Struttin' My Mutt

I had to miss out on the big Woodlands Garage Sale today (boo), because Harley and I already had big plans for this morning. This was our 3rd year walking in the "Mutt Strutt", which is a one mile benefit walk for our local Humaine Society. Then after the walk there's events, contests, and booths to see. Last year we came in 1st place in the walk. I've learned, over the years, through participating in this event, that my dog, apparently, has a burning need to be at the front of the pack. He pretty much drags me along for the entire mile trying to be in front of everyone, including the leaders that we are supposed to follow. I had to keep holding him back so he wouldn't pass them. Anyway, today, we were in first place again for the entire mile and then just as we're about to cross the finish, these two teenage girls, take off running so they could cross first. Harley and his mother were unamused! Oh, well, we know we were the real winners. hehe I'm thinking maybe we should sign up to be the ones that lead the walk next year, so Harley can fulfill his pack leader needs. hehe After the walk, we made the rounds to the booths, so Harley could flirt with the ladies for free treats. He was wearing his polo shirt, looking especially sharp, and he sat up in his begging pose for them. It worked. There was an agility demonstration and, after, people could bring their dogs through the track. Harley did pretty well weaving through the poles and jumping through the hoops, but he didn't much care for the thing that looked like a see saw. And neither did most of the others. So, we had a good time, and Mutt Strutt always seems to fall on a day with really nice weather. As usual, I had my camera going, so, here's some pics from the day....

This is a dog that I reeeeally wanted to adopt. As soon as he saw me walk up, he hurried over to me, sat beside me, and just stayed there leaning against my leg. Now, that's not playing fair! Who can resist that?
Harley checkin' out the big guys.

Is this a tired face, or what? He slept the whole way home.

Caution! Sarcasm to Follow!

Yesterday (Wed.), Lisa and I volunteered to work at the Tour of Homes for Carlton Woods Creekside. We worked at the tent where people payed to get into the tour. It was fun and we even did a little work. After our shift, we did the tour ourselves. It was a toss up on which house we liked the best, so we decided not to purchase anything at this time. (haha) Plus the gate and security guard at the entrance really makes it inconvenient to have visitors over. The houses on the tour ranged from a mere 5,472 to 7,402 sq. ft and prices from $1,475,000 to $2,795,000. We decided our favorite features were the wine cellar/pub in one house and, of course, the theater rooms! The pools weren't bad either. And then we decided that these houses had too many stairs and that, if we lived there, we'd probably never leave the 1st floor. That's why we especially liked the house that had the theater room on the 1st floor. (hehe) Oh, and that one with the master bathroom that 's bigger than my old apartment, was way too much! I mean, come on, that's just showing off! Here's a link, encase you're interested in purchasing a new home. There's some higher priced one's on the link encase you need even more breathing room. http://www.woodlandsnewhomes.com/dyncat.cfm?catid=54

On a similar, but different note, our next door neighbors have put their house up for sale. Whoever moves in, will be the third to live in that house in the 4 years I've lived here. Everyone who has lived there, so far, have been really nice, so here's hoping the next ones follow the trend. I am worried, though, about how I am going to go about getting my yearly tub of cookie dough. Maybe the new folks will have kids in school, as well. But, the real problem comes in if the new neighbors have a daughter in Girl Scouts! We are just not strong enough to defend ourselves against the powers of the "Girl Scout Cookie"! We're weak, I tell ya, weak!

Tour of Homes Photos
My favorite of the pools:

The Wine Cellar/Pub

Some of the houses:

I went to the movies again today (Sunday). I rarely ever go to the movies and I've been twice this weekend. I was seriously considering seeing "Across the Universe" again, because I did some reading up on the movie and realized a lot of stuff I missed. There's a lot of references that I didn't catch the 1st time. Anyway, today I saw "Things We Lost in the Fire". I really liked it. Though, don't go see it thinking it's gonna be a happy go lucky flick. Benicio Del Toro was really good, that's one ugly dude (sorry), but he's good! It made me want to watch The Usual Suspects again, which I love! I thought the most interesting thing about the movie was how it showed recovering from grief and recovering from addiction can be very simular processes. I'd never thought about that before.

Moving on.....after the movie, I had to walk over to one of my favorite stores, Pottery Barn. I discovered a new piece of furniture to add to my "PB Wish List". After PB, I walked on to discover the addition of Banana Republic to the circle. I went in to see if my usual opinion would differ, which it didn't, this store still annoys me. Then, though I tried really hard, I just couldn't manage to avoid going into Barnes & Noble. What can I say, I have a weakness for bookstores. Upon entering B & N, I was pleased to find that I was not bombarded by the face of Joel Osteen like I was in Borders yesterday. Here, his latest book was positioned off to the side, allowing one to freely enter without being overwhelmed.

