Lucy's Journal

Dear Journal,

Today began like most Wednesdays in our household — with me, Lucy (brilliant, beautiful, slightly chaotic green cheek conure), supervising operations from the curtain rod while Peanut (striped menace, professional napper, part-time tiger) pretended not to be plotting something.

By 10:17 a.m., the gang had assembled. Peanut. Kiwi (who insists he is the responsible one, which is adorable). And the usual crew of backyard consultants who still owe me for the waterfall project.

Naturally, we decided civilization needed our presence. So we went to the Morgantown Mall.

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🛍️ Operation: Mall Mischief

The automatic doors whooshed open like we were royalty. Peanut strutted in like he owned the place. I took flight and immediately established air superiority near the food court signage.

We conducted a full inspection:

• Escalators: ridden. Twice.

• Decorative plants: lightly investigated.

• Mall directory: aggressively critiqued.

• Random kiosk with phone cases: suspiciously shiny.

At one point I landed on the big mall map and made an announcement:

“Did you all know KMart used to be in here? Right there.”

I tapped the old anchor location with my beak.

Before it went up on top of the hill. And then… well… we all know how that story ends.

Peanut nodded solemnly like he personally remembers 1998.

“Retail history is important,” I told them. “Respect your fallen big box stores.”

Kiwi tried to eat a pretzel sample during this moment of silence. Disrespectful.

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🍟 The Food Court Incident

I will not confirm or deny whether a napkin dispenser was involved.
Or whether Peanut attempted to “liberate” a French fry.
Or whether security gently suggested that “pets are not permitted.”

We prefer the term mobile chaos consultants.

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🚜 Field Trip: Rural Curiosity

After mall operations were completed (you’re welcome, Morgantown), we decided to head up the hill to Rural King.

The second those doors opened, Peanut’s pupils expanded like he had seen the gates of Valhalla.

• Tractor supply section? Fascinating.

• Work boots? Excellent for scratching.

• Baby chicks? EXTREMELY intriguing.

I perched on a rack of camo hats and declared:
“We could absolutely build a superior waterfall with these supplies.”

Peanut found the feed section and acted like he was reviewing agricultural investments. Kiwi attempted to interview a bag of sunflower seeds.

We maintained what I would describe as moderate chaos levels.

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📝 Final Thoughts

Malls may change.
KMart may vanish into retail legend.
But one thing remains constant:

If you let a conure and a tiger cat loose in public, you are going to have a story.

Tomorrow we may focus on world domination.
Or snacks.

Probably snacks.

— Lucy 🪶

Wednesday

Tuesday's Tidbits

* Monday is over with good reason to do a tidbits. 

* It has been 22,707 days since I was born, that is 21 years using my new,  new, new, and improved 1,069-day Calendar. mom is at 30,361 which would make her 28 according to my new and improved calendar. 

* It has been 7,959 days since I graduated from WVU with a Degree in Geography. I love what I do and am thankful to still be working in my field. 

* 6,553 days ago Michelle and I had our first date together. Life has been much better since then. 

* 5,757 days ago I proposed to Michelle in the backyard at 4:00 in the morning. I've been the luckiest guy since that fateful day. 

* It was 5,794 days ago in front of our closest friends and family, for the most part, Michelle and I became husband and wife at the Marilla Center, it was a great day with friends and family. 

* I have now lived 2,932 days longer than my Dad did and I'm still going strong, slowing down but still going. 

* Michelle has been living a clean and productive life and beat that alcohol demon 1,586 days ago today. 

* My older Brother Jonathan lived 21,273 days, I've now outlived him by 1,449 days, making me Senior Supreme Sibling once again! 

* Old roommate Gregg proposed to his fiancée 164 days ago, I'm happy for those two. I asked him a couple weeks ago if they set a date yet, he said we would be the first to know. 

* I have 2,185 days to go until I retire, give or take a few hundred days here or there, but I love doing what I do. Who knows, though, doing what I do I may never retire.

* 343 more days until Phil steps to center stage once again for Groundhog Day. I'm still mad at the damn rat

* 310 more days to go until my Goodbye 2026 Blog is posted. 

* There are 303 more shopping days left until Christmas 2026. 

* There are 280 days until I hit the age of 63. Yeah I know, I'm really older than 21. 

* There are only 164 more days to go until Michelle and I will celebrate our 15th Wedding Anniversary......maybe

* There are 23 days until my favorite season begins, a lot of people love different seasons, I am a Spring person who loves the Springtime. 

* It has been ∞ (infinity symbol) days that I have hated both Pitt and Penn State.

* I have written 8,260 blogs in what is now 21 years of Blogging. 

* Progress on my Selfie in Space, right here. We are ready for liftoff and holding. 

* Looking for Girl Scout Cookies? Ryleigh's Page

* Looking for Girl Scout Cookies still? Arabellas Page

* This is my favorite Tiktok, how about a places to eat in Morgantown post? 

