Take time today to let yourself be 'soothed'. Relax or keep busy whatever floats your boat. For me it will be a trip northwest to see db/dsisil with dd. We should be leaving soon. DSonil announced at 9:30 last night that he has people coming here at 8:30 this morning. I want to go spiff the kitchen a little before we leave, but he's still sleeping in the recliner.
Glad we're going to get to see db/dsil in their new house before I head north. They're about the same distance as when they lived in the Villages, but further west -more toward the gulf. Actually near the "Sugar Mill Ruins". Sure Sunny will know where that is.
I'm all ready to go except for grabbing a bite and a cup of coffee. DD had mentioned she wanted to go to Dunkin this morning but it's rather cumbersome to go to the one on the north side of the city, so may wait till we get to Dade City. Her map had us going way west of town and back up -pretty sure we know a much shorter way. Will be interesting to see how long it takes us to get up there, providing we don't get lost.
Have a good Saturday everyone!
Thanks Ivy for posting those steps. I often, when I'm procrastinating especially, list minute steps to getting a job done -particularly the church council minutes.
Before bed last night (which was awfully close to midnight, I'm not admitting which side!), I closed the blinds completely and we slept with the doors shut. So the room was very dark. I woke up at 6:45 and went to the bathroom. Dh said something about me sleeping a whole extra 15 minutes and I pointed out this was the equivalent of a 4 a.m. pee had I been to bed on time and I was going back to sleep. Which I did. Until 9. He bailed around 8:30. So both of us got a longer night than we would have had the blinds been open (dh's preferred sleeping arrangement so that the light naturally wakens him in the morning - acceptable in deep winter but not so good in summer.)
So I'm just up.
I've started a load of laundry, made the bed, am having my tea and chocolate and am descaling my hot water pot. Dh asked if I was putting it away for the season. Not yet - I'll do so only when the thought of hot tea in the evening is repulsive. At this point, my after dinner decaf tea is a lovely ritual but once the temperatures get up over 75 all day long, that might change.
I still have s2s which I need to get finished before the washer buzzes. It is an unexpectely lovely day so the sheets are going to be line dried this week. Yay!
I'm s2s. Just finished my cereal (yes, it is 11:45 in my time zone.) The sheets are on the line, I've practiced my duets with dh for Monday and Tuesday (we are singing at two seniors' luncheons) and my hot water pot is through its second cleaning cycle (one more to go.)
Oh my goodness, Elizabeth, your evening did sound like it was following the script for a sit-com. I hope you were able to find it somewhat amusing. Is your house clean and ready for your parents? I hope it is a good visit!!
Dog Drama - Skippable: We had an exciting evening last night too - for less humorous reasons. Tori attacked Pepper and drew blood - unprovoked. . . . Hmm. . . It's not the first time she has been aggressive in our home - I've been bitten by her and so has dd18, both times blood was drawn. She once snapped at a 2yo boy visiting our home. He was bending down to pat her side. She didn't make contact, but that behavior is still unacceptable by our standards, so we declared her unsafe with small children at that point. We will not host small group when she is here. Last night, Dh and I were doing the dogs' ears. I left the dog treats on the sofa right beside me. We did Tori's ear and gave her a treat. We were prepping to do Maia's ears, when I realized Tori was eating the 2 treats beside me. I told her "NO" sternly and took away the one treat she hadn't eaten yet. At that point, Pepper wandered by - and Tori just turned around, snarled, and lit into her. Oh, my goodness! Dh and I both yelled at the top of our lungs, I tried to grab her collar - but dh was on her in a flash and had her pinned to the floor by the throat, as an alpha dog would do. (Dh has a very strong protective reflex - I've seen it in regards to our children too. Not a bad thing in a Dad.) Even after he let her go, she snarled at Pepper again when she happened to walk near her. She does not like being corrected, we've noticed that from day 1. The time she bit me was after I stopped her from doing something she shouldn't have been doing. She likes to be the alpha dog, which is fine with Pepper - not fine with us. And not fine when she attacks our dog unprovoked. Maia may be more alpha in the end - who knows? Anyhow, Pepper is so mild-mannered, she would never hurt a flea, and she also doesn't have insecurity issues - and doesn't mind not being alpha. She does bark at passing pedestrians, which annoys me to no end (and for which we now use a bark collar), but when they approach her, she is all wags and lowered head. Tori should be going home today, but no phone call yet from her family. . .
Today!
x jog with dh
x 1/2 my devo time waiting for dh in the car; he ran longer today, 7 miles I believe
x family p--p party to clean up all the animals' messes. There were plenty of dogs' messes in the yard, mostly in the areas designated for that activity, but Maia hasn't always been good about that. The chickens hadn't been cleaned out all winter, as has become our custom. It is frozen all winter. I did the cat and then fed the 3 dogs.
x I made pancakes while dh, GG, and Dd15 finished up with the yard and the chickens; dd18 did the g. pigs and then helped with the chickens and then headed out to a babysitting job
x sat with dh, dd15, and GG for quite a while and had brunch with them and heard more about dd15's adventures in France. She showed us photos last night.
