Welcome to Gaia! ::

I got a cavity filled today myself. I also got fitted for a mouth guard as I really am grinding my teeth. (Always been a problem, but more so now.) I cannot wait.

Going to go skiing tomorrow. First time in four or five years now. Boots fit and my gear is all good. I have a five time ski pass and I heckled my boyfriend into photoshopping a picture of the bridge of the Enterprise into the background. (They have rules for pictures - not hats, neutral expression, but didn't say anything about backgrounds!)

Well i had my dentist appointment today, Going back on Friday to get the tooth pulled because half of it broke off below the gumline and can't be saved. Found out i need 6 cavities filled, and i need to get my wisdom teeth removed. Fantastic day...can't wait for my dental insurance to kick in.

Currently listening to The Rumjacks- an irish pub song

While watching video tutorials on welding. Going to try molding PVC tomorrow since i have a heat gun and whatnot i figure i can take a 2-3 inch piece of pvc that's like 2 feet long and heat it up and mold it into an oval instead of being round. Would make a good soap mold. Heard some things about fumes from pvc being toxic so gonna be donning the appropriate safety equipment (my respirator and safety glasses) and hoping for the best.

drew up some plans for building a new grinder for knifemaking...just need to learn to weld to make it. So it's been a busy day and now i'm going to go pass out. Hope to post pictures of molded soap soon.

Yesterday it was almost 60 degree's here and bright and sunny...today its in the 20's and we have almost 5 inches of snow. They have all the plow trucks out but their not plowing..their salting which is just turning the roads to slush making it almost impossible to drive anywhere.
Saw like half a dozen car's in the ditches on my way home (normally a 10 minute drive took almost 25 minutes tonight) Every winter its the same, first snow that actually sticks and theirs a ton of car accidents right away. They forget how to drive every winter.

Anyways gonna be picking up some pvc in a couple of sizes tomorrow after i get my tooth pulled so i can do something productive over my long weekend from work (3 day weekend every other week the only plus side to working 12 hour shifts...and the paychecks)

Worked today and yesterday, now for a glorious middle of the week weekend. A bunch of people are all quitting right now because despite being ranked in the top 20 in our industry for sales and production, we are in the bottom 5% of our industry as far as pay. Average pay for our field is like 16-20 bucks an hour and nobody at our place is making that much so they are all looking for new jobs because their fed up with the danger/ridiculous amounts of work/utter bulls@#t and then only getting paid a little better than your average 3rd shift employee at wal-mart.

Snowed again today and i'm just glad to get to sleep in late tomorrow. But i do need to wake up at a reasonable hour still because its time to work in the garage...gotta find the space heater.

Btw anybody hear from sunsetsmile lately? i know last i heard her town was just starting to recover from the tornadoes and whatnot and i haven't seen a post from her in a while.

@Pirhan: The phrase getting a tooth pulled is extremely misleading. Learned that the hard way on Friday. Interesting note it took an entire vial of novacaine and 2 sets of 3 injections to numb my mouth long enough to remove the tooth. It wore off in less than an hour. But it's done with and now its healing. I do believe you may have done your math wrong on the temperature conversions though. If it was -11 Celsius then wouldn't it be like 12 degree's Fahrenheit? not 51.

And when i log in i do not see orange icons for any subforums or the main forum in any guilds i'm in.

I was wondering about sunset too. I just popped off a PM asking if she's okay. It's been a few months since she last logged in. neutral I'm a terrible person and should of messaged her sooner. I hope she's just been busy.


It's tough working below your wage. Hopefully with people quitting, management will smarten up.

When I had my tooth pulled, I was a-okay. It took about two hours. Afterwards I could whistle through the hole and stitching and drove my boyfriend nuts. It healed really well and I can't tell. (My wisdom teeth haven't come in and I think the dentist said the one did and is moving over to take the space. So wise they are!)

Weather wise, we're expecting an Arctic Outflow. It's cold, not really that cold but it really bites you. I forgot the "-" in my convertor, so that's why my math was out. The sliding glass door was frozen shut so I had to use the blow dryer to open to feed the birds. They're so funny, as soon as I turn around they're at the food. I love them.

The no alerts on the forums is really annoying. mad


Neat! How big is it? And glad to hear you didn't break you foot!

where did u buy the blackberry bushes

Hi, Guys! Yes, we're okay, just busy as you suspected........I will have to take the time to catch up with all the posts here!

Joplin is looking more like a place I recognize. Some of the old neighbors are almost home. Did anyone see the last "Extreme Makeover Home Edition"---I think it was on last Friday? There is a post somewhere, either the show site or Youtube, where you can watch the entire show. Home Depot just opened, and Academy will be open the 27th, smaller businesses are rebuilding. There is still so much to do, and thankfully, help is still coming!

I really think that it's all just starting to get to me. Christmas without some good neighbors was hard, and another neighbor's huge Christmas tree outside that we looked for every year was sadly absent, and always will be. Driving through town is strange....it's wonderful watching the houses and the buildings going up!---but, once in a while, it's just overwhelming, especially when the name finally goes on a business building. Drove past the Payless shoe store a few days ago, and the name was up---suddenly, all I could see was the way everything looked after the tornado, and remember the search for 2 of the girls that worked there who died in the storm, and I cried all the rest of the way. Pizza Hut will be done soon, and the neighbor whose tree we missed was killed there. That will probably be a pretty tough trip too. There are different message boards here for all kinds of things, and one answer really got to me one day---"I lost 16 friends in the tornado, and 40-? injured"---I just couldn't read past that point. How many of us even HAVE 40 people that we would consider friends? This was written by a young woman who lived in some of the apartments that were destroyed. I couldn't read on to see if all her family made it through or not......So many young people lived in those apartments, many of the girls' friends, who miraculously survived. They dug people out, some alive and some not, but they made it! The satellite view of Joplin on Google maps shows the path of the storm, but it's just not like seeing it in person. All you can do is shake your head.

It's all a part of everyday life now. Aftermath.

And life goes on here. Work and school for the girls, took a trip to see the boy that's in college, spent the afternoon laughing at the silly goats, who escaped again! Casper is a Pygora, and he's starting to get his curls! He looks like a fat little curly sheep, and he follows me like a puppy. Weather has been a rollercoaster, 60's to the teens, very little snow, and they're already warning that this spring could be very active, weatherwise. The girls gave me a smartphone for Christmas, so I'll have to get all the radars loaded into it! We have had the most spectacularly beautiful sunrises and sunsets the last 2 weeks! And crisp, starry nights that set my teeth chattering, but I can't stay inside.

Thanks for checking on me, Pirhan. It's just busy! I hope life is wonderful for all of you!