Peas in a Pod

So I ordered another Molly Mutt bed. I love them. After the big dresser downsize I had a lot of things to stuff the bed with too. And before I ordered a second bed I had emailed with Molly asking about possible discounts for foster dog beds. I figured why not? The fosters need beds too.

This is the thing I love about smaller companies–she actually responded. Generously too! When the package came with the bed I had ordered (see Remmy modeling it above) there were three other beds in the box! Three beds from her “seconds” pile. Whereas the fabric might not be perfect the workmanship still is. You can see Gracie modeling one of the “seconds” beds (looks great doesn’t it?)

Three were more than I expected so I shared the bounty with another foster family near me. Who loved the product and got in touch with Molly Mutt. And now, if I understand correctly, VGSR will be able to buy beds at wholesale prices to sell as fundraisers and to also give fosters a nice place to sleep. Wow! I love you Molly Mutt! You can find out more about Molly Mutt products here.

I was using Mr. Squeaky Hedgehog to get their attention while taking photos. Gracie was entranced by him.

The purging continues here at the house and so far I’ve gone through my bookshelf, dresser, upstairs bathroom and parts of the office. On Wednesday I decided it was time to go through the kitchen. I’m weeding out the things we never use or don’t like and just generally downsizing. Of course the move later this year isn’t set in stone but even if we end up staying here in our cute cape cod it will be good to just be surrounded by things we love or that are useful.

So I’m going through the kitchen cupboards and I see that I have a huge stack of kitchen towels. So many in fact that I never use most of them. Often I just wash the ones that are out and re-use them, never even opening the cabinet with all of my extras.

And here people, is another valuable reason to downsize and just have the things you need. As I stared at that huge stack of kitchen towels and thought “well I definitely don’t need all of those” I was soon to find out just how much I didn’t need them. The stack had been untouched for so long that bugs had gotten into them, hatched babies and died. Yeah, it was absolutely disgusting.

I hate bugs in my kitchen. (And I bet you really want to be invited over to eat here now, huh?) I try to keep the kitchen very clean and a couple of months ago it was driving me crazy that I kept seeing all of these baby bugs. I was killing them and disinfecting every day and I wondered where they were coming from. I looked around but didn’t find them; now I know they were hiding at the back of my cupboard behind all the dish towels. The mystery is solved but I wish it had never happened in the first place.

So the extra dish towels have been shaken outside and washed in hot water with extra soap in the washing machine. The cupboard has been disinfected and left to air dry. And the “stack” of dish towels I’m keeping is small. Very small. No bugs allowed small.

Clark’s at work, meanwhile back at home two doggie donuts are sleeping sweetly. (You don’t know what a doggie donut is?! Well here are two! Do you like how Remmy took the bed even though he isn’t the one recovering from being spayed on Monday? Definitely not very chivalrous Rems. But you are so cute as a doggie donut we forgive you and want to eat you up anyway.)

It’s amazing that after a couple of days of sun the snow is all melting off here. I think that is the ideal way to have snow. A couple days to do all the fun things like watch the dogs go crazy in it:

And make snowmen and snowdogs (it’s a dog, not a cat–see the stick trapped under the dog’s paw?):

And make snow angels:

And get licked all over by the pups and giggle uncontrollably as you try to make snow angels:

And eat snow (or at least pretend to to make the dogs jealous–and no, I don’t know why they were so fascinated with the snow I had when they could have just eaten what was around my feet):

And throw snow balls for the dogs to chase and catch:

And then in a few days get back to normal life with the memories of your snow day adventures. Yep. Best kind of snow I can think of.

Clark’s at work, meanwhile back at home, the dogs are delighting in the snow!

There were snow storm warnings but it was still a surprise to wake up to four inches of snow. It has continued snowing too! It’s good I didn’t have much planned for this weekend. Sadly the snow may trap Clark at work tomorrow. Hopefully it won’t get any worse and Clark can come home for his one day off this week.

The stand off over the jolly ball

This makes me think of those “flying reindeer” pictures. Remmy just loves the snow and I’ve seen a happy Gracie eating the snow.

A moment of quiet before more playing.

Icicles and piles of snow.  Our resident owl says “Yesterday it was sunny!”

This is Remmy doodle:

This is Remmy doodle pretending that he has some great treasure that
Gracie should want when really it is just a little stick he found.

This is Remmy doodle suddenly wishing he hadn’t started a game of
chase with someone two years younger and faster than himself. It’s a
good thing he has such good coordination on his turns or she could
totally take him.

Hey Readers–can you even read the writing for the pictures? I was trying a new photo collage technique but I think it makes things too small for the blog. Any input?