A Post About Nothing

Well, after all that, I’m at a loss for material today!  I think still having the Christmas decorations up is dragging me down.  Normally we would have packed it all up this past weekend, but Craig volunteered to paint, so I sure wasn’t going to hinder that by asking him to haul all the Rubbermaid bins up from the basement.

Hopefully before too long I will have a powder room makeover to show you; there are still several things to finish up.

Okay, I’ve seriously been sitting here in a half-stupor for the last hour and a half trying to come up with something for you.  All I’ve come up with is a question that’s been haunting me for years:  if possums are nocturnal, and they sleep hanging in trees, how come you never see possums hanging in trees in the day time?

Clearly it’s time for me to hit the sack.

I will leave you with a picture that’s got my wheels a-spinning, which may be a bit of a hint of things to come.  Maybe.

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What Were We Thinking?

Monday night we spontaneously decided to get a puppy. Now, we already have a dog and a cat. Lila, our Boston terrier, just turned two, and is what I’d call an adolescent. Not a puppy, but still childish and a bit of a pain. We love her though, and actually it wasn’t 100% spur-of-the moment; the idea had come up a few times in the last couple of weeks but was promptly rejected. Until our sanity left us Monday evening.

Pinkerbelle and Lila

Having recently looked at the website of the puppy mill breeder Lila came from, we knew that there were Boston terrier puppies available. And somehow, at 6:30 Monday evening “no way” turned into “let’s drive out and see them”. Let’s drive 2+ hours. Each way. And get home at one in the morning.

Long story shorter, we put a deposit on Lila’s half-sister. She can’t leave until she’s 8 weeks old on July 25, so we don’t actually have her yet.

We were powerless to resist.

Here’s Lila shortly after we got her.

And here’s the new puppy.

Striking family resemblance, no?

While we wait for our new bundle of joy, we need to come up with a name. I like “people” names, and it needs to sound cute with ‘Lila’. So far, here’s our list:

• Libby
• Posy
• Lucy (I like it, but many moons ago we had another BT by this name, and we’re not sure if we want to reuse it)

So, I’m taking suggestions. You dog’s name, a name you’d use if you ever got a dog, the name of your firstborn daughter, whatever. I can’t promise we’ll use one of your ideas, but if you have one, lay it on me.

Backwards WFMW—Toothpaste Mess

This week Kristen at We Are THAT Family designated WFMW as Backwards. Meaning that we pose a dilemma, and our dear readers (hopefully) give us helpful suggestions. Be sure to stop by and glean the wisdom of others.

The first thing that popped into my head was the toothpaste situation in the kids’ bathroom. So if that’s my biggest dilemma, I’ve got it pretty good. Nevertheless, it’s a pet peeve of mine.

I would imagine that most of you moms can see where this is going. I ran upstairs to take these photos, and actually this is not the worst ever. I even staged the toothpaste tubes, but that’s because I’m the one who put the caps on earlier. Somehow, my three children, ages 11, 8, and 6 cannot brush their teeth without leaving globs of toothpaste everywhere.On the counter, in the sink, usually big globs hanging out of the tube and drying to a sticky, gelatinous mess. It’s even showed up on the mirror and floor.

I’ve tried the toothpaste with a flip-cap, and the ones in a pump. Makes no difference. Aside from telling them to clean up after themselves, I’m just wondering if there are any little secrets out there that I don’t know. Magic toothpaste that dispenses just the right pea-sized amount and lands on the toothbrush every time. Or something.

Okay, so this is pretty lame, but you never know what tricks other people might have up their sleeve. Help a girl out!

My Own Personal Blissdom

If you read the popular blogs, you know that anybody who is anybody in the blogworld went to Blissdom this weekend. Like Nester, Kimba, Melissa, oh just everybody! Check out their blogs, they all just had such a great time, ya'll! But I'm not jealous or anything. I had my own personal Blissdom.

Oh, let's see.

Ummm.

Oh, yah! I watched 102 Dalmations with the kids Friday night while Handsome was at Starbucks getting some work done. Except the kids wouldn't just sit still and watch. It was more like a three ring circus. Even more fun!


