Memorial Day

We had a great Memorial Day get together with my family this weekend. We took the kids to the fountains to play, ate lots of good food, and visited until evening. My sister in law, God love her, looked beautiful as always, but also VERY ready to have her baby next week. I was secretly hoping that she would go into labor here, so I could visit her at the hospital and help out. Darn...my party was not exciting enough I guess!

Brian, my brother, spent much of the weekend with us, "helping" Steve drywall the garage. Brian pretty much did it, but I think that Steve learned a lot, and hopefully we'll be a little more self-sufficient for it. It looks so different now with the walls finished, and I'm sure it will improve our heating and cooling efficiency.

With the drywall mud mixed, I have started on my next project, which is the lower level TV/play area. To the chagrin of children and family, we only have one TV, and it's down there. The room has gotten no attention at all, since I hate the TV. So...I will fix nail pops, prime and paint the walls. I plan to do part of one wall in chalkboard paint. Maybe I'll actually want to spend some time down there...once the guinea pig is gone. PEEEWWWW!

Growth

Perhaps I should have inquired a bit more specifically about the growth rate of English Mastiffs. I knew that they got quite large, but my goodness. When Lola gets up in the morning, she's taller...every day. Literally.

House training is going fairly well, but in the morning, it's outside every 15 minutes to either pee or poop. This goes on for 2 hours, then slows down for the remainder of the day. We haven't had any accidents yet today, so that's not too bad for 1.5 weeks. So far, we are not regretting our decision!

Curtains...Kind of

Wow! I have two curtains hanging in my office. One of them is exactly how I imagined it. Double rod curtain on the door...looks nice. I think that my fabric was a bit wide, as it has a bit too much material to gather exactly as I'd like it, but I will not be reworking that one at all. The other is too short. Darn it! I cut the material prior to sewing anything, and I should have waited to cut the length. I am going to try to make a valance with that fabric and buy another length of the same fabric to make another door curtain. (As soon as I have a good coupon, that is) I am very proud of myself!

I also went to a sustainability conference this weekend. I learned a lot and met some great people. I have some personal changes that I would like to make, that I have been thinking about for some time, but mostly I went to learn about the sustainable communities movement. The other benefit to the conference was that I had a whole day away from home...without the kids!

Mom, Please Don't Be Mad!!!!

I have a confession. We have a new dog, and her name is Lola. She is going to be huge. I am 35 years old, and I am afraid to tell my mom!

The strange thing is, I was talking to Mom today, and she related a dream to me. It was about going to get a dog that was too expensive, so she didn't get it. Very strange.

Motorcycler

My son is obsessed with motorcycles and police officers, as I'm sure many 2 year old boys are. Well, this was solidified yesterday morning when, due to a small accident in front of our house, there was one of Dublin's motorcycle patrol officers. Danny was in his glory, talking to Officer Keck and sitting on the "motorcycler".

Today at the mall, he insisted on sitting on one of those rides that costs 1.00 for 10 seconds or something. I did not put money in, but he played on that thing for 30 minutes. He was a "motorcycler pleese obber" with a "motorcycler joo bok". (Motorcycle police officer with a motorcycle juice box) What a riot! And to think that people actually spend money on those things.

By the way, Zubin is doing wonderfully. His mouth is still healing, but he's eating now.

Doggie Surgery

We always swore that we wouldn't do any surgery on an old dog, but once again, we are eating our words. Zubin, our 10 year old yellow lab, has had a growth in his mouth for a good year. It really didn't bother him until about a month ago, and then he stopped eating much. Today, he went to the Rascal Unit to have it removed. He is crying and obviously in pain, but they said that he should be good to go in about 5 days. Until then, it's antibiotics and pain medication, and lots of love. Poor guy!

Happy Mothers' Day!

We are celebrating Mothers' Day a day early, since it's supposed to be rainy here tomorrow. Most likely, we overdid things, and the day went accordingly. We started out by going to ecoDublin (my choice), an expo at the community rec center. It was a lot of fun, and I made some good contacts. The kids ate a ton of candy, so they enjoyed it as well.

We moved on to the Worthington Farmers' Market (my choice) to buy the remainder of my plants for the year. I was pretty successful, but the kids started to lose it on the car ride over. They were just insane, running onto the street, hitting other children with sticks, etc.

Lastly, we went to my favorite metropark, Highbanks (my choice). We brought our lunch from one of my favorite restaurants, La Chatelaine. The river was really high today, so we really couldn't get close to the river, and the kids were even more insane.

When will I learn that even simple plans sometimes don't work with young children? I really wanted to do everything today, so we did, but now I feel like a witch rather than a doting mother. Perhaps next year, I should get over wanting to do everything together...we'll see.

Bunny Mountain

Does it make me a bad mother that I like to take my kids to play in the fountains with their clothes on? It was 70 degrees and not windy. It just seemed like too much work to find the suits, put them on, pack extra clothes, etc...when I knew that I would be stripping and bathing them as soon as we got home.

Neighbors

Grub Season

My good friend and neighbor has a bit of a grub problem this year. I wondered how bad it could be, so I went across the street to check it out while she was there musing about what to do with the colonies of ants and grubs. We easily plucked 150-200 grubs out of a 15 sq ft area, flicked them onto the driveway, and then Sarah squished them with rocks. Yuck! I was still thinking about it when I went to bed. Now, keep in mind, I am a nurse and have dealt with many disgusting things, but this takes the cake.

By the way, they squirt up to 3 feet when you squish them.

Today we got our tomato plants from the local farmers' market. It was a rainy event, but at least it was warm rain. I wanted 3 plants, but, as usual, I now have 9. Hopefully I can find a place for them all in my miniscule Dublin garden. I am really feeling the pain of the restrictions put on our yard. We are considering buying some land so that we can do a larger scale farm, but that's something that won't happen for this growing season.

Tomorrow, I am hoping to have some nice weather to put everything in the ground, including my seeds for this year. My family (so far) is much more tolerant of my yard work this year, and Sarah is getting interested in the garden. Yeah! After the planting, I will have a time of rest for a month before I have to start preserving anything. Better get those curtains done!