Currently Listening Who I Am By Alan Jackson see related

I spent some time today reading....

I went back and started at the beginning of my xanga posts and read through the whole weblog.  It took three hours....and man did it bring back memories....Then to make matter worse I went back and read through Ashley's, and Haley's, and Lauren's.....when you put them together they tell a great story......and some crazy times.. I know this sounds very nostalgic and sad....but after what happened last week at Vtech, it makes you appreciate that time soo much more....

I suggest everyone go back and read through the memories....it definetly put a smile, and a few tears on my face today

I am sitting here at my computer and just thinking.....

Tommorow it has been a year since I got married! wow times flies.  There are soo many great flashbacks from this past year I can't even begin to retell them all but I figured I should post of few snippets of the first year of wedded bliss to satisfy all my readers.

April 06:  Wedding, Honeymoon, adopting new baby ( raptor), playing prank on parents about adding to our family...haha...I have never seen faces go white that fast....

May 06:  Settle in, construct Boldemann County Raptor Enclouse to contain beast- seven foot fence- jump over in a single leap.  Wire topper - a little more effective ( adds that nice prision motiff to the house, good for re-sale).  wire buried under fence 18 inches deep to prevent tunneling under -just dug deeper...

June 06:  Bryan leaves to go back to work....Meghan very sad.....Meghan learns that she has to take care of house, raptor, self all on own....Bryan laughs bc Meghan was very spoiled.....Meghan wants to hire maid....Bryan says train the dog. 

July 06:  Absolutely my favorite holiday on earth! fourth of July! Absolutely not the raptor's favorite holiday on earth-sedation

August 06:  Meghan learns that working in campgrounds in summer can be fun...Meghan learns that parents will do just about anything to keep a kid from crying......Ex:  while working in campgrounds a father brough three very concerned looking children to the booth. They asked if i was a ranger....Dad flashed me a look.....so i played along-: I sure am , what can i do for you guys?...."Well we found a baby bird that fell out of its nest in our campsite and want to save it!" .......quick glance at dad.....continue to play along....." Well let me come by your site and see what we can do" ( thinking i will scoop it up and put it back in a tree somewhere).  Dad gets funny look on face....Kids:  " no we brougtht it to you bc the dog wanted to chew it.....Kids set thermos with bird inside on counter...."will you help it???".   Dad's eyes plead with me to play along more.....I look into thermos....bird has to head left....Dog really must have like to chew on it......"Sure ill help it...I will fix him right up, you guys go to the lake and play for a while....I am going to take this guy to the Ranger doctor...."  Kids leave, Dad looks back at me and smiles....I sit back with a headless bird in a thermos....

Sept 06-Nov 06- Work Work Work, Begin Stage two of Boldemann County enclsure -add electric fence.....Raptor figures out that if she shakes her body vigourously shock collar will rotate on neck to the back, thus ineffective, thus escape... shit!

December 06:  We open for the winter season....Meghan learns that ice on Running Boards of raised Yukon is dangerous....falls out of her car on opening day and breaks elbow and chips hip....learns docots are once again evil and has to have three cortisone shots......Two weeks later has hubby screw non skip pads to boards- falls again two weeks after that. 

Jan 07:  Celebrates Christmas ( bryan at work -delayed) really become a hick-keep chrismast tree up till Feb

Feb07: Ski Ski Ski Ski, Fall Fall Fall Fall

March 07:  Bryan back at work, Meghan still at work, Raptor Still escaping- life is great!

April 07:  and here we be!  You know when you think about it it has been an eventful year for us all.....More stories to come soon.....

Stay tuned for :  Tree Removal disaster, Raptor captures Cheeto the Chihauaha, and much more.....

ps-everyone else has to post now too.....we are all slackers!

Jurassic Park Part II

I would like to preface this post with the fact that none of us have updated in MONTHS!  we suck!

So in order to get the next part of our raptor dog story...and trust me it is worth it...its been three months in the making...! you all must post!

SO post post post

A Feminine Touch

This one is dedicated to all the BY girls who would appreciate the care and time that was put into the reaction...I would expect no different from any of you!

First a little background:

In the summer ( non-snow season) I work down in our campgrounds, managing staff, making sure everything runs right.  It is a lot of fun...being outside, etc.  Anyway in the past month or two there is this new guy that is kind of overseeing the whole show....new...just hired....from out of state.  Lesss subtle translation:  not from these parts

Anyway I get the impression that he has never worked with strong willed ( a nice way of saying bitchy) women before.  He has a hard time speaking respectfully without being condescending....I have been so good though so far, tolerating it....trying to subtly( as subtly as I can) teach him that he wont last long here if he talks to anyone like that....

So last week I get to work and there is a voicemail in my box from him:

"please have these signs sent out to be made and confirm what they are too look like.  I hear that you are great at organizing and getting things done, and i figure you can give it the woman's touch"

So i hit 3 and re-listen to make sure that i heard the last part right...woman's touch....what the fuck is a woman's touch? Ashley, do you think you could help me with this? 

Anyway I gave it some thought and I just couldnt let this one go.....hmmmm...so I sat and stewed and stewed....

what was i to do?

well my little brain worked overtime to figure something out....

Well I figured the best thing to do would be to get those signs made, so as to not disapoint him and make him think i cant get things done...

