Sudokuaholics Anonymous 8

I might as well make myself some supper.

OH JULIE, I do not think I would be running to SEE a bear in my yard. I would be running and hiding or finding some way to scare it away. Do not like big scary, hairy wildlife on my turf! Glad you and the grandies got your peek at it, since you wanted to see it.

Cyn, workmen at 5:30 am would not be fun. I hope they are not back again tomorrow.

Nope, do not like the reality shows with popularity contests or ones with alliances and manipulation, do not watch them. It is OK thtt some of you do, and you probably do not like reading some of my books or seeing my TV shows. Variety is the spice of life, they say. Ones on talent I like more. OH, just saw a lady on America's got talent who could be America's Susan Boyle, Looked dowdy, frumpy, unattractive, baggy jeans and sweat shirt, limp hair, no makeup, but such a VOICE, again, judges mouths were open! I wonder how much of her appearance was contrived to get attention?

GAIL, I had to HUNT for your typoed " meant", could not find it. I had read it correctly. I do a good job reading typos, perhaps because I make so many?
JUDY, I vote for the mini junk mail!

I must be creative and find a bedtime snack. I am low on legal snacks at the moment. I think I have some crackers that will do, now to find something to put on them. Tomorrow I need to cook again, lots of cooking and also shop for some foods, I have some new recipes to try, very low cal, and good for the diabetic and heart healthy diet.

Bit late for dinner for most folks, Heidi. Whatcha having? How are your strawberry plants producing? I think they were a new addition this year if I remember correctly.

Hi again.
I've just come to search the net for more information about the bombs in Jakarta. No one seems to know much at all so far. So very very sad.

Hello, All! About to hit the hay here. Just so everyone understands, the humans and dogs were all IN the house when the bear came into the yard - and stayed inside all morning. It was kind of exciting to see a wild bear, though.

Hubby is watching Ace of Cakes, but we like Cake Boss better. Well, we like the cakes, especially people crafted to go on the cakes better on Cake Boss. Don't watch many reality shows unless we're with D and SIL.

Enjoy the rest of your day, Everyone! Hope to be back tomorrow!

And now a feel good story to balance the mood...

Red panda cubs being wet nursed by a dog...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31942513/ns/technology_and_science-science/

Suzy, keep us posted on Ebob's job. Wish her luck! MizT, sorry your food supply is low. Hope you'll have good weather for cooking. Heidi and MizT, I'm sorry to leave you both before you head off to bed. Good Night from here.

GREETINGS everybody...
Julie...apologies accepted...CRAFT's and all that probably has you scratching your head by now but it was I that you forgot...your little
Judy I am SO glad that the hard labour over here has inspired you to attack your garden. My poor hips are still recovering from Tuesday.

Heidi...I LOVE my television... so many interesting shows. I don't watch reality TV apart from Dancing With The Stars... this season there is a blind participant. Fascinating. I hope he goes all the way.
Last night this is what I watched:

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/documentaries/interactive/feralperil/

Absolutely fascinating. It has some wonderful footage of Tasmania... was looking out for Eaa hiding in the scrub but no, her little furry nose was not to be seen. Plenty of other furry noses. I hope you can find the time to watch some of it... goes for an hour [I think]

And now I have forgotten everything else I was going to say. Hmm...except one thing...
Suzy...your connection didn't slow you down at Bejewelled!!!

Blast...missed Julie by a whisker!!

Good Evening friends!
So great to see Rolanda popping in from China - very cool!
Brenda - what a crack up about Callie eating the strawberries...little sneak!
Heidi - sorry the eggs didn't hatch :-(
June - have fun with Laura and good luck with the horseys.
Great to see our furry nosed little friend (eaa) reporting in and happy to hear there wasn't any damage.
Beanie - great job on the Rolalogues, you did Rolanda proud!
Suzy - WOW - Ebob really hit the ground running!
Cyn - so cool you had those pictures of Gail and Beanie reduced for smilies (hahaha!)
Jewel and I are birthday buddies - cool...and I'm a realy menace too!
Mama - sorry to hear about your computer woes - those are sure going around lately!
Julie - how fun to see a bear in the wild - glad your grandies got to see it, too. Have fun!
Judy - hope lunch with your friend was good.

