We are indeed back to summer weather up here - hazy, hot, humid with thunderstorms most of the week. Yuck. I'm glad I don't have to water gardens but I was hoping for cooler weather to try to gather my energy a bit for the full complement of work starting next week. At least we have a 3-day weekend and I am determined to take one day off and relax.

DH is bugging me about the dining room colour again. He wants to leave it. I can't eat in a room that bright. I picked what I think is a much more muted colour (closer to my original choice) and asked him to get a litre and do a small test wall (we have a type of bulkhead that will do fine for this). This has taken 5 emails and 4 face-to-face conversations.

I wish each small decision didn't have to be this involved. I decide and tell him but he keeps rehashing it and rehashing it. SIGH.

At least I am going to finish the shopping for household furnishings this weekend. Whatever is missing will be missing until next summer. Never thought I'd say I'm sick of shopping but I am.

Now I just have to wait for things to be finished, arrange deliveries, and I'm done. I think I will get about a day or so break in all of this sometime at the middle of September.

Dagmar and

Andrea~I don't know how anyone can dislike scallops! I love them! Granted DS doesn't like any fish unless it's a fish stick (battered) and stuck in a taco. I usually fix chicken for him when I fix fish for me and DH. That won't be an issue in a month, though (sigh).

And on the subject of veggies~once upon a time, DS decided he was a vegetarian. He was pretty little--maybe five. So I presented him with veggies! I had to remind him a few times that he was a vegetarian therefore he must eat them and amazingly he never balked. He tried and ate everything I placed in front of him. I remember also finding Morningstar Farms soy corn dogs and thinking he'd hate them. Nope. Loved them. And I found they're pretty darn good, too. It is the ONLY thing close to a hotdog that I can palate.

It's so humid here the entire house smells like pee. Had to do a quickie clean of the bathroom and never, ever will I take my housecleaners for granted. I had forgotten how odious I find housecleaning (having done it for free for my parents/partners for almost 30 years).

The mat in the front hall is hopeless. Our male cat has obviously been engaging with another male unneutered cat who is spraying our porch. Mishi unfortunately is peeing inside the house to mark his territory (even though he's neutered the testosterone from the other cat is affecting his behaviour). Bleagh. I can take the hose to the porch but I'm going to ditch the mat. DH wants to leave it for our landlords but that's a bit too nasty.

Dagmar

Allison-- how long was your son a vegetarian? My older dd decided she was one when she was maybe 12? It lasted quite a while-- maybe 8 months! Then she was done!

First REAL day of school here. Kids arrive! Sad story on the news this morning. A local car accident that killed a 16 year old last night. He won't be starting school this morning. Sobering and sad.

Dagmar~get one of these ssscat and put it on your front porch. It'll harmlessly scare away that male cat (I used to use them around my houseplants to keep my cats away). Scares the bejeebers out of them and eventually he just won't come back.

Michele~DS was a vegetarian for maybe 3 months. I don't really remember. That is sad about the 16 year old. There's a story from Utah about a college student who was riding his bicycle on campus and didn't see a slackline that had been set up by other students. Hit it somewhere either at his chest or neck and killed him. Several other students (probably those that set up the slackline) witnessed the whole thing and are in counseling. So sad.

Our neighbor's cats keep sneaking into my garage and peeing, maybe I should get one of these ssscat things too!

What is a slackline? Sad about the kid at your school Allison, and the boy on the bike.

Dagmar - makes me want to pick DH up and shake him for you.

Hi maintainers!

Took cats to the vet yesterday. Lucy (black one) has gained a pound in one week and vet seemed concerned she'd eat herself morbidly obese if unchecked. Dekopon needs a canine tooth extracted - it's loose and this will be major surgery I am not looking forward to giving him daily prednisone pills either! Any tricks/tips on tricking cats into taking pills?

Super jealous of Bill's Norcal trip, someday I will see those epic trees too.

My roommate got GREAT small tomatoes from the farmers market - oh my gosh they are incredible. Such a contrast to storebought.

Jen - I say carb load.

slackline

Basically it's a non-tight tightrope that is strung fairly low to the ground and you walk on it--balancing. If you fall, you're close enough to the ground that you don't get hurt.

Krampus - you can get these anywhere:

http://www.amazon.com/Greenies-Felin...l+pockets+cats

Stuff the pill into the treat and theoretically they will just eat the treat without knowing they took the pill!


