at Grandpa’s farm though.

Thankfully Steve returned soon and decided the two of us would head to town for, as he put it, a “heart attack breakfast.” Since Grandpa’s only at the farm about 4 days out of the week, there’s hardly any food there, so this is not an unusual occurrence. We headed to town and had an amazing breakfast that kept us both going until well into the evening. Ha. After returning, we spent some more time on the couch until it was time to get ready to go. We were all packed up and dressed, again, in hunting clothes. The other guys either went home or headed out to hunt and Grandpa and his girlfriend headed back north for the days he’s not at the farm and she returns to her life and house etc. We headed to hunt.

Steve dropped me just past the fishing pond on his bucket with the seat on the lid, looking out in the field he’d been bow hunting. Of course, every time he was bow hunting, he saw lots of stuff but never shot anything and the whole time I was there, what did I see? A chipmunk. Some blue jays.

He went to his stand and left me until it got dark.

I sat there. And sat there. And sat there. Stood a bit. Sat there.

The chipmunk returned. Slowly I got my camera out and had the lens cap off and kept watching the chipmunk. I turned slightly, ever so slowly (the seat can spin all the way around). Apparently that’s when the chipmunk noticed my presence and I scared the patooty out of him so he stood right where he was and chirped at me. And chirped. And chirped. The bloody thing wouldn’t shut up! So I finally moved a bit more, and scared him off. He didn’t try to return for an hour or so. He was mad I was in his territory, I guess. That pine tree, you know, all his.

Right at about 5pm I realized it was getting dark fast and if I was gonna get over that barbed wire fence to get back to the Jeep (at the house) the easy way, I’d better get moving. This barbed wire fence was missing the top strand so it’s the only one I could ever think of getting over, especially alone. And at that, I barely made it. But I did, and I carried the bucket again, this time with my camera case in it. (Earlier my camera case had gotten wet and those stupid jeans had bled a bluish green color on my nice yellow bag and I’d had to wash it all out with Shout and stuff.) So that and the gun and I walked across the little dam and back up to the first gate to the pond area.

Then I saw a shape and stopped and raised the gun to look through the scope. There was the little doe from the other night, staring right at me. She was about 100 yards away. I could have made the shot if I’d wanted, but I already knew I wouldn’t take one that small. Plus, she was technically in the back yard, having gone over the fence even though we’d closed the first gate and the rules are no shooting in the back yard. Well, technically I’d have been shooting into the back yard, not from it, and no one was there and the bullet could NEVER go anywhere near the house, more parallel to it, but you know, I’d have had to lie about where I shot her. :) I stared at her some more and raised the gun again and she was still looking at me. When I took two steps forward, she took off. She didn’t go far, but I’m so blind I couldn’t see that until I walked again and she took off again. Yeah, my vision was getting really bad. After that, I didn’t see her again and I didn’t see the other two deer she’d been with on Friday.

Steve took forever but finally made it back to the Jeep and, haha, I was so uncomfortable, and there was no one around that I changed into my normal clothes right there. Could have waited and gone up to the barn I guess, but it was so nice to get those boots and man pants off. :P

The ride to my parents’ house was long and tedious, especially before we got food. My mom had picked Elijah up from my mother-in-law Saturday night so we had to get him there. Not to mention that thanks to that stupid bucket thing, my butt hurt for the next 12 hours. It was seriously uncomfortable.

And there you have it, another pointless, long winded post from me. Can you tell I’ve had nothing to do tonight? :)

Oh, and I hate this commercial.

The end!