Random Spring Rambling and The Magic Man......

Well.  It's that time of year again.  Time to Hit It.  Again.

One thing about putting things off, is you can get a lot done in a hurry.  Or at least make it look like you did. 

I have always wished that you could just move out your furniture and use a fire hose for your house once every year, much like farmers burn off their fields.  My dream house has concrete floors with big drains in the middle, plastic walls at least half-way up, and a removable roof for those days when you are mad enough to actually kill bats with your bare hands.  Also really, really nice furniture and soft warm rugs.  But that's just a dream.  Some young architect should get on this idea and make it happen.  Like with a 3-D printer or something.  Just a thought.  

Maybe The Beautiful Redhead's smashing boyfriend, The Magic Man, could make that happen.  He seems to be good at all kinds of cool stuff!  He makes me so happy, for one thing.  And if you think he makes me happy, well, just look.  Happiness seems to kind of pour out of people around him, if you ask me.

Just my opinion, of course, but that looks happy to me.
He requested his own nick-name for the blog, I was so touched.  Then 5 minutes later he showed me a video of him rolling smoke filled bubbles up his arms and blowing them around, and viola, there is was.  In addition to being an unself-conscious showman, he knows all kinds of the coolest stuff, and well, suddenly he was The Magic Man!  I hope he likes it.  

If you think it's easy for me to drift away and ramble on in print, you should be sitting on my porch right now.  I've already decided that the wind is blowing too hard to start burning leaves any time soon, so no hurry with the leaves.  Also, I have my first dandelions blooming, along with jonquils and crocus' and hyacinths and some cute little purple flower that I never known what to call, but visits every year and I think of as a dear friend.  They are all either bright yellow or bright purple, and the grass turned green Thursday, so it is just beautiful.  Thus, easy to put off things, which is just how I like it, God help me.

To Do List:

1.  Store.  We have to eat.  I could do this in my sleep, and sometimes do, I'm pretty sure.  I do not even actually consider this a chore anymore, except for the house that I have to take a shower and leave the house.  Into every life, a little rain must fall.

2.  Flooring trip: I've reached the point where I am so sick of the carpet in my house that I am ready to tear it up and haul it out of the house.  In fact, my Youngest Baby dropped an entire gallon of milk on the living room carpet 2 weeks ago.  Then he just stood there calmly and watched it soak slowly in, as Jack and Shadow paid close attention and I was stuck in the doorway behind him, also loaded down with grocery bags.  No one got the least bit excited. I pondered on whether this was good or bad and decided that it didn't really matter right now.  Then my beloved Bissell, who I had placed my trust in, would not squirt out water, the traitorous rotten scoundrel.  And I don't know, maybe 13 years with the same crappy carpet is just my magic number, but something snapped inside me.  It was like a switch had just flipped and I said SO BE IT.  I was going to get this crap out of my house and my life and it was all I could do not to just set the whole floor on fire right then.  The voice in my head said, "Easy, now, it has taken 13 years to get to the point.  Let us not mess it up at this point." And I just calmly knew that it would happen. I wasn't mad, or sad, or even dreading the physical work of it.  It was going down, I had that certainty that has never in my life failed me, and I calmly went on making my plans for it's demise and disappearance from my life with no regrets whatsoever.  I love it when that happens!!  SOOO MUCH!!! So today I am going down there and picking something out and paying for it that is going to be that.  It will not be carpet.  Other than that, I don't even care.  In fact, the Angel just last night almost begged me to "decorate a little".  (Actually, that happened right after the chalkboard idea that I plan to do a whole half-wall of in the kitchen/living room area.  High enough for me to write copious notes to myself and low enough for Abigail, Rose, and our Charli-girl, not to mention all the kids that come along for years and years, to draw anything they want and never get in trouble.  Yes, never.  I can take anything they can dish out.  I am highly trained in this area!! :D)  Do not worry, Angel, I got this.  We are going to have new flooring, paint, ceiling, and I have 30 years of stuff to "decorate" with and I need to get it all down and group it.  Clean it.  Sell some of it.  Hang some of it back up and have it look fabulous.  

