Happy belated Thanksgiving!
We went to Atlanta for Thanksgiving and, as always, we ate too much and had a great time. The weather was perfect for traveling. We went to JoAnn and Terry's (my sister and B-I-L) house to see their remodeling. Wow! Gordon, their decorator was there. It is still a work in progress but it is going to look awesome. I'm totally blown away at the color coordination and how they tied the colors together. Terry seems to be having a lot of fun with the project, but also very tired. He keeps us all updated on his web site.

We were motivated after going to their house so we came home and worked on the garage. Last week Dave painted the garage floor with epoxy paint. The color is "chowder". It looks like Terrazzo. Then we painted the walls white and the doors and cabinets a shocking pink and purple. It looks very retro 60's. I got some 60's mats for the garage too. I'll post a pic when we're done.

I got a new laptop. It's a HP Pavilion dv4000. I like it pretty well. I'm very hard on laptops since I all but hang upside down while using them. Dave and I swapped ends of the couch and I'm going to try to leave the laptop on the end table instead of in my lap. Dave said that I burn them up by leaving them on my lap and the air vents on the bottom aren't able to circulate air. Sounds right. I also got another PDA. This one is a PalmOne E2. Both the laptop and the PDA got high ratings with Consumer Reports. I always check with them before I buy anything major. Now, I guess I'm going to have to hunker down and work some major overtime in December, January and February to pay for everything.

Dave worked in the garage all day today. He cleaned the floor with acid in preparation for painting the garage floor next week. He's going to paint with Epoxy garage floor coating. Then we'll paint the walls and Dave is going to make some sort of cabinets for the garage. It's going to looke really nice when it's done. But for now everything is displaced so that makes it sort of a pain in the ass. We got a Rubbermaid shed for my garden supplies to free up some garage shelf space. Here it is:

Boo Hoo Hoo, it sucks to be me today.
I'm "at one" with my PDA. It's like an extension of my brain (AKA my brain's backup hard drive). I always synch it with my laptop just it case I lose it or it's stolen. So....if I keep it synched then what's the big deal? If I lose it, I can just buy a new one and synch the new PDA with the data stored on the laptop, right? Well, here's why it sucks to be me.... my PDA and my laptop both crashed within an hour of each other!!!! What are the odds of that happening? Common sense says that one caused the other (virus, coruption,ect) but it didn't. The laptop's demise is purely a hardware issue. The hard drive belly upped! Thank goodness for Dave. We tried to save what we could. I have to Circuit City this morning and get a new PDA and laptop and pray that I can retrieve data from my old PDA. I feel like I had a lobotomy!

On a lighter note, Dan came down last week from Pittsburgh. He looked great. Too bad he couldn't stay longer. Larry continues to improve. His biggest problem is that he's going stir crazy. He wants to go out for his walks soooo bad. He goes to Orlando on Thursday for his 1 month xray and then he'll start his rehab.

Not all sucks today, I found my glasses! I'm been looking everywhere for them..at home, in the car, and at work. I was packing my gun gear to go to the range this afternoon and they were in my gun bag. Now I can see again!

Yesterday was my dear ol' mom's 75th birthday. Happy Birthday mom! Terry sent some pictures taken at her birthday party last weekend. That's when I miss being in Atlanta.

I went to the police department today to get fingerprinted for my concealed weapons permit. I've never been fingerprinted before. The cop obviously knew what he was doing. He said he's done thousands of them before. I'm such a snob.....I'm in the police waiting room waiting to be called back and checking out the people there. I'm pretty ashamed of my feelings. I felt like I was sitting among a bunch of criminals. BUT, come to find out, they all were there to get fingerprinted too. They probably was thinking the same thing about me too. I guess the real criminals were locked up. See, it's bad to prejudge people. Bad Deb!

Dan (Dave's son) is coming to Florida today. He should be arriving later. I'm glad we have some good weather for him and his buddy.

We've been really busy this last week. I'll try to catch you up.

First, and most important, Larry is doing much better. We had to put a table behind the couch but that didn't stop him from flying over the back of the couch and love seat. Now we have strange objects all around the back of both. It looks weird in the living room, but that's ok. It's only temporary until Larry's leg is totally healed.

It's been really busy in the ER. Summer's over and we're starting to get flu and respiratory stuff. It's going to get worse once the Snow Birds arrive.

We had a new kitchen ceiling unit installed on Thursday. I like it a lot except that it's VERY bright. Dave thinks we'll get use to it, so we'll see. Here's a picture:


Saturday, I completed the NRA's gun safety course. I got a certificate and a patch. The course consisted of four classes. We met from 9-12 for four Saturdays. The first three consisted of classroom and the last class was at the gun range in Flagler. It was a great class. I really learned a lot and now feel comfortable handling guns. It's nice to have guns for personal protection (I pray that I never have to use it) and it's incredibly fun and therapeutic to target shoot. The day at the range was cool. There was one instructor for every three students. My instructor, George, is 82 and sharp as a tack. One of my new friends, Debbie Stewart, was in my group and had never shot a gun before. Her first shot was a bullseye! She was awesome. She got about 10 bullseyes (I got one). Debbie, Karen Felt (next door) and I are going to start doing chick lunches
and then go to the gun range. Here are some pictures of us at the gun range:

Me, Karen Felt, Debbie Stewart

Saturday, after gun class, Dave and I got on the motorcycle and went truck shopping. He bought a 2005 Nissan Frontier. It's a mid-size truck with an extended cab. He chose the color white, since white reflects the sun and heat. It's a pretty truck. Here's some pictures of the truck:



Then, today, we went boating with Cliff and Sandra. We rode up the Intercoastal waterway (Halifax River) to St. Augustine. It took about an hour and a half. Cliff's a good captain. He didn't get a drop of water on us and we had to go through some pretty big wakes. They have a really nice boat. We docked at the Conch House and had lunch then walked around at a festival for clam chowder. The local restaurants had booths set up and you could sample their chowder. It was packed. The boat ride was beautiful. I'm amazed at the houses that are built along the river. I feel soooo inadequate! The houses were outstanding. You have to wonder what these people do for a living. I'm sure they didn't make their money here since the wages here suck. Here are some pictures from our trip. That's Dave, ain't he handsome? That's Cliff and Sandra at the Marina.

The Conch House has an alligator pen with four baby alligators in it. I know alligators are suppose to be stupid (they have a 1 inch in diameter brain) but it made me sad to see a wild animal caged up. Here are some pictures of them:

Larry went to the vet today to have his stitches out. The incision line looks good and he's doing well. He still doen't put full weight on that leg but he's getting around like a champ.

I went to "Hot Shots" indoor gun range in Daytona Beach today and popped off 95 rounds. The guys there said I did really well, especially for using a 38 special snub nose. It was really fun. I like target shooting.