No, Seriously. You Want Cookies Next Year?

What is with the mail carrier?  First, it was the incident with the wedged box.  Now this.  My calendars arrived today (Positive Pit Bull Calendars) and thanks to the mail carrier were almost ruined.  Around noon, I noticed a package leaning up against the back door when I was walking through the kitchen.  It was the calendars as well as the rest of my mail.  Sitting outside on an uncovered porch.  Did I mention it was snowing today? Luckily, I was home and noticed the package outside before it got wet.  Why didn't they leave it on the front *covered* porch?!?! They also left ANOTHER letter meant for that attorney's office that they always confuse with my address - you'd think the "Suite C" part of the address would clue them in that they are delivering it to the wrong address.   I do love the calendars.

Photo Diary of Michael's "Vacation"

The hubby came home for two whole weeks during the holidays!  Here's a photo diary of his vacation:

This is the beginning of the vacation. You can tell because he still looks happy and chipper. He's removing the drywall in preparation of removing the entire wall.

Then he went up here (the attic) to help install a header to support the ceiling joists before we (uh...Michael) finished removing the wall.

Here he is removing the wall. Now he knows why I asked him to operate the sawzall. That darn thing will knock me backwards to the floor.

 

 And here he is climbing the ladder to clean out the gutters:

And here he is cleaning more gutters:

 
And here is the flex duct he removed from the crawl space and replaced (due to an incident with overwatering a potted plant):

 And this is what happens to his jeans when he crawls under the house:

By the time I got out of bed every morning, Michael had taken the dogs for a short hike, played ball with Ollie and resupplied the Diet Pepsi stock. There was always cold caffeine in the fridge when I got out of bed.

During the time he was here, I never had to put Ollie on the treadmill or play ball with him...not once. Yes, Ollie actually goes straight from the treadmill to playing fetch. It is not possible to wear him out. In case you're wondering, that is Hipparchia (my manx cat) sprinting in front of Ollie as he goes after a ball. She tries to break his concentration but he's pretty focused.

Michael did find the time for a little relaxing. Here he is fishing in the pond. Of course that's kind of hard to do with Ollie trying to fetch the "ball" that Michael keeps casting into the water.

 And this is what happens when Michael sits down:

See ya' later, Babe.  Been a great couple of weeks and we're all going to miss you!

Paybacks for the Missing Christmas Bonus?

I have been waiting on these books from Amazon and I'm so excited that they're finally here.  I can't wait to get them out of the mailbox and into the house.  Problem is, the mail carrier used a flippin' SLEDGE HAMMER to BEAT the package into my mailbox.  If you look closely, you'll see it.  The top corners of the package are wedged behind the lip of my mailbox.  This thing was wedged in there so tight, I couldn't pull it out.  And believe me, I tried.  I tugged and tugged and cussed and tugged some more. Then I turned around looking for the cameras - this HAD to be a joke!  In order to get the package out of the mailbox, I had to use a knife to cut the box apart, remove the contents of the box and then smash the package small enough to remove it.  Now the post wobbles back and forth.  I'm not sure if that is from the mail carrier wedging it into the box with a hammer or from me tugging on it like a crazy person.  Either way, I'm gonna have to shore it up somehow.  Thanks a lot.

Musical Plants...Oh Yeah, and a Possum

Today I started my annual "Musical Plants" routine. You know, moving plants from one location in the yard to another where they might get more/less sun, more/less water, more/less room. You get the idea. Happens. Every. Year. One day, I'll actually pick the right place the first time. So, I'm in the middle of removing the Sweet Potato Vine from the top of the Magnolia tree (it got a little crazy this year) and I kept hearing a commotion coming from the woods in the back yard. I assumed it was the guys in the pasture working on the fence (they had been out walking the fence line earlier in the day) but couldn't figure out why they would bring their yappy dog with them. Finally, I decided to investigate. Well, that "yappy dog" was Pete. He was after something that had crawled into a piece of pipe and judging by his squealing and panting, he had been after that darn thing for a while. He was so tired, exasperated, frustrated and pissed that he was stumbling around, yapping, and attacking the pipe. I'm guessing by the way he was acting, that whatever it was, had actually bit him and got him fired up. No matter what, I could not convince him to leave it alone and come inside to rest. So, I pulled the pipe out of the woods (which wasn't easy especially since Pete was tugging on the other end) and into the backyard. And then it fell out. Pete - 1 / Possum - 0.


Let's see how far I get with the Musical Plants tomorrow.

You Can't Keep a Good Dog Down...Or Confined.

We've had a stray tomcat cattin' around our house the last few weeks and spraying this and that and even sprayed inside our garage! He was able to get into the garage because I usually leave the door ajar so Hipparchia can get into the garage/shop to take care of any mice that might think it's a great place to live. Well, after the cat spray I decided to keep the door shut. Problem is, the garage is connected to the shop which also has second floor storage. So if I go into the garage for something and one of the pups, like maybe Pete, goes in behind me and then into the shop where I can't see him, I won't know he's in there when I leave the garage and shut the door behind me. Which is what happened here. Pete was accidently locked in the garage for about an hour and a half and freaked - he never has taken well to being confined. If he'd been out there much longer, I do believe he would have made it out the other side. At least he had the decency to rip up the old door to the shop and not the new door to Michael's new garage. How's your teeth feel, Pete?

Awwwwww...How cute!

Celeste, cutest little mermaid ever.



Pete in his safety vest sitting with his new buddy, Little Jackson aka "Little Devil"




Another shot of the Little Devil and Pete.

Today I Flew Away.

Four Seagulls were sitting on a wall. One decided to fly away - how many were left?

My hubby told me this "joke" last night as I was going through the list of things that I need to do... The list that gets larger every day as I do nothing. I tend to have two operating modes: "Do Nothing" and "Spend EVERY Waking Minute Doing Something Productive". Right now I'm in my "Do Nothing" mode. I like to have a deadline to work towards. Superficial deadlines just don't work with me - I've tried.

Turns out there are still four seagulls on the wall. Why? Well because of the same reason my list keeps getting longer: One *decided* to fly away...he didn't actually do it. So, today I flew away. I still spent most of the day piddling around but at least I was able to say I did something on my list. So, there. Now who's gonna take all this crap to the landfill?