Happy Hump Day, Becksters! I am thankful that I have a few minutes to check in here today.
Busy evenings so far this year. Monday night I was prepping dinner and DH went into garage and said oh no - another one! Me: Another What? ... Another dog in our garage! Me: OH NO! (We are the last house on a residential street, but there is a trail right next to us, and a farmer's field right there, too ... and we suspect people come down that side road, open the door and dump animal... but that wasn't the case thankfully. This dog (pit bull/bit of boxer) was uber energy, leaping all over me, which does drive me nuts. I yelled DOWN!! And out of habit with our dog did the down command that I learned with closed fist, and the dog bellyflopped down. OH, okay, trained a bit. Well, after it was chasing everyone on the trailend, and racing all over, punctuated by spells sitting ON our patio furniture and looking out over the yard and checking out what was grilling, I saw a neighbor who is usually an "in/out" one - you only ever see them rushing in or out. I hollar to him to see if he's ever seen this dog, who was collared but not tagged (nor neutered). Yeah - i'm trying to get him in the house. Oh, well. Nice. I said well, with no tag, it's hard to call him out of the street when cars are whipping by. Kind of irritated me. I ended up walking the dog over to get inside ... No hey, thanks for keeping an eye on him so he didn't get hit, etc. And the dog's toenails went through our back sliding screen door when he was peering inside our kitchen, so that needs to be repaired. This took the WHOLE evening. We got nothing else done. I was cranky afterward - seriously, tag your dang dog. Esp with a pit mix - people are quick to call animal control.
Made up for lost time yesterday evening - got home and straight to work digging out the berm and weeding and transplanting and chopping stuff down. Now we have NO privacy from the trail, so I'm anxious to get started on the deck, which will not be a quick start as we're still trying to figure out the permit stuff. Sorry for the boring update here - but since not bored, I didn't add in extra food to attempt to relieve the boredom.
Meeting DH for lunch at a museum cafe near work, and then he'll go through the exhibit - special one on guitars I know he'll really enjoy. Then more garden work tonight. I'm really psyched as I've figured out what I want to do with what I'm rescuing, building two small garden walls for retained gardens on different levels. Want to price that out tomorrow evening. My plans are often bigger than my pocketbook.
GardenerJoy - I might be coming to you for suggestions! I LOVE gardening but am not a great maintainer with our activities. The centerpiece of my berm now is a 9' Canadian Hemlock that I love (and oddly enough, worry about in the winter with the winds, ice, etc. - I "feel" for it.)
Bill - GREAT job with passing up the samples and being 100% on plan! You're my role model today! I have a lot of birds in my area, but I know so few of them. Last night we had all the regulars - bats, canadian geese, crows, starlings, mallards, cardinals, robins and all the little brown fellers I call sparrows and wrens but in honesty, I don't know what they are! But they were all conversing and it was so pleasant. Re: ice breaker - my dad was stationed on an ice breaker in the navy years ago and I love his stories when I am able to wrangle them out of him.
Never thought you could go ON one! Cool!
Beth - What a GREAT way to think of what your action is - which are you going to report? Proud of you for making that choice - and I'll bet YOU are, too!
Lexxiss - Good luck with the renovations! Exciting, though disruptive! I've never had a major one that was planned - hope it comes out wonderful!
Jo - It appears that you have stared down the mac and cheese beast and came out VICTORIOUS!! You go! Major kudos abound. That is by FAR one of my favorite foods and we enjoy it sparingly, but when I make it, I try to not feel guilty because I lighten it up to a point that it's do-able and use real cheese, light milk, etc. I used to have a friend who would come over and say, I've had a hard day ... will you make some mac and cheese? And it is an hour-long recipe - not a speedy dealio.
I never taste food when cooking - I wonder why. Well, i do take a bite of a piece of pasta but always spit it out. Sorry, yuck. It's just not "ready" food?
Rosebud - Good luck with the testing prep and the testing! Will you have a sense of relief when it's over?