All in a day's work...

I told Dustin earlier that I needed a secretary or a teaching assistant.

How dare I forget the help I get on a daily basis.

 

The above pic showcases one of her favorite places. Her other is using the mouse as a pillow. Both are extremely helpful and greatly add to my productivity.

Can you tell I've been a slow DIYer lately? :)

Tomorrow Dustin is building a wall that we are adding to the bathroom. (only to give him space to run some water lines since the current hot water line doesn't actually have any water at all in it) Hopefully after that we get the ball rolling and I'll stop showing you the animals :)

Clean slate: Starting the bonus room redo

Where to start?!

I worked hard this weekend to catch up and get ahead so I could take my ‘weekend’ this week when Dustin was home.

Yesterday morning, we woke up with plans to empty the bonus room. Dustin thought it would take a day and a half just to empty it all.

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Luckily, he was wrong and we had it emptied just after lunchtime. Most of that time was spend boxing books. You never know how much stuff like that you have until you have to move it.

I even had time to use the treadmill!

...for its speakers... :)

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Well, it is 'empty' if you ignore the treadmill and desk. The treadmill was assembled in the room and cannot be taken out. The desk is just too big and heavy. They are about to get coated in plastic and taped up.
We still had some time before the placed closed where we could take our carpet and padding, so at 2:00, we were ripping up carpet.


*And, the door has to be taken off to get the couch in and out of the room….

I spent the rest of the evening with a hammer and screwdriver pulling up carpet padding staples. This room is in the 500 sq ft range and, if I were to guess, I think I pulled up no less than 100,000 staples. It felt that way anyway! :)

Dustin worked on the lights. That’s where is is now also. I go to the acupuncturist later, so he has to get that stuff done while I’m home. Things like that make me nervous!

We wanted to start spraying today, but there is a lot of prep work. Today and this evening might just be prepping and putting plastic over the windows and doors. He’ll be home alone for most of the afternoon and night, so prepping alone is enough of a job!

Meanwhile, in the rest of the house….


Both spare bedrooms are filled to the max…



We have entirely too many couches and chairs in the livingroom…



The cats are eating on the piano bench (To keep the beagle from eating it all and getting even chubbier)…



And, there is an entertainment center facing the wall in our bedroom.

Margot, in a boycotting rage, has decided to park herself in ANOTHER tree… she’s over 50 feet this time. We realized this at 11 last night. So, we’re also about to get another extension ladder to get her down. (This also needs to happen before I have to leave.) We’ve been seeing the mean stray cat around here again. Apparently, he won’t climb that high to try and beat her up. He’s about to owe us another $20 ladder rental fee…

Once upon a time…

Remember, oh, about three days ago when I blogged about what a good puppy we have? Strike that.

Remember, oh, about a week ago when I blogged about the cool centerpiece I made? Strike that.

First of all, let me say that I do work from home. So, I am home a LOT. However, Ellie has been left home alone a lot, too. Her being home alone with free reign of the house is not a new thing we’re trying out. She’s been crate-free for about 9 months.

We’ve only had two instances of her chewing up things. They both happened when she was itty bitty and she only chewed up pet related things- the Pledge pet hair grabber, the bottle of Nature’s Miracle that I used to clean up accidents, the puppy pads that she never used (except to chew up those two times). These were also times when she escaped. We were using baby gates in the hallway and she learned to climb them.

And, then I got home today. I’ve been gone about six hours at my aunt’s shop helping her organize. (more on that later).

I was met at the door by a beagle who NEEDED to go out. I let her out as I came in and then looked down.



I need to add that this picture doesn’t even come CLOSE to capturing the mess.

About two seconds into the disaster, I realized that except for the spool of ribbon, bag of moss, and birds nest, ALL of this stuff was from the centerpiece that I just made. The one that is ON the table. Double wammy- no pets on the table. (and, she ate my pumpkins!)

To top it all off, my cute pumpkin centerpiece is now pumpkinless. Apparently the little pumpkins and the spiral grape vines were tasty.

  
See all those seeds? They are EVERYWHERE!

Mom’s response: “At least she has good taste, she left the cinnamon sticks and pine cones that are a dime a dozen.”

True.

I can save these two…


As long as they are facing the right way….
Cute little eggs that I had plans for in the spring?

They’re a bit dented….

As for the bad beagle… I can deal with the stuff she destroyed, but I am SO disappointed. We’ve known that this day was coming. She’s so good, but even the best of us do bad things from time to time. But still... hopefully this was a lapse in judgment. Hopefully those little pumpkins were just too much for her to handle. Their cuteness just made her have to eat them. And the grapevine, well, it is very stick-like...

