Hello summer?!? Did we skip spring? Haha. I don't know, but it was hot today... darn hot! I'm not ready for this degree of warmth. Bring back the snow, please!

For some reason Ron and I got up fairly early this morning. Actually he got up before me by a half hour or so. I was awake when he got up, but wasn't quite ready to move out of bed. Last night I stayed up until he got home, which was after 4 a.m.! Then we chit-chatted and caught up on the day and by the time we turned the lights off for bed, it was 5:30 a.m. So yeah, I have no clue why we got up early this morning with such little sleep. I'm now dragging and should be in bed. I'll head up in a few, but Ron has fallen asleep here on the couch already. Silly boy!

We didn't do a whole heck of a lot today. We had the doggies outside for awhile and Ron had fun chasing them with the hose for awhile. It was so hot that the dogs definitely liked getting wet. I so need to get them a baby pool this year!

Ron managed to do a ton of chipping of twigs and branches. This evening we ended up heading to Sears and Ron picked up a leaf mulcher. His current shredder/chipper is awesome on sticks and dry leaves, but didn't seem to do so well with wet leaves. So the new machine we got at Sears Hardware does leaves (both wet and dry) as well as grass clippings, paper, and I forget what else. I think this will come in very handy!

We also hit A&P and picked up a few items and then came home. Ron made steaks on the grill along with corn on the cob. Mmm. Love it!

We talked with Steph and Dave for a bit and then headed in because the bugs were bad. It sucks when the bugs are already so wild at this early point in the season!

Tonight Ron and I put together the headboard for our bed. It looks so cool! BUT the stupid people forgot to pack the backing part of the headboard in the box! It's not really needed, but I'm not sure I like being able to see clear through to the wall. It doesn't look bad, but I would have preferred a backing to it. So on Monday I'll call the number included with the instructions and see if they'll send out that part. I totally forgot to call State Farm today about the company car deal. The gal promised she'd call me and I knew she wouldn't! Bye the time it popped into my head, it was too late. So there's another call I'll make on Monday!

I finally finished reading that bummer of a book that I was reading and now I've started on the one that I got from First Look Books to review. I'm not sure I like the writing style of this author so far, but I think I'm going to enjoy the book in the end... if I quit paying full attention to certain quirks in her writing. So we'll see.

Ok, it's way past bedtime. I'm heading up to enjoy my new bed and headboard. (We still have 3 drawers left to make for the bed, but we'll do that in the morning before Ron goes to work and then the bed will be 100% complete! YAY!)

Nighty night!

Well, we didn't get our new bed put together today. By the time Ron got home from work it was after 6 p.m. and his chipper/shredder had arrived. So he spent awhile putting it together and then of course he had to test it out and then test it out some more. Then he had to show it off to Dave and Steph who came over to take a look at it. It works great! It's going to be so nice to get all those twigs and branches up out of the yard. I like trees, but we have way too many in our yard and they do nothing but make a mess! Haha.

Ron originally said that we'd get the bed together after "Ghost Hunters," which will be over in about 10 minutes. However, now he's sound asleep. (so are the dogs. I wore their butts out today. hehe) I don't know if I should wake Ron up after GH is over, or let him sleep. I'm not really feeling the "let's put the bed together" vibe at the moment. I do have to say that I'm definitely not as sore today as I expected after lifting those darn boxes! I was achy this morning and then took 2 Advil and as the day went on, the pain went bye-bye. Not too shabby.

I went to the bank earlier this afternoon to deposit Ron's paycheck as well as a check I had received from doing a survey. After the bank I went through the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru and was disappointed. I ordered a "Large Iced French Vanilla Coffee" and they must have missed the "iced" part and gave me a regular coffee. They only charged for the regular and I didn't feel like sticking around so I took the coffee as it was. I had just been craving an iced coffee and with the warm weather it would have been perfect. Not that the hot coffee was bad, I just had another thought in mind.

From there I didn't feel like coming right home so I started driving around. I ended up in Warwick, NY and decided to hit the Shop-Rite near the drive-in to see if they had some nice hanging flower baskets. I have a double hook thing out in my yard and I wanted to get two hanging baskets for it. The Shop-Rite in West Milford always has them outside, but I don't like their quality. I could have gone to a garden center, but I didn't think of that as I was driving aimlessly. When I pulled into the parking lot in Warwick, I noticed that in the same strip-mall was a beauty salon. I decided it was time that I finally get a stinkin' haircut and so I went in and they were able to take care of me immediately! Somehow after cutting off tons of my hair, the gal managed to make it look like I have MORE hair than I had before! I wasn't thrilled with the way it was styled in a big poof and I quickly flattened it once I was in the car afterward. I did end up getting two hanging flower baskets at Shop-Rite. One has geraniums I think and I forget what the other one has. Anyway, one has white flowers and the other has really funky pink flowers. So they look so pretty out there.

