Before and After

Many of you requested pictures of my handiwork.  Since I'm not smart enough to grab the camera before, I had to dig through my old pictures to find a good one of Lilly before...

This one was taken about a month and a half ago at our camping trip.

and now...

I just took this one (don't mind all the junk in the background!)

I know that she looks a lot cuter when she's sporting the scruffy look, but that is much hard to maintain since she doesn't care to be brushed!  So for us it is much easier to clip her.  She is a pretty good sport about it.

And here are some of the comments about my previous post...

Jennakat said... Thunk!  My jaw just hit the floor!  You forgot that I was the one to catch her! >:(
Jennakat is also known as Darly (she doesn't like the name Darly but since that's what you all know her by, that's what I'll use.)  And yes, she's right.  She did help me catch the dog before her bath.

OK Chick said... I don't have animals but I think giving them a bath would be my least favorite part.  It seems like lots of hard work.
I've always had animals and have given them baths.  Dogs are the easiest if you have the right equipment.  We have a utility sink with a hose attachment, so I'm not hurting my back by having her in the bathtub and the hose just makes everything nice...I can focus the water right where I need it.  (much better than the old cup method.)

Bone said... Just put a bunch of toys in the bath.  Oh, and tell her that the tub is the only place the monster who lives under the house and peeks thru the window at night won't get her.  That always worked on me.
Well Lilly seems too nervous about her bath to even bother with toys.  I've never tried toys in the bath for any of my pets...but seeing as they seem in panic mode I don't see toys helping. 

Grooming day

After putting it off until we couldn't stand her any more it was time to finally break down and groom the dog.  She was getting to be quite a mess.  Her hair was getting too long (although we keep it trimmed out of her eyes) but she was looking quite shaggy.  She hates to be brushed so she had some matts on her too.

So first I took her into the garage with my trusty scissors to trim her up.  In the past I've used clippers on her, but her fur is really fine and it cloggs up the clippers where we can't use the length guards on them.  And since we have no guard on the clippers we end up chopping her up at all different lenghts.  Besides my clippers are really loud so they scare her.  This time I decided to use just the scissors and I was quite pleased with how she came out.

Yup, she's still cut at all different lengths...I'm not perfect.  But we were able to achieve the same results we normally get with less stress.  I let her up to shake off the hair during the clipping and to give us both a break...and this time I didn't have to chase her down.  In fact there was one point where I was checking the progress and said "I need to do a bit more on your head." and she came right over to me. 

After the clipping it was time for a much needed bath.  She was getting really stinky.  But she wasn't so happy about that part.  In fact for the first time she tried to hide from me and actually tried to get out our front window.  LOL!  But she was a very good girl in the bath and is now all clean and smells like doggy shampoo instead of just like doggy.

naptime!

Parents getting old stinks!

At what age are you supposed to be when you have to start taking care of your parents? I thought that I would at least get to wait until I was done with my kid.

I've already told you about how my mom got very sick last year and almost died from pneumonia...right? A refresher... see my mom smokes, she has osteoporosis and arthritis. Last year she got sick...went to her doctor who couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. She wasn't showing any signs of her body fighting the infection. She ended up in the ER because she couldn't breathe and the doctor there almost sent her home. Luckily there was a lung specialist making rounds and my step dad asked him to come in and saved my mom's life as she was admitted to the ICU. Turns out she has viral pneumonia and COPD. She now has only about 40% lung capacity and has to carry oxygen with her where ever she goes (although she doesn't have to wear the tube unless she feels short of breath...which she will try to do without as much as possible because she thinks that going without will help to strengthen her lungs.) She'll never get that lung capacity back...she'll always have to carry the oxygen and eventually she'll have to start using it all the time.

So now she is on permanent disability. Finally...it took a very long time for the government to finally get her into the system for that...meanwhile she went broke and charged up her credit to the max.

