Confession

The owner of this bed shall remain anonymous to protect the guilty

They say confession is good for the soul.
My soul could use a little boost, so here goes:
I am not a bed-maker.
To those who know me well (Hi, Mom!) this will come as no great surprise.
Despite my mother's best efforts, I have never been a bed-maker.
I like how a nicely-made bed looks, of course.  And I don't mind when someone else makes mine for me.  But it just isn't something that makes my daily to-do list.
I've never quite understood why bed-making is considered such a virtue, though I have suffered from embarrassment a time or two when my messy mattress has been viewed by others.
That's social conditioning for you.
I used to make my bed as a kid, but only because I had to.  As soon as I had a little more freedom, that was one of the first things to go.
One summer at my grandma's, I must have been 12 or 13, she apparently couldn't stand my messiness any longer.  Grandma asked my Aunt Ruthie to pick up after me. I remember an embarrassment so acute it manifested in a heady dose of adolescent anger.  I've always been embarrassed that Aunt Ruthie, the Queen of Neat (rumor has it she used to iron her sheets), saw my slovenly ways.
You see, not only do I not make my bed, but I often don't put my clothes away at night.  And sometimes, not very often mind you, I don't shut my dresser drawers, either.
After a couple days of this, my bedroom can start looking pretty messy.  It's usually about then that I reach my tolerance limit for disarray and I tidy up.
But I still don't make my bed.
My husband is out of the country this week.  I must admit, when he's away, I slide a little further down disheveled drive.  We have a king size bed, which comes in handy for our nightly cat slumber parties. There's usually plenty of room for 3 or 4 or more cats, my husband, and myself.
But when he not here, I tend to nest.
It's handy to keep both TV remotes on his side, along with a couple of magazines, my Kindle, tissues, bathrobe, lip balm, and whatever else I might want nearby.
And though I love him dearly, it's kind of frustrating to give up my little snuggery to make room for him when he comes home.
Fortunately, my husband isn't a neat freak. And, um, neither are my kids.
I'll apologize right now to my future sons- and daughters-in-law.
I don't equate non-bed-making with laziness.  It just isn't a priority.   
I think I might be the only one of my three sisters who doesn't regularly make her bed.
I've made peace with my untidy ways.
Sorry, Mom.  
Three out of four isn't bad.

Just another day...

I'm having a hard time getting myself going today.
I stayed up late watching season 2 of Downton Abbey.
Shame on me.
Then Fern woke me up a 3 a.m. to let me know the food bowls were mostly empty (at least the ones she prefers) and she was about to keel over from starvation.
Gus woke up for the day at 5:10, which means that's when my day started, too.
He was pretty good this morning - he only opened a kitchen cupboard once, then was satisfied for a little while with the paper plate I gave him.  (You can't ruin all the paper plates at once, honey.  Only one at a time).
He found part of an empty box to chew and dragged the extra refrigerator water filter out from under the sink.  It was still in its box, so I let him drag it around and chew on it while I chugged my first cup o' joe.
Hey, he only rang the bell twice after he ate this morning, which meant I only had to sit outside on the top step in the freezing cold for about 10 minutes.
I'll take what I can get.
Add in chasing a cat or two and that first hour and a half went pretty fast.
(No, I didn't chase them - he did).
By the time Melissa came down at 6:30 to get read for school Gus had crawled up on my lap for a little snooze.
Melissa fetched both her breakfast and my second cup of salvation, which I drained in record time.
Then I quickly pulled on a pair of jeans and my boots to scoot her off to school and Gus to daycare.
It is now, by the way, 7:15.
Gus couldn't wait to get in the door at daycare, nearly bowling over the owner in his excitement to see his friends.
"It sure is Monday," she sighed.
Hmm, maybe I'm not the only one to bore my dog?
Then home, taking care of Wally, feeding cats (again), breakfast.
I decide to skip the elliptical.
Yeah, that was a big mistake.
On a day like today, without that extra endorphin boost, I'm doomed.
Sarah heads off to class, I head off to a long, hot bath, which also serves to reinforce my fatigue.
I plan to watch another episode of Downton Abbey, but haven't quite left myself enough time before leaving to pick Melissa up.  So I decide to waste my time online.  I pay another $500 on a credit card, which gives me a temporary jolt of contentment.  I refuse to worry about financial emergencies and enjoy looking at the lower balance.
I remember I told Melissa I'd help her research the "human predicament" for a paper she's writing. I realize that I, perhaps, am a natural-born existentialist.  While I'd be the first to agree that life is absurd and its ultimate ending is death, I don't believe it is totally meaningless.
My life's meaning comes from the simple, everyday interactions I have with the people and the world around me; from loving and caring for my family and pets, to caring for those in need in my community, being a good steward of the earth, and simply appreciating the natural beauty all around me.
Whew. Heavy stuff for the sleep-deprived.
Once we're back home, I contemplate making a cake and some biscuits to use up the half gallon of whole milk that spoiled.  Being that I'm having difficulty stringing words together coherently (I'm going to sit in the sunny shiningness, I declared, then mumbled something about the sun mocking me).
Melissa urges me not to.  It is, after all, only the second day of the 14 days Michael is working in Chile.  She knows how bad things can get.
I feel ridiculously guilty for not using up that milk, but I acquiesce to her clarity of judgment.
Right now I'm waiting for bread to rise.  Once it's baked, I'm planning to dive right into bed for a delicious nap before picking Gus up.
Supper is easy tonight - garlic pasta, peas and homemade bread.
The girls and I will indulge in an episode or three of Desperate Housewives.
Then, if I'm lucky, I'll get in a couple chapters of a book before lights out.
If I'm smart, there'll be no Downton Abbey tonight.
If I'm truly lucky, the dog will sleep until 6 tomorrow.
I can smell the coffee already.