* Hi ho hi ho

Monday

All good things must come to an end—but if you’ve got to wrap up the weekend, today’s a pretty exciting way to do it. Now it’s time to take our collective noses and press them firmly back onto the grindstone of life. Back to work, back to the hustle, back to doing our part to make this spinning rock a better place.

I had the strangest question asked of me this morning. Kiwi said George, because George is easier to say than Daddy but Mommy is no problem. He said George, does the lawn tractor have any gas in it. I said I think so and mentioned I have a couple of gas cans if not, and all he said was OK George, Thank You. With the snow on the ground, I have no concept of what they are planning to do, but something tells me I may not approve. I think he's hiding my tractor keys under his wing. I know we are all ready for Spring, but be patient, my little friend. 

So it's back into the office today, I wrapped up a task of teaching a department about a mapping website the last couple of weeks, 4 training sessions a couple of hours each and I was hacking up a lunch as I was trying to train and take questions. This week, just head down and a lot of tedious repetitive work, entering handwritten coordinates into an Excel spreadsheet so I can create a feature class with the attributes. It's something I can do blind folded, but OCR readers aren't developed well enough where they can read and interpret hand written chicken scratch with any degree of confidence. so we're doing it the hard way. 

Have yoursleves a great day

Hi ho hi ho

Sunday

Here I sit yet once again in a quiet Household. I mentioned to Kiwi and Peanut that I haven't done our taxes yet and will probably need to start inputting all the information to do them, they said they would help. Peanut for some strange reason, seems to know what she is doing, I think her and Michelle have been talking shop and she has picked up some tricks from her. 

I just have to wonder if I get audited, if I can blame any potential mistakes on my Cat and the Conure? I had better double-check everything just to make sure.

No big plans for the day other than simply doing my taxes. I know Michelle is planning on making a batch of Zuppa Toscana today, it's one of the few soups that I really like and it's always good a second day. 

Naps and watching the Olympics are on my agenda for the day. 

Have yourselves a great day, Make it special. 

Saturday Morning Rambling

Here I sit on a quiet Saturday Morning, Kiwi and Peanut are making plans to help Mommy take the house from Valentine's Day decorations to St Patricks Day decorations. They are two very special little members of the family who just like to help out and do their part. And they work for food, attention, treats and cleaning up their poop. 

Well both Michelle and I have been down with this damn flu bug pretty hard this week. They actually sent me to work from home on Monday as I sounded that bad. No worries, doesn't take me long to pack up my computer and go home and plug it into my docking station at home. 

We did kind of miss a big announcement: Michelle is officially a Swanson's Employee as of Monday this week. She is a full-time employee with benefits which she hasn't found herself in that position since Xtreme Labor Solutions shut down a few years ago. Congratulations Michelle!!!!!

Other than that, no real plans for the weekend, I think we both honestly just need to rest up and get better. Of course with this weather the way it has been it's a hard thing to do. Do you know it's supposed dto snow this weekend? 

Have a great day. 

Big Ole Hairy Friday

Yes, it is once again that time of the week that we all look forward to when we can take time to cease the labors for the week and take a little bit of needed time out to enjoy the fruits of those labors. It is again the dawn of another weekend and a Big Ole Hairy Friday!!!

Kiwi and Peanut are bound and determined to build that waterfall, so much so that they had a backhoe delivered (from Temu) and are fully intending to build a waterfall in the back yard. Kiwi wants to divert the stream water into and out of the waterfall, but he doesn't get the concept that there is about a 20'-25' (I haven't checked it) elevation change going uphill to get to the waterfall, but he said that is Peanut's department she is the engineer. I asked her and her response was simply "Meow". They are bound and determined, that is for sure. 

As of press time I don't have an "Official" Start date for Michelle at Swanson Industries, she accepted her offer letter last week and has her paperwork submitted and even did her drug screen, so ducks (not the quackers) are all in a row, her start date may even be Monday. 

Other than that, no big plans for the weekend. It is that time of the year when we are all just waiting for the next season to get here, Football is over with, Baseball is getting started and I'm just waiting for the flowers to bloom. 

Have yourself a great day. 

Hi ho hi ho

Photo Flashback Thursday

Once a week, I like to take a little bit of time out, time to look at some of the 30,000+ photos that I have stored on my computer. Little lost moments in time that I either captured with a lens, scanned, or just stole from somewhere on the internet. I like to find just one and post it up, recalling or reliving the picture to the best of my ability. Sometimes this is a pretty easy task, and sometimes it's not that easy, but one thing it has always been a lot of fun.

This week's pic goes back to 2015, back to when I was not only the McDonald's KDKA Pittsburgh Steelers Trivia Champions team member, but I was also the individual Carnival Pride Trivia World Champion. This was an international competition as we were somewhere in the Caribbean in the Ocean when I won this Championship, which is what made it worldwide. 

I won this coveted ship on a stick trophy and I was supposed to do the talkshow circuit, Oprah, Late Show, Steve Wilkos, Waynes World, etc. but I decided to forgo the talk show circuit to go back to being a Geographer. 

Speaking of, have yourself a great day

Hi ho hi ho