True Baby

Well, Titan has a brother. And there is now a true baby in the house. No, I didn't have a baby. We got a little ten week old miniature pinscher tonight. He and Titan were fast friends. And my house has become a jungle gym, cause the little guy, for whom we've decided to keep his original name Bam-Bam, is small but able to climb to some remarkably high places. My two boys have had quite the time this evening wrestling and playing...

What was hysterical was when Bam decided Titan was being a bully (Titan figured out how to old Bam down with his butt so he could bite at him) and Bam proceeded to find a strategic hiding place where he could Titan, but Titan couldn't get him.

Bam is definitely a baby though. He's been crying for a while now. Poor thing's homesick and the only thing that calms him down is when I hold him and love on him. Although that makes it extremely difficult to eat (as I was doing when I figured out how to soothe him) or type. But he's so cute it's worth it :) I definitely foresee him being a mommy's pup. His favorite place has become my lap. And both he and Titan have been shadowing me everywhere.

Well, the crying started again. Time to snuggle with the new baby.

Oh, and might I add, every time Bam stops moving and looks at me or Titan I panic and jump up to check if he's peeing...oh the joys of potty training...

The Ball: Final Destruction

So, I was planning on blogging about the wonderful miracle of corn starch I recently discovered. But as I sat down to write, I look up to see my living room covered in tennis ball pieces.

Yes, our dear, adorable puppy destroyed yet another toy. This time? The tennis ball. He de-covered it days ago. It took him about two weeks, but he managed to pull all of the fuzzy covering off the tennis ball. And now? He decided there must be something inside the ball. No idea why he would have thought that, but he must have.

So, of course I had to throw the tennis ball away finally, and he wandered around the house whining trying to find it. Eventually he gave up but now he's driving me nuts - of course. He wanted to go out side; I let him out. He walked outside and stood in the middle of the patio just looking around. I told him to come back inside; he walks part of the way back and stops. Looks at me and just stands there. I had to go pick him up and carry him back inside. So now he's pouting. He's like a toddler, I swear. And yet we're looking at getting another one, lol. If all goes according to plan, we'll have 2 puppies, a baby, and two full-time jobs within the next year. Why yes, yes we are crazy.

Oh speaking of a baby, I ran across something interesting today. First Response came out with an over-the-counter fertility test. Who knew? Not that I'm paranoid and going to go out and buy it (the doctor said considering my age and medical history, she wouldn't start worrying until we've been trying for at least two years), but I was still stunned. I've always assumed that determining a woman's fertility was far too complicated to use a simple test to determine. To each their own I suppose. That's why I'm not the doctor.

Well, Titan's now trying to climb in my lap so I must be forgiven for the traumatizing disappearance of his tennis ball. Time to snuggle with my puppy and make myself Chinese food for the third night in a row (nothing else seems to sound nearly as good).

Oh, nutritional thought for the day. Try edamame! Marvelous, delicious, wonderful health food. Throw a tiny bit of kosher salt on and bon appetit!

The Joys of Homeownership

You know, when we originally started looking to buy a house, I knew whichever one we picked would have its own little quirks, like any other, and we'd need to get used them. But it feels like there is far more that goes wrong when you own house than does when you rent one. How on Earth does that make sense??

Maybe it's because, when it's our house, we look for things that are wrong so we can fix them before they get worse, and when it's a rental, we try to ignore problems because there's nothing we can really do about them. But for heaven's sake, the list just keeps growing!

The "Honey Do/Fix" list currently contains the following:

- Lengthen washer drain pipe so the washer stops overflowing and I can finally do a load of laundry without supervising the behavior of said washer.

- Fix kitchen exhaust fan so it can be used (it needs extended to the roof and out so it doesn't just send all the moisture to the attic).

- Clean "mold-like substance" out of attic and spray area with bleach water to kill any future growth.

- Add insulation to attic.

- Fix gap in guest room window so the rain and wind will stop coming into the house.

- Look into replacing the heater vents in the living room, guest room, and master bedroom so the heat will circulate more evenly (and the rooms will all be warm consistently).

- Clean excess wood out from under house so the termites won't be tempted to make our home theirs.

And then there's my list:

- Clean spots from living room carpet (and try to figure out where they came from)

- Tear out bushes from behind the garage.

- Fill Titan's hole or fix the hole in the fence that allowed Titan into the neighbor's yard (again) behind the garage.

- Replant both flowerbeds - ideally with perennials this time.

- Replace swing set seat (and possibly chains).

- Clean off patio cover so mold won't start to grow there from the leaves and moisture.

The most recent additions? 1. Clean gutters and figure out why the drain next to the master bedroom drains funny and loudly. Fix. And 2. Fix drain in bathtub so it will actually drain (instead of filling with dirty, soapy water up to several inches above your ankles every time you shower).

