A Talented Attachment

Posted on June 15, 2018 | 1 comment

Good morning Everyone!

Vacuum Cleaner, Messy Room

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Saturday, I couldn’t find the floor piece for the new canister vacuum cleaner.  Kayla had been the last person to use it two weeks earlier.  (We were out-of-town the weekend before).  Kayla swore she put it back in the slot on the machine and it must have fallen out somewhere.

So I looked.  In order to look everywhere the vacuum cleaner had been, I had to clean out the hall closet, under the laundry room sink and the corner of the laundry room beside the washer where we had various mops, brooms and dusters jumbled together.  I found 2 card games, 5 hats, 8 coats, 2 vests, 3 rolls of wall paper border, 10 rolls of shelf paper, cleaning chemicals galore, 1 acoustic guitar and the box where everything I wrote while I was in high school is stored, but no floor piece.

We finally found the floor piece in the cupboards ABOVE the laundry room sink.  Apparently, it fell off the vacuum, leapt up six feet, opened the cupboard door so it could sit on the second shelf and then closed the door behind it.

As one of my sisters said, “that is quite a talented attachment!”

Have a great day!

Nancy

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Posted in Child's Play, Humor, Just stuff..., On the Home Front

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Serenity Break

Posted on June 6, 2018 | 2 comments

Hello Everyone!

I’ve done quite a few things since my last post about my mom-in-law, whom I still miss greatly.  I plan to share some of those things with you as we go through the summer.

First on the list is this this 39 second video I took Saturday while on the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains.  Put everything out of your mind, and just breathe in and out while you watch this with the sound on for the next 39 seconds to feel refreshed and just a little more relaxed.

 

 

 

You’re welcome!

Have a great day!

Nancy

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Posted in Camping, Travel

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Mom-in-law

Posted on January 23, 2018 | 6 comments

Hello Everyone!

One day several years ago, my husband and I were visiting his parents when Mark’s Mom and Dad began to debate the cost of the dining room set (table, chairs and china cabinet) they had purchased some 40 to 50 years earlier.  Once the debate progressed to a certain point, Mark’s Mom announced she would prove that she was right.  She stood up, walked out of the room, came back into the room with a pleated cardboard folder, opened the pleats, put her hand one time into a particular spot and pulled out the receipt for said furniture.  (For the record, she remembered the price correctly before checking.)  Mark’s eyes were dancing, but I dissolved into laughter right there in the den.  When she asked me what was so funny, I explained that she had attained a level of organization I could never hope to attain.

Another favorite story is the time she had to go out of town to Andalusia (Alabama, not Spain) for something, which is usually a full day’s trip.  To surprise her, my Dad-in-law pulled all of the furniture out of the dining room, including the removal of all of the china from the china cabinet, and painted the dining room for her.  The paint job was perfect.  He then very carefully put everything back in the room, put the china back in the cabinet exactly the way it came out, and had the room looking spectacular.  When she came home, what she noticed was that the china cabinet was off-center by one inch, whereupon he emptied the china cabinet once more to put the cabinet where she wanted it.

Then there was the day that Mark’s dad decided to replace the baseboards in the kitchen.  He had been talking about this project for a while, and Mark had already offered to bring down his portable mitre saw to help him when he got ready to do it – all we asked was that he let us know in advance so we could plan.  Mark’s mom called us that Saturday morning, speaking just barely above a whisper, to let us know his dad had decided to go forward with Project Baseboard on his own, and she really thought he might need some help.  We threw the mitre saw in the car and drove down to Montgomery from Alexander City, about an hour’s drive, and sure enough, the mitre saw came in handy.

I don’t know how fond of me she was when Mark and I first started dating, although she predicted that I would be the one he married because my birthday was December 27.   This was not based on astrology, which she had little time for, but on the fact that her daughter had married a man whose birthday is December 23, and her son married a woman whose birthday is December 22.  She was right.  By the time we got married, she loved me dearly and ever since we got married she always treated me like I was one of her own children.

