Not Me Monday - The Dog's Revenge

So last week I told you (all three of you) about how I didn't forget the dog food in my trunk the whole weekend (She still got fed, don't worry! You can go back and read it if you'd like). Well, on Valentine's night she got her revenge. First, I'll tell you what happened, then we can discuss what I didn't do about it...

Jamie was awake all night long. Mark let her out at least twice. This is pretty unusual since, as a middle aged yellow lab, she needs her 17 hours of sleep per day or she's just not herself. On Monday morning we were able to piece the story together pretty quickly.

Seems that the two plastic gallon jugs of apple cider we'd been saving in the pantry had been fermenting for months. I'm no chemist, but I do know that when liquids ferment, they release CO2 gas (hence the bubbly in your beer and other drinks). The pressure inside the sealed jugs got to be too much and they burst that night. Our sweet, helpful (and always hungry) lab went right in and licked some of the mess up for us. How kind of her. In the process, she got a bit tipsy as would anyone who drank nearly two gallons of cider beer. She then proceeded to drunkenly stagger around our house and track the remaining cider all over our slate floors. So here's what I didn't do:

I did not laugh out loud at the thought that my dog spent her Valentine's Day like many American singles - alone and drunk in her living room. I did not swear under my breath (dangit did just fine thankyouverymuch) when I realized that I would be the one on clean-up duty. I did not simply close the door to the pantry for several hours and procrastinate on said clean-up duty. I also did not almost fall over when I finally opened the door to the (unventilated) pantry because it smelled like the trash compactor at a brewery.

Finally, it had not been so long since I'd last mopped that I couldn't find the bucket. And even if it had, I most certainly did not use a spare plastic trash can as a bucket. Nope. No way. Not me. :-)

Dear Gramma (from Norah)

Dear Gramma,

I just wanted to say, "Thank you" for the new clothes. I couldn't wait for warmer weather to wear my cute new heart shirt so I made Mommy do some creative layering. When she finally put it on me I got so excited that I yelled "Hearts!!" I think Mommy was confused for a second and thought she hurt my hand or something. She still doesn't always understand me.

Anyway, she told me that you sent the shirt to us in the mail from far away. I said, "Thank you Gramma!" really loud, but I'm concerned that you still might not have heard me so I decided to write this letter too. I've included a couple of pictures that Mommy snapped on her camera phone. Sorry I'm a little blurry, I was so excited about my pretty new outfit I was spinning around. The camera had a hard time keeping up. Enjoy!

Love,

Norah

My Little Valentine

I don't usually go in for the matchy thing. Maybe its because growing up, I knew a family who all dressed in matching outfits for every special occasion until the oldest son went to college. Maybe it's matching outfits require 1) the purchase of matching clothing and 2) planning to make sure that all of the clothes are clean on the day you want to match. Since I am 1) cheap and 2) not such a great planner sometimes. It's just never come together for me. Until this weekend.

It was actually Norah who pointed out that we have matching skirts. Seriously, it never even occurred to me. She was in my closet and saw my off-white corduroy skirt. She patted it and said, "Momma's?" I said, "Yep, that's Momma's skirt." The she pulled it toward her little leg and said, "Norah's!" It was about then that it occurred to me that we had matching skirts. I'm a little slow on the uptake. So in honor of Valentines Day (and because she and I both happen to have purple shirts) we dressed alike for church.

You can't see it here, but we're both wearing our brown boots too. Mine aren't fuzzy though. Sadly, they don't make heart tights in my size...

Fortunately my little sweetheart was in the mood for pictures.

What's Valentine's Day without a kiss?

She struck this pose all by herself.

Daddy helped me show off my favorite part of her outfit. SO disappointed they don't make these in grown-up size. :-)

Not Me! Monday - Totally Together

I am not a forgetful person. Those of you who know me can attest that I'm always the girl who has it all together. Right? So let me just run a couple of scenarios by you that would totally not occur in my June Cleaver-eaque household.

A week ago Friday I took off from work a little early (did I mention I got a new job? It's great - but that's another post) to get dog food. She'd been running low for about a week, and since I am not a procrastinator I picked it up on Friday afternoon after I scooped the last 50 kibbles out of the container for her breakfast. I proceeded to have a lovely date night with the hubs, and headed over to my parents' house to pick up the munchkin after that.

