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Disclaimer: If you are easily offended by sheer honesty, or you think me having my own opinions is "being negative", then this is not the place for you, and I suggest you leave and head elsewhere. I call a spade a spade, and I don't sugarcoat anything.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Early Birthday Gifts

Well, I got a couple of early gifts for my birthday, which is actually next month. I got a Wacom Bamboo One graphics tablet, which I LOVE!!! I've been working with it a lot. I love drawing, and I love animating too. This thing is great for both! I hate drawing using a mouse. My drawings never come out as good as I would like them to when I draw them with a mouse. But this tablet is awesome for doing drawings! I am working on some animation clips (in between packing our things). The clips feature a little bit of movement, nothing fancy, just to practice a few screen tests. I've been doing the drawings in Paint Shop Pro, which I also enjoy working with. It's an old version, but still very good! It does what it's supposed to! Then I put them together using Windows Movie Maker. The finished projects I will put up on YouTube. This one is going to be a few seconds, I'm already 36 frames into it. My animation is not perfect, but I keep practicing. It will get better if I keep up the practice. Then when I begin taking REAL animation classes, I will have a little smidgen of experience that I can pull foreward with.

My second gift is something that most women would not appreciate getting, and that is a vacuum. I love it too! It's got hepa filtration, and it's powerful enough to pick up pet hair. It's just what I need! My old one, that ma gave me when we first moved here, died. I "buried" it in the back yard. But this new one is awesome!! Actually, I now have 2 vacuums! I inherited another one from ma and John when they moved out of the apartment upstairs! But that one is more like a large dirtbuster with a hose. Of course it depends on the size of the house we move into next, but I'm keeping both vacuums. One can be to clean the downstairs, and one can be for the upstairs.

Unfortunately, we did not get the condo unit in Bozeman, so, I am looking for others. I scour Craigslist every hour now! Anna looks for ads in Bozeman's newspaper. It's tough!! Everything in Bozeman is either way out of our price range, or only has one restroom, or does not allow pets! I even found one that turned out to be a scam. Anna warned me not to write to ads that only have an e-mail address! I wrote to one that sounded promising, and the guy who wrote me back turned out to be (again) from Nigeria! I wrote him back and said "Forget it. I'd rather rent from someone local!" Well, I found another one last night, but it's in Livingston! Livingston is about 20 miles away from Bozeman, and there is a big pass in between the two. But the house sounds wonderful!! We may have no choice but to take it! At least until we can find something good in Bozeman. But the guy was not even intimidated nor turned off when we mentioned we have 3 dogs! I told Anna to tell people that upfront. We'd better be honest with them from the get-go! Some ads say they only allow 1 or 2 dogs. 2 dogs maximum. But honestly, I think those landlords expect people who have dogs are going to have big dogs, like labradors or golden retrievers. These dogs are tops in property damaging! They have it down to an artform. My little chihuahuas and papillon are not destructive at all. They are well beyond their demolition days. Not that they ever were ruinous anyway! But unfortunately because of a lot of irresponsible labrador and golden retriever owners (and there are many), my dogs are considered rental vermin, making it hard to find a place. I've given up on Belgrade, because the town only allows 2 pets per household. I have one too many. That would mean I would have to get a kennel license in Belgrade. UGH!! If I was still breeding chihuahuas, I wouldn't mind it, but I'm not breeding dogs anymore! So to me, getting a kennel license would make about as much sense as a pot with no bottom.

Well, that's the way the cookie crumbles. We may have to settle for whatever we can get! What ever turns out to be available when we need it. I love my dogs, and I don't want to get rid of any of them. I'd also rather have a house with more than one bathroom! That is a must! Those usually have more than 2 bedrooms. But that's OK! I can use an extra bedroom for a study/computer room. It'd be better than what I have now. LOL! I'm only kidding! I love it here! I wish I didn't have to leave, but I have to. I have no choice now, there is no turning back! But who knows? Maybe I will love our place in Bozeman so much I might never want to leave. Never know for sure until it happens.

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