So i worked on the signs for the good part of the next day....

and left them in his office with a note affixed to the front

"Here are the signs...I wanted you to make sure I captured what you were looking for"

Well the next day He came by to see me...and seemed to be just a bit perturbed.

He had the signs in his hand....

He asked why?

"I thougth that was what you needed done"

He held up one of the signs....

It read "Wood for Sale"

Maybe pink paper with butterfly stickers was not what he had in mind when he said he wanted a woman's touch....hmmmm.....I thought I had hit the nail on the head.....

oh well...I guess I have to redo them....

At least all the guys in the booth who watched got a week's worth of laugh out of it!

Im gonna get myself in trouble one of these days

The Great Outdoors-Indoors

Advisory: Those with phobias of creepy crawly poisonous things should abstain from reading...may cause adverse psychololgical trauma....

As you all know I live up in the mountains...the hills....some would go as far as saying the back country...It goes without saying that a consequence of living in a more rural undeveloped place results in increased exposure to natures wonders.  Although I thank my lucky stars each day for the beautiful place that I llve, there are times where I feel as though I am in an episode of the Jeff Corwin Experience on Animal Planet.  As a result this entry is an homage to the wildlife of the motherlode...let us consider this a series of "natural" outtakes in the wildy popular series of Meghan's Xanga.

Arachniphobia:  You can ask anyone spiders usually do not bother me.  As long as they stay away from me...I stay away from them...when they invade my space, I usually just swuish them...simple right?  Well here in God's country a typical spider is the size of my fist, can jump across a room, and can crawl faster than I can run....Did I mention they bite too?  A few months ago I had my first run-in with Sonora Arachnids....I woke up one morning with 11 ( yes that is no typo) bites all over my body....I should preface with the fact that my body adversly reacts to almost any type of bite.  So i puffed up...a lot...and got a fever...and rash....and consequently three cortisone shots to treat the allergic reaction...I don't think I need to go into my phobia of needles...that in itself is an entirely different entry.  When I came home from the doctor.  We found a nest of Harry Potteresque eight legged freinds living in the closet....As with other insects in the motherlode these must have been genetically engineered super spiders bc no chemical we bought killed them, in fact I think it made them stronger.  So we had to have the house bug bombed....fun...I got to vacum up the corpses later...they were so big they clogged the vacum!

African Mosquitos:  No I do not live in Sub-Saharan Africa...but for all practical purposes lets pretend I do.  When one travels to Africa you must go through a guanlet of vaccines to protect yourself from dangerous diseases that can be passed by insect bites. I propose that California require the same precautions when one moves to the foothills.  For those of you who have never visited my hometown...let me describe the typical mosquito to you...It has the winspan of a sparrow, the legs of a Tarantula, and the bite of a two year old toddler....a deadly combination.  Since I have moved here I am bitten daily...numerous times daily...I dont even get reactions anymore...Why you ask?  Because I have already contracted every disease that they carry.  I am now a carrier of West Nile, Ebola, and Malaria.  Pretty soon I may mutate into a walking mosquito myself...imagine that picture. You can start calling me SquitoQueen.

Lizzy the Lizard and Sssuzie Snake:  Not to outdue the insect life of the hills...the reptiles are equally as prolific and sizeable.  I have lived up here almost a year and not until a few weeks ago did I even come across a reptile...thank god...bc the one thing I fear more than needles is snakes and thier cousins.. I was doing so well until recently.  Bryan and I were ripping up the backyard.  It was 30 years of overgrown weeds and bushes that had never been attended to.  So we decided to start from square one and just rip everyting out....we got 99% done before we even saw an animal.  Once we were done clearing the yard here comes LIzzy....about 9 inches long, fat, and fast as lightening.  Well Lizzy quickly backed me into a corner...and i was whining and schreeching for B to fix it....but before he could do anything to save his damsel in distress my part dinosaur ( see previous post) canine swooped in and swallowed it ....whole...Well that is one way to eliminate the problem.  Let us now move on to Sssuzie.  Three weeks ago B and I took our pet Raptor up to the lake for a hike.  There is this beautiful hike that goes all the way around the lake...4 miles in total.  It is one of my favorite day hikes.  So off we start...great day...great weather.  about half way around we are walking sinlge file with Bryan in front ( as sentry to scout out any rogue wildlife or scary mountain people) Pia in the middle, and me bringing up the rear.  Suddenly Bryan jumps 600 feet in the air and tells me to stop walking.  After I finish peeing myself he points out Sssuzie coiled  and camoflagued in the middle of the trail.  "its only a gopher snake just jump over it" Bryan says.  Now everyone knows that in college I minored in Animal Planet....so from a distance I examine this reptile.....and call upon my mentors (Jeff Corwin, Stever Erwin) for help in identifying this creature.  After 20 sec I look at bryan and tell him that I was not going anywhere...Ssssuzie was no gopher snake....my scaled freind had a rattle and diamond scales-western diamondback rattler....Guess what I found a new phobia to fixate on now...I told Bryan that if he killed it we could continue, otherwise he was on his own to find his way around the reptile...A large stick successfully pushed it over the edge to the lake...but not before Pia, who may alos be part mongoose( www.animalplanet.com for snake hunting traits), decides she could jsut swat it instead to really keep it calm-dumbass dog!

Stay tuned for the softer side of Sonora in my next entry....we will be hearing from Bambi, Nemo, Flika, and possibly even Alvin and the Chipmunks....