My brother who lives out here near me & I felt really bad for her and wanted to send her money to help out... BUT even though this woman has a disease caused by smoking and can't breathe, AND can't afford cigarettes, she still smokes. Neither of us wanted to contribute to her addiction (that she refuses to try any of the stop smoking helps out there!) so we didn't want to send her money to buy cigarettes with. yeah, she's raised some very stubborn kids!

but the apple doesn't fall far from the tree... When my mom was thinking about moving out here to be near her kids she wanted to also bring all the antique furniture that she's bought over the years. Furniture that she wouldn't be able to fit into a house in her price range out here... furniture that she was going to pay to haul out here to have to give to me (that I don't want!) I told her to sell the furniture. It didn't make any sense for her to pay to haul it out here, but she wouldn't hear of it. I also told her to sell it to pay her bills. She didn't. See...who's stubborn now? Can you guess what's going to happen to this furniture when I inherit it?

My brother did go and buy her a cell phone on his plan and mailed it to her. So she has a phone with a local to me phone number. Brother also programed the phone with all our phone numbers so she could call us at any time. Has she called anyone? uh, no!

And then there is DH's mom. DH is the only one of his siblings who lives near his mom. But his mom has been really secretive about her situation. See a few years back one of her doctors put her on a combination of medications that made her pretty loopy. She was trying her best to function through this, but she wasn't able to do everything. Luckily a friend of hers went with her to the one doctor and helped MIL to fire him...she then went back to her regular doctor who was able to get her on the right medications to help her. MIL only confided in DH about what all happened recently. So now DH has been trying to help MIL out, but he has his siblings to deal with too. His two sisters think that she should move to be near them (in a nursing home or with the oldest sister) and his youngest brother wants to take care of her from his "crash pad"* in VA. Luckily his oldest brother has too much to deal with in his own family to poke his nose in any of this.

DH has been driving over to MIL's house on a regular basis to take care of her yard and any repairs that the house needs...like when the water heater sprung a leak or the basement floods. There was also another situation that came up recently where he has to make sure to call her to check in every few days.

I'm okay with having to take care of MIL. She's in her 70's and it's time to help her. I just wish she would let us. She doesn't want me knowing what all is going on and she would probably be upset with DH for telling me what he has, but I know he hasn't told me everything...and I know that she hasn't told him everything either.

However, I'm not so okay with having to take care of my mom. She's only 61 and the reason she's in this mess is those stupid cigarettes! She always said when I was growing up that she didn't want to live forever, so if smoking shortened her life, so be it. But I don't think that she ever thought about how shortening her life would impact the lives of her kids.



*BIL is a flight attendant who works out of VA. A "crash pad" is a residence that he keeps and rents out to other flight attendants to use while they are in VA. I don't know how that all works, but hopefully it is covering his bills.

Back to the gym

Darly passed her ice skating class and is ready to move on to level 4...but she isn't interested.

Instead she has asked to go back to gymnastics.  Funny though before she quit back in June I had noticed that she had stopped practicing.  After she quit, she started practicing again...but I haven't seen her practice lately (except for on her friend's trampoline).  So I've only paid for one session, which thankfully the gym's new owner decided to return to it's former 4 week length (the previous owner had made the sessions 8 weeks long...I guess in an attempt to keep the money from folks who were just trying it out.)

Tonight is going to be her first time back.  I don't know how she's feeling about this.  And I don't know if she realizes that this new schedule means that her friends aren't going to be able to spend the night during the week anymore...we're on Friday night only for sleepovers.  But DH & I are happy about it.  hee hee  (not that having her friends stay over is any bother at all...for the most part they all fit into our family really well and the only difference in having them over is a bit more noise.)

So we'll see how tonight goes.  I should go remind her that she has gym tonight so hopefully she doesn't whine about it when it's time to go.  That wouldn't be a good start.

