My House To-Do List

This is mainly for my own organizational sanity, but this is the list of "stuff" I want to do to the house over the course of the time we live here. If I had a ton of money right now, I would do it all now, but this list will take many years to accomplish, I'm sure. It's in no particular order, but here it is:

*Hardwood or laminate cherry wood floors throughout the entire carpeted portion of the downstairs

*Tile in all three bathrooms, the utility room, and kitchen

*Rugs for the dining room, family room, and office

*Paint: All walls a suede brown with a cranberry accent wall in the family room (the fireplace wall) and the same color in the downstairs bath. The upstairs spare bedrooms will be painted a sage green (as of right now) and the guest bath will be a similar color or a slate grey/blue. Maybe a light blue/grey in the master bedroom.

*New fireplace insert with a blower (by next winter)

*Air conditioning (by summertime)

*New hot water heater (this will happen in the next month)

*New deck in the back with an overhang

*Patio furniture and gas BBQ

*Shelving in the laundry room

*Downstairs bath (besides paint and flooring): new vanity, new mirror, white storage accessories

*Kitchen (besides paint and flooring): countertops (granite or the concrete composite that looks like granite), new table, baker's rack, new light fixture

*New lighting: kitchen, all three bathrooms, dining room, entry

*Living room: brown leather chair, stain bookcase, game table

*Doors: change knobs to silver or brushed nickel handles

*Master bedroom: new fan, bedside tables (these should be in by February), door to bathroom

*Office/library: Nick's grandfather's desk

*Upstairs bathrooms: paint, countertops, tile floors, sinks, lights (guest bath: shower curtain and accessories)

*General decorating: paintings, pictures, window treatments

Yeah, it's a lot and I know it's all going to cost us an arm and a leg. I will also be doing a lot of research to make sure that anything we spend money on will add to the value of our house so that we can re-coup that money when we do sell. We got a great deal on our house and we know that, especially since two other houses in our neighborhood are for sale for $20,000 and $30,000 more than we spent on this place. I would like to see an appreciation of at least $60,000 when we sell in 10 years or so and upgrade to a newer house on property (hopefully!). I really, really love being a homeowner! HGTV is my new best friend and it's also standing in as the devil since it keeps giving me new ideas and inspirations . . .

Peanut butter and . . . sap?

So Nick and I invited a couple of friends over for dinner tomorrow, so I've been straightening up the house a little bit while Nick is at work tonight. I was doing dishes when Gus went to the door and sat down (his code for let me out or I'll pee on the carpet). I let him out and he ran into the yard. He didn't come back to the door right away, so I left him outside for a little while, figuring he had found something to entertain himself. Boy was I right.

When I called him to come in, Gus barreled through the door and ran to his bed where his toys are. As I went over to throw his toy I smelled the unmistakable smell of pine sap. Oh boy. Gus had created a bed of sticks in our backyard and then proceeded to lay in it. All fine and dandy until I looked at his tummy and saw massive clumps of sap ALL OVER HIS STOMACH! He had a huge mass of sap and pine needles in his little armpit as well. I'm sitting there looking at him and wondering how the hell I'm going to clean him up and he's looking at me with a dumb puppy grin on his face like, "What Mom? I smell goooood!"

At this point I have sap all over my hands. I went to the sink to wash it off and guess what? It doesn't come off with soap or dishwashing liquid. The one lovely chemical that did take it off was bleach water. Fun times! Now my fingers are cracked and smell like bleach and Gus is still running around covered in sap. I briefly contemplated dipping him in bleach (not really, I'm not stupid . . . or evil), but decided to try my good friend google instead. The apparent answer to my question? Peanut butter.

So I get my jar of peanut butter and a roll of paper towels and I plop Gus down on his bed in the family room on his back. A wadded up paper towel works pretty well for getting globs of peanut butter onto globs of sap. At first I thought I was crazy. I mean, here I am sitting in my family room in sweats with a paper towel and puppy covered in pine-scented peanut butter. And Gus is happy as a clam attacking my peanut butter-covered hand and licking his stomach as I'm smearing the paste all over him. Crazy got worse when I started laughing at the ludicrousness of the situation and couldn't stop. Turns out that laughter is an important component of the peanut butter and sap equation. I rubbed in enough of the stuff (probably about half a cup or more) to make the stickiness go away. Now the question: how do I get the peanut butter off? And a more important question: How I keep my house from getting covered in peanut butter as I try to get it off the dog?