During the five years I was in law school at night, she fed me supper three times a week when school was in session – their house was just down the street from my law school, and the only way my schedule worked was for me to leave straight from work, grab something to eat at her house, then head over to school.

I never once walked into her house without being welcomed by her special smile, a hug, and the comment, “My, how pretty you look.”  And even though I know for a fact that I didn’t always look pretty, I never doubted for a minute that she meant it.

When Mark’s Dad died in 2001, she had to learn to live on her own.  It wasn’t easy for her, but I admired the courage that it took for her to take each step forward in rebuilding her life.

When Kayla came to live with us December 1, 2004, she fell in love with her immediately.  I can remember the first time she baby-sat for us – we had warned her in advance that three year olds and sugary foods did not mix well.  When we came back to pick Kayla up, Kayla was bouncing off the walls and ceiling.  Mark’s mom looked just like a kid whose hand was caught in the cookie jar as she confessed that she had “only” given Kayla a piece of chocolate cake and some candy.  We laughed about it; there is, after all, a reason that what happens at Grandma’s stays at Grandma’s.

She hated having her picture taken and the number of pictures we have of her smiling is very limited – you had to take the picture when she didn’t know you were taking it and she was concentrating on something else.  I am very proud that I have some.

Here she is with Kayla on the first Halloween Kayla was with us:

Kayla's first Halloween

And here is a picture I took when the entire family got to meet Andy and Anne’s first-born child, Carter, her first great-grandchild.

Mom Eady meets Carter

She fell and broke her hip in 2016, and things were never the same for her afterwards.  She passed away this past year right after Christmas.  Everyone in her family, including me, misses her and we grieve but there is part of us too that is grateful that she is out of pain and reunited with Mark’s Dad.  And, of course, all of us believe that we will see her again some day.

So sadly I say “au revoir” to my Mom-in-law, say a silent prayer of thanksgiving for her entry into the next great adventure, and look forward to the day when I see her again, and she smiles at me and says once again,”My, how pretty you look!”

Have a great day.

Nancy

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Posted in Just stuff..., On the Home Front, Parents

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A Trip to the Montgomery Zoo

Posted on October 18, 2017 | 2 comments

Like all mothers and daughters, Kayla and I have things the two of us like to do together.  One of those is going to the zoo.  Fortunately for us, the nearby city of Montgomery, Alabama has an excellent zoo.

Kayla did roll her eyes at me when we walked up to the zoo one day early this summer and I started by taking this picture of the entrance.

The Montgomery Zoo entrance

Entrance to the Montgomery Zoo

She thought that taking a picture of the entrance, even for my blog, was overkill. I told her it was my blog, not hers. Since our next stop was the parakeet enclosure, and I sprang for several seed sticks to feed the parakeets, she forgave me.

Feeding the parakeets

Because we were at the Zoo entrance almost as soon as the gates opened, the parakeets were hungry, and we had no trouble coaxing them to come eat from the sticks. At one point, we had six to seven birds each trying to reach the seed sticks, keeping both of us too busy to take photographs.

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The peacocks wander freely throughout the zoo grounds.  This proud fellow obligingly provided us with a full display of his plumage.

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Another of the first areas you walk through at the zoo is an aviary which includes several species of birds, including this scarlet ibis, and

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this duck.

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The aviary even had a turtle in it laying her eggs.

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Kayla’s favorites are the monkeys; the spider monkeys’ enclosure lies just beyond the aviary.

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This monkey seemed to have a lot on his mind,

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while this one was just hanging around.  (Yes, I know, it’s a bad pun but someone has to say it.)

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There was a family of ducks enjoying the moat around the spider monkey enclosure.  The group of ducklings above were swimming, anxiously watched by the parents (pictured below) who were watching from the rail protecting the enclosure.  The “accidental” zoo residents sometimes are as fascinating as the official zoo residents.