In other news, thanks to DH's job and some specials on http://www.southwest.com/ we are working on planning our vacation.  DH has to go out to California at the end of October for a few days, so we'll fly out after his deal and meet up with him in Anaheim.  Had I known where the American Girl Place was before I booked our flight, I would have set it up to fly into LAX.  But we're flying into John Wayne and then driving up to American Girl Place.  DH was annoyed by how far it was...lol.  I'll drive, no big.  Although, the thought of driving in CA scares me a bit...but it can't be any worse than Korea or FL...right?

We're at a bit of a loss as to what to do with our other two days in CA though.  We think that we might just get a 2 day hopper for Disneyland and go there for the two days, but then DH also thinks we should try out some other stuff.

See his boss is giving him travel hints...his boss suggested Lego Land...his boss has boys!  I don't think that Darly is going to want to go to Lego Land...she hasn't played with Legos in about 7 years.  Lego sculptures are cool, but you can see them online, just fine. ;)  I'm going to research some of the other things to do in the area, but I really think that we'll be at Disney.

Needanap!

Yesterday Darly went to a birthday party/sleepover/trip to amusement park. I dropped her off over at Heather's place at 4:30 and rushed home to my DH. I made sure to call DH at work to remind him of our good fortune (free childcare & a date night!)

DH & I went out to dinner and when we came home he called to check on his mom...while he did that I grabbed my Girl Scout paperwork to get that done so I could turn it in today. After talking to his mom he needed to do some research on the computer for her.

When he finished up his research he says that he's tired and going to bed...he was too tired for me to go to bed at that time.

I did some stuff on the computer and then started watching TV. I found a good movie to watch, I had missed the beginning but that's okay...I'm sure I'll catch it another time. Then another good movie came on and I watched it too. Next thing you know it's almost 3am when I crawl into bed.

I'm sleeping nicely when the phone rang at 8:35AM! Turns out that Darly had decided that she doesn't want to go to the amusement park, but I needed to go and get her right away so the rest of the party could go. =0 Heather's house is about 35 minutes away from mine...and the place that I needed to drop off the Girl Scout paperwork is between Heather's house and mine...closer to hers! So I crawl out of bed, and freshen up and forgo my coffee to get my child. ARGH!

On the way to Heather's house there was a slow up due to a car accident. Luckily I knew how to travel around it so I wasn't stuck in traffic and I got to Heather's with plenty of time to keep them on schedule. In fact they were still running around trying to pack the cars with everything that they needed for their day. And Heather's neighbor gave me a very nice gift bag while I was there (I still haven't opened it to see what's inside) but the bag itself is one of those reuseable grocery bags! Score! Now I have 9 bags and for now my grocery store pays me $0.05 a piece for them! hee hee

But now that I have child and gift bag I am in need of two things...

COFFEE!
and a way to kill some time before my Girl Scout registration appointment.

and I need to avoid the intersection with the traffic accident in case there was any leftover traffic.

So we take a different route and it's on the way that I remember that there is a Panera Bread near there! SCORE! I can get coffee and a bite to eat...and kill a bit of time before my appointment. So we do that. I got a cinnamon crunch bagel (a very popular item today...I think I saw about 4 other orders for the same thing!) and a tall (aka small???) coffee.

Darly wasn't hungry until I was stuffed, so she finished up my bagel. But we still needed to kill some time until my appointment. Lucky for Darly there was a Halmark store near there...we went and looked at the latest Webkinz. The chipmunk is soooooo cute!

I went and turned in my registration stuff and needed to fill out a new Volunteer Application which required 3 character references... I hope the folks I chose like me...hee hee I just emailed them when I got home to give them a head's up.

Now, if you'll excuse me... I Needanap!

What a way to scare a bunch of moms!

Last night Darly's confirmation class had their first outting.

See the schedule of classes is 1st & 3rd Wednensdays they'll have their regular class and learn their lesson.  The 4th Wednesday they want the parents to attend and have a family class.  And the 2nd Wednesday they are going to do things away from the Church.

So the plan for last night was for the class to walk from our Church to a local park for some play time and then head across the street from there to the ice cream shop for a treat.  Then walk back to Church.

