Crinkly and Lightly Waxed

Ah, yes...

The management is looking out for me.

So kind of them.

I always feel so protected when I have one of those micron-thin pieces of paper between me and the contagion that is brewing and breeding on the surface of a public toilet seat.




(I must confess I do use them...)

My Latest Fashion Dilemma

I am no fashionista.

If I was, I would undoubtedly squeal delightedly over the following photos:



Whatever...

Ahem...regardless of my lack of true fashion sense, there are a few fashion rules that I do know:

1. Don't mix "busy" tops with "busy" bottoms--If you're wearing a floral, plaid, striped or any other "busy" top, counteract the "busyness" by wearing a solid colored bottom. The reciprocal is also true. Too much busyness is visually obnoxious, even if all the colors match.

2. If it shouldn't be seen, keep it covered--Pregnancy turned my belly into a Thomas Guide's worth of stretch marks. Therefore, I will not wear low-rise jeans. (Yes, yes you're very welcome.) If someone has an obvious "muffin top", then crop tops aren't their best option. If one's glutei tend to sag a bit, then short shorts should have no place in their wardrobe. It's nothing to be upset over. We've all got less than fantastic aspects to our figures, but that doesn't mean we have to stock our closets with burquas and mu-mus (sp?). Just figure out what ought to stay covered and keep it under wraps.

(Thinking...thinking...)

Okay, so I only know two fashion rules.

Now, on to my dilemma...I can't figure out what socks I'm supposed to wear with my mules?

I refuse to go sockless in anything but sandals. (My poor feet don't need to add "have the odor of a city dump" to their list of unfortunate attributes.)

Are there specific "mule-shoe socks"? I tried on nearly all the socks I own and they all look ridiculous:








(Feel free to snicker.)

Do some of the above look cute and I'm just oblivious, 'cause I'm just not seeing it.

Suggestions???

Confessions of a Reluctant Housekeeper

My abhorrence for cleaning goes way back.

When I was about five, my exasperated mother (love ya, Mom) shut me in my room and said I couldn't come out until my room was clean. I remember falling to the toy and clothing strewn floor, sobbing and thinking, "I am NEVER gonna get outta here!"

I don't recollect how that situation ended up, but I'm quite certain it wasn't with a truly clean room.

Many years later, Jeff and I were checking out an apartment into which we were considering moving. My mother-in-law happened to be with us, so imagine my horror when Jeff walked into the kitchen and loudly called out, "Hey, Aimee! There's lots of counterspace in here for stacks of dirty dishes!"

Thanks, Babe.

On many a Mother's Day, I've been known to make one simple request: No gifts, please, just someone else clean the shower so that I don't have to. (Seriously.)

Back in our impoverished newly-married days, I actually cleaned a few other peoples' houses to earn some money. (Ha ha ha--That's a good one!)

I decided to end my ill-suited entrepreneurship when a lady called me back to reclean a few areas in her home. I hadn't tried to do a sloppy job. It all looked clean to me! (It was certainly cleaner than my own house.)

However, I realized that my lack of true understanding of cleanliness could easily be interpreted as trying to rip people off, and that's not very Christ-like, so after I cheerfully went back and tried to improve on my first attempt, I threw in the towel...and the mop and the scrub brush...

Poor Jeff. He does have a good cleaning eye, so life with me is less than sparkly. Sometimes I'll enter the living room to see him dusting the furniture.

"Doesn't this drive you crazy?" he'll ask, showing me the big smears of dust on the dust rag.

Uh...not really.

I do think, though, that even Jeff would agree that I've improved a bit over the years. (Or perhaps he has simply given up after 16 years of marriage...I'm not sure which.)

Don't get me wrong. My house isn't disgustingly filthy. I'm certain that no visitor has ever fearfully lowered their hindquarters onto my couches, wondering what lurks between the cushions...half-eaten candy bars perhaps or...small mammals. Neither does anyone need to fear using my dining ware or eating any food I prepare. (I use lots of hot soapy water on a daily basis in the kitchen.) If something spills, I clean it up immediately and if I ever detect a foul odor emanating from somewhere on the premises, I will diligently seek it out and obliterate it promptly.

I do clean...just rather reluctantly.

Dust collects.

Spots on the tile floor remain there for awhile (unless they are sticky).

Our shower looks like the before example on bathroom cleaning product commercials. Even when I do clean it, it never quite achieves the sparkling appearance of the after on the same commercial.

And all of this, brings me to the real purpose for this entire post. I want to share with you something clever that my ever creative daughter accomplished, but I had to ready you for the unfortunate state of my tile in the photo you are about to view. (It honestly doesn't look nearly this bad in real life. The flash seems to have intensified its putrescence.)

First, I must explain what you are about to see. You know how when you wash your hair, a bunch of it falls out and sticks to your hands? Well, Delaney has a tendency to transfer the hair from her hands to the shower wall where it clings until I remove it when I'm showering. (Yes, she seems to have inherited my negligence in cleanliness.)