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Here is one of the Zoo’s pygmy hippos, Lola.  Although the pygmy hippo is from Africa, Lola and her calf, Monty, born in 2016, live in a special enclosure in the South American section to give them some additional space and attention.

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Roosters and chickens roam freely through the zoo grounds, just like the peacocks.  I thought this rooster’s coloring was spectacular.   Kayla rolled her eyes at me again for taking his picture.

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Here is one of the Zoo’s lemurs.

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One of the Zoo’s rarer animals is this maned wolf from South America.  He obviously was not ready to wake up yet.

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Here is a condor.

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The jaguar was sleepy, too.

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Here is a wallaby mama and her joey.

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The North American section includes the bald eagles, the otters (which unfortunately were not out to play on this day) and various deer, elk and buffalo.)

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The zoo also has an attraction which lets you feed the giraffes, so I bought Kayla and I each treats for the giraffes.  Only two of the four giraffes were interested this morning, the baby giraffe and his mother.

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In a move mothers everywhere will understand and cheer, Mama got a bit impatient with Junior’s attempt to hoard all the special treats, and came around to the side to be sure she got her share.

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This is where she first realized what Junior was up to.

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The zoo has a kiddie train ride that travels all the way around it; even if it is just kid stuff, the two of us always ride it.  On a really hot day, the breeze the train generates while it makes it rounds feels cool.  I let Kayla hold the camera during the ride, but this was one of only two pictures she took.  I’m not sure if she was bored at this moment. DSCN0339

This lake is part of the zoo grounds, too.  It formed in the remnants of the old quarry that make up part of the zoo lands.  It gives the zoo plenty of room for expansion.

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Then last, but not least, on this particular day, we were able to get this striking stork’s photograph in the Asia section on our way out.

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This is just a sampling of the animals at the Montgomery Zoo; they also have bears, tigers, lions, elephants, chimpanzees, bonobos and reptiles to mention just some of the things we didn’t get to that day.  In addition to the parakeet enclosure, the train ride and the giraffe feeding station, the zoo also has a skyride over the zoo and a petting area.

The residents of Montgomery, a city with a population of just over 220,000 people, are lucky to have such a zoo and far-sighted enough to fund it.  And I’m lucky to have a daughter who, even at the age of 15, is willing to go to the zoo with me!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Streak

Posted on September 8, 2017 | 3 comments

Hello Everyone!

I solemnly swear that the story I am about to share with you is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  You need that reassurance in advance, because otherwise it might be hard to believe.

This year is our 30th anniversary, and we were planning on celebrating it by taking the camper to Charleston for a few days over Memorial Day weekend.  Mark was getting ready to bring the camper from storage for us to clean it up for the trip a couple of weekends in advance of that date but as he started to crank it up, the levelers went crazy (automatic levelers on a Class A motor home do exactly what it sounds like they do – the make sure the coach is level when the motor home is stationary).  They fully extended and refused to do anything else.  With some difficulty, we figured out how to manually retract the levelers (hint:  you really don’t want to try it without a power drill to crank with!) and disable them.  We reluctantly cancelled the Charleston trip, put the camper in the shop and waited.  And waited.  And waited.

When we put the camper in the shop, we explained to the service people that we had a trip planned over the Fourth of July weekend to the beach, so we really needed the camper back before then.  It wasn’t fixed by the Fourth, but the beach is relatively flat so we decided we would be okay to take it back out of the shop for just that trip and then return it afterwards – and to be fair, we didn’t notice the lack of levelers the entire trip.