Answer: A bath and carry puppy-peanut-butter mess so I'm the only thing covered in it besides him. I drag him up the stairs along with a large cup, dog shampoo (smells like coconut!), and towels. He's not happy at this point. I won't let him lick himself and he just got a bath, so he is adamant that he doesn't need another one. (His face said, "Mom, I'll just lick it off! Really!") I finally get the tub filled and shampoo him up. Turns out peanut butter and coconut don't smell very good when paired. However, dog shampoo does get peanut butter out of a dog's coat. One thing it doesn't do is help me to stop laughing, which I haven't been able to do since crazy set in. Gus's super sad no-more-yummy-tasty-goop-on-me face wasn't helping. I was actually crying at this point and my stomach hurt from laughing so much.

Now my upstairs guest bath is a mess and Gus is having his typical tweak attack after a bath and guess where he wants to go? Outside. To play in his sap nest. My answer:

HELL NO! (And I'm still laughing!)

. . . And who knew about the multiple uses of the magical thing called peanut butter? With Gus being, well Gus, I better keep a couple jars on hand . . .

Pennies from the litterbox?

I don't know how many of you have heard about the concept of pennies from heaven. The idea is that when you find a penny on the ground or in some other random place, it is a lost loved one making his or her presence known to you. My mom and I love this concept and are always finding pennies and attributing them to the people we love who have passed on, like my Grandpa Harvey and my Nana. It's like they are saying hi and it's comforting in some small way.

Now for the other, slightly unpleasant, part of my story. Our cat, Budda, is a pooper. Seriously. He loves to poop, but he doesn't poop in his designated space: the litterbox. Before Gus, it was only the occasional poo right outside the litterbox in the utility room, where there is linoleum and it wasn't a big deal to clean up. Unfortunately, the advent of Gus apparently ticked Budda off. One day it was poo in the dining room and then again a few days later. Then it was a poo in the office/library when my parents were over. Then a few days ago it was a pile in the hallway outside the upstairs guest bath. That was the last straw. I was so frustrated and was ready to send Budda packing back to my parents house. My fear was that Gus would find the poo before me and I'd have a brown-smeared grin from my little peanut and a stinky kiss from a poo-tongue. No thanks.

Mom and I have discussed options when it comes to Budda's poo issue. If it was medical (ie diabetes or something) that we could treat, we would. However, if it wasn't medical and it continued, there was little we felt we could do. Budda is 12 and we can't have him pooing around the house and he can't go outside because he's declawed. My frustration, anger, and hurt made the bathroom poo the final strike and I was putting all his stuff together to take him back to my parents when Nick convinced me to give him one more chance. We love Budda and he's a part of our family, so I decided not to give up yet. Nick had been suggesting we take the lid off the litterbox to see if that helped him with his poo issue. I had no faith that it would help anything, but I agreed that that was the very last thing we could try before Budda found himself back at Mom and Dad's. Off came the lid and to bed Nick and I went.

Morning. The smell of poo wafts through the house. I wake up angry and upset and run through the upstairs and then the downstairs searching for the telltale pile of poo while yelling at Budda that he is dead and telling him what horrible tortures I am going to apply to his raunchy inappropriate-pooing butt. Then I can't find the poo. And I have images of it being in some crazy place that I can't see or reach to clean up like on top of the fridge or something. I'm wondering if he's managed to squeeze his butt under the couch to poo there when I decide to check his *gasp* litterbox. And lo and behold, there it was! Poo in the litterbox! It wasn't covered, which explained the smell, but that was an easy fix. (I kicked the box to shift the litter over it. Hey, it was early and I wasn't in the mood to clean it yet. Question: is anyone ever in the mood to clean a litterbox? That's one to ponder.)

Now, I bet you're wondering what the heck do pennies from heaven and Budda's poo issue have to do with one another. And no, Budda didn't poo a penny from one of our dear departed loved ones into his box. That would have been a neat trick! However, when I left the utility room, there on the floor right by our couch in the family room was a penny. Nick and I had been up until almost 5am and no one had been there on the floor. I also cleaned up the family room right before we went to bed and there was no penny. It just appeared and I am firmly convinced that it was my Nana. She must have guided Budda to the litterbox because she didn't want us to give up on him. It sounds crazy, but I have no doubts that it was my Nana. (And P.S. Budda has since pooed in the box for a second time and we've had no accidents, knock on wood. Thanks for the help Nana!)

Don't judge. When you miss someone as much as we miss Nana, you tend to see that person where and when you need to. She makes her presence known and it's important to us to be open to it. This post was meant to be humorous, but the penny part made me and Mom cry. She was there and that makes me feel happy and comforted. Budda's poo issue resolved by a penny from heaven.

