Ughhhhhh yes, ugh taxes. AND apparently I owe this year? So.. that's great. Wonderful. Fantastic. TERRIFIC.

... this is fine.

Also, speaking of this is fine.. with a high of 11f today, my children LEFT THE BACK DOOR OPEN when they left for school at 9am.. and so it was open a good 6 inches until I got home at quarter after 2. Like.. are you kidding me.

Ugh finances have literally got me sick to my stomach.

AND yes, I can also go for a nap.

Oh no Mieke - kids are in TROUBLE!! :o

Ugh for owing taxes. I am scared I will. No idea what I will do, if I do. Figure it out somehow I guess. sigh

Nathan's off to work tonight, his last "extra" day of work. Then back to the regularly scheduled 3 day weekend work.

I took pictures today, so hopefully I can upload that into my lesson plan, and create my assessment form, and upload THAT into my lesson plan. And then its just to teach it, record it, and fill out the assessment and reflection. I've got two more weeks before its due and plan to teach it the week its due. Its a valentines day activity, so yea, week of valentines :P It'll be ok. I can record assessment data and do a reflection in one or two days.

I'm feeling better AT THE MOMENT. But who knows how I will feel later tonight or tomorrow. Still sneezing, coughing, and all congestion/stuffy/runny nose. Ugh. No fevers, not too bad on aches and pains, no sore throat or major headache anymore. So those being gone are good.

On Monday our high school student intern starts with the class, so that will be fun too. It is NOT my teachers daughter, she got put with the PE teacher. Hopefully in the next week or two we can figure out what SHE needs to do for HER class, so we can work that into what I need to do for MY class :P Since I have to "solo teach" during 5 weeks of her being with us! LOL

I don't normally nap. Only when I'm sick. And I tried yesterday and just could NOT get comfy, so no nap. I don't think I'd be able to nap today either, I am not feeling it. I am tired yes, but not napping tired.

Belle Tiger, better known as Mama Cat

[edit] 6pm Its really very weird to be able to post after myself on kumos. Anyway. I was just updating....I turned in two assignments. Both were previously already done, but were not due until this upcoming Sunday, so I turned them in today. I also uploaded a picture to my lesson plan and created and inserted the assessment, and I decided I want to get 2 more pictures tomorrow for that too. So eh. Thats me for you.

Welcome to the site ! I hope you enjoy it so far :D These two were some of the most welcoming people when I just popped onto their thread as a newbie :D They've been helpful in getting me event currencies :D I see you like beanbags-are you working into the event shop ones? I have some currency for Masquerade and New Year's events that I can help at least a little :D And I may have some beanbags if I look in my vault that are extra. Same goes for plushies if you get into those!

Kat-Tiger reminds me of my Autumn in the face for sure! And Belle looks so sweet <3 Yeah I understand a lot of illnesses are going around-here there has been a flu breakout. I hope you get some good rest and medicate so you can recover from symptoms! Wow solo teach-that sounds intense, but I know you can do it :D You already have the plan made up.

Mieke-Yikes! Anything could've happened! I am glad you're OK. I understand worrying over finances-it sounds like you have some to take care of with the church too? And small world that we are fairly close :D Yep, Vestal is very close. I actually picked up a library book there today! It's been a while since I actually got a library book, and maybe the first or second time since I got my library card again last year. I hope you stay warm, because I know you're just as cold there!

Mieke and Kat-I hope taxes work out for both of you!

I mean, no one would have come in LOL. We never lock the doors anyway, unless we're home (maybe I shouldn't admit that online?). But I was slightly worried there would be like.. a possum or something in the house!

Oh my goodness, I love the library.. but I mostly do libby now (which stinks, because it costs the library more per book for sure, since.. once you own the book, you own it, but for libby, they have to buy it again once every few reads, depending on which one it is.). But ever since I stopped reading real books, my wrists haven't bothered me anywhere nearly as often.. maybe once every few months now, as opposed to.. nearly always before. :/

Kat, you've totally got this! (Always!). I'm glad it's not your teachers daughter though, that may just be a little weird haha.

