Too Early to be Awake on Sunday Morning! & Later Update

I woke up about 5:30 this morning. I tried to go back to sleep, but it just didn't happen. We get up at 5:00 on most weekdays, and I guess my body thought that I'd overslept since it was 30 minutes later! Hate when that happens. The alarm was set for 6:30, but since we decided to skip church today Otter gets to sleep in for a while.

We're skipping church because my left foot is killing me. It had been getting better, but we took the dogs on a walk yesterday afternoon and I think I'm paying for it now. But the dogs were at least a little less wild yesterday after the walk. They haven't been out on walks much lately, and every time anyone even heads in the general direction of the closet where the leashes are they go crazy. When they want to be walked, they will lead us to the leash closet and sit in front of it.

So since we're home, I'm getting my laundry done early. When Otter wakes up, she gets to help with the housework I have planned. Lucky girl! She's working off a debt to me, so she can't complain much. Frasier ate part of a library book, he's my dog but she's the one who left it on the floor and then left the room. Even if she came right back, she knows how he is and that he loves paper. I paid the library, since she is out of money because she bought her Ipod she's working the debt off. She's thinking that she might want a real job next summer.

Bill's quilt is coming along nicely. I'll post pictures, but not until it's complete. He says he'll get the box of Mom/Dad's old clothing that I have in the attic for my quilt, and then I'll get back on mine. I've been working on crochet projects a lot lately but I'd really like to get my quilt finished.

We (ok, Bill) put the stove lamp together yesterday. It came out great, but I need to get a shade for it. I put the shade from the lamp it's replacing on it, but it doesn't fit quite right. If I get out later, I'll look for a shade for it. But I want one that actually looks right on it. Froggy, I'd still like a picture of your lamp. Bill found a kit to make lamps out of bottles when he was at Home Depot the other day, I had not been able to find an actual kit anywhere. The closest I'd found was at Lowe's, and then they just sold individual parts. If they had kits, nobody knew about them.

One of the things we want to accomplish this year is to streamline things. We have so much stuff that we don't need or use, and we're going to get rid of a lot of it. I've already done quite a bit of cleaning out, I spent a day last summer just going through my craft shelves and got rid of a lot. I've also cleaned out several things from my closet and the kitchen, but there is still a lot that I can go through. That's not really a resolution, but it is a goal and we've been working towards it.

Since we quit selling on eBay, we've discovered that we had a lot of stuff that either didn't sell or we bought as part of a lot and we've donated most of it now. But periodically one of us will come across a box or an item that we have no use for and don't want or need. Of course, the garage still looks just as bad as it did when we were selling heavily on eBay. Not sure why, as much as we've gotten rid of there should be some progress made out there! I think the stuff that is still out there is expanding to take up the available space, like some fish will grow as large as their environment. I'm sure that there is a lot of cardboard that we can recycle, we don't need very many shipping boxes anymore. The ones we have are broken down and stacked out there, but they need to be gone. That's something Bill is going to work on soon, although I'm not sure if he knows that!

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Ok, here's the later update!

Otter and I were heading out the door to go look for a lampshade, but Bill was outside with the chain saw so we decided that we'd better stay home. Somehow, the idea of Bill by himself with a chainsaw was not a comforting thought! He cut down one of the stumps pretty far and quite a bit off of the top of the other stump. Then he tackled the side tree. It just needed a couple of limbs cut out and some neatening done on it. Then we had a little firewood from that, Otter and I stacked it up and then Bill put his toy away so we felt like it was safe to leave him at home alone.

We went to Goodwill, I was thinking that a modern lampshade might not look too good on the stove lamp so we figured that a thrift store was more likely to have an older style shade. There were a couple that I liked, but they were too big. We decided to look at Target and I found one there. It's not exactly the style I was looking for, but it works so I'm not complaining.

Of course, thrift store also means that we have to shop while we are there. Otter is looking for t-shirts she can cut up and rearrange, she's been having fun with the book she bought about that. She didn't find any t-shirts that would work for her projects today but she did find 3 Steven King books and I found two Maeve Binchy books so it wasn't a wasted trip. Maeve Binchy is an Irish author and I absolutely love her stories.

Maggie Beagle is still on her eye drops, but she's much better. The vet said to give her the drops for 10 days, so she still has a few days to go. But I think that her eye is recovered. She is such a good natured little girl, she doesn't like the eye drops but she will let us give them to her without much fuss. She's also dancing on request just about every time we ask her to. We thought that their might be another beagle in the neighborhood, we'd heard one and they have a very distinctive bark so we knew that there was one close. Their bark has been referred to as "singing" and that's pretty close. When we were leaving for the thrift store, we saw a couple walking a beagle and for a second we both thought it was the Magginator. It looked so much like her. But as we drove past, we could tell that it's not the same "flavor" (gender) as Mags is. But at least now we know that we were right that it was a beagle we heard tuning up the other day.