Anniversaries

I was informed via email from The Knot today that it is officially 2 months since Nick and I were married (the second time). In all reality, we've really been married 3 and a half months, but it seems like so much longer (in a good way).

We survived Christmas and all four of the celebrations we attended, which were all so much fun and non-tense, a nice change from Christmases past. We got some great presents from family on both sides, including tools from my dad, which we would have never asked for, but were the perfect gift. This is amazing coming from him, as he did the shopping by himself this year, without Mom's supervision. He even got her a gorgeous sweater from Macy's that I went and bought in another color. He's growing up! Nick's mom got us cookbooks (YAY!), some great bakeware, and she embroidered 4 sets of dish towels for our kitchen. We both feel very blessed after this year. I also found the perfect gift for my mom. I did a photo collage of Jack with special sayings, some about dogs and some that I felt Jack would say if he could have talked. (If you're not an animal person, this sounds crazy, but . . . it's just the way we are.) I cried while making it and Mom cried when she opened it. She's told me a number of times now that it is the best present she's ever gotten. When Jack passed, she took it very hard and I'd like to think that this bunch of pictures and messages helps her just a little bit.

Christmas was great, but I'm glad it's all over. Now I'm taking a break from taking down our Christmas tree. Nick informed me that it needed to stay up the full 12 days of Christmas, which means that today was the day I was allowed to make it go away. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas and the lights and merriment, and when it's over, it's always a little depressing (especially when everyone in our neighborhood took down their lights-it was so pretty seeing almost every house lit up!), but it's time to have my living room back. My only problem at this point: I had such a hard time getting the tree up that I was pretty ticked by the time I was tightening it in the base and apparently I had some super-human strength or something because I cannot get it undone. Hmm. So I'm waiting for Nick to get up so he can (hopefully) loosen it.

In other news, we finally had our bedroom set delivered. We bought it from The Old Cannery on December 5th, and all the pieces were in stock except the nightstands, which were supposed to be in the following week, so we decided to wait to have it delivered until all the pieces were in. However, when we called on it the next week, we were informed that the nightstands wouldn't be in until the first week of January because they'd been backordered. On January 1st I called the Cannery and was told that no, it was actually going to be February. Well, I'd had enough, so we had them deliver all the pieces except the nightstands, which we'll have to pick up when they're in, and it looks beautiful in our room, although our new mattress isn't coming until next Thursday, so we're using our queen size on the king frame. It's been interesting. Something that was also interesting was the fact that I knew one of the movers. We had gone to PLU together and I hadn't seen him for something like 7 years. I opened the door and he was like, "Hey, I know you." Haha, small world!

One other "anniversary" was yesterday, which marked two weeks since we got Gus. It feels like we've always had him though. He makes life so much more fun and interesting!

Puppy=Baby

And baby is a full-time job! Since my childhood I've always had more than one dog at a time. I never realized just how much babysitting an older dog can do with a puppy. But Gus is an only child (at the moment) and wants Mommy to entertain and play with him all the time. I'm exhausted! But it's so completely worth it!

Nick worked a 12-hour shift last night and didn't get home until a little after 6 this morning, so Gus and I have been trying to be quiet all morning (actually, I've been trying to keep Gus quiet all morning). Now Gus has taken to running around the back yard and lying in the grass to chew on sticks. Last night I realized that he had some sap on his belly, so I thought I'd give him a bath this morning. HA! The bath went okay, he was actually pretty calm, but the aftermath . . . that was a different story. It was like there was crack in the bath water! He spent the next half hour freaking out, running around the house like a bat out of hell, attacking Budda, and jumping on me. It was so hilarious! So next time I bathe him, I'm going to videotape the aftermath. The best part is right now: his fuzzy, fluffy butt is passed out on the couch, curled up in a blanket. I am so in love with this little guy!

He was my New Year's date this year as well. Nick worked his regular (6pm-2am) shift, so Gus and I rang in the New Year in our very raucous neighborhood. They lit off fireworks on the street behind us until 1 in the morning. Not such a big deal except for the fact that it terrified Gus. He refused to go outside at all, however, seemed fine once in the house with the door closed. I knew he had to go poop though and was watching him closely. At one point he ran into the hallway and started to hunch, so I yelled no and ran outside with him. Poor thing was so scared and kept running around the deck, but I kept telling him it was okay and I wasn't going to let him in until he went poop. I think he was either desperate or understood me somehow because he finally went out in the yard, turned in a circle and did his business then streaked for the door to be let in. We've had so few accidents and I think for a 9-week old puppy he's incredibly smart and a quick learner. He knows to go to the door when he has to go potty, he just doesn't always make it in time. I need to teach him to scratch at the door so I know he's there. The next job: crate training. That's going to be interesting . . .