Now press pause.  Here’s the thing – we never travel on the Fourth of July weekend.  I hate it; it is too crowded wherever you try to go, too busy and too hectic, but for whatever reason in a fit of insanity Mark and I decided we would go to Gulf Shores over the Fourth of July weekend.  We also arranged for my Mom to come with the two of us and Kayla in our camper, and to meet one of my sisters, her husband and her daughter down there – they have a travel trailer.  We thought it would be fine.  And it would have been.  Except – press “resume” now –

My sister’s crew was going to leave the Friday before the Fourth of July from North Alabama and arrive at the beach that day.  We were going to leave that Saturday since the beach is much closer to us than it is to them.  So Saturday morning, Mark and I, Kayla and my Mom were safely tucked into our motor home and headed south towards the beach in heavy, but tolerable, traffic when we got a text from my sister about 10 a.m.  They had gotten a late start the night before, ended up spending some time sleeping at a rest area and were about 30 minutes from the beach when their truck died.  They had called a wrecker and were waiting for it.

We got the next text about 15 minutes later.  The wrecker had arrived; its operator had gotten the truck to start by hitting the alternator with a hammer, but he was going to follow them into town to the nearest (open) mechanic’s shop to be sure they got there safely.  The next word we got, maybe 10 minutes later, was that the first place they had gone to did not have a mechanic on duty, so they were going to try a different place.  About 10 minutes after that, my sister let us know that the tow truck following them had just been hit by someone who was DUI and had drug paraphernalia in her vehicle.  Once that was sorted out with the police, my sister’s family and the tow truck continued their trek over to an auto parts store which we will call, for convenience sake and purely incidentally resembling the name of an existing chain, O’Raley’s Auto Parts Store.  O’Raley’s did have mechanics on duty, but they weren’t highly motivated to work on the truck – until it died again in front of the bays they use to fix vehicles, at which point O’Raley’s decided to help.  Which was great, except that O’Raley’s didn’t have the exact alternator that they needed in stock, which meant that the O’Raley’s people ended up trying three different places before they could find the part they needed.

About 1:00 that afternoon when we were 45 minutes from the beach, we got a text from my sister that the truck was fixed and they were headed on to the campground.  At which point we all heaved a huge sigh of relief and began to relax.  Until about 10 minutes later.

Kayla started shouting “Stop!  Stop!  Stop!”  She had been watching the rear view camera.  Apparently, the front end of the Hyundai Veloster that we towed behind us had decided to detach itself from the rest of the vehicle, something none of us had seen before.  We pulled over.  Fortunately, the break happened on a local road while traffic was going slow, so the towing safeguards held stuff together enough that no-one around us got hurt.

Veloster Commits Hari Kari

We called the police, who came out to prepare what is called an “incident” report.  They couldn’t do an accident report because there was no other car involved.

While the police were working with us, a couple of cars in the left hand lane decided to collide into each other.  We think maybe they were watching us instead of each other.  So the policeman stuck with working on the Saturday before the Fourth of July was much busier than he might have been otherwise.

After about 45 minutes, the policeman was done with us, the tow truck driver called by AAA had arrived and taken the Veloster off with him, and we resumed our drive.  Now short one car, we decided to rent one for the weekend.  However, it was 2:00 p.m. on the Saturday before the Fourth of July in small town Alabama, and no one was open except for one Avis Rent-A-Car place in Daphne, 30 minutes away from us in normal traffic – and the beach traffic on this weekend was anything but!  Plus they closed at three.  My brother-in-law grabbed Mark as soon as we got into the campground, and the two of them dashed off in his truck to get the car, arriving at the Avis place at 3:00 on the dot, where the kind young man at the counter took pity on them and helped.

Meanwhile, back at the campground, Mom, Kayla, my sister and her daughter decided to go to the pool.  I stayed behind at the camper to try to regain some semblance of equanimity, slightly perturbed by the events of the day.  While doing so, I decided to put the chicken for supper that night out to thaw.  I deduced that it would thaw more quickly outdoors, so carried it out there to put it on the picnic table, but then decided it would be safer from bugs if I put it inside the grill to thaw.  Pulling the grill open, I saw some spots that needed to be cleaned, so turned back to go in the camper to get what I needed  – and discovered I had locked myself out of the camper.  I sat outside at the picnic table for a while but July in Alabama is not the time to stay outdoors without any water, so ended up going to the pool, where my sister took pity on me and brought me back to her trailer while we waited for Mark and my brother-in-law to return.