This all sounded like a great plan until I got back to Church to pick up Darly at 7:45pm and noticed how DARK it was outside and that there is NO CROSSWALK on the very busy road that the Church sits on the corner of.  ACK!!!  I was okay with the girls crossing this road at 6:30 when they left because it was still daylight, but by 7:30 it was very dark out.

I sat with a mom who had been at the Church the entire time.  She was as nervous as I was, which was doing nothing to make me feel any better!  And slowly other moms of the girls in Darly's class trickled in and we all sat there fretting.

Finally the girls arrived.  I have no idea what time they got back though because I left my watch & phone in my car.  But they had all made it back completely safe.  I found out later that two other moms had gone with them, which made me feel much better.  Turns out they took the longest route which was also the safest.  The only time they were in any danger was when they crossed the busy road and for that, they just ran!  (did I mention that Darly decided that the most appropriate footwear for this trip was FLIPFLOPS?!?!?)  I asked her teacher to PLEASE tell the girls to not wear flipflops next time because I am obiviously and idiot who doesn't know what she's talking about with my own child.  grrr!

Oh, the girls were told to bring $8 with them for buying ice cream.  Darly's ice cream costs $1.75... what bills does she use to pay for this?  The $5!!  :eyeroll!"  She defended herself by saying it was the first thing to come out of her bag.  "ummm Hello?  you keep digging!"  sigh!  Now I have loads of ones for change.  grumble grumble!

Tonight is Darly's last ice skating lesson.  Yup, she's decided to give that up.  She's very disappointed that she cannot do a bunny hop.  I'm disappointed with her coach...instead of working with Darly on her bunny hop this time (it's the second time she's been in this level class) she had decided to teach her the next level skills?!?!?!  So tonight I'm going to speak to the coach and have her test Darly out on the skills she taught...it isn't fair that she should be tested on the two skills that she didn't get last time only when she's learned so many other skills (in other words, why should I pay for this twice!!!)  I'm hoping that if Darly passes all the skills in this level and the next (since the coach taught them) she might be willing to keep with it.

Oh and Tuesday we signed Darly back up for Gymnastics.  And this is so totally silly!  Darly said she would go back to gymnastics IF she could be in the lower level class and with a different coach.  So I emailed the gym.  No, the level class that Darly wants is STILL combined with the upper level class, it's still the upper level lesson, and it's still with the same coach.  I tell all of this to Darly and guess what...she wants to do it anyway.  :eyeroll!:  Well I'm only paying for one session this time...cuz I never did get my money back last time, but they have applied it to this lesson.

My DH's new hobby

Dh really likes that I'm on two different instant messaging services...why?  cuz it plays into his new hobby.

Dh likes to IM MY friends and see how long he can keep them thinking that it's me. 

Tonight one of my friends knew I wasn't supposed to be at home, so she knew it was him...what she didn't know was that I was home (I didn't go to TNO* cuz no one else was going) but I was in the other room.

Dh came out and said that she kept winking at him.  :eyeroll:  He doesn't get that winking online isn't like winking at a cute person.  Oh well.

When I get to talk or IM my friend we'll have a great laugh about all of this.

*last time I used TNO I got into trouble for not letting y'all know that it stands for Teacher's Night Out.  It's like our Mom's Night Out.

Girl Scouts starts up quickly!

Where has September gone???  I could have sworn that it was just August and now we're half done with September...where has all my time gone?

It's Girl Scout registration time.  My troop was supposed to get their forms all filled out on Sept 5th.  But I had to cancel because I was sick...I didn't even have the registration forms then!  So we were supposed to get together on Sept 12th to fill out the forms, but that didn't work out either...only 3 girls showed up and due to parking issues I didn't even get there in time to fill them out.  :eyeroll!:

So I have to turn these forms in on Saturday the 20th...  One of the other moms in the troop suggested we get together on the 19th and we'll HAVE to, but we don't have a location to meet because I forgot to request the room.  I'm a dork!

I should be searching for an alternate location.  Think I can do it today?  Maybe?