Thank you for the welcome, whatevermaycome! So kind of you also, currently I have managed to get the New Years beanbags (I enjoy the quests!), I don't know about Masquerade yet - I imagine that's an event to come? And I do think once the beanbag collection slows down to the point where I cannot easily obtain more (or I got all the ones that restock in the normal store) I might focus on plushies. It is just a bit intimidating how many plushies there are! And I'm also trying to fill up my wardrobe, I heard there's an achievement for that so I get to hoard digital clothing, which tickles me as well haha.

Mieke my main worry was the COLD, brrr! Can't have been great energy-wise to leave that door open. And I love reading but I barely make it to the library and I honestly struggle making time for reading. I am currently reading "Overstory", which is a fictional book about American trees, but I've not touched that either in weeks! Really need to get back on that.

Kat thank you for the pictures! Belle is so sweet, wagging her tail so hard it disappears, and Tiger seems so cozy. I love her face markings!

Beth - solo-teaching just means I am supposed to plan everything and actually do the teaching. I won't be alone in the room. So for those 5 weeks really, its just me and her swapping places. I teach all the things she normally does, and she does the things I normally do during the day teaching wise. Plus me doing the planning all the stuff. I've got one week done, and about half of the next two weeks after that done (on our google doc lesson plans) I pretty much solo teach every time she is absent LOL (which isn't often but at least has given me experience in doing all the things she normally does, because a sub COULD do it, but its faster and easier for ME to do it because I've seen it done so many times over the years)

Mieke - I was more about the cold inside the house too, I know you keep it colder in there, but still!! Let all the cold in, and the heat out! NO WAY!! They'd be in so much trouble. But yeah, animals getting in would be a worry too!! I never lock the doors when I am home, except at night. When I leave for work, and Nathans asleep, I lock it, but if he's awake, I don't....The back door is NEVER locked since the dog pen is in front of it and almost impossible to move - but that night I got all freaked out because of Belle ? I locked it hahahaha

Strawberryred (do you have a name you'd like to have us call you? or we can stick with your user name lol) - plushies were what drew me onto this site from Neo years ago - it was so simple and easy to get on the highscores list (back then) and stay on it - and even now, you can get MOST of them pretty quickly and easily!!

I had to give Belle a treat to make her be still for the camera hahah she kept trying to walk up to me since I was out there with her. She's Nathans dog really, got her for his birthday when he was 8. So she is like almost 12 years old! Mama is 14 I think? She wandered up here as a kitten, not sure exactly how old and had babies before we had her for a full year - (thats why she's mama) - we kept 1 of the 5, but he disappeared (probably got killed by wild dogs) last year :(

I feel a LOT better this morning. Fell asleep before 9pm, woke up once to take meds around 11 and again around 3 because Belle wanted out (we normally put her outside around 10 so she DOESN'T want out in the middle of the night) - she's been wanting out early a lot but I think its because she's hot in the house, she'll go lay on the ground outside for a couple hours before wanting back in....and then got up about 545. Not going to have much time to do quests again this morning - I did NOT do any yesterday morning, did kumos when I got home and only got down the list to Cinthia before giving up last night, I couldn't focus on the computer much. Going to go do kumos right now and hopefully get them done [edit] Got kumos done just in time! I leave in 5 minutes lol Good thing I don't have to pack my lunch or anything else today. Just finish taking some cold meds, find my jacket, get my purse and bring Belle back inside before I go. I did not have to quit any quests, tho I did lose some sP on some individual quests, but thankfully there were no outrageous item amounts!

[edit] 345pm sigh more things to bite me in the butt. Guess I forgot to tell Ryan Katie picked a wedding date. To be fair, why didn't SHE tell him? Why am I always the go-between? Why, when I AM the go-between, does he tell me he wants to hear things from HER and not me, and then get mad at me when I don't tell him? I can't freaking win for losing with this. However I swear I DID tell him about her picking a date. Guess I did not. Maybe I just meant to. Maybe I was giving HER time to tell him? Whatever. I'm annoyed by the whole shebang anyway. Their relationship. any of his relationships with the kids. This whole not talking to each other crap. me being in the middle and no one wanting me in the middle but KEEPING me in the middle.

Ughhhh Kat I'm so glad you divorced that man.

And yes, I was worried about the cold, too LOL. Quite panicked, actually >.< But. Whatever. It's fine. It's all fine. It'll all be fine.

I can't keep panicking about everything.. or anything? I'm going to get an ulcer haha.

Oh gosh I LOVE reading, I do it all the time. Much easier since my books are on my phone at all times, too, so I can read while I'm waiting in line or something!