Cat-in-the-Box

 Watch out

 He's just waiting

To jump up and scare the crap out of you!

Majesty

We've regularly been walking around Gray's Lake this winter.  It's great exercise and a good way to tire out the dog.

A couple weeks ago we noticed an eagle there nearly every time we walked.  Then, Michael and Melissa spotted what they thought was a nest.  The next day, Melissa and I walked there and thought we could see the white head of a bald eagle sticking up from the top of the nest.

 Soon after a sign was erected noting the nest and warning people not to disturb them.

The lake trail runs along the bank of the Racoon River.  The nest is completely across the river in a stand of trees on the opposite bank.

Today on our walk we spied this eagle perched in a tree near its nest.  The males and females take turns sitting on the eggs, so we don't know if this was the male or the female.

This photo, though still zoomed in, gives a better idea of how far away we actually were standing.

And here is the other eagle sitting in the nest.  You can see it's white head sticking up above.  These nests are enormous and can weigh as much as two tons.

I can't begin to describe how awe-inspiring this is to see. We look forward to watching the eagles throughout their nesting season - and I hope they have a successful hatching.

It's also pretty amazing that Melissa was able to get pictures of this quality with her small digital camera on zoom - no special lenses or anything!

Boring

Gus picked up a bug - actually a parasite - from daycare last week.
It cost us an extra $100 at the vet to have a stool sample checked and medications prescribed for both dogs.
Now I guess I finally know what it's like to have a child in daycare.  You really are at the mercy of the other mommies and daddies to keep their kids home when they're sick.
Anyway, Gus wasn't allowed to go back to daycare until his treatment was over - a total of 7 days.
Actually, we could have sent him, but the vet said it would be "morally wrong."
I know this because after day 3, I called and asked.
So, for seven looong days, Gussie had to hang out at home with me and the old dog.
He was not happy.
In fact, the poor little guy was bored out of his mind.
And I nearly lost mine.
It's been a long time since we've had Gus home day after day without daycare.  In fact, it's been since we started taking him at 4 1/2 months old.
I thought I'd go crazy those first few months; I remember Googling "How to have a puppy and still have a life."
This week, it all came back to me.
It's not that Gus is a bad dog.  He's just still so puppy-ish - full of energy, inquisitive, and an early riser.
Two of those three things I am not.
We thought we were so clever teaching him to ring a bell attached to the door whenever he needs to potty.  Our old dog has no way to tell us when nature calls except via body language.  That and a pretty consistent schedule.
This works fine when I'm around, but other household members are not quite as adept at reading his signs.
So, Gus learned to ring the bell when he needs to go out.  And it works great.  He hasn't had an accident now for months and months.
The problem is that Gus has learned to ring the bell whenever he wants to go outside for any reason.
Have a hankering for a good sniff around the yard?  Ring the bell.
Want a treat?  Ring the bell.  All you have to do is squeeze out a single drop!
Need to check on that rawhide you buried?  Yep, just give the old bell a pull.
All this bell-ringing requires a lot of up and down and in and out on my part.
At least I won't get blood clots in my legs.