A week or so ago, she called me into the bathroom after having finished her shower, pointed at the tile wall and happily said, "Look at what I made!"

In order to discern her piece of "art", you will definitely have to click on the photo below to enlarge it. Her carefully placed hairs define the outline of a specific object. Can you tell what it is? It was quite remarkable in real life. (Oh, and don't be surprised by the squalid state of the tile grout.) Happy viewing!

A Doggone Miracle

Every now and then a product comes along that must have its praises sung. Today that product is...

...the Gentle Leader dog collar. (Sing! Sing!)


This thing is amazing.

Duncan, our rambunctious 8 month old puppy, is very difficult to walk. He pulls whomever is walking him along at dangerous rates of speed. I don't know how many horsepower he is packing, but I think he could pull a toboggan to an Iditarod victory single-pawedly.

He has gotten so strong and determined that I got to the point where I wondered if it was bad for my body to take him for a walk. Knowing he needs exercise, I went to the pet store and bought him a "correction collar". (That's the nice name for a choker collar.) You know, it's like a chain and it tightens on the dog's throat if the dog pulls. The unpleasant sensation of being strangled is supposed to motivate the dog to stop pulling and to instead, prance along at a leisurely pace.

Well...it helped a little bit, but not much.

Duncan simply grew accustomed to not being able to breath while he yanked our arms out of their exasperated sockets. We, the walkers, not only experienced the physical pain of near dismemberment, but also the social embarrassment of walking a loudly gasping dog AND the guilt of being a bad dog owner because the desire to ruthlessly yank on the leash in futile attempts to tame the wild beast was sometimes overwhelming.

Then...the Gentle Leader came along. I won't bore you with the specifics, (I'm not sure I even understand the specifics), but as you can see, the collar goes over the bridge of the nose and around the base of the skull, sort of like a horse bridle (though there's nothing in the dog's mouth). The leash attaches to a ring under the chin as seen below:

(Ignore the blue collar. It's just there to sport his tags.)

Somehow, this new arrangement of things makes it virtually impossible for the dog to pull.

I'm telling you, it works. On Duncan's very first walk with the new collar, his pulling lessened about 90%. Additionally, his crazy, nearly rabid response to other dogs we encountered on the walk improved greatly.

He did paw at his face and rub his nose in the grass quite a bit the first few times he wore it because it was a foreign object, but you could tell it wasn't hurting him. Now, whenever he sees us coming at him with the collar in our hands, he happily sits down and stays still while we affix it to his head because he knows he's going on a walk.

Walking the dogs is fun again!

Beeping Update:

Andrea, perhaps you were right and it was a neglected water softener, vying for attention. Oddly, since I wrote that last post, I haven't heard a single mysterious beep from next door. Maybe our new neighbor is one of this blog's 5 readers and she felt compelled to stop the beepage.

(Yeah, right.)

The Case of the Beeping Neighbor Lady

There is a house right next door to us that is positioned on its lot in such a way that its inhabitants can bring us much grief. You see, our house is a mere four feet from their backyard. More specifically, my bedroom window is only a dog-run away from whatever is happening next door.

In our six years here, there have been some trying times due to this unfortunate arrangement. If there are nice quiet neighbors living there then all is good, but if the home is inhabited by people who like to smoke pot in their backyard with their 5 charming friends and loudly role play comedy routines at 2:00 in the morning...well, you get the idea.

Several months ago, we noticed that the house was for sale and we fervently began praying for neighbors who don't have excessively noisy dogs, don't throw drug fueled gatherings, don't blast music late at night and don't mind a 14 year old next door banging away on a drum set for about an hour a day. (Yes, I do see the element of hypocrisy in that last sentence.)

I'm very pleased to report that all of our pleas were answered. A nice woman moved in a few weeks back whose dog barks about as often as our dogs do, who does watch TV late into the night, but not at unnerving volumes, and who says she loves music, so Tobias's drum pounding doesn't bother her a bit!

There is one little bit of mystery, though. Almost every night since about the time she moved in, I've heard a strange beeping sound. It is a medium pitched beep that lasts about half a second and repeats every 7 or 8 seconds. It goes off at all hours of the night. My hearing is a bit better than Jeff's (fewer concerts attended, perhaps?) so he didn't discern it for a while.

"Right there! Did you hear that? Oh, wait, wait.............there! Did you hear it that time?" I'd ask, laying next to him in bed.

He would patiently assure me in a muffled mouth-in-the-pillow voice that no, he had not heard it and promptly fall asleep.

I knew I wasn't going crazy, but I was happy that he knew I wasn't nuts when he finally did say to me one evening, "Hey! I hear your beeping sound!"

I've been tempted to yell out, "Popcorn's ready!" and listen for a microwave door to slam shut and the beeping to cease. But somehow, I don't think anyone eats popcorn every night.

Seriously, I have no idea what it is and although she's a nice woman, I'm not about to ask. Nancy Drew could probably tactfully figure it out somehow, but her I am not.