Its hard not to panic at everything sometimes. :/ I feel ya.

And now I get to panic at the water....and did I hurt myself and Nathan and the dog already? Because I JUST found out there was a fuel spill and the county ordered a "do not consume tap water" announcement at like 530, and I cooked dinner at 6 - boiled water for rice, made tea, filled up Belle's bowl.... It SHOULD be fine, since mostly likely what I used shouldn't have been contaminated quite yet - but yeah. Ugh. Nathan came home and told me about it, said people were buying water like crazy since its expected to not use tap water for several days at least - good thing I have like 2 more 40pk bottled waters from Sams club in the spare room....plus half of one in the kitchen and more in the fridge. Just got to remember to USE them instead of the tap.

Can't do anything about the food since we already ate, but am debating dumping the tea?? But how am I supposed to clean my pots to make more tea????

I read all the time too. On my kindle (10" tablet really with kindle app). Not my phone. Too small. I prefer real books, but have read everything I own so often that as soon as I start re-reading I know the whole book. And I've outread the entire library plus all the lending books I was interested in and nothing new has come out - so I read smutty romance books on kindle. And sometimes fantasy. Whatever catches my attention. Lately its smutty romance hockey books. No idea why. I never watched hockey. Don't like hockey. But yea. I like the smutty romance hockey books LOL

Oh no Kat!

Though you're probably right, whatever you made tonight was already like.. in your house really probably.

Did you refill Belles bowl? And yeah, I'd definitely forget not to use the tap.. I'd have to tape it off or something haha.

Hmmm.. that really is a conundrum!

Yeah, I did. Also, not supposed to brush our teeth either unless we use bottled water. Such fun! I'm just really not sure if we should wash dishes, or take showers either? It didn't say anything about that - just "do not consume" - do not drink or use to cook or brush your teeth with it. They're draining/flushing the hydrants, have shut off the system and switched to a reservoir and taken samples to send for testing from several areas including consumer taps.

They're saying its shut down from "an abundance of caution" so who knows!! And after telling people NOT to consume it, what do they do? Ask anyone to report any unusual TASTE or smell of the water LOL I mean, you just told us NOT to use it, no one should be tasting it now!!

Also, I just ran the dishwasher while cooking dinner....so thats another reason I'm worried over that bit, is it safe to wash things? To use things that got washed? No clue.

... I'm so glad we have a well, that sounds exhausting!

I hope it all gets fixed soon and you won't have to worry about it anymore :(

Me too. Hope they let us know something sooner rather than later...because within a day or two, I won't have water left if I'm having to cook and drink with only bottled water...

Yeah. :( Hopefully it's very fast!

Actually, I stopped at Sams today. It's been a while since I've been. Butter is back to $8.78 for a four pack, it's been $12.58 for like 3 years now. It was all so expensive I wasn't really going except for a few random things. So that was exciting haha.

I haven't been in a few months. Thats when I reloaded on the water, toilet paper and paper towels. I got some big boxes of chips too. Those are all gone. The toilet paper almost is. I'm down to the not quite three cases of water. Still have plenty of paper towels LOL I don't normally buy regular type groceries there. Just the non-perishable stuff. Butter, milk, cheese, eggs - I get all that at walmart. I wonder if cheese would be cheaper at Sams? I do use quite a bit of that. But I just don't go to Sam's often enough to stock up on that kind of stuff. Heck I only use LESS than a half gallon of milk every two weeks :P We just don't drink it - Nathan and I both have IBS and the milk affects us both. I should really swap to almond milk or something. We did try it for a while, but it costs more and we still didn't drink a lot of it, so I felt it wasn't worth it to keep buying it for everyday use (like biscuits or muffins). I do get it when I want to DRINK milk, or make smoothies.

Yeah, we use maybe a roll of paper towels every two - three months.. more if Alex gets a cold, since he uses them to blow his nose (makes MINE hurt just to think about it!)

I picked up Izys muffins today, whipped cream (the spray kinds of are just handy to keep around, and they're cheaper there per ounce), shaky parmesan cheese, butter, vegetable oil, chicken stock.. and I picked up conditioner, because I needed more.

I order toilet paper from there too, though.. but that I generally get shipped with stuff they don't sell in store.. like soy sauce!