We also have to get our Investiture/Rededication/Bridging ceremony done.  I found a better bridge idea than what we had last year.  Our bridge is one that the other troops in our area use and I like to call it the bike ramp.  It isn't anything but two triangle ramps with a platform in the middle.  I was very disappointed with it.  So I searched online and found a better bridge.  I just have to get the parts and build it.  It shouldn't be too hard...just some wood pallets & cardboard.

I've got my ceremony planned...now I just need to farm out all the stuff that I can so I can relax.  hee hee  I don't see that happening cuz I'm such an A type person who has to be in control of everything.  Wish me luck at letting go....

whole lotta nuttin going on here...

I haven't posted anything cuz not much going on.  It's been nice to not have to worry about anything though.

But looking at the calendar, I see that October is fast approaching and I need to get started on Girl Scout stuff.

so off to do some research on our ceremony.

Today I met Tigger

Here's a link to his picture http://www.flickr.com/photos/79812389@N00/2191547675/in/photostream/

Tigger is my friend Jen's cat.  He's a very nice kitty.

Today while I was at Jen's house talking at her dining room table, Tigger first came into the room and after making his rounds decided that I needed to be checked out further.  (I would expect no less from a cat, it's just how they are!)

So he hops from one chair to my lap.  UFF!  He's not a light kitty!  And without so much of a sniff he invites me to pet him right away.  Apparently I'm pretty good at this kitty petting thing cuz he stayed there for quite some time...but then he noticed my water bottle on the table.  So he climbs up on the table and goes over to investigate it.  He was sniffing so closely to the opened neck of the bottle that I figured I wasn't gonna drink it anymore...seeing as he had practically kissed it.  I like cats, but not enough to kiss them full on the kitty lips. :p

So I poured some of the water into the cap of the bottle for him.  Tigger stuck his nose a bit too close and sprung back because the water was ice cold, but he quickly decided it needed more investigation and gave it a sip.  It must have been good (duh, I had been drinking it earlier, it was good!) cuz he slurped it all up.  I ended up giving him 3 cap fulls.

Jen was embarrased and kept appologizing for him, but I found him quite cute.  but we both decided that 3 cap fulls was quite enough.  However, tigger didn't think so.  Seeing as he was pawing at the bottle, I decided it would be best if I put the lid back on...and sure enough once the lid was on the bottle was knocked over by the cat.  He seemed suprised that the water wasn't coming out when the bottle fell over.  He had to give it a few whapps before giving up and trying to leave...to only then be held like a baby.

Darly was quite upset to hear this cuz she loves kitties and would have loved to have been there...but I seriously think she would have had much more fun where she was.

Question

have you folks seen this ad? It's for the Pedi Paws pet nail groomer tool. Basically this tool looks like a Dremel tool with a guard over the top to keep your pet's hair from getting in it...if that even works!

I have to wonder though... If this is such a great thing and works so well.... how come I keep getting spam in my email each day trying to get me to buy it?

I'm thinking "if it smells like spam, then it's probably a scam!"

Horizon Organic

I was recently asked to try out Horizon Organic Flavored Single Serve Milk. We were pretty excited when we got our samples. They come in shelf stable single serve containers that do not require refrigeration…but I put them in the frig anyway because we like our milk cold.


Darly was so ready to get started so she grabbed the Vanilla flavor first to have with her lunch. It wasn’t quite cold enough for her and she found it a bit too sweet. She likened it to eating melted vanilla ice cream. I had to finish that box. I poured it over crushed ice. Yum!

The Chocolate & Strawberry flavors were a huge hit! She liked both of those a lot and she loved the collapsible straws. Very fun to play with.  I think these would be very good for packing with your child's lunch...if I had a reason to pack a school lunch. ;)

We were introduced to Horizon Organic Yogurt Tubes a while back while visiting our local Panera Bread. So now those are a must have in our house. I like having a treat in the house that I don’t have to worry about how much she gets into them.

