Like Mother Like Son?

Little Girl Dress and Pantaloons

Plan B: Put it in a Paper Sack on Their Doorstep and Light it on Fire

Our neighbors have a large dog (we'll call it "LND" for Large Neighbor Dog, creative, I know). We think it's a mix of pit bull, maybe boxer, and something white. It seems to be a fairly well-behaved dog and hasn't bothered Bruno one bit.

Our concern is this: LND is defecating in our yard. As you can imagine I'm upset. As responsible pet owners, we always clean up after Bruno. Newspaper bags are awesome for this (providing protection to my elbows!). But anytime we are outside with Bruno, we have a bag with us. Our neighbors? Never. In fact, usually they just let the dog out of the house to do his business and then bring him in a few minutes later.

Admittedly, we're not 100% sure that the newly-found poo in our yard is LND's. But as we've not seen any other dogs and this has become a fairly frequent experience, I'll say that we're 98% sure. And it's pretty big poo, meaning it's coming from a pretty big dog, which LND certainly is.

What to do? I do love the Plan B option, but that seems likely to begin a Hatfield-McCoy situation and frankly, I don't have the time. How do we handle this without involving the use of paper bags and matches?

Things That Must Go

Grocery stores that don't let you take carts to your car. I'd never seen them until I moved to the East, but I still can't figure them out. Am I just supposed to leave my already-purchased groceries just sitting there, unattended, while I go get my car? I don't think so! It really makes me angry. By the time I got to my car, I was kicking the toilet paper while the bag holding cans broke. It was really as pathetic as you picture it.

Things that Must NOT Go:
Clementines. Along with bananas, they are the perfect fruit.

Helpful Household Tip # 1

Apparently a birthday isn't all I have in common with Martha Stewart. According to a couple of my friends, I am one organized woman. And it's true. You know those "get to know you emails" that you see every so often? I received one the other day. One of the questions was, "What do you usually eat for breakfast?" My answer was, "Mondays: toast; Tuesdays: instant oatmeal; Wednesdays: english muffin; Thursday: yogurt; Friday: banana bread; Saturday and Sundays: sugary cereal!" You think I'm kidding. That's right; I even plan my breakfasts. Why? Because it's easier than having to think about at 5:45 in the morning.

While I don't advocate this level of organization for every person, I thought I'd share some of the things that I do to help keep my house organized.

Today's tip: The Chore Calendar.
I use a free one sent to us from a realtor, but any yearly calendar will work. I like using the yearly calendar rather than just a weekly calendar because I can use it for the everyday things as well as the not-everyday things. For example: the batteries in the smoke detectors. I know we changed them when we moved into the house in June, so I wrote on the calendar, at a date six months later, that they'll need to be changed again. Also, the air filters. They need to be changed every three months, so I mark down those dates as well. And what about turning those mattresses? If I only had a weekly calendar, special projects like these would never be accomplished simply because I'd forget them. The monthly calendar also lets me keep up with chores that are done monthly. These monthly jobs include: laundering the towels, vacuuming the couches and books on shelves (they get really dusty if I don't), cleaning the cars, and washing the inside of the washing machine (my machine has a cycle specifically for this).

The extra mile: I used to color code who did what by varying the color of the pen I used to write on the calendar. Chuck's jobs (trash, bathrooms, and some special tasks) were written in blue while mine were in pink. However, it only works if your husband actually looks at the chart, so I stopped doing this. Instead I just tell him that he has a chore to do and usually he'll do it.

Helpful or no?

Utah Wrap Up

We just returned from our week-long trip to Utah. Since we're still of the "freaky new parents" variety, we didn't dare try anything too crazy. Mostly we hung out in Midway and relaxed. Since there's not much I love more than a summer's evening in Utah, this was easy.

Rhett was able to meet his cousins (on my side) for the first time. He's still a bit young to enjoy them, but I think they enjoyed him.

Some of the other highlights include: a trip to Cabela's in an answer to my nephew's prayer. Visiting old friends and even older family. Trip to the Park City and its outlets. Trip to SLC's farmers' market. Getting a hair cut and color (pics later). Swimming and hot tubbing. A baby who seemed to be a natural at flying.




The lowlight was: running what-was-supposed-to-be-8K-but-ended-up-being-an-8-miler. Sigh. Next time we'll find an easier-to-find race to run. I was just happy Chuck didn't puke in my dad's car.

A note about Rhett's headband. Since giving birth to a boy, I've been slightly jealous about all the headband-ery that I'm missing. All it takes is one look at the very top picture to see how cute Emmy's headband is. So I set out to find one that would be suitable for a boy, and what you see above is what I found. I'm in love with it.

I'll Have the Atacama, Please

Whoa. If you're in SLC this weekend, get thee to Park City NOW. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the Zona Rosa restaurant is offering a free desert to its patrons. There are just so many from which to choose! How's a girl to make up her mind?!

One note about Utah: if I have to see one more truck with a completely exaggerated lift kit, I think I might gouge out my eyes.

And just for fun...Rhett meets cousin Jonas...

Rhett's Tag Quilt

Inaugural Breads and Spreads

For my birthday this year, I wanted to do something that I really wanted; shocker, I know. My birthday falls in my least second-least favorite month of the year (July being the worst) and most birthdays include some type of barbecue. This year I wanted something different. My first thought was to have a candy party. But other then myself, who could eat a meal of Runts and Hot Tamales? No one. My second favorite food is generally any type of bread. Yep, that's right: I'm an anti-Atkins-ite. So Chuck had the great idea to have a bread party. Breads and Spreads was born.

And it was AWESOME.



The best part about it? All the leftovers! Thank goodness for that upright freezer I have. I'm sooo doing this again.


*And not in any way related to this post at all, but if you want to be creeped out for a couple of hours or want to creep out someone else, read this. HOLY MOLY. However, after my severely cynical husband told me to check its validity, I found this on Snopes. I'm resting only slightly easier.