Once they got back with the car and the camper was unlocked, everyone took a deep breath and started to finally relax. We enjoyed dinner together, and even went to bed a little early.   After all, it had been a stressful day getting down there, but we were finally there, set up and able to rest.  Until 2:30 a.m. that morning.

I woke up or Mark woke me up because the electricity in our camper was dead.  Normally, this is not a big deal – a breaker just trips somewhere and needs to be reset.  Not this weekend, though.  Whatever was wrong with our electrical system was systemic and not going to be fixed by something as easy as a flipped circuit breaker.  By 3:30 a.m., Kayla and Mom had woken up too.  We conceded defeat and agreed that we were going to have to head back home the next day.  My sister and her family were disappointed, but understood.  However, we still needed to return the rental car so Mark and I decided that he and Mom would ride in the motor home to the nearest Avis drop-off spot, while Kayla and I took the rental car, swung through the nearest McDonald’s to get breakfast and then met them there, dropping the car off and the key in the night box.

Because the Avis return lot was not a great place for a motor home to enter or turn around in, Mark and Mom waited for us in the next parking lot over.  Kayla and I had to walk around a small ditch to reach them, which wasn’t a big deal.  When we reached the parking lot, we had to walk beside an old, battered motor home that looked like it hadn’t been moved for at least a decade.  Suddenly, Kayla shrieked, and so I shrieked in sympathy.  The cause of the distress?  A black cat, probably as startled by us as we were by it, had scuttled out from under the decrepit  motor home in front of us.

I’ll spare you the rest of this summer’s journey, which included another trip to the motor home repair shop, an engine mount bracket breaking on our 2012 Ford Escape and additional camper repairs that we did ourselves until we finally got the motor home back to tip-top condition about two weeks ago.

All’s well that ends well – a trite statement but a true one.  Now that the dust has finally settled, Mark has a new car, Kayla will inherit the repaired 2012 Ford Escape once she passes her driver’s exam and we hope to use the camper soon, but I really hope our streak of repairs is over with for now.

Mark's New car

Mark’s New-To-Him Car

Kayla's New Car

Kayla’s Car

And it should go without saying but for clarity’s sake I emphasize the following –  I will NOT be traveling on the Fourth of July weekend again any time soon.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Posted in Just stuff...

A Visit to the Dog Pond

Posted on April 3, 2017 | 5 comments

Good morning Everyone!

I would like to say that my long absence this year from blogging was due to something remarkable, such as participating in a medical mission trip in the Amazon basin, but alas, I have no such excuse – just a miserable bout with bronchitis that lasted for over two months and then another month or two to recover from it completely and help Mark get over his bronchitis also. Hopefully we have seen the last of it though!

Last week was Spring Break week for our school system, so we took advantage of Kayla’s days off to pay a visit to Alabama’s Gulf Shores State Park Campground for a few days.   The entire Alabama State Park system is a hidden gem that more campers throughout the United States should take advantage of, and the Gulf Shores State Park is no exception.  Among the newest attractions at the state park is something called “The Dog Pond.”  The powers that be have created a dog park on the shores of Lake Shelby, a lake which is literally across the street from the Gulf of Mexico.

My dogs had never been to a public dog park before, so I approached the visit cautiously.  Kayla, however, was quite ready to count it all joy, and fortunately had her phone in hand for video footage of the dogs.

Darwin I never really worried about; he has always gotten on well with other dogs at places where we have boarded him. Mandy, on the other hand, doesn’t always play well with others.  She wants to play, until she doesn’t, and not every dog can read her signals.

When we got to the park, there were two areas – one large area for large dogs, and a second, slightly smaller area for dogs under 30 or so pounds.  The smaller dogs can go into the large dog area at their own risk if the owners choose.