For more info on Horizon Organic check out their website at http://www.horizonorganic.com/ But if you’re like me and just want something healthy that you don’t have to think about in the house, just pick some up at your favorite grocery store. ;)

Things missed due to illness...

Wednesday night this illness snuck up on us. I first noticed that my throat was a bit scratchy some time that evening.

Thursday morning I woke up early in full blown sickness. :P I wasn't a happy girl...as seen by my post. Darly woke up soon after me and she was sick too. Lucky her, she took several naps that day. Me I stayed up suffering.

MISSED: Darly's Ice Skating practice & lesson. I figured that standing in a refrigerator for an hour and 30 minutes and then to come back and do it again for 30 minutes was crazy! I know that she didn't miss out on learning anything as I'm a bit upset with her coach for not working with her!

Friday: to be nice to DH I slept in the guest room so he could get a good night's sleep without me tossing and turning, coughing and such. Well I woke up to use the restroom and noticed that he was still in bed at 6:45am. Ummm normally he would have already left the house to be at work at 7am. So I went to him and said "You didn't tell me that you were staying home today." to which he sprung out of bed and rushed to the shower. Seems that he had forgotten to set his alarm clock. Well at least he was well rested! Which he needed, cuz work was a bear.
Darly was relatively active, while I was able to take a nap.

MISSED: Darly's Girl Scout meeting...which was canceled due to us and 2 other families being sick. The healthy families appreciated our stinginess with our germs.

Saturday: I slept in the guest room again. I think DH is happy about that as he needed to not be sick today. He had to go to his mother's to help her out with a few things. I've got Darly finally straightening up her mess.

MISSED: Sunday School teacher training. I didn't think that they would want my germs either and seeing as my head feels like it wants to explode, I didn't that driving was in my best interest.

Tomorrow is Rally Day at Church, but I think that I'll be staying home for that as well. I really hope that they were able to get a co-teacher for our class, because I really do not want to have to teach this class all by myself again.

Still sick

yesterday Darly was complaining about her right ear...and we remembered that she was messing with it the night before. So it's possible that she blew her nose so hard that some backed up into her ear...she & I have short eustachian tubes.

So when she gets up, whenever that happens...I'll ask her to give me an honest answer about her ears and if it's still bugging her, we'll see the doc.

The thing that got me about this was I asked her if her ear hurt and first she answered no...and then a few seconds later she admitted that yes it did hurt. Hummm how am I going to convince this kid that she needs to tell me this kind of stuff? Here I was living in this silly world of thinking that she told me everything and lately I'm finding out that for some weird reason she's scared to tell me stuff...like when the basement was getting flooded, she didn't want to tell us. weird.

too kutz!

SICK!

Darly & I are both sick and it stinks.

I HATE being sick!

This day is going on FOREVER!!!! I woke up at OH MY GOSH IT'S EARLY 5 something this morning because my throat was hurting like crazy. Darly was up soon after me complaining too. We both drank some lemon water. :p Doesn't seem to be helping much for me...or her. Lucky her, she's been able to go back to sleep several times...even though her nose is running a marathon. My nose isn't running much, but my throat hurts a lot.

DH isn't happy cuz he thinks that he'll catch this...FUNNY, cuz he's been sick for the past I don't know how long. I sure hope we don't have his crud, but he doesn't share his germs...cuz he knows he'll die a slow painful death if I catch something from him.

I should probably cancel our Girl Scout meeting tomorrow cuz there isn't any point if I can't go...unless... hummm

The Circus is coming! THE CIRCUS IS COMING!

Gosh I don’t know how long it has been since I went to see the circus. I know it was when I was very little. My parents must have gotten free tickets somehow, because I know that they couldn’t afford to do such things…I don’t even remember how many of my brothers came with us. Shoot it could have been that they weren’t there at all and we went with my Girl Scout troop. How’s that for remembering.

I have to admit that I have been a very bad mother and haven’t taken my poor little girl (who’s growing up so fast that I had better hurry!) to see the circus at all. Bad mommy! Bad Mommy! Hee hee

Well here’s my chance to redeem myself. And you can take your kids to the circus too! Oh and here’s a discount code too!