This evening.....I'm driving along, heading back home, and a deer nearly runs out in front of my car! I stopped short, she stoppped short, then she turned around, and ran the other way. Of course, I had to pause and watch her run back into the woods. What is it about watching deer run that's so fascinating? Then, I'm driving along on the 45 feeder and I see a racoon running along. Then, I turn into my neighborhood, and I have to stop to let a dog cross the street. And then, right before I turn onto my street I see a cat with it's leg in the air licking itself. I'm not making this stuff up, animals were everywhere. After all that, when I drove into my driveway, I was expecting to see Buck, our neighbor's dog that likes to come visit me, but he wasn't there.

Today I went to see Across The Universe, which I enjoyed. It's a movie musical based on the songs of the Beatles. It was definately a good one to see in the theater because it is very visually stimulating. Then, I did some shopping at Market Street. I spent a good bit of time in Borders. I got a few books: "The Jane Austen Book Club", "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour" by J.D. Salinger (Really long title, huh? I decided to read another Salinger since I enjoyed Catcher in the Rye so much. - see previous post ), and a book for B for Christmas (so I won't say what it is). I also checked out the discount CD's and I got "The Offspring - Greatest Hits" for me (like I had to specify that) and "Switchfoot - The Beautiful Letdown" for B (which I may save for Christmas even though he knows about it - I had to ask him if he had it - boo). I went into the Bombay store and found that they are going out of business and are having a big sale. I got a Christmas present for B's parents and ran into some friends. That's one of the things I love about Market Street. You feel like you are going into "town square" and you're bound to run into someone you know, which gives you the illusion of small town living. The reality is, it's one of the few things to do around here, so chances are, someone you know is also doing it. But that's o.k. because I enjoy the illusion.

A Helping Hand

The following facts are based upon events as I see them:

So last night B was attempting to get a yummy piece of chocolate pie from the refrigerator and dropped it on the floor (boo, we only got 2 pieces out of it). And after the pie hit the floor, I looked over at Harley and I saw little hearts float from his eyes and dance around his head. And he was just about to do a little dance of glee, when he was informed that he would not be assisting in the clean up of said pie. That's when his ears dropped, his head drooped, and all the little hearts bursted and disapeared. Poor Harley, no pie for you. Though, after it was cleaned up, he did still insist upon devoting a good bit of time to licking the scene of "the accident", just incase we missed some. He's so thoughtful. Always trying to lend a helping hand, or in this case, tongue.

So......I found this in my garden......

And here's a closer look, incase you weren't quite sure what you were looking at.

My Week - An Overview

It's starting! Fall is starting! I'm very excited about this, as you can see. It marks the end of the dreadful summer, and the start of a cool breeze. That glorious, glorious cool breeze of Fall, my favorite time of year!

Yesterday was B's company picnic. When we got out there, all of a sudden it hit me. It wasn't hot. I wasn't sweating! I had to take a moment to stop and breath in the wonder that is cool air. It was magnificent! hehe Here's the crew getting down to business...eating.

And this was our lovely view. C and C doin' the daughter/daddy thing! I thought this was such a cute pic, I had to add it.
After the picnic, we returned home, and the yard guys were there cutting the grass. This may seem insignificant, but we were very happy to find them there, because our plant beds needed some serious work. I no longer call them flower beds : ( because I have given up on trying to have flowers. Our soil is so bad that they just keep dying, and I'm tired of replacing them. I have noticed that some of our neighbors have people come out and change out theirs occasionally. But I'm not about to do that. Just like I'm not about to hire someone to come put Christmas lights up on my house either. But hey, to each his own, right? I'm sure our neighbors were tired of looking at our weeds. In fact, we even got a "nasty gram" courtesy of the lovely folks at the Community Association, in regards to said weeds. They send their spies out to comb the neighborhoods for evil doers like us. I had never let the beds get away from me like this before, and I was pretty embarrassed, if you want to know the truth. But as you know, the past few months have been exceptionally HOT, and those yard guys had fallen down on the job, as well. Probably because I kept getting upset about them whacking down what few flowers were gracious enough to show themselves around here. So, since most of them had died off, I told them to have at it this time. Oh, they still whacked down some things they weren't supposed to. (It was nice knowin' ya Society Garlic, with your lovely purple blooms. I tried to mark you off with bricks so they would cut around you, but unfortunately, your leaves look very much like tall grass and so, you met your demise.) And they got some of my Walking Iris, which I take very seriously. I started it from some pieces that I dug up from my mom's house in New Orleans. Though, I still have a good bit, and they propagate pretty well. But, the beds are finally cleaned out (it looks pretty naked out there, even with all the trees). And the best part is that I had borrowed my mom's weed whacker to do it myself, and now I don't have to. Yeah, for me! Cause, I had never used one before, and I was pretty nervous about the prospect of loosing a digit, or possibly a limb. Here's two of the three newly improved beds.
Be sure to notice the little flowers in the front of this bottom pic. Don't they look sad and lonely? And the two little bushes behind them used to have Society Garlic around them, but now they stand alone.

