It’s good to know that I’m not the only one who’s married to a man who leaves the car door wide open and does a half-assed job of the dishes. Your comments yesterday cracked me UP.
Fred doesn’t leave the kitchen cabinet doors wide open, but he’s quite fond of never shutting drawers all the way. It annoys me, but it doesn’t drive me crazy – I don’t get it, though. Why shut the drawer part of the way? WHY?
And now that I’m in a better mood today, I should balance yesterday’s bitching about Fred with some nice things. So in no particular order, random things I like about Fred:
1. He’s a master builder. Three years ago, he’d never built a thing. Now, he’s built four outbuildings (wood shed, small coop, medium coop, big coop, and garden shed), steps to the side of the house, bird houses, a fence around two and a half acres – the list is endless!
2. He’s a big ol’ softy. Did you know he goes out and crawls into the dog house and hangs out with the dogs just about every morning?
3. He puts up with my shit and doesn’t get mad when I write about the things he does that annoys me.
4. He’s super smart and can usually explain things to me that I just don’t get in a way so that I understand. Also, he’s up on current affairs and when I ask him what the hell’s going on with something (“Who’s this nice-looking black fellow they keep showing on the TV, Fred?” “That’s our new president, Bessie.”) he can sum it up in a sentence or two.
5. He has a nice butt.
Previously
2008: Visiting dogs = okay. Permanent dogs = not gonna happen.
LOL! And no more cats, either, right? (c;
Every damn time I swear that we’re not going to get SOMETHING, we seem to end up with it within a year.
So right here, right now, I swear to you all upon all that is good and holy that I will NOT in the next year be holding a multi-million-dollar winning lottery ticket! I just won’t have it!
You know, I really hated the Dyson handheld when Bryan brought it home, but I actually use it for major dusting now. I find it a lot more agile than using the vacuum hose, and I like that you can’t lose the little brushy extension. We have picture-frame paneling and interior brick, which means I have a lot of tiny dusty ledges to deal with, and I use it around the power cords and furniture feet where fur tumbleweeds flourish. I can vacuum the sheet-covered couch without it ingesting the sheet, too, which is a big bonus. So I would give it a “not terrible” rating if you have dogs and nooks like stairs, you just have to learn to be efficient with your 6 minutes of battery life.
I might have to give that a try. Maybe I’ll take it for a test run around the baseboards (at least some of them!) and see if that makes me any happier about it.
I thought you’d enjoy this. Maybe get a few goats just for the comedy?
l
Don’t encourage Fred.
You know what would be awesome on your site? A guess the kitty game, similar to this one for the Duggar family. You could use all your regular cats, past and present, and throw in the foster cats, pigs, chickens, etc. for an extra challenge!!
Oh man, if I had ANY kind of mad skillz at all, I’d create a game like that. It’d be neat to see how many people I could stump with it!
Love the metal roof, Robyn. I wanna put one on our place when we need a new roof. How’d you get the insurance company to pay for part of it? I.e. How can I get me some of that action??
We called the insurance company, and they sent an adjuster out. We’ve had problems recently where if it rains for too long, we get leaks in several places in the house. The adjuster went up on the roof and reported that we had some pretty severe storm damage. Within a few days, we had a check from them. Like I said, it never occurred to me that they’d pay anything, but Fred’s partner mentioned that we should check with our agent before paying for it ourselves, thank god we did.
A question about the whole absorbency thing with towels and fabric softener. How do you keep them from the evil static cling?
ms7168 said:
I have always used fabric softener on my towels . . I just use less and that way no static cling but it will still absorb 🙂
It never occurred to me that that could work!
The post for 02-02-04 hot/versus good looking was one of the most fun ever. Would you consider repeating the question five years later just because it’s so much fun?
Okay, y’all – five years later, let’s hear it. Who’s hot but not good-looking, and who’s good-looking but not hot in your opinion?
I’ll go first.
Hot: Bruce Campbell. (Okay, wait. I think he’s good-looking, too.) James Gandolfini (but only as Tony Soprano. Otherwise, he does nothin’ for me.)
Good-looking: Jeffrey Donovan. (Okay, wait. He’s also kinda hot. I love the way he over-enunciates everything he says.) Good-looking but nowhere in the same universe as hot: Tom Cruise and John Travolta.
(Why yes, we ARE watching Burn Notice still. I LOVE BRUCE CAMPBELL.)