And...I went to a furniture store to just look at sofas and was followed around by a very talkative salesman. Do you know, when his wife was pregnant with their youngest 30 years ago, the doctor thought she was too old. He let that doctor have it, let me tell you!

Okay, what else? Oh, I single-handedly tried to force the dog to drink hydrogen peroxide in order to induce vomitting because Firstborn said he saw her eat a shoelace. I wasn't too successful. No barf. Hopefully the shoelace won't tie itself around her intestines and kill her. Of course, we're not even 100% sure she actually ate said shoelace.

Okay, I'm sorry if this is in poor taste. This is not our dog, and it's not dead. He's asleep and the photo is from flickr. I just thought it was hilarious!

Um...we went to Chili's last night and my salad was all pale iceburg lettuce and shredded carrots (blech), and my soup was cold.


Yawn.

Okay, well that's about all the Bliss I can come up with. It was actually just a pretty normal weekend. How was yours?

Don't forget, you've got until 5:00 p.m. to enter my giveaway!

Starbucks Exposed

Last Wednesday (yikes, I didn't realize it was that long ago!) while I was out running errands, I stopped into Starbucks for a Pumpkin Spice Latte. I've been hearing people all over the place rhapsodizing about these, so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I sipped on it as I drove around, and it was okay, but I didn't really taste too much pumpkin or spice. I didn't finish it, and when I got home I put it in the fridge for later, because by golly, I paid almost $4 for that thing!

Later when I went to warm it up, I took the lid off to put it in the microwave. Ugh! The congealed...stuff...looked like the fat you'd skim off taco meat that'd been sitting in the fridge. But, I gave it another try. Still not lovin' it. And this is what it looks like hot.


See the lurid orange color? And the oily scum floating on the top? Here, take a closer look.


And then I thought "I need to blog about this", so I put it back in the fridge so I could take a picture of it cold.

Now that's just gross. It's the color of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. Hmmm, there's quite a bit less in there than when I put it in the fridge. It looks like Skippy has been surreptitiously sipping from it. He actually likes coffee, hot or cold, sweet or not. We do not serve it to him, so he gets his hit on the sly like this.

A few weeks ago, I had a pumpkin spice frappe at a local coffee shop, and it was much better, IMO. It actually tasted like pumpkin pie. And just so you know, I am not anti-Starbucks. I like me a good Caramel Macchiato, and I'm sure it looks just as bad inside.

Chandelier Redo

When we bought this house earlier this year, it was a builder inventory home. It wasn't built yet (they poured the foundation the week we signed the contract), but it was all planned out by the sales manager, finishes picked out and all that. We changed quite a few of her choices, but left the lighting the same. She didn't have an example to show us, and we were too lazy to go to the lighting store and look at it, but she said it was bronze (rubbed bronze? that dark color).

Turns out everything was the color I expected it would be, except the chandelier. It was not dark bronze. It was more of a pinky brown. Yuck. Well, the dust is yuck too, but that's my fault. (It did not come with the shades; I added those in anticipation of making some changes.)


So here's what I did today. I spray painted the chandelier Krylon's Satin Nickel and hot-glued beaded trim to the shades.

I think it looks better, but I'm still not 100% sold. The color of the paint doesn't quite look authentic or something. I'm wondering if I should've just done it black. Also, do I now need to paint all the other bronze fixtures? Maybe I should just look and see if there is dark bronze spray paint. Now I think of that! Oh, man, Tall Dark and Handsome isn't going to be too excited about taking this down again anytime soon.

Oh, I forgot that the reason I chose satin nickel for the chandy is that we put satin nickel hardware on the kitchen cabinets, and the dining area is part of the kitchen. This was after we moved in and I had a grand plan to change everything to nickel. But now that I see the color of the spray paint, I'm not sure. The cabinet hardware is staying; does everything need to be matchy-matchy, or can I have nickel hardware and bronze lighting? I'm a by-the-rules girl, and don't want to do anything too risky, like maybe having multiple metal finishes. Of course, the sink is typical stainless and the faucet is typical chrome, so that was already non-bronze and it didn't bother me at all with the bronze lighting. Maybe I'm over-thinking this. Ya think?