Oh What A Week It's Been

Seriously. What. a. week. The phrase, "stick a fork in me, I'm done!" seems fairly accurate.

My last post was about the new kitty I adopted. I had been eyeing her for a month at the Humane Society kiosk inside Petsmart - every weekend I grew more fond of her. I finally convinced Boyfriend to agree and we managed to get our landlord to agree as well. We knew our other cat, Wyatt, missed having Harriet around and could use a playmate. The Humane Society had named her "Starla", but Boyfriend and I both agreed we needed something else. After a few days, Boyfriend came up with a name that I think suits her, and we both like it. "Lacey" is her new name and it's taken two weeks to come out of her shell, but she's a happy cat. Her favorite place is usually under the spare bed; if not there, then the window sill in the "cat room". She now comes out around the house, plays with Wyatt (and usually kicks hiss ass a little, too), and is showing her sweet side.

The weekend that I adopted Lacey, my Nana and Mom both came down with a horrible flu-like bug. Terrible, horrible. One you wouldn't wish upon your worst enemy. Wednesday night, it hit me. At 1:30 in the morning. Fortunately I had been forewarned regarding all that happens, so I wasn't surprised that I had to immediately jump in the shower. I figure I lost close to ten pounds in two days. While I was physically sick for one day, I didn't eat for nearly two and lost a lot of fluids. I went to work Friday morning simply to do payroll, to ensure it got done the way I do it.

The weekend I wasn't feeling well, I called in sick to my weekend job. I just didn't have the strength or stamina to stand/walk for four hours at a time. We made a quick stop at the Peddler's Fair, where I found the gal that makes the soap I love, and bought soaps. Then, we took the boat out on Lewiston Lake, and putted around. The speed limit is only 10mph on the entire lake - the lake is actually a very large river, really. When Trinity Dam releases water from Trinity Lake, it flows into the original riverbed, which was never dredged; and flows to Lewiston Dam where water will be released into the original Trinity River, which goes to Whiskeytown Lake. Yeah, I know, confusing. Basically, Lewiston Lake is barely a lake, it's more a really big river. There I started my tan. It was a nice, relaxing day.

Monday brought a busy work week as I'm trying to figure out our worker's comp insurance, retyped the Rules and Regulations, paid a bunch of bills, and began working on a updated 2014 Budget - with actual figures for the first half and better estimates for the rest of the year. Next up will be working on a budget for the beginning of 2015 and then maybe try to work out a 5 year budget. We'll need that sort of thing for future grants anyway. Plus we had a board meeting and I had to get everything ready for that. Also? We are in dire need of replacing our second river pump - most water companies have some sort of "redundant" system, so that if one pump fails, we still have another to pull water from the River (which is our back-up source in the summer). One of our pumps doesn't work. It hasn't for 15 years. Looks like it will cost a minimum of $15,000. We were hoping to get emergency funds from the State to reimburse us, but since we have some money socked away in a CD, we won't get reimbursed. It's all on us. Bleh.

Wednesday brought a headache in the form of a water pipe buried TWELVE FEET. Why someone would bury it that far down, I'm not sure. But Boyfriend tore up the pipe because he couldn't see anything from the backhoe and the hole was muddy and had water in it. The school, which is where they were digging, has had no running water since Wednesday. Boyfriend discovered that it's a copper pipe and had to order parts. Then he discovered it wasn't 2" pipe, it was 3" pipe, which evidently 3" copper pipe is practically unheard of. While the students are out of school for summer, admin staff are still there and have no water. They are livid, even though, Boyfriend is moving as fast as he can to get parts to fix it. All this to install a meter. *sigh*

We got GREAT NEWS on Wednesday, too. The grant I applied for three weeks ago - just heard back that we are among 8 companies selected to receive money!!! It still has to be approved by the Policy Review Committee, but at least we are in the running. I actually got teary when I read the email.

Thursday night, Boyfriend and I went to see the Eli Young Band in Redding. It was a good show. :)   And don't let my camera fool you, I could actually see his facial expressions, although my camera makes it look like I'm far away. lol We had pretty good seats.

In the middle of the night, Boyfriend woke me up - he was sick. He is sure his is actual food poisoning and not the weird flu-like bug that resembles food poisoning in how quick and violently it hits you. In in the middle of this, he's making phone calls to somehow get running water back to the school since now we can't get parts until Monday. If the school doesn't kill us in our sleep, we should count our lucky stars.

And now, I'm starving, so I think I will have some leftover fish tacos I made a couple nights ago. Pretty sure Boyfriend won't eat anything; food poisoning or the flu will kill whatever appetite you have. I'm hiding in the bedroom while he's sleeping in the living room. I don't want my typing to disturb him. However, dinner will. It's a catch 22. Oh well. I just hope next week is better.