At least the vacuum smelled good as I cleaned up the wreckage. And, I’m sure her little belly is hurting. really? potpourri? Of all the things in this house to get into and eat, the potpourri?

Pots, limbo, and pets… oh my!

 

Yesterday, we had a doctor appointment. (Nothing to report, really. No bad news, but no good news)

After the appointment, we headed out for brunch at IHOP and a trip to Lowe’s, PetSmart, and Target. I got some great deals! The four pots from above total $139.96 plus tax. However, in order to make way for Halloween, they were on sale. (and, they were the ONLY pots left in the store)

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Our cost? $34.94 + tax. (and, I used part of a gift card, so they were actually FREE)  I have been looking for some nice, heavy pots to transplant our house plants into when they get moved back in the house for winter. They’ve been in plastic pots that were used in our wedding four years ago and are starting to smell like old plastic with a heavy hint of body odor :).  They may get painted. I’m not sure yet. The blue one ALMOST matches the blue of the kitchen, but not quite. The two square ones are metal and are a nice brown color. I think I’ll leave them all alone but the blue one.

As we walked through the store carrying all of these (we didn’t grab a cart, duh) Dustin announced that he didn’t think we’d ever be buying so much pot. The security guard walking behind him thought it was funny at least :).

We also went and bought Ellie a replacement Wubba for her Ellieversary. The pink one used to look like the new one… one year and 4 days ago… However, when we gave it to her, she went to old Wubba instead. This may be a slow transition :)

Sophie is also approaching her one year anniversary with us (we’re still working on the name for that celebration). So, we also went ahead and got her a present to beat up and destroy as well.

I’m also gearing up for the room above the garage redo. I can NOT WAIT for the projects we have coming up. I also have been getting a ton of things from my aunt’s shop. I’m waiting to redo a lot of those things until we have the bonus room painted and ready to move into. So, I’m in project limbo for a bit. But, that’s ok :) I still have a few things I could/need to finish up first… like painting the kitchen cabinet…(that I already painted once, and then we wallpapered, and then hung real bead board over :)) Maybe I really SHOULD take this time to wrap up the loose ends around here :).

Ellie-versary

One year ago today, this beast entered our lives. Meet Ellie (aka Ellie Bellie, Ellie Smellie, Eeeee, The Beag, The Regal Beagle)


I had never had a house dog before and didn’t know what to expect. We are lucky and hit the jackpot at the humane society and got the best dog ever. No, I’m not biased…

A few Ellie facts: (no, this won’t be boring… she’s also the cutest dog ever)
She has a set of ‘mean teeth’ that she wears to wrestle with her auntie Annie.

She has a healthy fear of the chickens but still wants to hang out with them even though we tell her that they are bad. (Chubs has also lost some weight since this picture… this also shows her love for cat food when we were away and unaware)

She loves people food but only begs by staring.

She loves her cousin Hadley so much that she left him alone when I told her to, even though she wanted to cuddle with him. Hadley also loves “EEEE!” even though she tried to take his pacifier out of his mouth.

She’s a digger, that one. We support this bad habit because we are just as convinced as she is that she will catch the mole.. and really, she doesn’t do any more damage than what it does.

Considering she is 100% inflexible, she is still a pretty decent contortionist.
Two words: Peanut. Butter.

She loves her Kong Wubba…                        …to death. (Wubba’s current state)

She loves her Sophie…
Note: Sophie has held up MUCH better than Wubba

even though Soph chews on her ears, bites her, and is just generally the meanest kitten of all time when she plays.

She thinks Sophie is her kitten.

She’s a sun bather,

a drama queen,

and a hard sleeper.
 
She was once a morning puppy, but now, she’s a pooch who just wants to sleep in and cuddle. 

She is SO well behaved and feels bad when she does anything even a little bit bad. Her little beagle nose gets her in trouble at times. When the nose is on, her ears have trouble hearing. We do have a lot of rules, but she follows them well.

She squeeks, she bites her nails, she misses rabbits because she’s too busy trying to catch butterflies (no, really, I've seen it happen about 5 times now...).

She’s obsessed with her daddy and wouldn’t bark until we taught her how to “talk”… now she won’t shut up :)

We couldn’t ask for a better dog. (minus she shedding and general beagle smelliness)

We need routine

I'm not sure where this little blog vacation came from. I've been right here at my computer most of the week. My 'month off' from my full time online teaching job ended on Monday, so I'm back online all day every day.

It seems as though we've all had a hard week in adjusting. We're all doing things we don't normally do. I took a lengthy blog break. These two forgot that they hate each other and spent an afternoon within inches of each other.