Other than my brief trip out and about, I spent the rest of the day out in the yard with the doggies. Rogue is getting so awesome at catching things when thrown. Frisbees, balls, anything pretty much. She will RUN across the entire yard at full speed and then JUMP up to catch whatever it is being thrown. She's like an acrobat when she jumps too because she can jump, twist, turn and catch all at once. It's so fun to watch her in action. Cheyenne is just a doof and she'll watch you throw something and then she'll slowly wander over to check it out. She may or may not pick it up, but she definitely won't run for any reason. If you throw it near her, she might jump slightly in an attempt to make it look like she was trying to catch it, but she never gets near enough to actually do it. Silly goose.

Hmm.. Ron's still sleeping and GH is over. To make a bed or not to make a bed... that is the question. I would love to have a real bed to sleep on, but I'm not so sure I want to deal with all the carrying and putting together parts of the equation. Hehe.

Last night I watched three episodes of "The Young Riders" and I remember every bit why I used to love that show. It's still awesome even all these years later!

Ughhhh. I had quite a workout. I think I broked my back... ok, not quite broke, but I've overworked every muscle in my body me thinks. And no, I didn't go to a gym or anything for this. You see... about 45 minutes ago I just got back from getting gas in the Mercury and doing some grocery shopping at A&P. I picked up more stuff than we really needed and decided to carry all the bags at once as well as the 12 pack of Coke Zero. (and this isn't even the workout part of the program!) I was putting away the groceries when I heard what sounded like a truck stop out front. So I ran to the front of the house and saw the UPS truck. I knew it had to be our bed! So I grabbed my wallet because I knew the bed boxes weren't going to be light and I had made sure to get cash to tip the UPS guy. I wasn't sure if they could accept tips, but I thought I'd at least offer. (I knew ahead of time the weights of the boxes... 3 weighed 53lbs and one weighed 74lbs. or there abouts. I know three of them were in the 50s and one was in the 70s.) So I closed the front door to keep the dogs in the main hours and I went out onto the porch and then stepped outside onto the front steps. Turned out the UPS guy was a gal! I felt so bad because we don't exactly have a flat area to carry these boxes over. She had to take three or four steps up to get into the yard and then cross the yard full of rocks to get to the front steps. She carried one at a time and set them down at the end of the steps. (I had been hoping that the UPS guy would have been a muscle man and could have carried them up the steps and into the porch, but no such luck.) She said she was just going to leave them there if it wasn't a problem. She was a petite thing and I have no clue how she carried those boxes and I wasn't going to tell her to move them. So I tipped her big and she was on her way to wherever her next stop would be.

Now I had a problem. The size of the boxes completely blocked off the front steps so I couldn't get back into the house! So I did what any quick thinking person would do. Ha! I decided that *I* would get those boxes into the porch myself. This meant picking them up off the rock walkway that we have and then lifting them up 5-6 steps to get to the landing. Then turn them sideways to go up two more steps to the left to get inside the house. From there I also needed to move them out of the entryway so that I could get inside the actual house once I got the boxes inside.

Well. It took awhile, but I did it. I don't know how the hell I did it considering my back was killing me this morning when I woke up. I don't even know WHY I did it. I'm sure it's not going to rain today so they could have easily stayed out there until 9-10 tonight when Ron gets home. Haha. The only problem would have been how would I have gotten back inside! I guess I could have climbed over the boxes somehow. Yet I'm never one to take an easy way around things and so I did it. I lifted over 200lbs worth of bed and got them into the front porch. Now it's all up to Ron to get them upstairs eventually! Although I'm thinking maybe we should just keep our bed out on the front porch. Hahaha.

Yeah, I'm going to feel it in the morning. Now I feel all sweaty. It figures that the bed gets delivered on the hottest day of the week! I think we have to be at 80 degrees or darn close. Even when I was out with the dogs earlier, it was hot and sticky.

