Monday

I was going to do a Garden 2015 Update for today's entry but I forgot. I thought about it earlier today, but the sun was in the wrong place and I decided to come back a little later when the light was better - but by then, I was on to other things. It's not going to be a happy entry. Short answer? Organic gardening isn't pretty or productive.

"Other Things" being taking the dog for walks in the much less heat and watching my DVR. You have to set priorities. I made my fitbit very happy over the weekend after disappointing it Friday., as far as it it concerned I should spend much more time dedicated to walking, sometimes I have to do other things. I don't think it or my other fitness aps agree that I should let my life interfere with their fitness goals for me.

 I also went and looked at fabric in real life and wasn't impressed. I need to go to a better class of fabric store and hopefully find something that fits what I want. I did find some lovely fabric printed with potatoes, which is of course, lovely , but it is not pine cones / pine trees!

How hard should it be in September to find PINE CONES and PINE TREES?! Its autumn! Are pine cones/trees more of  winter theme?  Am I going to find any that do not also feature Santa?

I saw hundreds of different fabrics and prints and none of them worked for me for that room! I saw a couple that I wished had been around when I was working on the living/dinning rooms because they were gorgeous and I would have been all over them. I saw one that would be great somewhere, just not in a room in my house at present. I am either way, way ahead of the curve design-wise or I have no taste at all and I need to change my plans.

I do not want to change my plans. I like my plans, I think they are good plans and I want to take those plans to fruition. I want  my upstairs to look like vacation. Its all ready kind of a tree house and I want my pine trees and pine cones. Damn it.

I was much more successful with my Christmas card. I stayed up late Saturday doing it, but its taken care of for another year and I'm happy with it.  I think everyone will like it but its not as spangly as some of the others I played with. I really wanted something with some zip or glitter or bling but I settled on tasteful instead. Its lovely and is  really features the photo and the place it was taken and fills all its jobs. I would have liked more glitter though, but maybe another year.

Friday Cat Blogging

Better and stronger.

I took the dog for a walk and walked right into a deluge, seeing the opportunity of the last real dog bath of the season, I walk slowly home in the rain in hopes of getting the dog good and wet.

I threw the dog into to the entry way and raced to find his dog soap - found soap, but not the soap I wanted, dawdle, dawdle. Get back to the dog and it stops raining .

I get the mostly but not entirely wet dog back outside and start to soap him up. He needs to be more wet. I drag the dog to the hose - he knows what the hose is and he declines to spend th time with the hose or the water that comes out of it.

Wrestle the wet, slippery dog into submission. Scrub, scrub, scrub. Dog keeps trying to leave the bathing area, seems to believe that the further from the hose he is, that he may be able to escape the bath, he is wrong.. Over and over again. I win because I am bigger, stronger, and smarter. Please note  new mantra.

Dog gets  mostly dried, I do not. Wet from walk and bath. We go to Wally because who cares how wet I am or how much I smell like a wet dog, I am A People of Walmart! - I need protean bars and dog food! I am unstoppable and I smell of doggy shampoo! I also need raspberries, toilet paper and a  better quality denim-ish leggings than I have now, also bedtime treats for the dog and a dog toy to reward him for not actually killing me mid bath.



On September 11, 2001 I was just a few months into my job with the state. I was on a step stool filing some correspondence into Mary Gran Nursing Center and my computer beeped to let me know I had email. My brother emailed me to let me know he saw a story about a small plane crashing into the World Trade Center. I went online and found reports of maybe a small plane landed on one of the buildings, I couldn't get on CNN.Com. Something very bad had happened.

I ended up with dozens of CNN breaking news alerts for the day. I had gotten my first one a few days before when Maureen Reagan died.  The breaking news from September 11, 2001 as they arrived, later alerts that were on topic.

I kept trying to call my parents using my calling card, the number on the card was wrong and it wouldn't work, it started with a zero and they didn't start numbers with zero. I was getting hysterical because I really needed to call them. The phone people finally let me speak with them, it was hard because the phone lines were jammed because everyone was hysterically calling everyone. The phone card people later sent me a new card with a correct number on it.

We watched the buildings fall on streaming video it didn't seem real. I had never watched video on a computer before. I do not remember registering images of people jumping.  I walked down the hall to let the people at that end without video know the second building had fallen. There were planes still in the air and they crashed too. Into the Pentagon, into the ground. There were no more plans in the air anywhere. I went home and watched TV and wondered what they were going to do on Friends and where they lived in relation to where the buildings were. I read an Entertainment Weekly that didn't seem to be written in English. I watched the news for hours. Two days later I stopped my car dead in the middle of one of the streets on campus because I suddenly remembered all the people from school who had gone to New York after graduation. A few calls told me that all were accounted for, one of the guys wives was in the second building on her way to work but she got out. I cried at my desk a lot and my Social Worker boss told me to limit my media exposure.