This weekend was a weekend of bargains for DH and I! We stopped at a rummage sale and I got a brand new aerobic step with 2 sets of risers for 5 bucks. Then an acquaintance of ours posted on Facebook that she was selling a practically unused NordicTrak Elliptical for $400 bucks. It will be a tight squeeze in our home gym, but when we went over to look at it, it is a premium one that even has an incline (I didn't know that ellipticals had that) and she said that for us she would sell for $300. DH is going over to pick it up today!

Then DH was looking for new running sneakers and found some Brooks that he fell in love with and Dick's discounted them $25 - we aren't sure why but decided not to question it!

This cheapo loves to get bargains!!

Jen

Krampus-- why does he need daily Prednisone-- is it just short term? I wonder why his canine is loose? One of my cats (Charlotte) had most of her teeth removed (plus some fell out)-- she does still have her canine teeth though-- we joke that she gums her food-- poor thing!

Allison-- that is so tragic. Were they trying to catch someone with the line?

I signed up for the half marathon that is done in my school district-- aack!! I signed up last year but didn't do it because I had a bad toe. It's in October so little time to train. I plan on running/walking it as several of my coworkers walk the whole thing so it's not taboo. Still scared about it as I hate running and I've never run more than a 5K (except the Tough Mudder but that is sporadic running).

How sad about the slackline. I've seen kids playing with those at the park but they were close to the ground. I wonder why it was chest high. I also recall how fast those bicyclists go, it's pretty hilly and they can get up to 30 mph which isn't too safe for pedestrians. I went to a different college but I've been to USU and it's similar. I hate to blame the deceased, since the slackline was probably not marked for visibility. What a terrible shame.

I mean to say we were at Kings' Canyon sequoias this summer, it was amazing, and I don't even think we got to the biggest trees. We started up 100 giants trail but the baby had lost his shoes so I was carrying him the whole way.

Tricia~what college? I went to the U of U. My niece is going there currently.

Update on our Sunday storm:

We expected a few phone calls from homeowners with leaks. Fortunately that really hasn't happened--except for one homeowner who forgot to completely close their skylight and of course we can't do much for them and the few inches of rain that soaked their carpet. One woman called today because her roof had leaked and caused a lot of damage to the bathroom we remodeled and now they need to remodel it again (this time they'll have insurance to pay for it).

Anyway, up in Bighorn Country Club, we finished a house there maybe a year ago. Apparently the house sits below road level (it's very mountainous there). Across the street is a ravine with a culvert in it. The street is situated in such a way that both directions go upward--like a giant V. And here sits a house at the bottom of that V when what they're now calling the desert hurricane hit. The storm drains which are designed for normal desert rains are overwhelmed and the water and mud flow toward this house. It builds up at the home's front door where it accumulates to a height of about 3 feet and then breaks the door down and floods the main floor of the house with water, mud and debris (mostly cacti from the surrounding gardens). Meanwhile the water is also going around the sides of the house and then down toward the golf course. The flow was so great that it washed out everything from under their swimming pool and now the pool, with no foundation, is just hanging onto the side of the hill. The homeowner flew in yesterday to assess the damages. He has determined that the home is a total loss and will need to be torn down and rebuilt. He's afraid that with the damage to the pool there has to be parts under the foundation that also was washed away and therefore it is not safe. So sad.

Whenever I hear about storms, I feel a little sick. We've gone suspiciously long without any hurricane warnings yet this summer. But Sandy came through at the end of the season, so I'm not stopping worrying yet.

Meanwhile, the Zoning Board is on recess this month and will resume its hearings in September. We may yet get a verdict on our flood wall. But if they say no, we'll sue. Then again, if they say yes, the neighbors will probably sue.

We have 14 apartments for sale in the complex now and my two neighbors who are selling say they have no luck. As soon as buyers see the sandbags piled up for our temporary flood wall, and hear about the flood, they go home.

Wondering how Bargoo is doing again.

Stopping in to say that oldest DS (15) became a vegetarian at 2 1/2. For real. And for good (so far, at any rate). Which didn't stop him from eschewing tofu, beans, veggie burgers and every form of texturized soy protein under the sun. He also ate only ~10 vegetables for many many years. Yes, he was a nightmare to feed, especially since he prefers to subsist on all the carby foods that I can't eat because of calorie and triggering issues. But we've both survived, and he seems reasonably healthy anyway.