Two weeks ago: I don't like inside animals, I don't like hair all over, and I don't like slobber. Dogs smell. The puppy can't sleep in the house, the puppy can't sit on the seat in the pickup (floorboards or in the back only) and what's the big deal about a dog anyway?

Today: The puppy can eat and sleep in the laundry room, but can't go anywhere else in the house. I still don't like hair all over, I still don't like slobber, but I do wish he would learn to play fetch already, even if I do have to touch up the icky, slobbery, tennis ball. Dogs DO smell. And he is soooo cute. Pickup and sleeping rules still apply. I'm sorry. I just don't like hair all over.

We finally did it. We got a puppy. His name is Bandit. He is about 16 weeks old and is a blue heeler. He is really dark and has two black patches over his eyes. I was going to name him Zorro, but my parents dog is named that, so Bandit was the second choice. We got him from DH's best friends. He is pretty big, already 28 pounds when we got his shots last week. He is quite timid, but the mother and the other puppies in the litter are on their way to being good cow dogs, and that is what we want to train him to do.

We got him last Sunday (over a week ago) and I had to leave for work on Monday morning, so he was with DH all week. I was sure when I got home, he would be running around the whole house and sleeping in my place on the bed, but DH did good...kept him in the laundry room, putting him in the cage we got him at night, and chaining him up outside during the day.

DH took Bandit out with him to feed the calves and cows last week, and the calves scared the bejeezus out of him He rode around in the tractor with DH and when DH was on the 4 wheeler, Bandit was just running around all happy and playful. DH talked about how fun it was all week to have a puppy.

I got home Thursday night and he didn't know me Instant thought: "This is how my kids will be, if we ever finally do get pregnant. I'll be working so far away all week and they won't even know me." Kind of sad.

Well, I took him for a walk on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, he wouldn't cross a sidewalk or anything concrete, and I had to pick him up to cross one side walk and then kind of drag him other times. Not like I dragged him for multiple feet or anything, but sometimes he would get scared and just lay down. It took us 15 minutes to get out of the yard on Saturday! But, then, he started walking good on the leash. We made it about 2 miles and by the time we were back, he was walking good and releasing to my pressure. Sunday was even better. Started making him stay beside me and not just wander back and forth, in front and back, going in circles around me, and if I kept the leash sorta tight, he stayed right beside me. He is scared of bigger dogs, and we had two dogs come running at us barking and making a big fuss, and he dropped to the ground both times...I yelled at the other dogs and they left, and we just kept on walking. By the end of the day on Sunday, he was following me everywhere, except up some steep steps in a gazebo in the park.

At first, when we let him out to do his business, he would go out without his leash and come right back in again. But by Sunday, he was more comfortable out in the yard, and he wouldn't come back in. We need to teach him to come when we call him...don't quite know how to do that, but I'm sure we'll figure it out.

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Money stuff. We got through the month from hell (10/31 - 12/1) and still have over half of the beans left. Oh my, the price of beans has fallen. This summer, they were more than $14 a bushel, now they are $7 something. We sold some for $8.25 a few weeks ago, and it has dropped that much already. We are feeding the milo to the calves and they are really growing. We should have milo left over to sell when we are done, too. We are going to sell the calves sometime in January.

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At the end of my last pay period, I had $32.09 left in the food/gas checkbook and I said that if I had any money left over after every pay period, it would go to the credit card. Well, this pay period (ending last Thursday) $100 went to help pay towards the month from hell and $194 went to buy 3 long sleeved work shirts for DH, overboots and puppy stuff (a cage - I think this was $70 by itself, leash, food, other startup things). I was $15.57 "in the red" - don't worry, no overdraft because of the buffer I have in there, just hurting my pride. Disappointed about that, but right there was $300 in expenses that usually don't come out of this check book.

Good thing I did pay out of this check book, though. DH had to buy $500 of calf medicine/vaccines and that took our farm account down to like $16 and change on Wednesday. I deposited $1650 as my regular paycheck deposit on Thursday, but that was close! There is no buffer in this account!