Silent Pictures

Wednesday Already

Well, Hello! I'm back.

I didn't go anywhere but I kept busy. I washed all the laundry, did some economy boosting shopping, mowed both yards,  cooked some good dinners, ran the dishwasher a lot and walked the dog about a thousand miles.

We walked further on the greenway near here that we had before and it was very nice, much prettier than it was back in the fall. Its still not a very interesting walk and while trees are nice, it would be great if they would clear a lot of the brack along the path  that blocks the view of the stream and there is almost no access to it . I suppose it works for people on bikes but for the rest of us its a little bit of a downer.

We walked in the afternoon and then in the evening we went downtown and walked some more. I made my fitbit very happy!

When I wasn't being useful or staying in shape, I found time to obsess over hundreds of  swatches of fabric samples online  and then I went and touched all the green paint chips at Lowes and Home Depot. It wasn't for nothing though, I think I have my upstairs curtain fabric picked out and I think I'm on the right path to my green.

In real life I have two fabrics that I like..

 

I like the blue better because its blue, but the black fabric is closer to the Camp Knotty Pine  theme and I really like the green and I don't have any issues with foxes. The blue fabric also stays on the Camp Knotty pine message but has more  kinds of animals and birds but includes the hated owls and may not have enough green to suit me.  In the blue fabrics favor, I did see a very cute  framed squirrel needlepoint the other day and I really wanted it.

I like the blue forest fabric and it has a lot of good points for it, but I think at this point I couldn't have my black forest fabric I would feel let down, and if I really like the squirrel needlepoint, I could just buy it because I really like it. Damn it.

Flower Dog

Friday Cat Blogging

I couldn't make up my mind! The top one is a setting on the camera itself called "painting" and the bottom one captured him at his  most Ace-yness.

Houdoggie

Before I left the house this morning I told the dog night, night and the informed the cat of my itinerary for the day, because its important to him, he cares about me or he throws kitty raves, I don't know.

I left the dog in his room and the cat in the kitchen.

And then I came home for lunch. The cat was no where in sight, but the dog was in the kitchen. Awesome.

He hadn't torn anything up and I have no idea how long he had been lose but I didn't get the feeling he had been out for long,  I think  the sound of the alarm being remotely disarmed- it talks, may have been a trigger for him. I turned off the alarm about a half hour before I left for home and he may have been out since that happened. He was a good boy though, no damage and no pools of pee for me to find, so some silver lining.

He did seem a little wound up to me and he was panting, a sign of anxiety and something I watched him do on dog spy in the bad old days ot after he has been shut away for whatever reason. OR he just really needed to go outside, he hustled me out the door right away so he he could relieve himself and normally he's grabs a toy and trots into the living room and hangs out, so maybe he's just super potty trained . No one had a longer potty training phase than he did, the anxiety peeing  made me think he couldn't hold his water - he could he just couldn't.  I mean after a few months of every-half-hour pee breaks he couldn't have helped but become potty trained! He's so potty trained he has learned how to open the door to let himself out.

I need to get a lock for his door. Before I went back to work, I put him back in his room and shut the door. I spent the afternoon checking him out on dog spy and he slept all afternoon and made no further attempts to get out of the room. When I was getting ready to go home after work  I did not turn the alarm off until I was in the driveway and then I watched him on dog spy to see what he did. He was still behind the door in the office but the alarm being disarmed did very much get his attention and I don't l  know how long he would have waited for me to get him out before he took matters into his own paws.

The Escape Artist

I went to Walmart yesterday night because I had just been there the day before and so of course I had to go back. I know that weekdays are like stupid and nobody likes them because they are boring, but that isn't a reason to not have at least a skeleton crew scheduled. The store was full of people and we were all in line, in The Line .

Walmart isn't just evil, they are mean.

While I was waiting, I decided to check out how Rocket was doing on Dog Spy. It was too hot to bring him, or I would have left him in the car but I left him at home, in his room, with the door closed instead.

Being on vacation apparently rotted my mind .

I casually checked Dog Spy, as I have been doing two or three times a day since I came back, just  to check how he's doing and lo and behold, the footage reveled that the door to the room was open and there was no dog to spy on.

I had forgotten that he could open the door at will. It was a big deal before I left for vacation and it completely slipped my mind. The only reason he stays in the room during the day is because apparently he wants to, because he can pop the door open in a heart beat once he decides he needs a change of scene. I was a little surprised that he remembered the skill after not being able to practice it for a month.

He came right back to him.

Fortunately, he was a good boy while he was lose in the house and there was no damage. The cat didn't even seem particularly flustered. Rocket seemed a little guilty, as I came home, as well he should have been! He knows I don't want him leaving the room once I put him in there! He knows the rules! Gawd!.  For his part the dog wasn't displaying any signs of freak-out-level anxiety, he wasn't panting or pacing or barking or slobbering or any of the things he does while freaking out.