Love the new roof! Ever considered any matching board and batten shutters? With Fred’s building skills, he would probably make them
I can’t say that we’ve ever talked about it. Right now I’m trying to convince Fred (through hostile thoughts in his direction every time I have to vacuum up the crap that gets tracked through the back door) that we need a covered porch on the back of the house – just a small one where we can take off our boots and shoes and leave them – but after that, maybe we’ll think about shutters. It’d probably go at the bottom of a long and always-growing list, though!
I’m surprised you guys don’t have a GPS! Fred seems like he’d get a kick out of geocaching. I splurged on a Garmin right before Christmas and I love it more than I ever thought I would. It comes in handy really often.
Back in 2002 and 2003, Fred did quite a bit of geocaching, actually. (His first entry about it is here.) We got caught up in other things and haven’t done it since, but we do have a GPS around here somewhere. But it’s an OLD GPS and I rather doubt it would come in handy when I’ve done something brilliant like try to get home a new way and gotten myself lost.
(Though maybe it would. Perhaps I oughta see if I can find it and give it a try!)
Hey! Your banner for February is pretty darn cute! Who made it if I might ask?
It’s actually a replay from last February, created by Aly!
“Fred reported that he vigorously licked Samba on top of the head, and she really liked it.”
HOWL!
Proofreading is my friend… proofreading is my friend… ah, fuck it. Why start now?
Your story about the dogs and the pig ears reminded me of my friend’s brother. He had a small dog as well as a pot-bellied pig, both as pets. One day he was trimming the pig’s hooves when he noticed his dog skulking about. He watched as his dog scurried out, grabbed a piece of discarded pig hoof, and ran off to go chew his treat in another spot.
That… is rather gross. It’s kind of like chewing fingernails, though, I’d imagine. I wonder if pigs hooves trimmings taste like fingernail clippings? (Please note: I will not be testing this theory, thankyou.)
Do you ever call Tom Cullen M-O-O-N, that spells moon?
Gawd, I hope you get that.
But of course! Before we even decided to adopt him, Fred said “We should name him Tom Cullen and when we make an appointment for him at the vet, we could say “Yes, I need to make an appointment for my cat, Tom Cullen. It’s spelled M-O-O-N.”” And then we cackled about it like dorks for a long, long time.
Did you see The Rocker? It was pretty cute.
I did! I watched it alone because Fred wasn’t interested in it, but I actually think he would have enjoyed it. I liked the music so much that I went and downloaded the album that same day.
(GOD I LOVE THE INTERNET.)
Fred would like you to know:
I would just like to say that killing and eating those little pigs was an option, but SOMEONE thought returning them was a better choice.
SOMEONE still thinks that returning them is a better choice, thank you very much.
I got all excited thinking we FINALLY would know Fred’s car, but no, I see the Ram is just from his truck….right? Darn it!
Actually, Fred wrote about his car – a Hyundai Accent – a year and a half ago. In fact, I linked to his entry from this entry, then went on to talk about the way I turn into a pouty teenage brat when it comes to car negotiations because – hello – BORING.
Anyone else get a kick out of the fact that the chicken is George but the rooster is Michelle? HAHA!
Well, that’s ’cause they’re named after certain people. Michelle’s named after a reader who recommended a tomato strainer. George is named after a Curious monkey.
Robyn-I know this is totally unsolicited advice-but I just had to comment.
I worked on a pig farm for years after college, and the best way to hold a pig is by catching it by the back leg (as it runs past you!) and holding it by both back legs with the pig’s belly facing away from you. Something about this posture keeps them much calmer and reduces the deafening squealing. You guys were right to send those pigs back, I am not sure how successful pushing on the hernia is.
I did not know that! Thanks for that, it may come in handy in the future. (Though I’ll admit that I’m kinda hoping I never need to put that into action!)
What’s worse, do you think? Stepping in cold cat barf, or warm cat barf? I’m trying to decide here, but I think the jury’s still out on that one.
They are each a special kind of hell, but I would prefer warm cat barf, and let me tell you why – because if it’s still warm, then I can look around and see which cat is lurking about and licking his or her lips, and pretty much know who did it, and I can keep an eye on them to see if a problem is developing!
If “NO cat barf” were an option, though, I’d certainly go for that!
I read you during my lunch hour. When I’m eating. Just giving you my schedule so you’ll know next time to leave out the guts talk. Thanks!
You might have wanted to skip that discussion about cat barf, then.
“It’s kinda too bad that they’re going back, because they’ve certainly got personality.” I got a Pulp Fiction vibe off this, but I’m not sure if that’s what you intended. Cracks me up none the less.
That’s because I’m a bad motherfucker. That’s right.
With regard to the roosters, does each one have his own wimmin or is it a share and share alike thing?