Did I miss you Beanie?...by a whisker?
Speaking of whiskers, Panda lost her voice today - very strange. Will be keeping a close eye on her to make sure it's nothing serious.
Julie - love your new avatar.

Well kids, looks like I popped in too late to catch anyone. I'm off to lie down and watch some TV. Good night sweet friends.

I just read the posts on this page and have forgotten everything already. I'm getting ready to feed dogs now , then retire for the night.

Here's a link to the jakarta story...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31952788/

Julie, I have plenty of food in the house, just not the right food for some recipes. Then I ran out of special snack foods and such that I can eat.

I imagined you were all inside, but I was thinking of a grown bear being able to break into locked cabins and tear down doors, break windows, if they are hungry and smell food. Not a fan of bears, and I would be terrified if I saw one.

Back when I was a young thing, honneymooned in the mountins of tennessee, in a very rustic cabin that was perched on the side of this very steep incline, right over the little piegion river. Isolated from the rest of the guest cottages, supposed to be more romantic I suppose. Well, one night, we heard a noise under the house, and thanks to the ill fitting floor boards, was able to see a bear under the floor! Quickly ran and closed the front door to the screened porch, closed windows and I sat quivering with fear until it ran away, and then startled with every noise the rest of our stay. We had phoned the main desk, and they sent someone up and I think the auto arriving scared it away. Because the bears had been fed people food by tourists, who stayed around to watch them eat, the bears were not afraid of people and we had been warned to keep a good safe distance. I did not think the 1 inch of those floor boards made a safe enough distance hehehe.

Time to put my head down , my pillow is calling me now. Hugs to all.

That sounds terrifying and VERY dangerous, MizT. Once idiot humans start feeding wild bears like pets, they lose their fear of people and will destroy anything to get at our food supply. The one Julie saw was scared off so obviously wasn't acclimated to human food or dogs. I am not normally afraid of animals. I've handled some of the most poisonous snakes in the world. I would have been terrified of encountering that bear.

OK... so I haven't gone to bed yet. Blame it on Suzy. I checked out her link on the Red Pandas, and from there I segued to most of the other science and nature stories. It's addictive.

Workmen saga - part 2!
They finally started to do something more than make noise at about 9.30am and - hey presto - power went off. Went out and checked - yep the neighbour's had lost theirs as well. Daughter arrived - sorry no cuppa, so we just left to see my Mum. Can't get the auto garage door to open - and I'm too stupid to know how to switch to manual, whatsmore can't find a key to garage door. Went in daughter's car. Even the traffic lights were out at the main intersection 1km from home. When we got home 3 hours later, I asked the only workman left on site if I had my power back yet. He said yes - the job was so much trouble and caused such widespread power loss, and - wait for it - had been cancelled. This is our tax dollar at work, fellow Aussies - and the b*ggers don't even know which end is up.

Gail - I agree with you. It will be a travesty if Julie doesn't win. She represents the many Aussie women/housewives like youself and my sister who enjoy cooking at home for their families and put their heart and soul into it. Go Julie!
Notice I left myself out of that. My ideal life would be to have a full-time cook. I really need to be a billionaire and soon.

You have GOT to be kidding!!!!!! Those workmen sound totally incompetent. How could anyone knock out power that effectively?

Heidi - if you listen to our State Govt, they'll tell you that the power industry is working quite well. It is - compared to 6 years ago when a series of storms wiped out power across many parts of the SE of the state. It took 16 hours for us to get our power back and almost 48 hours for my parents to get theirs back. Imagine my poor Mum having to deal with an elderly man with dementia who wanted a cup of tea every hour.
I won't even mention our roads/traffic situation, our public transport system or worst of all our health system. It'd make you cry.

Mother Nature has the power to knock it out for a long time, but it would take a real effort for workmen to do it, unless one of them got fried. Remember... back in January-February we were without power for 12 days. And we were lucky. Some neighbors didn't get theirs back for 3 weeks!

Well, I'm off to bed now. Finally. At 2 am.