I think he did freak out, but that was cured when he got out of the room.  He  got distracted from his mania by the taste of freedom and, drunk with joy, took a celebratory nap - For whatever reason, he didn't destroy anything in celebration of his escape from bondage. This time.

I don't want a next time. There are avenues to pursue:

1.Get a new lock for that door
2. Dig a moat in the hallway.
3. Arm the cat with a tranq gun.

Rule Breaking

So after a long day at work - for reals! I got to work at my regular time, a half hour earlier than I'm scheduled because I like to get my work done  in a timely manner and if I suddenly started to show up On Time I would be behind before I even started.  We had one of our twice monthly meeting last week, so I was safe. I came in I did my thing and at four, I was ready to leave. I was still in the office at five after, when I got a call from my boss asking if any of us were planning on attending the meeting. I cheerfully told her that we had the meeting last week and , no we were not planning on attending this week but she was cute for making a funny.

She wasn't being funny. We had a meeting.  Apparently, last< week was  the one she was "joking" about and it was this  week was the "real" meeting. I had a very long day. She'll be pissed when she figures out I worked as extra hour - not that it matters, getting approved for over time is almost impossible and she would rather pay me the money out of her own wallet then  put in for my over time. And I would still be in trouble for something, I'm not sure exactly what.

I eventually made it home and found an issue of Vogue on my back steps, it was too big to make it through my slot and too important to leave out on the porch. It weighs more than my purse and has about a zillion pages. I haven't even cracked it open because I didn't have the time to dedicate to Fall as yet. I can't wait to find out what I'll being buying at TJ Maxx in two years! Being a Maxxinista is kind of saying that you are really into wearing vintage. Anyway. It will be fun and I could inflict some rather nasty blunt force trauma if I had to hurl it at someone.

Vogue writes and enforces "the rules". Vogue is the rules, I doubt that Anna Winter tolerates fashion rule breakers in her area code much less in her magazine. I think I'm going to enjoy hate reading this even more than I enjoy hate reading Architectural Digest!

The first real day

Its good to feel needed again. I got up this morning and I had purpose! I couldn't waste time or dawdle, I had things to do! I was needed!

Dogger and I went for our first pre-dawn walk in a month and we came through it like champs. Dog did not want his breakfast, but I lay the blame on that at the  feet of the sudden absence  of my fathers' special just-for-the-dog bacon breakfasts. He ended up eating all of his bacon free kibble, but it took him all morning and he was unhappy about it. Reality doesn't intrude often into the life of a pampered house pet, but when it does, its traumatic and unexpected.

Today was also the first day in a month that he spent any appreciable time by himself. We had to inconvenience ourselves frequently on vacation to make sure he was always supervised because last summer we trusted him to be able to hold it together and we got burned. Learning from our spectacularly destructive failures last summer, this summer he had one-on-one all the time and there was always someone watching him. I was afraid that this would make for  a difficult transition for him to go back to having alone time, but he seemed okay.

Whenever I tuned into Dog Spy, he was sprawled out on the futon, but he was awake and alert, a couple of times he was clearly sound asleep, but the day was punctuated with more periods of wakefulness than he normally experiences. However, he didn't seem particularly anxious or upset during these times,  he was just "not asleep".

I am choosing to see this as a positive change and maybe as a sign of growth for him. It wouldn't hurt him to spend more time alert and playing with his toys or watching TV. Normally, he sleeps a lot, like all day. Not that this is a bad thing, a sleeping dog isn't pacing wildly or clearly anxious and unhappy, but being conscience at least off and on over the course of the day isn't a bad thing either.

It felt really good to have my routine back. I didn't realize how much I missed it or how easy it was to just fall back into it or how comfortable it was. I'll be completely over it in a  few weeks but for right now, it made me feel like I had really come home.

Home at last

While I waited for him to get home,  I got the back yard beaten back into shape and celebrated my birthday, to that end, I am now officially cooler than you are.

Unless you are an actual biker, then you rule. But otherwise? Winter? Bring It.

Friday Cat Blogging

King of my castle! Lord of my Realm! I am The Man!

Home

Real Life Sucks

1. I got my lawnmower back so now I have to mow my own lawn.
2. I also have to do my own laundry.
3.Shopping for myself sucks too.
4.The house doesn't clean itself either.
5.I can't find the right pine cone sheets to properly make over the upstairs.
6. I now want to paint the Chinese trunk red.
7.I may have to go with fabric instead of sheets for my curtains.
8.The dog comes home on  Sunday.
9. My birthday is Saturday.
10. You get fewer birthday greetings on Facebook if your birthday falls over the weekend.