And when he's in the house?
It's always fun to chase a cat, or grab something off the table, or "fetch" the mail.  All those toys are old hat.  He needs something to do!
Don't let those short little legs fool you - basset hounds are adept counter surfers - nothing is safe.  If you ever come over to my house and see loaves of bread on top of the cupboards and cakes on top of the refrigerator this is why.
After a couple hours of Gus duty the other morning, I thought he'd finally found some toy to interest him.  Turns out, he'd been taking potatoes off the counter and chewing them up.  Fortunately we caught him after the third spud.
On the flip side, Gus can squirm under almost anything.  His favorite is to go under the foot stool to grab magazines and/or cats, or just to lick the floor.  Which is fine, but if he licks too much before we've had a chance to vacuum, he throws up fur that night in his kennel.  Usually around 2:35.
Of course, this doesn't mean he can get his bone or his ball out from under the couch.  Or the TV cupboard, or the end table, the refrigerator, the stove...
We've also discovered that our sweet little hound fashions himself a bit of a climber.  That's right - we often have to pull him down from the back of the couch, grab him as he perches on top of a chair reaching for the mantle, and dash in for a rescue when he climbs the woodpile outdoors.
He can't be out in the yard alone for several reasons, tops among them his tendency to eat stuff he shouldn't.  This ranges from old chicken bones and candy wrappers the neighbor kids throw over the fence (yes, I live in that kind of neighborhood) to cat poop from the areas stray cats (the woman who lives behind us feeds the strays creating an ever burgeoning problem with feral cats).
Inevitably he finds one of these delicacies when I'm in my robe and slippers.  Basset hounds are known for their selective hearing and Gus is no exception.  No amount of calling can persuade him to leave such a treasure.  And it's no fun to tromp across the wet, cold lawn at 6 a.m. in my pj.'s.
Gus loves coffee.  This often requires a certain amount of juggling of the cup until he decides it's no longer worth the effort to sneak a quick taste.  The wild slurping we heard the other day wasn't Gus getting a drink of water.  Nope, someone had left a half-full cup of coffee on the dining room table.  I caught him balanced on a chair lapping it up as fast he could.
Finally, after only three full-time Gus days, we realized there was only one thing to do.  A tired dog equals a happy owner, so we took him to the dog park, making sure to grab his poop before it hit the ground (fortunately, Gus rarely poops at the park).  After a good hour and a half, after which he needed a bath from all the mud (he is, after all, a low-to-the-ground hound), he was conked out for the rest of the day.

The final two days without daycare went much the same - the first couple of hours were incessant, followed by a trip to the dog park or a two-mile walk around the lake - then the sweet peace of a darling basset boy draped across my lap for the rest of the day.
Whew.
It's a good thing I love him.

Fruitful

I've been working hard to be more mindful.

This grew out of the desire to be debt-free once-and-for-all as soon as possible.

We're aiming for 3 years, though I'm hoping for 2.

We've budgeted the heck out of everything, accounting for every penny, and using the cash only system.  We refinanced our mortgage (saving us $600 a month!), refinanced our cars, transferred debt onto a fantastically low-rate card from our new credit union.

We don't have cable and haven't had it for several years.  But I had been using Amazon Video on Demand and purchasing episodes and series right and left.  Now, if it's not in the budget, I wait for the Netflix disk.  I get one disk at a time and instant watch.
I've put the cobosh on my Kindle habit.  Now I go to the library weekly and pay attention to those due dates!
I've always cooked from scratch, but I've succeeded in making all our breads from scratch for the past two months.  I've made artisan bread in 5 minutes a day, both white and whole wheat, raisin bread, sunflower millet bread, cinnamon rolls, coffee cakes, muffins, hamburger buns.  You name it.
My husband and I each get $100 a week - his needs to cover gas for the cars and mine covers groceries.  Our "fun" money is included in this amount, giving us an even greater incentive toward frugality.
And we're making incredible headway!
So far, since the first of the year, we have paid off three credit cards and socked away a nice sum in our savings account.
This week I decided not to grocery shop.  We have a ton of food in the house and it wasn't really necessary.  Except for fruit - we were almost out of fresh fruit.
What to do?
Well, I have lots of frozen fruit and we love smoothies.  So, every day, we've had a smoothie with one of our meals, usually lunch or supper.
These things are so chock-full of fruit that I'm sure each serving equals more than a single serving of fruit.

Here's what we do:
Add more than a quart of slightly thawed strawberries, two or more cups of either frozen blueberries or frozen mixed berries to the blender.  A splash or two of lime juice, enough orange juice to start the blending.  Stir in a spoonful or two of sugar.  Serve.
These things are so incredibly good, it's hard to believe.
We've also made them using frozen strawberries, mangoes, and pineapple.  Yum.

Oh, and those lovely glasses?
They are empty 12 ounce peanut butter jars.
Can't get much more economical than that.

It feel so good to be disciplined.
Um, I guess I should say self-disciplined.
Oh, um, well.
What I mean to say is being mindful of every expenditure is truly empowering.

Why Mommy Can't Have Nice Things

Unlike the beautiful homes in the magazines, I can't keep flower bouquets on the table.

 I can't keep them on the kitchen island or the kitchen counter.

 Nor can I set a bouquet on the desk, on a side table or on the coffee table.

No, in my house, flower bouquets end up on the mantle, the refrigerator, or way on top of a cupboard.

I think you can see why.