Bedknobs and Broomsticks

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If this was my bed. I would never leave. 

And I would add a few more bookshelves. 

And after about six months of complete inactivity....Tampa Fire Department would have to come remove a section from my house and lift me out with a crane.

But it would almost be worth it to live in this sanctuary.....

Will Power

I just had the most phenomenal ice cream sandwich. I want another it was THAT good. Must resist the evil freezer.....

Playing with your food

Sorry for being MIA lately. A little bit of wrist/hand surgery two weeks ago (more on that later) has somewhat slowed down my typing/texting. Don't get me wrong...I still do it...especially texting..it just takes me a bit longer.

Chloe has been keeping me company during my recuperation and has provided endless amounts of entertainment as only she can.

I think this video puts a whole new spin on fast food delivery....

The Woes of Home Ownership - Garbage Disposal 101

It has been a seriously crazy last two days. Chloe was sick and at the vet on Saturday...started with excessive vomiting and by last night had moved on to coming out the other end in a sloppy mess all over my house. Thankfully, we seem to have moved on from this gross and smelly issue, and the little Chloe digestive pipes seem to be working as they should....

But to top the doggie digestive woes off, yesterday my kitchen sink started backing up on top of a garbage disposal. To be honest, ever since I moved in, the disposal really hasn't worked all that well an issue that I think would be best blamed on the same woman that lived here a few years ago and flushed so many tampons down the toilet that my brother (who lived in my current house before I moved in) walked into his bathroom one day after moving in and found the plumbing had backed up into in shower. I'm thinking that was one of those times where the reality really is a lot grosser than it sounds.

Anyway...not having a kitchen sink, even for one hour when you have a dog that is pooping all over your house is a bit of a problem. So after a lovely dinner, I convinced my parents to come over to my place to take a look....and by parents I mean, I asked my mom and since my dad was driving, he came along too. 

After poking around with a flash light and tongs, my dad, in all his infinite plumbing wisdom - which is one of the reasons I tend to let my mom handle all the handyman kinds of things....at least I know that if she doesn't know the answer to something she's not pulling some theory out of her ass....something I'm never sure about with my day. Anyway...my dad tells me that he thinks I need a new garbage disposal and that he can install it for me, no problem. In reality...this is a problem since it's now 8:00 on a Sunday night and he leaves for California on Monday morning for the week. There was no way in hell I was going to be able to not have a functioning kitchen sink for a whole week.

We stood around my disappointing sink, debating our options for a few minutes before my dad decides to call in a favor and get a plumber out to my house on Monday morning to unclog my sink and put in a new garbage disposal.

So good old Joe the Plumber (no...really...his name actually was Joe) came out to my house this morning and as I'm walking him over to my sink, I'm telling him that you know, the disposal has never really worked properly and now it's not draining well, and that my dad thinks maybe I need a new one and all the while, I'm wondering how long the whole replacement will take and how much it will cost because frankly these days I'm pretty short on both time and money.... 

Less than one minute, zero dollars, and this little nifty tool later....

My garbage disposal works like a charm. To say I felt like an idiot is an understatement....

Trained to Disobey the Rules....

Big sorry for being gone lately.  After six weeks of summer camp a.k.a. dog training, I stole Chloe home and getting back on some sort of routine has been a bit difficult. No more peacefully sleeping in until 9am. That's not how Chloe rolls...especially when there are kitties to chase around the house at the butt crack of dawn.

So how did Chloe do at doggie training? Well here...I have a picture to demonstrate...

Sleeping on the shops check out counter is strictly forbidden in the doggie training world. Something to do with putting her in a superior position or some BS like that. Whatever...she's happy, she's quiet, and she sleeps up there....

So I think it's pretty safe to say that six weeks of dog training was not overly successful in breaking me of my bad habits....oh well.

Who could say no to that face?!

Corporate America Drop-Out

I grew up with a father that put on a suit and tie every day and went to work in Corporate America. Naturally, I just assumed, for one reason or another that I would end up spending my days in an office building, running reports, meeting, and having lunch in a cafeteria. You know...somewhere that looks like this...

Instead, I ended up here...

I recently read this quote that fits me, and what I've made of that assumption, perfectly.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be." 

Douglas Adams

Wine, Wine, and more Wine.

I can honestly say that I have very few memories of my parents drinking alcohol when I was a child. Certainly never my mother, and I can only remember my dad drinking the occasional beer at a basketball game or a vodka and tonic when he was grilling or mowing the lawn....which looking back now seems like  two occasions when I would be least likely to drink...when I was playing with fire or when I was playing with things that could cut my fingers off...but to each his own...

Since I've reached adulthood though...they've more than made up for those 18-21 years of abstaining.

For example....I'm at my parents house for dinner tonight. I look over across the kitchen and my dad is standing in his wine nook....the one that has the wine fridge that keeps all 99 bottles of his precious red wine at a consistent 60 degrees...to see him talking on the phone and opening a bottle of wine with one of these:

It's an automatic wine bottle opener. If the combo of a 99 bottle wine fridge and an automatic wine bottle opener doesn't scream out of control wine-o then I really don't know what does...