We have about $1200 for the coop bill due this month, $1300 for the protein blocks this month, and $945 for taxes this month. I told DH this on Sunday, and he said "I suppose you want me to sell something, then?" Well, unless you put some Miracle Gro on the money tree, we have to do something! I know he doesn't want to sell the beans for this low price, but I don't know what else to do.

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I got slapped down a bit for working from home those two days over Thanksgiving. My immediate supervisor apparently was pissed I went to her boss instead of her. Well, you know why I went to her boss? Because her boss likes to be liked, and doing something like this, even if it is against policy, makes her feel good. I played them, sure. But I didn't know my supervisor would be mad. I thought she would be happy for me. Boy, was I wrong. I was planning on taking my last days of vacation/sick leave the week of Christmas so I wouldn't have to drive down here, but the one idiot guy who doesn't know anything has vacation and all I have is sick leave, so I have to work Monday and Tuesday. I was soooo mad.

Let me back up here. We get the week between Christmas and New Year's off every year. We don't take other holidays like Veteran's Day, Columbus Day, etc and bundle them together so we have a week off at the end of the year. For the past two Christmas breaks in a row, I have had to be on call and work from home to get the financial year end process code written. I had to give away about 16 hours of work each year, plus work on Christmas Eve plus work on New Year's Eve to make sure things were working. This year, one guy switched me so he had Thanksgiving week, the other guy was supposed to have the pager the week of Christmas and I was supposed to have it the week of New Year's. He agreed to that and then, after Thanksgiving, asked "I'm going on vacation to Oklahoma during Christmas, and my mom doesn't have internet. Is that a problem?" Uh, yeah, you idiot. If there is a problem, you can't fix it. So, I have to have it for both weeks. And drive down for two days on the 22nd and the 23rd, which was supposed to be my vacation.

Since I'm not taking those two days, I have 16 hours of sick leave and 4 hours of vacation that I thought I would have to just eat. My supervisor was out today and her boss asked me if I was going to take any vacation with those days I can't use over the 22nd and 23rd, so I said I was going to ask my supervisor if I could take 10 hrs this Thursday and next Thursday. Her boss said I could do that, but I sent an email to my supervisor anyway, just to ask.

So I'm working 3 days this week, 3 days next week and 2 days the week after that. Thank goodness gas is half of what it was this summer...and that I'm salaried.

We were at the bar this weekend, DH talking with friends and me getting my karaoke on and he was talking to our farmer friend about getting a new-to-us 12 row planter. I kind of muttered under my breath "good thing I have a good job" and one of our friends heard me (in fact, the one we got our puppy from, DH's best man). He was like "Really. I mean, why do you even come home? Just stay down there and work overtime and save the gas. Just keep the money coming in." Ha ha. Sometimes it feels like that. To bad I don't get overtime, though!

Saw something on cnn.com today, a woman sold her hair and got like $1200 for it. It looked like she had a LOT of hair, though. I've been growing mine since DH proposed a year and a half ago. I wanted long hair for the wedding, and he likes long hair. I also didn't want to get the "wife cut" you know, the pixie hair cut women get the week after the wedding. So, I thought, I'll just wait a year and then cut it to just above my shoulders (where it was before I started growing it). I've had it trimmed a few times, but other than that, it is all one length, blond and perfectly straight. It is down to the middle of my back...a few inches past where my bra is. It isn't dyed, either. I wonder how much it would be worth. The woman in the picture on cnn.com looks like she had like 2 feet of hair cut off. Mine would be more like 8".

Don't chastise me for not giving it to Locks of Love or something. I read an article somewhere where they throw most of that hair away. Might as well sell it.

Only two more days of work this week. That's cool. I have been eating pb&honey sandwiches for lunch and today I bought a Bertolli shrimp and something pasta dinner that I can cook tomorrow night too, so less than $7 for supper tonight and tomorrow. Had to buy more bread and some chips for lunch, though.

My purse needs new handles. The rest of the purse is great, the handles are falling apart. I got some chain and I'm going to make handles for it. Two chains were $2 a piece and now I just have to get a way to attach them to the purse...I thought about key chain rings, but walmart was out of them. I'll try to find some tomorrow.