Raving Amicks

Went for a run today @ the Hatfield Trail with the Mom unit and the dogs. Raining, kind of nasty. On the way back, noticed rain turning to snow. By the time we got back, the snow had covered the ground. Here’s some pictures of the snow. That was several hours ago and it’s still snowing and sticking.

What a great weekend! The Mom unit and dogs and I went up towards Mt. Hood to take the dogs for a walk. Found some nice logging roads. On the way out hunters passed us and said they were hunting for elk and bear and had seen Brewster through their spotting scopes and thought he might be a bear cub! They they saw Monty and figured out they were dogs. Anyway, the Mom unit fixed some great meals this weekend like chicken and dumplings and chicken marsala.

Mason asked me to post some YouTube videos that I told him about. So, without further ado, let’s begin with Kitten Surprise!!

And the second movie that Mason wanted me to post is quite a bit longer. Here is the epic Battle at Kruger.

I was trying to get these movies embedded, but for some reason WordPress doesn’t wanna let me.

The Mom unit and I (and the dogs) visited the Hood River house Tues. afternoon and came home earlier today. About 7″ of snow, but no wind. The dogs went crazy in the snow! Duncan would get his head under the snow and blow out his nose. Finally, Brewster had to come in ’cause he was shivering so much.

Your Mom had a dog flown in from Rhode Island last nite. He’s a Field Spaniel – kind of a wild Cocker Spaniel. He’ll grow up to be a kind of a long legged version of Duncan only black. Sorry there won’t be any Christmas presents, you know these dogs don’t come cheap. Now, three boys out of the house, three male dogs back in the house. Nice to know you guys can be replaced by dogs! Anyway, he IS cute.

Hi Amicks and Friends!

I don’t have any literary or story-driven posts for you today, but I thought I’d check in and update you on my life through my words (and not Tyler’s “yeah, she’s doing pretty well…”).

I’m still bored at The Big Suck. I can’t wait till this job ends, but I did decide to let them renew my contract until January 31st. I figured it would hold me through the holidays since the job market stalls during that time.

I spend the majority of my work time playing on the interweb at Etsy, which is an orgasm of crafting and shopping. I don’t do so much of the shopping part, as I’m still very poor. But I did indulge in these really cool organic and healthy dog treats called Pupcakes. The name made me so happy, I couldn’t help but buy them. Mary probably won’t get all 12 “pupcakes” as that would make her fat, so I’ll probably bring some down for the “Mother unit.”

I am taking the GRE for grad school next Monday, and I’ve been slacking on studying. For the programs I’m applying to, the GRE is required as a threshold to weed out non-serious candidates. However, no one looks at the scores most of the time—unless you’re at the very bottom of the acceptance pile. I still want to do as well as possible on the test, and since I never work at work, I thought that I should use this time to study. But then I felt kinda odd about installing my GRE prep software on their computer. And I also felt kinda odd about bringing my giant GRE book with me and studying in the open office I share with four other contract workers.

So instead of studying for the GRE, I’ve been editing some of my older short stories. The majority of my application rests on writing samples, and then a wee bit rests on letters of recommendation. Most of my former instructors want samples of work before writing their letters, so I’m trying to crank something out. I choose to use my older stories because they had been through class workshops and received feedback from former instructors. I also thought they would be easier to edit and strengthen as I can examine them more objectively.

Oh, and back to the GRE. There really needs to be a video game for the Nintendo DS that helps one study for the GRE. I say this because there are already two “brain-training” games for the DS that are quite fun. And I really do feel like they make me smarter. Well, they’re not supposed to “make one smarter,” but rather exercise one’s brain and wake it up. Though that’s really just making one’s brain smarter, right?