There was only one other dog in the park at that moment – a one year old Golden Retriever mix named Casey.  We let Darwin off leash immediately, and he made a bee line for Casey, whose owners were training her to retrieve an orange float from the water.

Casey wanted to play, but when it was time for her to go back to the water, we had a problem – Darwin has never been around water like that before.  After a great deal of coaxing, he finally was brave enough to try it, and of course he liked it.  (In one of those helpful 15-year-old moments, Kayla neglected to tell me until after we were headed back from the dog pond that Mark had asked us to keep the dogs out of the water.)

And what was Mandy doing during this time? At first, she was restrained on the leash – when Casey first came over to introduce herself, Mandy wasn’t exactly welcoming, and I wanted to be sure everything would be okay. After about 20 minutes, though, I was ready to let her try again – and Mandy came through with flying colors! She had absolutely no aversion to the water; my only concern with her was to keep her from going so deep that Bear or I would have to wade in after her to keep her from sinking. (When she was younger and we had Tyra as well as Mandy and Darwin, there were a couple of warm summer days we left them outside. I would always carefully fill a HUGE water bowl to the brim with ice and water to be sure they had something to keep them cool. We’d come home, and the water bowl would be completely empty. I finally figured out why – as soon as she got hot, Mandy would plop herself smack dab in the center of the water bowl, spreading water and ice everywhere on the patio, but keeping herself quite cool. We stopped trying to keep them outside for even a little while when we were gone after that.)

Both dogs had a wonderful time, but when we were joined by another three dogs, I finally decided it was time for them to go, so we carefully bundled them back into our Hyundai Veloster and drove back to the campground with the car windows open, breathing in the strange combination of sea air and “eau de wet dog parfum.”

And of course, every wet dog knows that nothing tops off the whole lake experience like a good roll in the grass!

Have a great day!

Nancy

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Posted in Camping, dogs, working mom

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When your dog is more focused than you…

Posted on December 6, 2016 | 4 comments

Good morning Everyone!

Something about the Christmas season seems to send my absent mindedness into hyperdrive.  Not so my dogs.

Basset Hound, Husky Mix

The Mandinator!

Here’s my proof:

1.       It was raining last week, and I was the last one to leave the office. I usually go out the front, which requires me to unlock and then lock it back,  but that night I went out the back door, which always lets people out even if they can’t get back in.  After I got outside and into my car (it has a combination lock that lets me unlock it without the key), I started to panic when I couldn’t find the keys anywhere in my purse.  I hadn’t even closed the car door yet.  I started to send a frantic text to one of my friends from work asking her to come back to free me, but as I was doing so, I realized there was the most annoying “ping, ping, ping” coming from the car.  I looked up to realize that my keys were in the ignition.  I must have put them in the ignition without even thinking about it.

2.     I am working on a knitting project that involves using a row counter.  This means that after I finish a row, I have to stop and hit the button on the counter to tally each row.  To do this, I have to put the “free” needle – the one without yarn on it at the time – down.  I got quite annoyed the other night when I couldn’t find the darn thing after one row tally.  There is nothing more frustrating than losing an object when you have been sitting in the same place the whole time.  I was sitting by Mark and he finally asked me what I was looking for.  When I told him I was looking for my knitting needle, he looked at me strangely before telling me that it was tucked behind my ear!

3.    We put a memory foam mattress topper on our bed last night.  We leaned back to see how it felt, and Mark had my glasses in his hand.  I kept reaching out to take them back, and he finally asked, “Why are you reaching for my glasses?”  I started to inform him that they weren’t his glasses, they were mine – until I realized that my glasses were still on my head.  Then I had to tell him that I had forgotten my glasses were still on me!

