Carol's random babble

Our normal routine is morning news until 7 a.m., then I turn to HGTV for "Simply Quilts" and "Carol Duvall" show. Then it's Discovery for two episodes of "How It's Made," which is when I fall asleep for my morning nap. When I wake up, Kent has changed the channel - but it's never the same thing. It could be a judge show, extreme videos on SpikeTV or "Walker, Texas Ranger." At noon, it's the ABC soaps. I get to watch "All My Children," but have to get ready for work during "One Life to Live." When I get home, it could be something on NatGeo, History or A&E (if "CSI: Miami" is on). Wednesday nights, we usually watch "Ghost Hunters." Friday nights I try to get home in time for the second viewing of "SG: Atlantis." But, right now our cable is off, so we're watching DVDs borrowed from the library. Most of our personal collection is kiddie things like "Brother Bear" and...

Cayla called me at work yesterday afternoon with emotion in her voice. At first, I thought something was wrong, but quickly realized it was excitement. Mercedes Cow had given birth to her pups. She had three this time, one calico and two brownish-red and white. Those two also have different colors, I think it is lilac and red, according to the guinea pig book that Cayla has. So, one black-red-white and two red-lilac-white pups.

I hadn't been driving my car since Kent returned from Kentucky. The last time it had been driven was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, when a random guy stopped and asked if we were going to sell it. He took it for a test drive and said he would pay $800 for it but didn't have the money that day. He never came back. So, I didn't drive the car because it was nearly out of gas and just kept driving the Blazer. Then on Jan. 4, Kent and I had a fight and he insisted that I get a battery so I could drive the car and leave "his" Blazer alone. Fine. I had to borrow money from Mom for the battery and a few other things. Kent got the car jump-started and I drove it to Wal-Mart to get a new battery. It ran fine after that from Jan. 4 through Jan. 9. Then it wouldn't start. So I've been driving the Blazer again, or Kent has taken me to work. Today, Cayla had Lollipop Orchestra, so I took her to the library. We went to Hy-Vee after that so I could take money out and ge...

I just signed up for bux.to . I got the link from a Lockergnome e-mail and signed up through that. The pay amount isn't a lot: one cent if you have a free account. But, people you refer add to your amount, too. I think they only go one level, so people who are referred by the people you refer don't count for you. You need to have PayPal, because that's how they pay out. They will pay out once your account reaches at least $10. I've earned 71 cents so far. I have signed up for a couple of things in the past. AllAdvantage didn't last long. I did get some money from them, but they went bust owing me more. MyPoints is a great program, but I haven't checked that e-mail in awhile. I've got more than 200 e-mails waiting for me and most will have expired. Still, I've gotten a lot of gift certificates from them. It's definitely worth it. I can get points for referring friends each month. If you are interested, you can send me an email by clicking on the link...

I placed an ad to find homes for Pumpkin and the two pups. Mama (as I call her - Cayla named the female cavy Mercedes Cow) will be giving birth within two weeks, and we've got to simplify the pet situation. Over the weekend, the pups found new homes. Then yesterday I got a weird phone call. The person who talked claimed to be a relay operator. He said he was helping a person who was communicating by computer - possibly a deaf person. The procedure is that the caller types the message, the relay operator says the message, the call recipient responds verbally and ends with "go ahead." The relay operator then types the response, the caller types again, and so on. During the call, an operator supervisor broke in to tell me that the call fits the criteria of a scam. The call was dropped, but there was a second call. During the second call, I asked where the caller was from. Wisconsin. The caller said that shipping wouldn't be a problem and asked if I would e-mail the detai...

Sometimes Buster likes to nap on the back of the sofa. It doesn't look all that comfortable, but he appears to like it. Cayla is holding one of the cavy pups at left. Notice the wishbone-shaped white on his back. (Cayla says this one is a boy.) Cayla says this one (below) is a girl. If she's right, the pups are the same sex of the parent they resemble. The pups have more color, though, where the parents are more white.

to the brand-new members of our family: two cavy pups. (Aka guinea pig pups) There are two, and they mimic the coloring of their parents: one is reddish-brown and white and the other is reddish-brown, white and black. Pumpkin, the adult male, may have earned himself a new name - Doofus. We separated him from the adult female (Cayla calls her Mercedes Cow and I call her Mama) and the pups in the hope that we could prevent an immediate pregnancy. He whined, whistled in distress and generally made such a nuisance of himself, we had to put him back with the rest of his family. He immediately began trying for a second litter, so to speak. Mama would have none of that and I had to take him out after a few minutes. Cayla and I worked on the cage and got it to be bigger and safe enough for the moment. I had made the base from the largest under-bed storage box I could find, and the wire cubes were on the inside. They are on the outside now, and tied at junctions with yarn. For now. I want to ge...