And last, but not least, of the home improvements for this week, was having the house, driveway, and walkway pressure washed on Monday. The fact that I nearly busted my ass, every time I walked to my front door, from the grime build up on the walkway, (that stuffs slick!) was certainly a major factor in having this done. You can really see the difference in this photo of the back porch (not that you have a pic to compare it to). I would like you to, also, note my sad little lemon tree, with the only lemon I got this year (the 2nd in 2 years) hanging from it. Isn't it cute? Just hanging there, looking as if it might cause the whole tree to fall over. It's been ripening for several months now, but still not ready. (sigh) With any luck, we'll be having lemon aid by Christmas.Well, other than dinner with Micah and Lisa (yeah), whom I hadn't seen much of lately (boo), and the regularly scheduled "lunch with mom", that pretty much wraps up the notable highlights from this week.

So, I am trying to organize a "girl's" trip with the women in my family. Which, so far is not going so well, because everyone wants it to be on a different date. But a funny side note to this is that I just finished making calls to everyone to find out which dates are good for them and apparently I interupted every one of them while they were watching Grey's Anatomy. I just had to laugh at the fact that they were all watching it. The truth is, I would be watching it myself right now, but I'm waiting to watch it on Tivo to fast forward through the commercials. Needless to say, I didn't get very far on the planning. The moral of the story is - Never interupt a woman during Grey's.

Poinsettias

If any of you kept you Poinsettias from last Christmas, here's some info I found on how to get them to turn red again. Last year after mine turned green, I just put it outside on the back porch and it did fine. Now, we'll see if I can restore it's color.


- Starting October 1, the plants must be kept in complete darkness for 14 continuous hours each night. Accomplish this by moving the plants to a totally dark room, or by covering them overnight with a large box. During October, November and early December, poinsettias require 6 - 8 hours of bright sunlight daily, with night temperatures between 60 - 70° F. Temperatures outside of this range could also delay flowering. Continue the normal watering and fertilizer program. Carefully following this regime for 8 to 10 weeks should result in a colorful display of blooms for the holiday season! -
http://www.fernlea.com/xmas/poininfo.htm

Yeah, I know. It sounds like a lot of work, but I've never tried it, so I'm gonna give it a shot.

Check out this story:
http://www.coinstar.com/US/WebDocs/A3-2-7

Kind of makes you wish you hadn't passed up all those pennies on the ground. hehe

Wednesday, October 3rd:

I've been wanting to paint my dining room for quite a while now. I figured it would be easy when I set out (a few months ago) to find paint, since I had a picture in my mind of exactly what I wanted. Well, let me just tell you, I was wrong! There are a million different variations of tan/toupe (that's my name for it). And I just couldn't seem to find the one that I had in my head. So I went around to a bunch of different places, which I hate to do. I don't like when I have to go to a bunch of places. I want to just go and find it right away. I brought home a ton of paint chips and taped them all over my wall. And after careful deliberation, I chose a color last week. So, a week or so goes by, and then Wednesday morning for some reason I woke up and said to myself that's it, today paint is going up on those walls. So, I brought my mom to the airport, went to my doctors appointment (got poked with needles twice - bloodwork and flu shot), went to Sherwin Williams and bought the paint and supplies, and came home and painted the dining room, hung all the pictures and some additional ones back on the walls, and had the surprise waiting for Brandon by the time he got home from work. And the best part (besides the fact that it's done) is that it is just like the color I had in my head. I had gone back and forth about whether I would paint on the top and bottom of the chair railing that same color because I saw a picture like that and I really liked it. But I just did the top so I could see if I liked it that way first, and I think that I will leave it.

I was so motivated that on Friday I painted the same color in the living room as well. And Brandon gave me a hand. The color looks much lighter in there.

Shannon's B-day

Saturday night we had a little b-day party for Shannon (third from the left) at our house.

Shannon really liked this photo, so I thought I would include it.