Compare that to Mandy’s behavior this morning.  She sailed onto my chest about 6:30, ready for me to get up.  Apparently the extra 4 inches added to the bed by the mattress topper doesn’t pose any problems for her, but I digress.  When she did, I noticed that in her mouth she had one of Mark’s handkerchiefs.  Sleepy or not, I was aware that most dogs do not carry handkerchiefs around with them, so I removed Mandy’s from her, put it in the hamper, pushed the clothes down to be sure they stayed out of reach and went on about our day.  About an hour later, I went back into the room for something and Mandy followed me, sailed back on the bed and began searching for the handkerchief I had taken away.

That moment was when I concluded that my dog is far less absent-minded than me.

Have a great day!

Nancy

 

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Posted in dogs, Just stuff..., Parenting, Pets, working mom

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Hints for Household Helpers Under the Age of 16

Posted on October 28, 2016 | 2 comments

Good morning Everyone!

Certain circumstances having arisen in my household, I wish to aid household helpers under the age of 16 with the following hints.

  1.  Pushing the vacuum cleaner over the floor does not count unless the vacuum cleaner is also removing dust, dog hair, paper and other detritus from the floor.
  2.  A see through canister on the vacuum cleaner is not there merely for your viewing pleasure. When the canister resembles a water balloon about to burst, it needs to be emptied.
  3. If the engine of said vacuum cleaner starts to smoke, the canister definitely must be emptied.  Unplugging it at this point is a good idea, too.  Please remember that we keep the fire extinguisher centrally located for the good of all under the kitchen sink.
  4. The terms “window cleaner” and “window streaker” are not synonymous.
  5. Dishes that come out of the dishwasher without feeling clean should be returned to the dishwasher for another round.  If they still are not clean after that, you must hand wash the items.
  6. If the drink glass you pull from the dishwasher feels as if there is a hidden message transcribed in braille on the outside, it is not clean.
  7. Putting said drink glass on the highest shelf possible does not render the glass clean or relieve the household helper of culpability.
  8.  If you have pets, pantry doors and trash bins need to be firmly closed once the cleaning is done.  Otherwise, you will end up doing it all over again after the pets enjoy the wondrous smorgasbord you have set before them.
  9. The phrase “empty the dishwasher” is not synonymous with “empty the dishwasher – except the silverware.”  Parents do notice when they open the silverware drawer and find the silverware set consists of two teaspoons and a knife.
  10. If a parent begins any sentence with “Perhaps you should….”  the following instruction is not optional.  Your parent is trying to tell you something nicely.
  11. The “whole house” means the whole house.  It does not mean the living room and the kitchen only.
  12. Please explain exactly how you can claim to have vacuumed or dusted thoroughly when items such as clothing and shoes that were on the floor when you began your work remain in the same spot in an unaltered state when you are finished.
  13. You are not abused or misused because we expect you to help with the housework.  And yes, when you go off to college, we will probably hire someone to do the house for us once a week.  Get over it.  You can do the same thing to your children once you have them.
  14. Most of us do not expect your work to pass the white glove test.  (Google it.)  However, if the dust on the surface of anything is deep enough that we can write our names in it or draw pictures, it needs to be dusted.
  15. We parents appreciate your help.  Really.  It’s just hard to remember to say so when steam is blowing out of our ears because you know and we know that you have not given us your best effort.

Happy helping, household helpers!

Have a great day everyone.

Nancy

2 Comments

Posted in Children, Humor, Just stuff..., On the Home Front, working mom

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Serenity

Posted on October 27, 2016 | Leave a comment

Good morning Everyone!

I thought I’d share a clip with you of a small snippet of a Saturday morning at a local campground. This is one of the many reasons I like camping.

The gray, white and pink pajama fabric at the end is just a bonus!

Have a great day!

Nancy

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Posted in Camping, Just stuff..., Travel, working mom

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Anyone’s Cat Missing a Life or Two?

Posted on September 30, 2016 | 4 comments

Good morning everyone!