Let me take a moment here to say that it was just yesterday that I was looking back through entries from a year ago and LITERALLY we had thirteen chickens this time last year, and they were all living in the small coop in a corner of the back yard, spending their days wandering around our back yard and pooping it up. We have gone from thirteen to 80-something in a year.
I expect that this time next year, the chickens will be living in the house, and Fred and the cats and I will be living in the little chicken coop.
But to answer your question, as far as I can tell, the roosters don’t each have their own wimmin, they appear to share, and they all seem fairly happy about the arrangement.
Help! I want to escape with my honey for a one night get away, somewhere not too far to drive. Any suggestions? (hotels or just locations appreciated.)
The only things that come immediately to mind: a trip to Nashville (stay in the Opryland Hotel!) or I’ve always thought that staying overnight at a B&B in Hartselle and then spending the next morning walking up and down the little main strip of antique stores would be neat. Or a trip to the Ocoee in Ducktown, Tennessee is not too far away, and the river is very neat – though on second thought, I wouldn’t recommend it this time of year, maybe in the Spring or Fall. Oh, and I hear there are cabins on top of Monte Sano in Huntsville that you can rent, I bet it’s pretty (though you might want to go further from home than that!).
How about it, North Alabamans? Got suggestions for a one night get-away?
I gotta say, I’ve never in my life heard about trying to “poke them back in.” It’s a simple surgery to fix them, but eh….why bother… Much easier to just buy them without. FWIW though, there were a few 4-H hogs last year with hernias. They made it up to weight just fine apparently.
Fred actually called around to vets to see how much it would cost to have the hernias fixed. Without anesthesia, $35 each. With anesthesia, $75 each. We were appalled – “Without anesthesia? Are you SERIOUS?!” Fred talked to his sister, who said that she was pretty sure that they’d do a local anesthesia on the pigs FOR GOD’S SAKE THEY’RE NOT BARBARIANS. So we were all “Hmmm. $35 per pig isn’t a bad price, that’d be $17 per person! We should totally do that!” Fred called the vet to make sure they’d do a local.
No local. That area is hard to block. They – the vet SAID THIS – strap the pig down, put in ear plugs, and start cutting.
JAYSUS.
I remember awhile back you were talking about how cold you were. Well, I am in the same boat right now–I’m currently down 48 pounds and I am just freezing–and no matter what I do, I can’t get warm. At work, I am practically sitting on top of my little space heater (because the building I work in is 100 years old and heat apparently wasn’t invented back then). Driving to and from work–well, anytime I am in the car really–the seat heater is on high and the temperature is turned up to 90. When I’m home, the thermostat is turned up, I’m wearing 8 layers of clothes, including socks AND slippers, and I’m wrapped up like a burrito in my Slanket. What did you do to get (and stay) warm??????
Part of my problem at that point was that I was on a beta blocker (for an irregular heartbeat caused by a murmur). Once I went off that, I didn’t have the problem nearly as much. I’m still cold more often than Fred is, but I think that’s fairly normal. To stay warm, I dress in layers. I have the space heater on all the freakin’ time (it’s like three inches from my legs right now), but I have to say that the one thing I’ve purchased that makes ALL the difference for me, especially when I’m on the couch in front of the TV, is a heated throw. It’s just an electric blanket, only smaller, and when I get under that baby and turn it up on high, the fact that the front room is 59 degrees (TRUE STORY, despite the fact that the damn heat is running ALL THE TIME) doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I love my heated throw. LOVE IT.
Readers, got any warming suggestions?
Rumba and Samba seem to both be completely sneeze-and-sniffles free. I’m going to call later today and make an appointment for their spaying/ id chipping/ rabies shots.
I always feel sorry for the kittens when they have to be carted off to the vet and be spayed or neutered. I know it’s for the best, but they’re always so scared!
I’ll just tell them we’re going for a FUN RIDE and there’ll be toys and nice people to pet them! Think they’ll fall for that?
More kitten pics over at L&H.
Brudderly love, still goin’ on. Tommy is clearly thrilled about it.
Previously
2008: I am 40 years old, and I started SWEATING because I was SO WORRIED that the doctor would YELL AT ME about gaining weight ON MY OWN BODY.
2007: (DON’T JUDGE ME)
2006: I’ve been watching a lot of TV lately.
2005: No entry.
2004: And then Fictional Woman and Fictional Child share an Isn’t he DISGUSTING? look, and bid each other goodnight.
2003: Taking a nap looks like a good idea.
2002: I decide who’s King Shit of Turd Mountain, y’all, and don’t forget it.
2001: Everyone enjoys a good fart story!
2000: No entry.