Ok, now I need to relax and let my poor muscles rest. If only the mutts would stop being idiots today. haha. I do have to say that I am impressed with myself for getting those boxes inside. Who knew I had it in me? haha. Now I want the bed put together already! It'll be too late to do it tonight when Ron gets home and his next day off isn't until Friday. Bummer. Maybe he can get out early tomorrow and get home to do it. I am so eager to sleep on a real bed!

***Edited to add:

WEEEEEEEEEEEE> I just opened my mail and I just got the Complete First Season on DVD of "The Young Riders!" I adored this show back when it was on TV and have never seen it since! I don't know why none of the cable channels have picked it up to play in repeats, but now I don't care since I got it for free from SwapADVD.com. Ok, not "free" exactly as it did take swapping out 5 of my DVDs to exchange for this since it's a 5 disc set, but I'm so excited. I neeeeeeeed to watch it immediately!

Wow... we reached 73 degrees today... give or take. Wowie was it a warm one. Yesterday was nice too, but today beat yesterday by a good 10 degrees I think. I was outside much of today with the dogs and had a t-shirt on and no jacket. A lovely, simply lovely day it was!

I didn't go to unemployment today. Every time I thought of getting in the car to go try it again, I came up with a dozen excuses not to go. Then I checked my email this afternoon and had an email from the unemployment offices telling me that they've scheduled me for a phone interview regarding the situation on the 22nd of April. I don't get it. Does that mean we can fix it all via phone instead of me having to go there? I don't know. I do know that I'm annoyed that the interview is scheduled so far away! Why not next week? Grr. So fed up with the entire system! I need to buy me a winning lottery ticket (or sell off all my NKOTB stuff. I'm very tempted to do that. haha. eBay here I come!)

Speaking of NKOTB, I am so amused by the loonies on the new message board. It's like a train wreck and I can't stop myself for playing around over there. hehe. I guess I'm just bored or something and that's why I'm so easily amused by the puny brains that are taking over that message board. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Not much else going on around here. I just enjoyed a lovely spring day. Ron has to close tonight so he was home for the morning and we cleaned up the front porch to make room for when our bed and headboard get delivered. I know they've both been shipped so they shouldn't take too long to get here I don't think. If Ron's not home when they arrive, I'll just have the guy(s) put the boxes inside the porch so that they're out of any bad weather. Then whenever Ron gets a day off, he we can put it together. I'm so excited. I can't wait for it to arrive! My luck it'll come on a day following which Ron will have no days off for a long while. hehe. Then maybe I'll be forced to try and put it together myself! Hahahaha. NOT! Yeah, that would not be a good idea. No siree bob! I want the bed to be able to stand up and not fall over the first time someone sits on it. Hehe.

Well, I think I shall get back to my book. It's been a nice day for reading. I just love being able to take a book outdoors and enjoy the weather. It wasn't even windy much so it was just a perfect day.

I forgot last night in my entry to mention the best part about yesterday! Silly me! I'm so excited about it! We're finally getting a real bed! hehe. Ever since Ron and I moved in together at the apartment a hundred years ago, all we had was the metal frame thing for the bed. When we lived in the apartment, we had the box spring and mattress and that was it. No actual bed and no headboard or anything. Heck, even our dressers were from when I was 12! I have been complaining about our bed since we moved into the house 3 years ago almost. We couldn't get the box spring upstairs and so we tossed it. Ron finagled a couple pieces of plywood under the mattress to somewhat hold it on the metal frame. It's not very sturdy and the mattress tends to dip on the ends so it's hard to stay on. Haha. Is it any wonder that I have back issues?

I think the mattress was finally getting to Ron, because last night he told me to look up some of those platform storage beds, the kind with the drawers underneath. We looked around and finally found a good deal. They also had a matching headboard for it and so we ordered that too! I'm so excited to have a real bed! Actually, in all my life I've never had a real bed. Just a mattress and box spring on a metal frame. Oh wait, when I was really little I did have a metal headboard, but that was it. Weee. Of course it'll probably take a few weeks to get here, but I'm just looking forward to maybe finally getting a good night's sleep! Unfortunately the bed and headboard are black and we really wanted some type of wood colored (maple, cherry, etc.), but the black was all they had at the price we wanted. Everything else was a lot higher in cost and we can deal with black. I can't wait until it gets here. yahoo!

Ron's working until 5 or so tonight, so that probably means 7 or 8. Ha-ha. Tomorrow night he's closing. Oh what fun.

It's beautiful outside today. Nice and warm and sunny! I thought they were calling for rain, but it hasn't been raining at all today. Yesterday was a miserable weather day. So I'm glad it's moved on.