Puppies Poop .... A Lot ... Frequently ... Everywhere

OK, so I shouldn't be surprised. I kinda knew puppies pooped. What I can't figure out is WHY MAGGIE POOPS EVERYWHERE BUT ON THE PAPER?!?!?!?! Here's the thing, she pees on the paper all the time. She's had maybe one pee accident in the past month and she was really, really excited at the time. Not only does she pee on the paper but she pees exactly dead center of the paper, bulls-eye. I've actually seen her squat near the edge of the paper, stop, look around and MOVE to the center of the paper before going. So why on earth won't she poop there? It's little itty bitty puppy poop, not a huge mess, and I do put it on the paper and show her. She still goes off and hides to poop. Hubby's opinion? She's shy, gee thanks hun. Any suggestions? Anyone?

Besides the pooping she's great. She's even learned to go in her travel bag when prompted which is great because now my niece can "help" by zipping her in or out. The two of them are inseparable, just what we were hoping for when we got Maggie. They even call out to each other at night when one or the other is awake and should be sleeping. Tala in her crib and Maggie in her crate. OK, this is probably annoying but since niece and puppy go home in the afternoon and become their parents' problems I can think it's cute.

Haven't been getting to much knitting lately, Mom and Dad FINALLY moved to Maine. They even took all, no most, OK about half their stuff. They'll be picking up the rest here and there and I twisted their arms and got a solid "you can toss it" list. There was no way I was paying for the house until their crap was GONE. Have I mentioned I'm the child of packrats and slobs?? Two people who are organizationally and cleanliness challenged shouldn't marry, they reinforce each others bad habits. At times this house has looked like one of those homes on "How Clean is Your House", unfortunately I'm not joking.

I think it's a teacher thing, all the teachers I know have homes that look like a bomb went off. Mom, Dad and one of my sisters. Everyone else in the family, myself and my other sister border on being neat freaks. In fact, when my Mom went to her parents' house to pick up a dining table my Papa was there to make mom take the boxes from his garage of her stuff. Seriously, my mother has been married for almost 40 years and she still had crap in Papa's garage. PACKRAT!
So, mostly I've been cleaning and purging. I'm not talking grab a mop and do a quick run trough the house. We're talking full on washing the walls and ceilings, removing and polishing the hardware from the furniture, and tossing or donating a TON of just stuff that my parents accumulated for reasons I can't fathom, THEY don't even want it.

One thing they left and I found a purpose for was a china hutch. Well, I don't have "good" china, I kinda hate "good" china. I'm also very anti-knick-knack, even though my mother-in-law gets us them for about EVERY holiday (don't get me started), but I do have some nice teapots. Tea pots border on knick-knacks, they walk a very fine line. Thing is I USE my teapots and I use them a lot. I also like teacups, not sets of teacups like "good" china, I get them one at a time and none of them match. Each cup is unique so they can't be "good" china. I like things with a function first and everything else second. My hubby... well he comes very close to being a knick-knack person like his mother sometimes, it scares me.

Other than teapots the only thing I have in abundance is yarn and knitting books. So they went into the hutch with the teapots. I mean I spent a whole day cleaning this thing I should get to put what I want in it. OK it did take a bit of convincing to get hubby to understand why a hutch full of yarn and teapots belonged in the dining area but in the end he saw the light. I think it looks pretty cool.

We Have a New Puppy!

Alas, Tilly is moving North with my parents and after having to put Roo down last summer we weren't big on the idea of Tala not having a dog. Losing two dogs in a year is a lot of heartbreak when you're two even if one of the dogs comes to visit occasionally.

Enter our family dentist who started dropping hints LAST MONTH. She had a new litter of puppies you see and one of them was called Maggie Waggie because her whole body wags not just her tail. Now, I forbade my mother to even lay eyes on any puppies, she lacks the self control to not take one home. That's how we got Tilly.

Then mom got the new job. Hmmmm maybe a puppy isn't a bad idea. I however don't want a god right now and neither does my husband, it's just not the right time. So the nudging aka nagging started. My sister needed a puppy, the baby needed a puppy, my sister's husband needed to get a puppy for the baby else he be the worst dad in history. Overstated? Maybe, but not by much.

My mother aka Nana-Spoils-A-Lot took Tala to the dentist to have her teeth cleaned. She was very good as we told her afterwards she'd get to see puppies. Then they went to Donna's house and two by two the puppies we let into the yard with the baby to see how well everyone got along. Of course, as predicted, Maggie Waggie took to the baby instantly. She followed her around the yard and didn't nip or cry and the less than gentle proddings of a toddler trying to pick her up and kiss her.

Now, I have two little monsters in the house all day. Part of the deal I seem to have missed is that Maggie will be arriving daily with baby for Auntie Care. It's OK, it's kind of fun having a puppy to play with and then it GOES HOME. All of the fun, none of the poop pick-up duty. And she's just cute as all hell.

Swap Socks are FINALLY DONE!

I finally finished the socks from the yarn Sarah sent me in the Knitter's Tea Swap last year. They've been my purse project for a while now but this week I caught a cold from my niece, I love when toddlers share, so I needed a bed friendly and easy to drop when sneezing project to work on. I love how they came out.

The new furnace is in, YAY! It works great and is very quiet compared to the old one. We put in a new thermostat too that's programmable so we don't forget to turn the heat back up in the morning and wonder why we're FREEZING. I loved the contractors Home Depot sent, they were friendly, on time and did an excellent job. They also we're nice enough to help hubby put in the new thermostat even though that wasn't officially part of the job. The old thermostat had a mercury ampule in it, they too it away for disposal for us. It's such a pain to get rid of mercury properly I was really thankful. They more than deserved the coffee and scones I made them for sure. They're so getting my next call when we need something done around here. A great experience with a contractor who'd thought it could happen?