And that's not even counting what I want to do. Like paint the living room and master bedroom. And paint the ceiling in the kitchen and master bedroom so you can't see the cracks in the sheet rock from the house settling. And put new carpet in the master bedroom instead of the hideous orange mock-shag that's currently in residence. And replace or fix the living room carpet so the hole by my desk will go away. And potentially replacing the shower head so it will actually aim where it's supposed to, instead of at the faucet. And replace all the windows (or at least the two big windows) with vinyl ones so those rooms can stay appropriately warm or cool depending on the season. And replace the front and back door with solid core doors. And being able to finally replace all four locks so we have one key to the house instead of three. And I could go on and on...

Slowly but surely. Eventually, the lists will be completed. Right? I certainly hope so; although odds are we'll just find more things to add. Jereme's supposed to fix the bathtub tonight (please God) so I can finally give Titan a bath, which he definitely needs. If all else fails, I guess there's the kitchen sink. He's small enough. Although that would mean I have to stop procrastinating on doing dishes...

But at least the roof is good for another 13 years or so. And the foundation is solid. And no pipes are broken...that we know of anyway. And we're both gainfully employed. See? Quirks. Some little, some certainly not so little. We deal. And bang our heads against a wall...as long as we don't break the wall...

Why yes, I'm 29...again

I feel like an idiot. The last several months I've been talking about Jereme's birthday and in my head kept thinking it was his 29th birthday. Well, we were discussing what he wanted for dinner on his birthday and I asked if wanted candles for his cake. His response? "I don't really care. I'm turning thirty, so..." Which is about when I blanked and stared at him for a few seconds, "Shit, that's right." In theory, I knew we're eight years apart and that I'm turning 22 on the eighth, but I never connected that with him turning thirty.

The comical part is I started talking about his thirtieth birthday party last summer! I wanted to do a least a decent size party since it's a major birthday. Granted he didn't really want it cause he doesn't like the idea of turning thirty. (Really, who does at the time?) But I still had my heart set on doing it. So now I'm just sitting here, feeling like a dork because I forgot my husband can't turn 29 twice. Aren't I the genius one?

On the plus side, my thirtieth should go relatively smoothly because he won't have anything to pay me back for.

Dog + Bush = Lots of trouble with Mom

So one side of our yard (the side behind our tiny garage that's really only useful as a shed) is nothing but bushes. Well, since we've only lived here since October, and fall and winter in Oregon is cold and wet, I haven't had a chance to go crawling around in said bushes to make sure the fence is complete on that side of the yard and fully intact.

Well, it took him until about mid-December but Titan discovered those bushes and figured "hey, I can hide in those!" The first time I about had a heart attack when I walked outside and Titan was nowhere to be seen or heard. I thought he'd finally dug a hole under the fence. Oh no. The crazy pup was crawling around in the bushes. I'm just betting that's where he's started digging under the fence, because 1. I recently learned his friend from the other day, an adorable little black Yorkshire Terrier puppy is our next door neighbors on the bush side, and 2. Mom can't see the hole to cover it up before he gets under the fence. Smart little puppy. So we've been working on teaching him to stay away from the bushes. A month later and I swear the only thing he's learned is to look incredibly guilty when I catch him in the bushes or going near the bushes. Sheesh, he even hangs his head and pouts when he even thinks of going in the bushes. But does he stay out of the crazy bushes. No. Of course not.

Guess my summer plans to rip up that side of the yard, barricade it, and plant a garden just got bumped to my early spring plans. Oh the joy.

Project Day

I must say, there are times when my husband and my father-in-law are totally my heroes. Soon after moving in to our new house, we discovered that the laundry room pipes were problematic. Apparently, it was a do-it-yourself job and the plumbing was not done by a professional. Low and behold, none of it was up to code and the plumber couldn't even give us an estimate for what it would cost to bring it up to code (ironically, he told us to call a plumber...which told me he was definitely not who I wanted "fixing" our house). So we've been dealing with the drain pipe for the washer overflowing since week 1. Our temporary fix is that as soon as the washer starts draining, I race to the laundry room (usually followed by our puppy, Titan) to stand and listen to it drain. As soon as the water gets near the top of the pipe, I lift the lid so the washer stops and the pipe can drain, and then start it again. I do this until that drain cycle is done.

Well a month or so later, the pipe connecting the laundry room sink to the rest of the plumbing cracked. Happy, happy, joy, joy because the dishwasher drains through that pipe and the washer's drain pipe backs up into it when it's trying to drain...so my laundry room floor had a giant puddle. My temporary fix was this:

Well, last Thursday was Jereme's "Project Day." His dad drove up and the two of them tackled the cracked pipe and my kitchen (Jereme's parents bought me a garbage disposal for Christmas). After fighting with the pipes for an afternoon, we now have a marvelous garbage disposal and no more leaky pipe. Yay!