It feels right, now.  It feels like it's time.  I have put this off for 13 years, not caring about it one whit, and now that time is over.  SO BE IT.  I do not even pretend to understand it, I don't think that understanding things matters much.  You know it when it happens, that is all.  And that is enough.  I am pretty sure this feeling is peace.  And I am going to do my best to keep it.  Wow.  That turned into a beautiful rant.  :D  I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.  This is one of the best things about getting older for me.  I have always flown by my own lights, so to speak, but as you get older, you don't pressure yourself so much.  You don't second guess yourself either, and you are now without that horrible dread of not knowing what will happen next.  You know what's probably going to happen next. You've seen the same things happen over and over again until you know the patterns.  You know that unless you die, the world is just going to keep going on and you will deal with it as it comes.  Best of all, you no longer care what other people think, if you ever did.  There are so many things you simply do not care about anymore, and that makes me very happy.  I cannot speak for anyone else, but look at women around 50 years old.  If they seem relaxed, comfortable in their own skin, to have some secret peace about them, it's probably because they are, and they do.  They have earned it after years of working hard for it.  That is just life, and it is something to look forward to.  You don't have to understand how or why.  Just trust that someday, you will not feel those pressures and you will no longer wonder where you fit or what you are supposed to do.  You will know.  It will happen to you.  Let it.

3.  Rake leaves, possibly burn some, but probably not until later, especially if it's going to rain tonight.  Jack and Shadow love this more than just about anything, and race from pile to pile.  If you make the pile big enough, Shadow will jump into it and hide, with only her eye exposed, waiting for good old clueless Jack to come by so she can attack him.  Either Jack loves her so much that he lets her do this to him every year because it makes her so very happy, or Jack is just never going to catch on to some things in life.  I'll let you decide which one of those things is true.  Jack is not the smartest dog I have ever known, but he is the sweetest, which is really good during the times you want to kill him.  Like right after he eats about 15 of the peanut butter balls that your kids like best and you have just spent 45 minutes rolling into balls and freezing and dipping in peanut butter and white chocolate.  Jack also has a sophisticated palate, for a dog, and very good taste.  If you found yourself suddenly homeless and hungry, you would be well advised to follow Jack, because he would not steer you wrong.  Shadow, on the other hand, would keep you well supplied with squirrels and rabbits and I don't like to go further than that because it makes me sad, but you get the picture.  You would not starve, at any rate.  (The voice in my head started saying STOP as soon as we passed the peanut butter balls, for the record.  I think it is taking on the same kind of personality as Jonah Goldberg's couch.  And for that I thank you, Jonah.  You all help keep me laughing and on my toes).

4.  Grab paint samples for inside AND outside, although I already know what color I'm doing outside.  Steel Blue.  Paired with white it is just perfect, and I don't know why I always want to live in a blue house but I think it might vaguely have something to do with the South, and blue doors to scare away haints.  It's just right for me, and that is all.

5.  Tear up carpet.  If you have ever done this, you already know the dual feelings this inspired.  The dread at how disgustingly gross and creepy crawly you are going to feel until you get it out, that is equally balanced with the joy of knowing how much frustration will then be absent from your life and the beckoning siren's call of clean, possibly shiny, brand new space that can be cleaned with the swipe of a dust mop.  Dust mop's are what we had before Swiffer Sweepers for you young folk.  In case you didn't know that word.  I can never be sure anymore, and sometimes find myself speaking a foreign language.  If you don't know what I mean, try explaining the game where you drop the clothespin into the milk bottle to anyone under the age of 25.  

Anyway, that is my weekend, and it is high time I got it started.  I have wasted the entire morning, or added another chapter to the story of our lives, which ever way you want to look at it.  I think you know, by now, where I stand on that, aye?   

I've had all the coffee I get for the day and I've wasted enough time on the porch, enjoying the sunshine and breeze and colors.  Thanks for sharing my rambles.  Stop in again any time.

You say you need a doghouse?

