Home Improvement Fantasies

Lately I've been watching a lot of HGTV and I'm finding that, between all the home improvement TV and the work I'm currently having done in the hallways in my house (old, horrible-mustard-colored-textured-walls scraped down, new beautiful creamy-beigey paint going up, with crisp white trim) that I am becoming completely obsessed about things I want to do with here. Bathrooms to be renovated (and of course I keep changing my mind about what I want there), kitchen cabinets to be updated, new carpeting, new tile, doors and windows to be replaced, colors to be painted in this room or that, furniture to be bought, the list goes on & on and I just can't stop thinking about it all, I'm even dreaming about it now. And I have a very small, simple house! I can't even imagine how I would feel about this if I had a big and/or charming house with tons of potential. The mind boggles. I will say one thing though, I truly can see why people are so tempted to take out equity loans and Helocs and whatnot. Very tempting as I sit here trying to cash flow the bit of work that I'm having done. Must. Resist. Urge.

Of course, I'm also watching a lot of House Hunters as well, which makes the temptation to start real estate shopping also very tempting ... Someone, please save me from myself!

What?

I'm relaxing. So sue me.

Extreme Pug Close-Up

Things I Love

A Friday night, snow falling fast & furiously outside, fire going inside, dogs all cuddled up and piled on top of me. Nowhere I have to be for a couple of days, fridge is stocked, movies are queued ... ahhhhhh, life is good.

Lunar Eclipse

I was able to stand out on my deck at around 10 PM last night and witness the lunar eclipse. It was pretty amazing! I stood there in the dark (once that I determined that the view would be more effective if I turned off my outdoor lights) with my mouth agape just staring off into space for about 15 minutes. It was a crystal clear night too with all the constellations in attendance. Of course the dogs were a little weirded out by the silence and the dark and had to make some of their own noise as accompaniment.

That sure is something that you don't see everyday, I'm glad that I got the chance to.

All Apologies

So, I had a tech guy at my desk today to fix something on my computer and he was making fun of me for having a picture of a Pug (Fitz) as my wallpaper by saying, "nice kitty". So I start to talk about how I used to live in NYC and didn't want to have a big dog in a small apartment, blah blah blah. And then I stopped myself. I mean, WTF? Here I am defending my decision to own a certain kind of dog to some total stranger ASS (who was wearing far too much stinky cologne, by the way). Why do I feel the need to do that (about everything), why? And it's not just about the dog, I am forever apologizing about myself to people. I've got to stop that shit.

Tig the Obedience Star

Tonight was Tig's last night of his "basic" obedience course. He got a graduation certificate and everything! Anyway, from the start of the class he was a total star, completely enthusiastic and over the moon with happiness to be there each week. And he always seemed to have a lot of admirers. Kids who always seemed to want to touch him, other participants who complimented him. He even seemed to be a favorite of the instructor. I've signed him up for the next level of class, but that doesn't start until the end of April, so I spoke to the instructor after class about what I can be doing with him in the meantime and she suggested that we can perhaps sign up for some private lessons with her in the interim, which I think we'll do. Tig just loves going there so much and seems to get so much out of it and I actually enjoy it too. I've also signed Fitz up for the class that Tig just completed. So it looks like I'm going to pretty busy with dog stuff for the foreseeable future.

Things I Love

Trader Joe's. How many different ways do I love this store? I can't even count them. From the wonderful produce, to all the fancy cheeses, to the many and various prepared meals and other items, and all the ethnic selections and flash-frozen fish! It's a complete delight at every section. I went to my "local" Traders this morning and had to wonder to myself why I don't shop at this place more often, it's just such a wonderful store. Of course it's probably not the best idea to go there when you're hungry as I was, but I now have a fridge completely stocked with plenty of goodies. Too bad there isn't a blizzard in the forecast.

That Wacky Pug

So the other night I was sleeping and I woke up at some point and couldn’t find Fitz. He had somehow completely disappeared. Sometimes he gets under the covers and may migrate more towards the foot of the bed, but he’ll usually pop his head out from under the covers if I call him. But, nope there was no response, he was no where to be found. But, oddly, I could feel him moving around. Delirious with sleep, I finally turned the light on, got out of bed and started digging through the covers trying to find him. It turns out that a snap or two of the duvet cover had come undone at the bottom and he had somehow managed to crawl inside of that opening and gotten himself disoriented and lost inside of the comforter bag. I think he heard me calling him, but couldn’t find his way out and ended up stuck and trapped in a corner. When I figured out what was happening, I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t even help him at first. But finally I unsnapped a few more of the buttons and reached in and was able to drag him out and rescue him. That silly, silly boy. Of course you have to also realize that this all happened at around 3:30 AM. 3:30 – 5:30 AM seems to be prime dog drama time, after all.

Things that Crack Me Up

There is this auto-parts store that I pass sometimes, I think it's a chain or something. Anyway, what makes me laugh is that they have these little white cars that I keep seeing on the road, all over the place, I'm forever passing them everywhere. So they have these little, white cars and each car has this little hat propped up on the roof (a hat!), and it just completely cracks me up every time I see one. I also have to wonder, what about this after-market auto-parts business necessitates the need for these weird little cars (with hats!) to be out and about everywhere? Like there is an auto-parts emergency somewhere and some guy has to jump into his tiny car and speed some parts out to the customer. Weird. But, funny.