- The 20% discount code for Ringling Bros. Circus. Code: MCC

*Please note that the code is valid for buying tickets with the following ticket price brackets: $24, $19, and $13. The code is valid for the circus shows in the following cities:

Indianapolis, IN - Sept. 4-7, 2008
Kansas City, MO - Sept. 10-14, 2008
Grand Rapids, MI - Sept. 18-21, 2008
Denver, CO - Oct. 2-13, 2008
Boston, MA – Oct. 8-13, 2008
Cleveland, OH - Oct. 24 - Nov. 2
Chicago, IL - Nov. 6 - 30, 2008
St. Louis, MO - Nov. 6-9, 2008
Auburn Hills, MI - Nov. 12 - 16, 2008
Highland Heights, KY - Feb 27 - Mar. 1, 2009
Cincinnati, OH - Mar. 4 - 8, 2008

Click here to get your tickets http://www.ringling.com/

To help start the family traditions early, the Baby’s First Circus program allows babies can receive a free ticket voucher that can be exchanged for a free ticket to any Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey performance, anytime, anywhere. No expiration date!

makes me laugh!

Weekend update

hummm what did I do this weekend? It seems that I did most of my doing on Monday.

Saturday I didn't do a lot, I think I mostly got my calendars all updated with all our activities for the next few months. I did noticed that I had us starting going to Confirmation classes an entire week before they actually start. oops! Oh well, I'm sure Darly won't mind not having to go to one. hee hee

Sunday after we went to Church we went over to MIL's house so that DH could take care of her yard. While we were there we got to visit with MIL's neighbor's new puppy. Oh this poor puppy. The neighbor doesn't have a clue as to how to train him so he's just doing what puppies do. When I reached through the fence he greeted me by chomping on my hand. I hollered "OUCH!" and he immediately quit thinking I was something to "nom" on. So apparently he is still young enough to learn. This lady is trying to sell her house, yet instead of housebreaking her dog, she shows her house with newspapers over the puppy's favorite potty spot in the house. And she has NOT used the training tip that I gave her 2 weeks ago. sigh! I'm about ready to say "give me the dog and I'll have him all trained in 2 weeks...in the meantime have your carpets cleaned with enzymes so he won't be able to smell his scent in the house." And on the other hand I also think that perhaps just letting her fail at this would be a good lesson for her. Oh well.

Monday was the day that everything happened. I did a bunch of stuff for my homeschool support group as we were having our membership drive...that was the easy part. The hard stuff was, I did the laundry (DH & Darly helped fold the clothes...although Darly did let a basket of shirts get all wrinkled...so I popped them back into the dryer, cuz I don't iron!) I trimmed the dog's toenails. She wasn't happy but I did all of them without getting any of the quicks so she should be happy about that. I cleaned the rabbit's cage. They of course were not happy with the human invasion in their room, but loved the fresh hay when I was done. And then DH suggested that we FINALLY paint the master bathroom to match the master bedroom.

I painted the bedroom 3 years ago when DH had to go to the gulf coast for Hurricane Katrina aid. I would have done the bathroom then, but the thing I hate about painting is the taping and protecting everything you don't want painted. It's a royal pain in the tushie. And this bathroom has sooooooo much stuff that needed taping. So 3 years ago, DH said that he would tape it all off if I painted it. And yesterday he finally got around to doing it.

I had originally typed up a full description of my bathroom to share all the taping that needed to be done, but after looking at it decided to spare you the "bloody details."

While DH was taping I ran to the hardware store to pick up some supplies to finish the job.

The painting itself went very quickly. We sponge painted the room in two shades of paint. The technique involves mixing the paint with half water to make it easier to work with and then tapping the sponges against the wall in a random pattern.

Darly was eager to help out and was a real asset for a lot of the areas where tiny hands and arms were a must! She did a great job and my bathroom looks great...finally.