Ugh. Wes will do that. Katie and I both cringe. I jokingly gave him a box of tissues as a christmas gift :P Katie said he loved it. Of course he did. He's just like that ... but noooo please. DO NOT USE PAPER TOWELS on your tender nose. Yikes.

I like the spray kind whipped cream too. On pumpkin pie. :P hahah shaky parmesan cheese. Is there any other kind? (Yes I know there is, I never buy it, only the shaker bottles!!) I got the generic brand toilet paper this last time, trying to save a little bit of $. Didnt' seem like it lasted as long as the Quilted Northern I used to get....but that could just be my imagination because it still has lasted a while. Don't know what I'll buy at walmart when it finally runs out (probably within another month)

[edit] 545 am Well, apparently the original "do not consume" ban was issued around 445?? I didn't hear about it until after 630. And it was lifted before 11pm? shrugs I guess everything is ok? My taste has been off since I have this cold anyway. After Nathan told me about it I felt the tea tasted weird, so I dumped it just to be safe (it was probably fine, and probably just me). I'm making new tea out of bottled water this morning JUST to be safe. And I may cook things with bottled water today just to be safe too, even though they lifted the ban. They did finally say somewhere that showering and washing clothes was ok with the water ban in place - but nothing about dishes? But since the ban was lifted and it was precautionary anyway, I am going to assume my dishes in the dishwasher should be safe - because like I said, even if that spill happened, what I used last night SHOULD have been still clean anyway!

Speaking of my cold, I am feeling WAY better. Still have a cough (those always linger) and some congestion. I am still tired. But not as much sneezing, no more body aches than usual, still no fever or sore throat. Just mucus-y coughing. Yuck.

Oh good, I'm so glad you're feeling so much better! (They really do say it cuts down the duration of things so.. hopefully it worked? LOL)

I always buy Charmin extra soft. No matter how broke I am, that's something that I refuse to compromise on... though I have considered buying something thinner for upstairs in the girls bathroom. But then I'd be mad if I had to pee up there :P

Right?! We use the shredded for some things, because it's better, but there's just something about the shaky kind haha.

AND spray whipped cream. I KNOW how easy it is to make fresh but like.. it's a lot easier to just have it come out of a can whenever you want a little bit :P

EDIT: Had to quit FOUR of Saggis kumos quests, everything was over 500k today. And already one of Rumis. Ugh. She shouldn't be asking for 5m stickers that are retired. Like, even if they're quest shop or whatever, at least those you can still GET now!

I think I only took it once yesterday? oops. But I was already feeling much better. I know I didn't take it "every 2-3 hours" like it said, but I did take it when I remembered. I think maybe it helped some at least. The cold meds sure did too. LOL

I still have a cough. And some congestion, but wildly better today!!

Ugh for quitting quests. I hate having to do that. No, it should NOT be asking for seasonal quest stickers, or forum shop or any other limited currency shops!! I got asked for a loyalty sticker once!! NO WAY! I can deal with event shops even though I feel that isn't fair to new players, but once you've been to an event, unless you buy EVERYTHING IN THE SHOP from EVERY YEAR you can have excess currency pretty easy. Knowing that some quests ask for those items, I always leave a little bit of currency, even when I go splurging and buying books for new pets with my leftover previous years earnings.

I don't buy pre-shredded cheese very often. I use my food processor and shred it with the tool thingy. Because the pre-shredded never melts quite right or tastes quite right to me. So I buy block and shred my own. I usually only ever buy cheddar cheese anymore tho. Once in a while I might grab something else. I LOVE homemade whipped cream, but its a pain to make and doesn't last as long, and I like the ease of the spray can LOL My brothers swear by cool whip tubs. Nah. I'm good with spray cream! :P

Oh wow Kat, what a stressful time with that tap water ban! It likely was all fine and "out of an abundance of caution" as communicated, but definitely a lot! I drink tap water all the time and would immediately feel lost.

Glad the cold is better though! <3

Mieke, going back a little, but you're so right one can't panic about everything. Not healthy. Easier said than done, though!

With regards to quests I've not had to quit too many of them. Definitely some 1 million sticker requests but so far not enough for it to get annoying (knocks on wood). But yeah hopefully these requests will get straightened out! Asking for retired items should be a no-no.

And Kat, I saw you have a completed plushie collection! That's wild! And aspirational, haha :D