Actually, I think Margot was just so asleep that she didn't know they were close to cuddling. She refuses to get within feet of Sophie unless it is an attempt (a weak one at that) to smack her.

The chubby beagle has also has an awakening. We though that Sophie and Margot have just been eating up a storm. But, the guilty-eared puppy tells on herself and ratted herself out about eating the cat food while we are gone. I went to feed them the other day and Ellie came in at a snail's pace with her "I'm guilty and I'm so sorry" ears on. She only does that when she's in trouble or when she's done something bad like not listen, get in the compost, and now, eat the cat food. She's such a remorseful little thing!

So, luckily things are getting back to a normal routine around here... I'm back to working and blogging, the cats hate each other, and chubs is on a dog food only diet. 

Now, if I could only get the canning all finished and a project started!

and then she got high

(the cat, that is...)

Most of the time, things are pretty laid back around here.

From time to time, there will be toys on the stairs that look like snakes in the morning or in the middle of the night.

The toy on the bottom also makes bird noises that always seem to find their way under our bed JUST as we are falling asleep. Every single night.

Occasionally, there is a casualty where Pookie loses an ear... or tail... or entire head and face... or all his fur...

(this toy is about 6 years old, but looked new until Sophie came into town)

And then... we lose Margot... again

Oh, you can't see her either...

Try again

Yes, that's right. 35 feet. On the lowest branch. And she wasn't interested in getting herself down. 

So, we borrow a 24 feet extension ladder (this was before we knew how high she really was). 

After two nights and two days, I called my neighbor and had him take me to a rental place here in town. It was apparent that she forgot that the trunk of the tree was an integral part of the equation and she wasn't about to jump 35 feet. I decided that the ladder would be cheaper than the vet bill. $16.10 later, Margot's feet touched the soil.

So, now we're in the countdown until her next adventure that costs us money. This one was relatively cheap, for her, and didn't result in holes being cut in our walls or emergency vet trips.

Homemade carpet shampoo

About a month ago, I decided to shampoo the livingroom. It needed it. It's whitish carpet and we have a dog, a cat, and a kitten who runs around here like she's barely tame.

And, let's face it... we aren't total neat freaks. Our house is tidy- for the most part- but it is very lived in. Shoot, I painted and stained the coffee table in here a few days ago :). And, I had some mishaps in a room upstairs this week too. Enough of my faults and on to my disgusting shampoo water....

I shampooed it with some homemade solution that I'll advise you NOT to try. It was mostly water, but had a rather large helping of laundry detergent in it (like maybe a cup?) and a smidge of vinegar. It isn't the ingredients that were bad... but I didn't have the best proportions going.  After a month, this is what we had...

Tracking. And just dirty, dirty carpet. Can you see the lines that run through the middle? This is THE highest traffic area in the room. Those lines are from the carpet cleaner dispersing my solution. And the dark spots of nastiness? Apparently my mixture was too foamy for the carpet cleaner and just right for looking clean temporarily.

So, today, I gave it another attempt. This time, I used MOSTLY all water, about 1 TBS of Gain, 1/3 cup of vinegar and about a TBS of OxyClean. It worked GREAT. It was still a bit foamy, but ended up being ok. Then, I went over the entire carpet with plain water and sucked it all up. I did this twice. Overkill? You tell me...

This sink of nastiness is after one rinse with just plain water in the cleaner. (Please note the lack of the first round with soap photo. Nasty.)

I'm sure that I could have done this ALL day and still would have had dirty water results. It never fails. Every time I clean the carpet, I am bound and determined that we are getting hardwood in this room. We are... it's just a matter of when :).

If you are thinking "oh, our carpets aren't that bad.." I dare you. Clean them. You will want to rip out every square foot of the stuff. 

If you try out your own cleaner like this, let me know. And, if you ever stop by here and I say "oh, I just cleaned the carpets, don't take off your shoes" I mean it. I don't want your crisp white socks wet with this nasty brown/green/gross water from my "clean" living room :).

Does the living room smell like vinegar? YUP. Will it fade? I hope. :)

It doesn't seem to bother the girls. They have congregated to the corner where I didn't go ALL the way to the wall though.

I won't mention that immediately after this picture was taken, a certain cleaner/blogger/photographer let the beagle outside where she immediately started digging. The cleaner/blogger/photographer thought the beag was after a snake so the digging was allowed. Needless to say... no snake... it was an ant hill. And I wonder why the "clean" carpet water is still so nasty :)

I also did the couch, love seat, and rocker. I used a different method on them though. More on that soon.