Yes, I do remember that, Heidi. And whilst Mother Nature did cause the power to go out in that instance 6 years ago - the widespread power losses were because they had stopped the general practice of clearing branches from around power lines to 'cut costs'. They now have returned to doing that regularly. There was a public enquiry (don't you just love those enquiries?) afterwards and they asked for public submissions. With the assistance of my local Member of Parliament I was able to have a part in that and received a copy of the final report - pages and pages of gobbledy-gook. However things did improve and one suggestion of mine was implemented.
I didn't ask what happened this morning - I try to control myself in case I blow up with frustration.

So much for getting any sleep tonight. We're having yet ANOTHER thunderboomer, and the dogs won't let me sleep.

Poor Heidi and the dogs, you are getting more than your fair share of those thunder storms. We had one last night too but it didn't last very long. Rain was heavy, so heavy that the dogs wouldn't go out for their final toilet for the night. Just started raining now... think my son must have been on his knees praying for it as we were supposed to be washing the caravan today.

It is now approaching 5 am, and the radar shows that the main, violent part of the storm will be hitting us shortly.

Back home,I have not read any of the posts, I will do so tomorrow and comment then. We got the guttering done ( the section we intended doing anyway), some of the sewing and we are both worn out!! Off to bed soon.

It's 3 3/4 hours later. I just got back inside after rounding up my entire sheep flock. Somehow they got a gate open and took off down the driveway. They were at the road (1/8th mile away) when I spotted them. They're all back in their pasture after a nice feeding of grain. I'm heading back to bed.

Good morning all! Don't have time to read. Lost power yesterday and it didn't come back until 3am. Lightning struck a transformer and blew all the lines. Just got the internet back.(Meghan had to reset it for me!) Back outside to paint! Catch you later!

Heidi - you must be exhausted...sounds like a very LONG night. Hope you get some napping in.
June - bet it feels great (mentally, probably not physically) to get those gutters done. Good for you!
Cyn - what a "BLOODY HELL" (as Bean would say) story! Mike was once doing a construction job at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey. The site's electrician left him to finish something and told him which line to cut. Well, a minor explosion (no one hurt) and the power was out with that grid - which included the Monterey airport. Ooops! My of Mike's worse days for sure.

Morning Stella and Good Maen all others (how rude of me!)
Happy painting Stella...sorry about your power. Sounds like the East and South are having some severe storms while we are just cooking our patooties off here in the West.

Brenda - hahaha! re: your son praying for rain. I think the rain is suppose to come AFTER you wash the caravan! He must have a direct connect with the All Mighty!
Tricia - your bear story was very good. Those beautiful critters are wonderful from a distance, but under the floor - YIKES!
OK - I must get my afore-mentioned patootie in gear and get some stuff done. I've had a lovely 3 day break from the rocks.

Good Maen everyone! Heidi: Hope you finally got some zzzz's...I'm STILL not sleeping well, three nights in a row so far...Haven't read much since pg 305...
Hello to Stella, Vibrant Vici, June, Brenda & everyone else. Hope all's well with everyone, have a good day/night, TTFN

His praying for rain really worked a treat, we have had torential rain and thunderstorms all day.

It's now after 2 pm. I finally got a few hours of sleep. I don't have a problem staying awake at night (hence my drive to Florida) but it's hard when there is so much stress. Dennis completely freaks until the tranks kick in, but Jo-Jo, Hollie, Cole and Melony get scared, too, and crowd me for comfort. Willow and Angel like to follow Dennis when he's freaking so they can join in on the fun. The living room is off limits for the dogs, so there is a walk thru' gate blocking the entrance. Dennis seems to think that the Living room is the safest place to be during a storm. If I'm not guarding the gate, Dennis grabs it in his powerful jaws and rips it off the wall. Then he runs into the living room, closely followed by Willow and Angel, who proceed to party. Willow just likes to jump up and down on the couch and chairs, but Angel likes to destroy everything she can get hold of in there. Dennis just panics. I've tried leaving Dennis in there during a storm, but he them does everything he can to escape.

Forgot my manners.

Hi there everyone.
Loved reading your saga on the dogs Heidi.I could just imagine them jumping on the lounge,just like our sons boxer does when he comes here to visit.

Daughter Renae does fostering children and yesterday was asked if they would have a 1 day old baby boy.The girls are in awe and keep going in to look at him in the cot saying "baby".
This is the youngest child they have had to mind.Usually they are over 2.
I'm looking forward to seeing him today.I just love babies.

Popping in for a quick hello to everyone!