Next:
- finish a.m .routine
- groc. store for salad fixings
- laundry
- prep for a salad for lunch tomorrow; we're having lunch at our skiing friends' home
- dd15 has metal work (jewelry) in an art show and she may want to go see it today
- dd15 has a synchro demonstration at the local Y. Not sure when it starts, sometime around 6 or 7.
- dh and I are going out for dinner tonight after the synchro demo. . .
Hmmmmm, given how fond I am of Maia, I'd suggest not having Tori over again. Or crating her for the majority of her visit.
Nothing to report here except the dishwasher has just stopped running. Dh and I are headed off on a walk since the weather is gorgeous right now (and forecast to get bad for an extended period of time.) We'll walk back to the river and see how much the level has risen since yesterday.
Ah, yes, if we could, Kathryn. . . . Tori doesn't use a crate, which creates other issues when we leave the house. She will "counter surf," which our dogs do not do, so counters need to be clear. We've given up on the furniture - we know she sleeps on the sofa when we're gone/asleep. She knows she's not supposed to be on it b/c she will get down when you walk in the room, and she never gets on it when we're around. Our dogs are not allowed on the furniture, except for the old sofa in the playroom. We do need to keep dogsitting her b/c we need our friends to keep dogsitting our dogs when we travel. She has just not been very well trained, in our humble opinion, but we feel we can't really mention that to dfriends. Dh has said that if she were our dog, we would have put her down years ago. I'm not sure i would have done that - I would have tried to work on her training. Our standards for behavior are pretty high.
I'm sorry, I've sort of been ranting here. We really do love Tori. She has some irritating quirks, some of which I haven't shared, but most of the time she is a good dog.
I am showered - and feel much better, not that I was feeling particularly bad beforehand. I was just sitting around in stinky athletic clothes covered with dog hair. Maia is shedding. I dislike that about dogs, but what can we do?
Helia I have to agree with Kathryn on this one. Tori May not like crates but her behavior is not quirky but unsafe to all in your home. What if your dh was not there to break up the fights, what would you do??? What if this happened if neither of you were home, but your kids were? These fights can quickly get out of hand with very bad consequences.
Sadie and Willis are wonderful friendly dogs to both people and children. However even though they walk side by side for miles at a time, they can not be off lease with each other. Sadie gets excited and left unchecked things can get out of hand very fast. We had three terrible dog fights early on. Both dogs are fifty lbs or more. Sweetie and I have both been bitten trying to break up fights. Now we've learned if we're around any dog fights to grab each dog by their hind legs, lift them up and then pull the dogs apart. And we are not willing to take any chances to put either of our dogs in situations that they can't handle. For us it's the right thing to do.
Not to scare you but if tori has attacked once, left unchecked
d she will do it again. You might want to rethink the situation as of now she's being the pack leader in your house.
I am having an ADD kind of a day... Several projects going at once with me being very distractable. Need to get a grip and focus though I have to admit that sometimes being reminded of how I used to be only serve to remind me how far I've come. And that in its self is not a bad thing
Live boldly, take risk, no regrets...Jillian Michaels
I have cleaned the coop and the run for the birds. I have the pullets out if the coop and in the run. Hens are out of the run. I dug some dirt to level spots the hens used for dust bathing. I think it looks better. Gave some weeds to the pullets they are happy. This is a time of transition for them.
I was stiff today and had to work out some kinks in my lower back I think it helped, but hurts to sit so I need to get up and get moving again now.
Hi everyone! My parents are not here yet. Fog in their hometown delayed their first flight and they missed a connection. I leave in 30 minutes to pick them up. Bathrooms and hall are dealt with. Kitchen and DD room mostly ok, need some attention. My room - not so hot. Sewing room still a disaster!
Mostly I wanted to tell y'all that if you don't hear from me for the next 1.5 to 2 weeks, it is nothing to worry about. With my parents here, it is not likely I will be on the computer much, that's all.
Cowinkie, those are good questions. Hard, but good. Since Pepper and Tori have known each other for 8 years, ever since they were pups, I tend to think it would not have gotten too far. Pepper is very likely to have just retreated - but I don't know how aggressive Tori would be. . . I asked dh and he said he wasn't sure that Tori wouldn't have done serious damage to Pepper if she could have. It is possible that with the snacks, Tori felt she was protecting her food from Pepper - still not acceptable behavior to us. And the treats had been put away before the attack, but seconds before. . . Your comments have confirmed our rule of not having small children in the house when Tori is here. I'd never heard that about grabbing dogs by the hind legs. Interesting.
Coincidentally, dd18 was babysitting for a family so they could take their dog to a specialist. The dog has started attacking the other dog in the family. After several appointments and trying different training techniques, the final word today was that the attacking dog is likely mentally unstable and needs to be put down. . . Sad for them.
Dd15 has been dropped off at the Y to practice for the demo. She decided to skip the art show. I've been to WF and have fixings for a salad. I'll fix it tomorrow as the veggies will just go stale if I do that this afternoon.
We're leaving in about 15 minutes to go see d15's demo and then out to eat.
