Post-Thanksgiving Post

I'm not stuffed. I was a very good girl this year and ate appropriately. That's because my weight creeps up whether I eat a lot or not, so I figure the less I eat, the less it'll creep. That's the theory, anyway...

Lizzie, Casey and I just walked two and a half miles. They hung on me about a quarter of the way so I'm calling my walk a five miler. Lizzie weighs about 60 pounds and Casey weighs a little over 80. Lizzie is lean and lithe, Casey is thin, but a lot taller and with big bones. She'll grow into a six footer like Michelle Obama, I'm pretty sure.

Lizzie "imagined" a ghost in an empty house along the way - raising and lowering some blinds - so that's why they hung on me for the last leg of the journey, and why I decided we weren't going around again. I can't handle another encounter with the "ghost house" if it means I'll be carrying two half grown kids the last quarter mile...

The two are in my living room now holding the guinea pigs. I made the mistake of telling them there are guinea pig harnesses at the pet store, so they're all jazzed about that. I said, "Not 'til spring, girls, because it's too cold outside and I don't want them on the rug inside." The guinea pigs have to either be sitting on towels in laps, on towels on the couch, or in their cage until spring, then we'll get them a toddler wading pool for inside (when we can find one for a few dollars) and the harnesses and leashes for outside.

I just had my best Elance week ever -- made $500! Woo hoo! That isn't much, in the grand scheme of things, but it's pretty darned good for someone who started out less than a year ago as a freelancer at Elance. By the end of December, I will have made more than $3K. Lowering my price five dollars an hour seems to have opened the flood gates.

We have industrious moles in our yard now. We've tried Juicy Fruit and bubble gum to try to gag 'em (we heard it works), smoke bombs to smoke 'em out, and a water hose in their most recent holes to get them to either drown or pick another yard. Don't know who's gonna win the battle - them or us or an exterminator - but we're fighting the Battle of the Bulges at a rate of about eight to ten new bulges per day... I love critters, but wish my cats would take care of these subterranean troublemakers so we didn't have to. It seems cruel when we do it. If the cats would do it, it would seem more natural! (I can't help it. I love critters.) I notice they're pushing up some of the richest, best-looking soil. Maybe I should transport it to the garden... make some use out of their industrious labors!

What else? Billie Rae Walker sent me an e-card for Thanksgiving but the Hallmark cards website has been down for two days, so I'm still waiting to access it. "When you care enough to send the very best... it may take the recipient as long to receive it as it would take to mail!" hee hee hee I'm patient, though. One of these days Hallmark will get its act back in gear. I hope their webmaster is enjoying the holiday.

Oh! Just a heads up. I'll be horse-sitting three horses and dog-sitting six dogs from Wednesday morning to Friday afternoon this coming week while their owners travel to southern Oregon for a funeral, so I won't be able to blog on those days. I'll be making $65/day to critter-sit, though, and if I can land a typing or writing gig before then on Elance, I'll be able to work on that (on my laptop) while I'm there. (There's just no Internet connection, yet, where I'll be staying. There will be by the next time I critter-sit, though.) Most Elance projects have more than a three-day turnaround, so being away from the Internet that long is no big deal, except that I'll miss blogging to y'all!

Maybe I'll blog onto my laptop and transfer it to blogger when I get home. There should be a lot of critter stories after I've been there three days!