In other news: Nick has the next three days off, so we're finally going to have some time to spend together. With all the holidays and Nick working a crazy amount of overtime, it feels like I never get to see him. We're going to drop Gus off with my parents today and then we're going shopping for a new mattress and I think we might also have lunch or something together. Tomorrow Nick's parents are coming over to exchange gifts, so I have to spend some time straightening the house up and Nick is going to put together the rest of my bookcases for the library/office. And Monday is a do-nothing day. This probably doesn't sound very exciting to most people, but it means a lot of quality time spent with my husband, so I'm happy.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and will have a wonderful New Year!

Countdown!

Nick and I have started the countdown to puppy time (and a much more messy house)! Gus will be coming home with us on December 23rd, just in time for Christmas. We're very excited and I thought I'd share a couple of the photos Diana (his mommy/breeder) has sent us.

This is one of Gus at about 5 weeks. This was on one of the really cold nights we had about a week ago when they brought the puppies in and did individual photos for all the future owners.

And this one is Gus this weekend at 6 weeks. They had a very successful trip to the vet in which all the babies were healthy and growing at a great pace. The vet was apparently very impressed with their temperament and attitudes. They are very gentle and sweet as a whole litter. Now Gus weighed in at 8.6 pounds, which was right in the middle. Most of the babies were between 7 and 9.5 pounds, however, one little porker, a female named Paisley, came in at a whopping 11.6 pounds. She's a bit of a butterball, but also so cute!

We are really looking forward to adding to our little family. With Nick gone at night, it gets a little lonely around here sometimes and I know that Gus is going to keep me very busy. Nick and I were over at my parents a couple days ago and Mom produced a huge bag of puppy toys she's already bought for Gus. I know this is going to be one spoiled dog, and it makes me think about babies and how ridiculously spoiled they will be too! Gus is just practice.

For anyone who isn't an animal lover, my posts about our new "baby" Gus may seem over the top. However, in my family animals are family, so seeing him as a member of the Pritchetts isn't strange to us. My parents' first "child" was a springer spaniel named Tucker and he was a uniting force for them in hard times. I truly believe that receiving the undying and unconditional love of a pet makes it easier and more rewarding to love others in return. Nick and I love our Budda cat and are really excited for another being to love in this house. Babies to come soon too, but not too soon!

Furniture and poop

I think we've found it. We've only spent the last three days shopping for the perfect couch, loveseat, and bedroom set, so we better be ready to buy by tomorrow! There is one more sale we want to check out tomorrow morning, but if that doesn't pan out, we'll be heading to a store in Tacoma for our new furniture. I'll post photos when we are sure of what we're getting, but the sets we've picked out are gorgeous! I'm so excited to actually have a dresser so I can stop diving into the giant clothes boxes that have been housing my tees, undies, and socks. The other day I had Nick dump one of the boxes out on the floor so I could find one stupid brown tee. I was just going to leave the pile on the floor for easier access, but then Nick pointed out that the pile of clothes looked exactly like the nest of blankets that Budda is so fond of on the couch. I can just imagine coming home and finding orange and white cat hair all over an entire pile of clean clothes. I feel the temper tantrum coming on as I write this . . .

And speaking of Budda . . . So, many of our friends know that Budda has an issue with pooping outside his litter box. It's like he's unaware that his little butt is hanging out of the box because his front feet are in when he does this (usually), but he is pooping on the floor right in front of the box. It's not an every day thing, but he will also do this when he's mad. Like if I haven't fed him yet or if his box is too dirty. He has an attitude, what can I say? Well, the other day Nick and I kicked him out of the room so we could have some "alone time," and apparently Budda didn't appreciate that. He's used to having run of the house and considers our bedroom his, especially if we are in it. I knew he'd be mad, so after the stuff *ahem* I went downstairs to find him and bring him back in the room. I walked into the utility room and there he was pooping in the middle of the floor. He had food and I had just cleaned his box an hour or two before. He did it because he was pissed that we kicked him out of the room (apparently he's a bit of a voyeur). Nick was so mad! I thought it was pretty funny, especially after we rock, paper, scissored to figure out who had to clean it up and Nick lost. Hehe.

And to change the subject completely--some good news: We're hoping to go see Gus either tomorrow or Sunday. He's five weeks old now! I'm so excited for our new baby!