A couple of years ago a friend of mine had a much loved lab who found herself expecting puppies with a boxer.  She had 8 beautiful puppies.  When I went over to see them, and was asked if I wanted a puppy.  I firmly stated that I needed a puppy like I needed a hole in the head.  Then one of those sweet little things wandered over to my foot.  I leaned down and scooped it up.  It sighed, long and lazily, and snuggled up to my neck, and I was lost.  I felt this little thing had picked me.  It was a boy and before I left that night I was signed up.
Before it was all said and done, we ended up taking two.  A boy and a girl. 
The kids were thrilled.
The cyclist was appalled.
I was not intimidated, knowing what puppies entailed, and also knowing that having two little ones is actually easier in many ways than having one.
I bought kennels, pillows, bitterspray, odor eliminator, food, oatmeal shampoo and many, many chew toys.
The kids were thrilled.
The cyclist was still appalled.
I was not really discussing this subject with the cyclist at this point. 
Then one night as the Cyclist made his point about what dog food cost for the 120th time, I casually said "I'm thinking about calling that little boy dog Jack."
"That's what I was thinking of naming him!" the Cyclist replied.
I smiled, and said "Then I guess it 's settled."
And so our family grew to include

 Jack and Shadow

So, this year for Christmas the Cyclist thought they needed a house.  And not just any house, either.  This house had to be big enough to two dogs, with room for them to stretch out, like he knew they liked to do.  The Cyclist has the most wonderful father in the world, who happens to have his very own woodworking shop and a lot of time to work in it.  Now, as far as I was concerned, a very basic box would work just fine.  I even had some plywood and shingles and stuff in the garage and sent all that over for them to work with.

I did not know who I was dealing with.

These two men, who are not carpenters, proceeded to build a doghouse that is hands down nicer than my actual house in almost every way.

I want you to look at this:

It filled the entire bed of the truck.  Note the deck on the front.  It is made out of cedar.  It is also fully and completely insulated, in addition to being finished on the inside.  You could put up wallpaper on the walls, if you wanted to.  The exterior boasts trim, which was added at the suggestion of the Cyclist's angel mother, so that it "wouldn't look like just plywood."  It certainly doesn't, does it?

We had the dogs a house.  And what a house.  All that remained was to get it unloaded.

Well.

That was quite an ordeal, as we could not get a gate out of the ground to back the truck up.  So 4 of us had to work together to get the new doghouse moved about 50 feet.  Not far, piece of cake, right?  It would have been, except for  a length of solid ice right at the fence where we had to unload it, and the fact that the doghouse weighed about as much as a piano.

Now, I only say this because I have had to move a piano once.  I can not tell y ou how many pounds a piano weighs, but I can tell you that it is a LOT.  And this doghouse weighed about the same.  And we had to move it, over ice, without having anyone fall down and be crushed by the sheer weight of it all.

All I can say is that God must have been watching over us.  We did it.  We did it while the Cyclist was considering things from all angles and wasting time in the freezing cold trying to "make a plan" while I was barking out orders encouraging everyone to snap to and let's-get-this-done-because-we've-come-this-far-and-we-can't-stop-now-but-my-LORD-be-careful-because-if-any-of-us-fall-it-will-KILL-US!

And we did it.  No one fell, no one even said any bad words, and it was done.  We filled it with hay and while I can't say it is big enough to hold both the dogs and the Grand Finale, I can say truthfully that it is plenty big enough to both dogs and 1/2 the Grand Finale.  The other half opted out of getting in.  I think he is old enough to be considering his dignity or something.  Isn't that sad?  I'll miss having "boys".  They are growing up so fast.

Jack and Shadow have never had it so good.  They seem to know not every doghouse has a cedar deck.

And while I was more interested in the Cyclist spending some time with his dad, I have to say that this turned out really well for everyone concerned.  For one thing, it's completely changed my concept of "doghouse".

You never know what you can make out of odds and ends that have been laying around in your garage for years.  You never know what stories you might hear if you take the time to spend time with your parent's on any given day. 

Don't forget that we all make stories all the time.  Remember them. 

I, for one, can tell you that none of us will ever forget unloading that doghouse.  I'm pretty sure we will think long and hard before ever moving it again, either. 

I have the strongest feeling this doghouse will be around for many, many years to come.