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?

Knittng, Construction and Baking

Wow, over a week and not a peep out of me.

Well, it's been busy as all heck here. The furnace is not-quite-dead but on it's last legs. It is over 40 years old so time for a new one. The gas company couldn't find time to come out with an estimate for a new one but Home Depot did soooooooooo, we're getting a Trane. Thing should just about pay for itself in not too many years. It seems our old furnace was about 65% efficient and the new one is going to be 92%. We'll see that next winter for sure. Mom and dad still technically own the house so they have to foot the bill on this one. Maybe it died right on time.

Grandma came through with the CD she gave us on our wedding day. We're going to redo both bathrooms. They need it BAD. There's a leak upstairs and the downstairs one is so far gone it needs to be ripped back to the studs. They're both small so I may be able to keep within the budget. Just in case, if you want something from Amazon click through a link on here, yeah I'm begging. Plus hubby and I can do the finishing and detail stuff ourselves. Have you priced toilets lately?? What the heck are they made out of?? They cost almost as much as a new tub, that just seems wrong.

I made my first ever Hot Cross Buns this weekend. Nana's not up to making them herself this year but she wanted them so the request came to me. They came out pretty good. Mom, Nana and Papa all loved them. The only thing is, everyone else hates hot cross buns, including me. So we have a lot left over that went to work with Mom this morning.

Nana gave me one of her cookbooks this weekend and a chafing dish. I'm grateful for both, the cookbook had Nana's notes in it, I love that. I think this is the quickening of a trend at Nana's though. The past few years she's been giving away a lot of the stuff she doesn't use anymore. Now that she's doing hospice and letting the cancer run it's course I think she's trying to empty the house so it's not a task left to Papa when she's gone. I can't decide if it's practical or morbid. There's only one thing I'm super concerned about and I told mom to hint at it. Nana's sewing machine from the basement. I learned to sew on that Singer and when I got married Nana and I made my wedding dress on it. I want it and I'll scratch the eyes out of any cousin who even looks at it. Selfish maybe, but that old machine has a lot of my best memories for me of Nana and I want it.

I've been knitting away on some smaller projects lately. I just finished a couple shawls, I'm doing the lace thing. Now that hubby and I are going to have the house solo money's going to be tight so no buying yarn until we adapt to the new budget. I have lots of yarn in my stash so I'm starting with the lace weight and I'll move on from there. Of course people are grabbing things as they are finished, eventually there's going to be a spat so I'll just keep going until everyone has something they like.

Birthday's are Bad Luck

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me...

Every year on my birthday some major catastrophe happens almost without fail.

This year I figured the fates would give me a break. I mean it's been a tough year, a real doosie. Guess what I got for a birthday surprise?

Are you ready?

Can you hear the drum roll?

The furnace croaked.

Death, Dying and Nana's Bad Jokes

Well there's not too much going on around here lately. I've been knitting away and putting up stuff for my mother to take to Nana's. She's been in good spirits but I can already tell it's not going to be a long time before she goes. There's a odd sort of look to her lately, a weakness in her movements and her color has changed a lot. She's comfy though, no pain and that's what worried us most.

One thing I find odd about this process is the humor. Nana has always had a sort of "off" sense of humor for someone in her generation. Now that she's looking at the end of her life she's pulled all the stops as far as self editing goes.

Now, I find Nana's death jokes honestly funny. They are direct, observational, somewhat inappropriate, and flat out hilarious. My mother on the other hand finds them upsetting and morbid. She'll laugh at Nana's but then come home and cry.

I'm left to wonder if it's because I'm a generation removed or if it's because my sense of humor has always been very close to Nana's. My mom's always been a weeper and I'm more of a stewer. Is it possible the jokes aren't actually funny? I guess it doesn't matter as long as Nana thinks they are.

Oh yeah knitting. Have you noticed my current obsession with knitting hats? I think it's self-therapy. They're easy, quick, and they clear out the odd single balls of yarn from my stash. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do with them all but they keep me busy when I get stressed out.

When is Enough, Enough?

My Nana came to a decision this past week. She's decided to discontinue chemotherapy and let nature take it's course. I don't blame her, the chemo was leaving her a wreck, worse than the cancer. It's not like it was going to cure it, just stave off the inevitable. She had said before it all started that she felt if it was her time so be it and I respected her decision then so I have to respect it now. Somehow it's more real all of a sudden.

This is truly a quality vs quantity of life situation. She's 85, has up until now has been in good health as well as independent, and pancreatic cancer is terminal. It's still weird to me to think of her as dying. We're all dying, she's just going at a faster clip. My mother is an emotional wreck, she always is in a crisis. I'm more like Nana, kinda rational and appreciative. It's not that I don't love her, it's not that I won't miss her, it's that I feel really lucky to have had her around all these years and I'm glad she gets to go out as in charge as she's always been.

The tough thing is there's nothing I can really do to help out. I can do little shit, I knit her a few pairs of socks because she likes them and she's been feeling colder than usual because of the chemo. I can go visit or call but I do that anyway. My Nana taught me that when something needs doing, fixing, making you just jump in and get it done. Here, there's nothing to do and it can't be fixed and it leaves me feeling sort of lost.

My Nana also taught me to be really practical and some really old fashioned manners. So, one of my thoughts today was, my god my husband doesn't have a suit for the funeral. Now, some people might think that it's a little sick that this is what's going through my brain right about now, Nana would think it was funny. She'd also ask me how come he doesn't already have a suit for such an occasion and cluck at me. I really don't have a extra few hundred bucks for a suit for hubby but I also don't want to be running around looking for one last minute. This is what happened when my Dad's father died and I was up all night doing alterations so pops didn't have to wear a light blue suit to his father's wake. Maybe hubby's brother has one he can borrow in a pinch, but we really should just go buy one.

I am dreading Mom's coming reactions to things Nana is going to be planning. Mom is a cryer and Nana is going to want to have some things just so. Some time soon she's going to bring up her own funeral plans, what she wants to be dressed in, flowers, etc. and my mom is going to lose her mind. I'm also dreading my father's behavior, since his heart surgery he's had the emotional age of a toddler. Dad got very used to being "sick" and now that he's good to go he gets pissy when he's not the center of attention. It's already come up once or twice and I'm told it's not uncommon, just annoying. My husband has come really close to slugging him a couple times this week when Mom's been over stressed with Nana and Dad decided to throw a tantrum because he wasn't getting the attention he wanted.

On the bright side my sisters are coming this weekend and we're going to visit Nana, a ladies afternoon. Then we're going to a yarn sale at the Classic Elite outlet in Lowell. I get to spend the rest of the week planning some nice treats to make and bring, stuff I know Nana will like. I'm really going to miss her but I couldn't have ever asked for more or better, she's always been the best.