I think Mandy has stolen several lives from a cat of origins unknown.  Mandy is our husky basset hound mix and our scavenger extraordinaire.

Basset Hound, Husky Mix

Mandy Out for a Drive!

Over the years, she has eaten anything and everything from socks and handkerchiefs to medicated creams like Neosporin and been none the worse for wear, but yesterday she finally went too far.

When I got home yesterday,  I went inside to my normally enthusiastic greeting from both dogs.  Rounding the corner of the couch, my blood chilled (cue the screeching violin motif from Friday the 13th) when I saw:

golden-raisin-box

That most terrifying of sights, a large box of golden raisins, chewed open, with the plastic bag that contained the raisins therein lying empty beside it.

To the untutored individual, this scene would be banal.  However, I am blessed/cursed to know better than that.

 

Dog, eating, counter

My reprobate

 

Dogs can eat almost anything we can, but there are a few – very few – things we can’t share well. Chocolate is one of those. Dogs lack an enzyme needed to digest it properly.  I know this because I sat up with Mandy one night after she had scored an entire family size bag of peanut butter M & M’s and since what goes up must come down, you can guess what an exciting night we both had!

Another is grapes. Grapes release toxins into the blood stream of a dog that can cause kidney damage, apparently do other things to the hemoglobin in the blood and cause death in the right circumstances.  Raisins, of course, are dried grapes, which means that eating a box of raisins is eating grapes in quintuplet.

After a moment of panic, I threw both dogs and Kayla into the car, barreling at 80 miles an hour to the nearest after-hours pet emergency clinic, which was in Montgomery.

Mark met us there – he hadn’t been able to get home yet since traffic had been gridlocked.

How, you may ask, did we know that it was Mandy and not Darwin that ate the grapes?  We didn’t, which is why we brought both dogs.  Upon reaching the vet’s, we had to choose which dog to treat first. This guess mattered, because we were already well past the two-hour window that you normally have to empty a dog’s stomach of anything that shouldn’t be there.  We made an educated guess that Mandy was the only one of the two to have enough bravado to enter the pantry and pull out her very own personal snack.  Darwin would help eat something if it was readily accessible, but wouldn’t seek it out like that.  And when Mandy goes to that kind of trouble to get a snack, she will not be sharing.

The decision made, we handed Mandy to the vet tech and off trotted my reprobate, tail wagging and looking like this was the outing of the century.

After the vet convinced the dog to empty her stomach, the vet tech came out to tell us that not only had we guessed right, but also they had been able to get almost all of it back up – because Mandy had eaten one of Kayla’s socks the day before, and it was slowing her digestion of a number of items, the grapes being one of them.  (The sock made its reappearance, apparently, sometime after the grapes.)  This may be the first time in recorded veterinary history that the consumption of one undesirable item by a dog saved its life after the consumption of a second, more toxic, undesirable item.

Mandy 1 for web

Mandy  coming home after the first Very Large Vet Bill.

Because Mandy is probably around 12, they have kept her overnight pumping fluids through her, and Mark is going to pick her up this afternoon after he pays a Very Large Vet Bill that dwarfs our last Very Large Vet Bill. Darwin believed it was right thoughty of us to include him in all of the excitement, and has done surprisingly well at home without Mandy, but you can tell he misses her, as do we all.

And on that happy note, I hope each of you have a great weekend!

Nancy

P.S.  I skipped a couple of steps between the discovery of the grapes and entering the car.  Accordingly, I’d like to thank my youngest sister for her help in getting a message to her friend, the vet, and her sympathetic support via text thereafter.  I’d also like to thank her friend, the vet, who did her best to help given that she was two states away and not where she could talk.  If I knew then what I know now, we would have provided immediate assistance to Mandy by giving her one teaspoon of hydrogen peroxide, and then a second one fifteen minutes later.  Hind sight is, alas, 20-20.

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Posted in dogs, Humor, Just stuff..., On the Home Front, working mom

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