It is Leap Day

Today only happens once in a while. It's like a spring present from the global universe. An extra day. Here are some interesting facts about today:

-You can eat anything you like. Calaries don't count.

-No work deadlines. Since it is an extra day, we really don't have to work cause the day doesn't really exist

-If you exercise today, it counts twice. It's like you exercised twice in the same day.

-Since this day doesn't exist, you don't have to wear cloths...nobody will remember.

-Every year that is divisible by four is a leap year; of those years, if it can be divided by 100, it is NOT a leap year, unless, the year is divisible by 400. Then it is a leap year.

-Leap years are needed to keep our calendar in alignment with the earth's revolutions around the sun.

-The Gregorian calendar has a 400-year cycle until it repeats the same weekdays for every year–February 29, 2008, is a Friday and February 29, 2408, is a Friday.

-The Gregorian calendar has 97 leap years during those 400 years.

-The longest time between two leap years is eight years. The last time that occurred was between 1896 and 1904. The next time will be between 2096 and 2104.

-The Egyptians were the first to come up with the idea of adding a leap day once every four years to keep the calendar in sync with the solar year

- A troptical year is 365.242190 days long. A regular year has 365 days and a leap year 366.

-February 2008 has 5 Fridays, the last time that happened was in 1980.

Enjoy!

Sleep

Sleep is an interesting thing. Where you sleep is somewhat important and adds to to satisfaction of the exercise.

I have a friend who makes things. She is incredible. She made me a bed for Fin. Fin had out gown her bed so I took it to Lisa and she said, "I can make this." Next thing I know, I have a brand new larger version of the bed for Fin...or so I thought.

First in the bed was Tazz. "This is my new bed." he says. I notice that he is never quite comfortable. He fidgets a little, stares at me but doesn't want to move.

After a while Tazz does move to his regular bed and then Rocky seeing an opportunity rushes to get in the bed. "This is MY bed," Rocky says and he trys to get some sleep, but he also

moves on preferring his own bed over this new one.

Next to try it out is Maddie. She says, "If you don't mind I'd like to try out the bed now." She crawls in flops down and trys it out.

She seems comfortable, but never falls asleep, she leaves the bed only a few minutes after getting in preferring her little area that I made just for her.

Finally, Fin comes and checks it out. She says, "Does anyone want this bed?" Everyone looks board and she gently steps into the bed. As she lay down, I could just hear her say, "Ahhhhhhh, This is just perfect."

Sometimes ya just know when something was made for you!

Twilight Zone

Weird Haps at casa de Whisner. So...I put up these bird feeders. These feeders are for finches. They are filled with Nyjar seed. It is this small black seed that Finches think is like McDonalds fast food. It is fun to have the birds visit. The dogs chase them and I like to know that I'm making little birds fat.

Finches by nature are pretty skittish creatures. Sometimes they'll all be eatting (dozons of them on 3 feeders) and I'll walk out on the deck (more than 50 feet from where they are) and they will take to the air as if a bomb has just gone off. It probably doesn't help that the dogs go running and barking at the trees for the shear joy of watching the birds scatter, but what the heck, after all the McDonalds food, its good to get some exercise.

Today I'm refilling one of the feeders. I get the feeder about half full with the rest of the seed I have and am hanging it up (dogs are at my feet) and just as I get the feeder in place (my hand still fastening it to the tree), a finch comes down and lands not two inches from my nose. I yell and back up (as I don't know what is happening) and the darn bird stares at me and proceeds to eat seed. I'm astonished! Astounded! Delighted! Weirded out! Worried! then just Interested. The little creature stares at me, grabs a seed eats it, stares at me, eats another stares at me. All this time, my face is inches from this bird (where's a camera when you need one for crying out loud!). So I put my hand up and the little finch pushes my hand with its head (I can see it thinking, "leave me alone duffus! I'm trying to eat something before the hoard comes back"). Finally after about 5 minutes, it flys to the apple tree and sits there. I went and grabbed the camera and took a pic of it napping in the apple tree.

I am afraid it was sick in some way. It certainly wasn't afraid of me...so maybe it just has good judgement :)

It is still in the apple tree sleeping as I write this. Tomorrow there will be dozens of birds again and I won't know which one was my special bird. I sure hope it is not injured and just a trusting bird.

Later I asked Fin what she thought of the friendly bird and she stuck her tongue out at me. I guess that in itself is a comment on this unusual day.

Time for a Fin growth update

Fin just turned 9 months. Here is her life in pictures:

1 week old with mom. Fin is in the lower right corner all by herself.

At 7 weeks.

At 8 weeks

At 14 weeks

At 17 weeks

Fin Seven months (28 weeks)

Fin Eight months (32 weeks):

Fin 9 Months (36 weeks):

Mud - Too Much of a Good Thing

Well it rained over the weekend; I can almost see the trees grinning.
So yesterday I notice that the pool is getting a little full (after I pulled the lawn chair and the cushion out of the pool. So I do my non-techy solution of sticking a hose in the pool and sucking the other end so the water runs out. I said, "Now Vici, don't forget to pull the hose out before you go to bed." Did I? Nooooooo! Pool is down over 12 inches. ... too much of a good thing.
Finny and Maddie wanted outside so I let them out. I checked on them after about 10 minutes and they were wrestling on the deck (so cute). I let them in after about 20 minutes and failed to notice (because they are black) that they were COVERED in mud. Evidently after the wrestle they went out into the mud and did a little digging. Too much of a good thing.
The Oscars - too much of a good thing.
Reality TV - Bruno vs Carrie Ann - not a good thing...just plain BADDDD.

Ok, so rain is great, rain is good, april showers and all that. But why does it have to rain only on the weekend! WAY too much of a good thing.

It's raining

Well I thought I had gone with a good insurance company. (Health). Here I sit with "tennis elbow" and yet, I don't play tennis...go figure. Doctor prescribes a drug for pain. Simple right? Go to the pharmacy, get the meds, see if they help. Nope.

The insurance company MUST APPROVE the drug. What this means is that even though the doctor who has had I don't know how many years of education has made the determination that I need something, the insurance company must review his notes to ensure that his decision is accurate and I truly need the meds. Who wants to be a doctor nowadays?

I believe it is a conspiracy by the insurance companies to make it difficult for doctors to prescribe meds that are expensive. The doctor is less inclined to give you the medicine he believes should work for you because he doesn't want the hassle. Insurance company makes money. Human being suffers.

I spend over $700 a month on insurance. I hardly EVER go to the doctor (unless a horse dumps me into a fence and I need emergency care, or I slip and fall and break my toe, or I think I'm having a heart attack, or I never play tennis but get tennis elbow - but other than that, I never go).

I think that they should take this into account and just approve me. In the meantime, I have tennis elbow. I can't work out on my upper body. I learned Wed night that I shouldn't grab a 90 pound lab by the collar (cause that really hurts), and picking up my tea reminds me that I have tennis elbow. Doctor says time will heal (isn't that what my mom said everytime my heart was broken as a kid). Time may heal, but for goodness sake, drugs sure help.