For the Birds

Cody, our little blind dog is pretty amazing. He gets around so well; an outsider wouldn’t usually even be able to tell that he is blind. Lately, he has been bumping into things quite a bit more and I think I know why. Some of his longest whiskers have just naturally fallen out, and the new ones haven’t gotten very long yet. He relies on those whiskers quite a bit. I’m always careful to spare them when I give him a haircut. But it has gotten me thinking about how he will fare if we actually get our new house built. I would imagine it would be pretty tough for him, as he went blind in our current house and knows it well.

I was thinking that maybe I could start placing scent “cues” around the house now, so that he would get used to them, then transfer those cues to the new house. For instance, I could scent the area around the water bowls with vanilla, then scent around the dog door with cinnamon, or whatever. I was originally thinking of placing the scents low down, at Cody’s nose level, but after reading more about how dogs track smells, it seems that the floor would be where the scents should go. Perhaps just placing a drop or two of scented oil on the grout in the specified areas would do the trick. I’m going to look into it further, anyway. Anything to make it easier for the little guy.

I’m car blogging. We are on the Florida Turnpike right now headed home from visiting with Grandma for the day. She amazes me at how well she is able to get around still at 93. I could only hope to do so well at her age, God willing. My cousin came over and we all hung out and looked at pictures on my MacBook and took some new ones with the camera in it. Then we went out for some lunch.

My cousin, Kelly, is a total riot. She is so much fun to hang with and she brought up some of the funny old nicknames we used to call each other when we were little. I laughed so hard that my stomach hurt. I can’t believe it has been so long since I have seen her. I wish her sister, Kristen, could have been there too (Hi Kris, if you’re reading this! I’ll mail your cuccis out tomorrow!).

Here’s me and Kelly posing for the MacBook camera:

Just kidding, I am here and have been all along, I just got super busy with the holidays and school and inventing things and such. It is all good. Most of you that come here regularly see me and converse with me on Twitter or Google Talk, so it isn’t like I have been totally out of touch. Just not blogging very much. Maybe I’ll make that my New Year’s resolution, to blog more often. Hmmm.

Anyway, things are going well- I am on vacation now, from yesterday to the fifth of January, except I am sort of on call for a few days in there, but only if it gets cold. I know, that sounds totally nutty, but we have some equipment at work that has to be turned on if the temperature drops below 35 degrees, and if that happens on one of my days, I will have to go in to do it. There not much chance of that happening, especially given the temperatures here lately. So, for all intents and purposes, I am on vacation. Except I really need to do some schoolwork.

Andy I and I are just hanging at home for Christmas. He spent the last two days tearing the back porch up and reassembling it because there was some rotting wood that needed to be replaced. I mostly shopped to get out of the house and away from all the hammering noises. My mom should be driving down here tomorrow, I think, and then the next day I will go with her down to visit Grandma in south Florida. I plan to stay just overnight, then Andy will drive down to visit with Grandma too just for the day and will take me back with him. Then my mom can stay as long as she likes. Lots of cousins and aunts and uncles will be down there as well, so it should be a good time. My family always has fun when we get together.

Andy and I got a Wii and Wii Fit. It is pretty fun so far, and that is surprising coming from me, because I am not a video game player, in general. But I like that this challenges me to step away from the computer and get up off my dead ass. The balance games are definitely fun, and I got a flying game that is kinda cool; it reminds me of when I actually used to fly for real. Then I got this game called World of Goo that is neat and mentally challenging.

Anyway, that is the scoop from here. We didn’t really get each other anything much for Christmas, cause we are already spoiled. I did get Andy this funny little stuffed Ladybug that I hid in the refrigerator last night for him to find. It had a card with it telling him that the bug is to remind him how much I love him and is the start of a new game. He has to hide the bug somewhere he knows that I will find it, and then it is my turn again. I think I’m gonna sew a little bag for the bug to carry so that we can put notes or little things in it too. Maybe it is dorky, but that is okay, cause I am a dork. It is all right; I am at peace with it.

I hope you are all having Merry Christmases wherever you are!

So if you know me, you know that Andy and I have been trying to build a new house for nearly three years now. And we haven’t given up on that dream in the least, but it seems to be taking an inordinate amount of time to materialize, so we have decided we need a change.

Andy is the one who thought of it- I’ll give him all the credit. We are going to completely rearrange the house starting this week while we are off for a few days for the Thanksgiving holiday and continuing over the Christmas break.  We are going to get rid of a bunch of stuff, store more things in the attic and move Andy’s office from upstairs to downstairs with mine so we can be together more. We may rearrange some other areas as well. I have the idea I might want to redo the flooring or repaint, or who knows what. Just something different. The possibilities are endless!

I’m busy tinkering, futzing, and creating things again lately. It is a really good thing for me, but not so good for my blog posting, as I get so wrapped up in my projects that I don’t have enough time to post.

I completed a new invention prototype this week that I fabricated out of Lexan. I’m interested to see where this one might go- it has applications throughout general industry, not just the space program.

I’m getting very sleepy, so I will leave off with this photo, just taken from my MacBook’s camera: