Can’t think of a tittle

Turns out when we listened to the news Monday after I posted, the balloons were canceled.  So if we had watched the news we wouldn’t have had to think about it.  I have a friend that one of the things she wants to do is ride in a hot air balloon, the other is learn to fly fish.  A lot of people here have never gone over to see the balloons but see them when they fly over thier house.

The black border to the screen makes a difference.  Boy did I make a mistake.  At the hardware store I was looking for black gloss paint and when I stuck my paint brush in the water to clean it I realized I had gotten oil base paint.  All I found was one little can of black paint and I didn’t read the label.  So I ruined a brush, I threw the roller away but I planned to do that. 

We went shopping for a dress for me to wear to daughters wedding.  I bought a dress not for a wedding.  Daughter bought capris and the bridesmaid bought black pants (We were looking for her dress too).  And we informed the bride she’s short, they don’t make platform shoes high enough to change that.

No Early Morning

We didn’t get up for the balloons on Saturday.  I think it rained on Sunday and this morning, I wasn’t really awake to find out.  I don’t function very well at 5 in the morning an hour makes all the difference.  Jim is playing his favorite game on the computer, Saturday morning when I tried to turn on the computer nothing happened.  No lights no grunt no squeaks nothing.  So Jim is rebuilding us a computer, luckily we have a backup.  This means Jim gets to play his favorite game.  We have the extra computer because Jim thinks I need one of my own, I think we are adults and should be able to share.  I want that computer desk for other activities like sewing, writing with a pencil.  I told daughter I would letter her some signs, we need a desk for desk stuff. (Maybe I wouldn’t have to draw on walls.)

 A friend updated his projection tv and gave us his.  So we have spent this weekend rearranging our family room which has to mulipurpose.  Just so you know,  if you paint on your screen it needs to be a little grey and have a black border, the grey makes a differences we don’t have the border painted on yet, so I can’t be positive about that.  Last night we watched Last Chance Harvey on our new screen it really is like the movie, our own little private movie theater.  This could really be the end of the cineplex.  So now about the popcorn, I don’t really like popcorn.  I think it might be that I’m not a big fan of butter so maybe we need to add some other flavor, in Germany that put sugar on it, sounds wierd but maybe we should try it.  Gotta go walk the dog.

Early mornings

Jim and I are trying to decide if we are going to get up at O dark thirty on Saturday to go to the balloon festival.  You need to be there about sunrise, to park and find your spot to watch.  I don’t like getting up that early, I don’t function that well.  But once they start inflating the balloons, it is so worth it.  We always take a picnic breakfast, our chairs and the cameras.  Its been a few years since we’ve gotten up for it, I washed the coffee cups for the picnic yesterday.  I have to find the thermos and figure out what we want to eat, but the big thing is do we want to get up that early.  The balloons are beautiful on Saturday morning they do the fox and hounds, the first balloon takes off and then they sound the start and the rest of them take off.  But you have to get up really, really, really early.  I’ll let you know what we do.

Trees

Oh, so many years ago when we bought our house we planted 2 trees and 4 crepe myrtles.  One of the trees was a Bradford Pear and anybody that lives in the south now knows that was a bad choice.  At the time it was on the list of trees that Southern Living recommended.  They are beautiful in the spring in bloom, but look at them cross eyed in a wind and a limb falls out.  Ours had lost limbs over the years but last year was not a good year for it, early last spring it lost a big one.  It looked like a big tree laying in our yard but when we got the limbs cut and picked up we still had a big tree.  Then we had another windstrom and the rest of the tree fell.  We cleaned up the limbs but our little chainsaw wouldn’t cut the trunk so its still standing.  This spring it put out all of these little limbs covered with leaves it wants to live, it just seems heartless to cut the trunk down.  So we are thinking a green column, we’ll just clip all of the limbs and stuff back to about 6 inches.  I was doing that this afternoon when I distrubed a bird that had made a nest in one of the holes in the trunk.   the momma bird fluttered across the yard on the ground, I knew I hadn’t hurt a bird, so I just kept on trimming and when I moved around the tree a little more I saw the nest, so now I have a half trimmed tree column.  I hope she’ll come back but she hadn’t when I cleaned up my clippings.

Doggy Graduation

She graduated and Jim took a picture.  For a graduation Jim bought her a bag of treats that are pig ears filled with peanutbutter.  She wouldn’t wear the hat.  She doesn’t mind a towel or blanket or whatever on her head but she wasn’t having a hat on her head.  She got a certificate and a bumper sticker.  We signed her for intermediate class, she still doesn’t lay down on command and I wouldn’t trust her on leave it for something important, (we use treats).  She’s really good on drop it because she drops the toy and we throw it.  She will shake with Jim and I but not anyone else.  More work to do.

We went to the movie yesterday and saw Star Trek, it was great.  Even if you don’t remember the orginal series you’ll still enjoy the movie, good guys are good and the bad guys are bad guys.

Soda bottle fun

We gave the dog and empty soda bottle to play with, she loves it, it rolls and makes noise on the tile floor. I first thought I would put dog food in it so it would rattle.  She doesn’t need the rattle I didn’t take the label off before I gave it to her, but I realized and took it back and removed the label. Whenever I sit at the computer she brings me things to throw down the hallway.  Sometimes it a stuffed toy, a chew toy or the tennis ball.  But the soda bottle she plays with all by herself, because it doesn’t roll straight it provides a lot of entertainment.  Dropping the tennis ball at the top of the steps works too. Drop the ball and run down the steps, she gets there about the same time the ball does.  Her mouth is big enough she can carry more than one toy.  Which comes in handy when she has more toys in the hallway than we are playing with.  Sometimes I fell sorry for her, she’s laying on the floor asleep and I go to the other room just to pick up a book, she gets up and follows me down the hallway and back and I tell her I’m going to be right back but she goes anyway.  She loves it when Jim opens his sock drawer, its the mother lode of socks.  While he’s trying to get his socks she’s grabbing as many as she can, its getting hard to find mates so I think we’re going to have to check under the bed.  They aren’t along the edge, so I think we are going to have to left up the matress to check in the middle. 

Jim has a softball game and he’s promised Frizzles afterwards.  So I’ve gotta go.

Graduation

The daughter has offically finished college.  Graduation that she didn’t participate in was yesterday.  I kinda wished she had walked but I understand about being hot and long.  We had a dinner at the favorite Italian Resturant in Alabaster yesterday.  Great food and good company.  Thank you daughter for the books for my kindle, can’t wait to get started on them.   Next week the dog graduates complete with a hat, Jim saids he draws the line at going to a dogs graduation.  (I bet he goes and takes a picture)  We had a obstacle course for puppy class yesterday and Zoey came in second, she got a prize which she has enjoyed this morning, (a small rawhide chew).  The winner was Buddy who is a big dog and the 1st prize was a big bone.  We only had 4 dogs yesterday, Maggie eyeballed Zoey a few times but that was all.  Ginger who in the first class didn’t stop shivering (she was as scared as Zoey was), she was wagging all over.  Zoey is still timid, but she did lay by my feet and did all of the things she was supposed to do.  But coming out of the door there is no getting her to sit before we cross the street, luckily most people stop because there are always dogs crossing.

Congratulations daughter

Tomorrow starts a new part of your life.  I  remember the first day of Kindergarten, actually the first of a lot of school days, first Nancy Drew book,  and the first day of college, just a few of the many.   Go for it, I’m sure you will enjoy the journey.

I wonder if its just a conidence that Mothers Day and graduation days occur so close together.  Both cause Mothers to think about the job they’ve done.  My daughter sent me an article entitled Ten Things To Ask Your Mother, there were segments on tv about being a good mother, about how hard we are on the mothers that make a different choice about raising their children than we did.  Maybe because we realize that raising the next generation is a very important job and we have very few guidelines.  I always thought my children should have come with a book of instructions for how to do it, the guidelines we have seem to be mostly for how not to.  Yesterday I had Zoey picking up her toys she would bring me a toy and I would give her a treat.  We were laughing about it later.  Should I have sat by the toy box and for every toy returned given an m&m?  I don’t think the dog is capable of learning to look around the room and go “Man I need to pick up my toys”  and  we hope our children learn to make that connection.  Would m&m’s helped make that connection?  See that could have been in the book. If  you do that someone is proably going to accuse you of making your kids fat.  I apologize for all the things I did wrong, I really didn’t mean to get it wrong.  Some of the things I wonder what was I thinking for example the time I bought you and a friend each a can of frosting to snack on, all of the times we picked you (sometimes friends) up to go to early movies.  Sometimes I wonder did other parents take thier children to book signings,  a whole afternoon of school missed, I don’t think you missed that much at school and the book signing was a once in a lifetime chance (I don’t think the author enjoyed America or maybe he just doesn’t enjoy book signings).  We felt very proud of you when you stood up for the underdog(she could have chewed nails).  To be perfectly honest I think you would have turned out great no matter what we did.  So good luck to all the mothers out there, relax and enjoy it the ride is really short.

Swine Flu

Yesterday’s puppy class only had 5 dogs, Maggie was still wanting to cause trouble.  Buddy wanted to sit in a chair so he could see over the barrier around the class area.  Zoey layed in front of my feet instead of under the chair.   Better.  I don’t know if people missed because of the fear of flu, or lousy weather, or the fact that the middle of Saturday is a bad time for class.  I think for intermediate class we are switching to a weeknite class.  Earlier today we were learning to shake.  The store was full of people with new puppies, I don’t think I had seen that many puppies in one place ever.  There were several that looked like the puppies in toilet paper commericals, they are so cute.  A lot of them were so small they carried them.  We saw a full size Great Pryennes, we ask Zoey if it was one of her relatives, looked like her.  Zoey is taller and longer than Basil was, but doesn’t weigh quite as much yet.  I hope she doesn’t get as big as the dog yesterday.  Buddy’s owner said he wieghs 40 lbs. already,  hopefully Zoey doesn’t get that big.

I love my kindle, but I miss being able to stick a ticket in the pages and knowing forever I took that book to whatever.  The book Jim was reading last night had a postcard we had sent Nick from Paris, now it has a ticket for the play Happy Days.  We send ourselves postcards when we travel and then we use them for bookmarks,  traditional bookmarks just get left in the books, so do the postcards but they remind us of trips, tickets of movies, plays  or plane tickets.  I suppose I could add at note but it just doesn’t seem the same, Jim suggusted an envelope same problem.  Oh, well.  I love that daughter and I can instantly share a book.

Updates

Zoey is doing so much better on the leash.  Today we met a barking dog named Bella and we walked around her and then Zoey stopped pulling and went back to walking.  She still can’t walk past the house, I have to pull her.  Yesterday Jim was home when we got back from a walk, so I had her sit across the street from the house and when I said lets go I just turned loose of the leash and she flipped onto her nose becasue she was all set to pull me across the street.  I laughed she just keep running to Jim.  She is so different than Basil, this morning it was pouring rain.   Basil would have sat at the door and looked at me and sent the message you want  me to go outside in that, (he would have waited until the rain stopped)  Zoey on the other hand is like this is cool and wanting to sniff everything.  We still aren’t sure but we think she knows the words for going potty.  I forgot the towel to dry her off and had to use a shirt we keep by the door for when its cool to dry her off.  We practiced come and sit and stay.  Down is not happening, without a treat in my hand she will not go down, she just sits and looks at me waiting for the treat.  We need to work on stay with down but until she does down I don’t see it happening.