Here's what I did not do:

When we picked up babykins and decided to carpool (or truck-pool rather home) on account of exhaustedness, I did not forget the bag of dog food in my trunk. It's a good thing I didn't too. If I had, I would have had to make rice and meat for the dog's meals. There are certainly not three portions of homemade dog food left in my frige at this moment. Furthermore, did not forget the dog food in my trunk AGAIN when we went to my parents' place to watch the superbowl. That would be so irresponsible. Finally, I did not leave the baby's diaper bag in the trunk of my car on Monday evening to ensure that I wouldn't forget the dog food a third time. I don't need those kind of reminders.

This weekend I was not so excited about having friends up to our house to go sledding that I got out of the shower and put night cream on my face. And even if I had, I would never have been so lazy as to just slather on the suncreen moisturizer over it and call it good. Nope. No siree. I am WAY more together than that.

What about you? Is there anything a little dorky that you totally did not do this week?

Supa-stah

Just recently Norah decided that she does not wish to be photographed. As soon as the camera comes out, she might as well be a mega-celebrity avoiding tabloid photographers. Well, just call me the Mom-aratzi! These photos might be a little bit blurry (due in part to the time of evening they were taken) but I just couldn't resist posting them.

Also, notice her very first hair clip!! She finally had enough hair to hold one in at 18 months 3 days old. When she saw it in the mirror she was almost as excited about it as I was.

No photos please.

The starlet checks to make sure we're still paying attention.

As long as the camera keeps snappin' she keeps hiding!

But like many starlets, she becomes distracted by something (in this case, doing the motions while Daddy sings "Twinkle Twinkle")

So as long as she's not avoiding photos any more she might as well strike a pose!

Not Me! Monday - A Shovelin' Fool

This week, I'm participating in my very first Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. She uses humor and sarcasm to expose her own flaws and foibles. Humor and sarcasm? Tattling on yourself? Does anyone else think that this is right up my alley!?! You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week. As for me, well here goes...

I am not the kind of gal who puts off shoveling her deck. Nope. No way. Not me! "Three inches is two too many." That's my motto. So I most certainly did not wait until after a three foot overnight dump to begin shoveling!

This, then, is not a cross section photo of the foot of snow that I diligently sent cascading through the railing to the ground below.

And what are these small crunchy objects unearthed during my fascinating archeological dig? Well, they are definitely not leaves that I neglected to sweep off the deck last Fall!

The afore mentioned non-existent leaves were absolutely not set free from their icy prison only to be flung to the ground two stories below where they will be carried away by the melting rivers of Spring. Certainly not! Each leaf was carefully and loving bagged to be turned into top grade fertilizer (as soon as I learn how to do that) for my fantastic garden (composed of the two types of flowers that grow at 9,000 feet). I collected the leaves, in part, because I so enjoy strapping on my snow shoes, but also because shoveling a foot of snow off the deck just wasn't quite enough exercise.

That's right, a foot of heavy, wet snow.

Did I mention that I have two decks?

Did I mention that they're both covered??

This is not a photo of the mountain of snow that awaited me on the uncovered stairs off of our lower deck.

I was not tempted to give up halfway down the stairs and tell anyone who needed to access them from the bottom of the sled run that they'd better learn to jump really high.

I also did not take a short cut and shove the snow backward through the open stair treads.

Finally, I did not take a photo of my neighbors deck to make myself feel better about all of my hard work.

So that's it for Not Me! Monday. Let me know what you think!

Weekend Update

I've been pretty good about taking pictures lately. Posting them? Notsomuch. Here are a few of my favorite from last weekend and the weekend before. Hopefully I'll be able to post some from this weekend tomorrow.

Doggies are a girl's best friend.

Especially when they're big enough to hide behind!

All that sitting and being hugged makes Jamie tired.

We went snowshoeing around the neighborhood. It had snowed so hard we had to wear our snowshoes to walk ON the road. Notice my little cherub dragging her hand through the snow? Yeah, she spent the last ten minutes of the trip crying because her hand was cold. Consequences are hard to explain to a tiny person. Don't worry, I carried her and let her put her freezing fingers on my warm neck. I'm waiting for my Mom of the Year trophy to arrive. Any day now, right Jan?

"I am the leader, and I say we go...THAT WAY!" **Bonus points if you can name the movie that quote is from!**

Norah also practiced her directional vocabulary.

She went UNDER the table.

By going OVER the shelf.

And enjoyed putting things THROUGH the hole in the step stool.

Creating quite a mess IN the living room.

And leaving one very tired dog ON the floor.