The youngest dog got a haircut today. Desperately needed, he was starting to look like the love child of a rastafarian dust mop and a gordian knot. So Liz sat down, shortened up his leash, and had at it with the scissors, electric trimmer and shop vac.

At some point the goofy mutt took a snap at the scissors as Liz worked, and got his tongue cut. Bled like hell for a while, and he drove Liz crazy as he wanted to give himself a bath, leaving himself a bloody mess.

That was all done and over with by the time I got home, or so we thought. As I cooked dinner, I looked down at the dogs and saw Trix sitting there in a puddle of smeared blood, one paw looking half chewed off. Once again, his "bath" opened the wound and he recreated the "bucket at the prom" scene from Carrie.

We've got brand new carpet in the house, remember?

I snatched him up like a football and scrubbed like hell with a dishrag to clean him up as best I could. Then I took him upstairs into Liz's sewing room where he doesn't mind hanging out, is gated to keep the rabbit in, and has old carpet on the floor.

When he kisses you, he smells like blood.

Posted by: Ted at 07:14 PM | category: Square Pegs
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On Sunday morning I "winterized" the front yard, which included the season's last mow and edging and cleaning up the flowerbeds. I also harvested the last of the veggies that we grew this year as an experiment.

Folks, this is the last harvest from *one* tomato plant, *one* cherry tomato plant (grown in a flowerpot), and *one* jalepeno pepper plant. We probably got close to 200 tomatoes from that one plant, and I did nothing more than water it fairly regularly. No fertilizer, no insecticide, nada. As such, I estimate the loss rate to hungry bugs and stuff to be around 40%, and when I picked a tomato and found it to be unsuitable for the table, I dropped it on the ground as bait/decoy and eventual fertilizer.

Figure a hundred each from the cherry tomato and jalepeno plants, and it was a bountiful year around here, and the neighbors enjoyed it too.

Still, come Spring I'm planting boxwoods. The HOA was on my case about the veggies in the front yard, and the garden was a whole lot more work than a few small shrubs. Oh well, it was fun (and tasty) while it lasted.

Posted by: Ted at 05:08 PM | category: Square Pegs
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It has been a whirlwind of life around here lately.

Liz has had to take a leave of absence from work. She still cannot drive, let alone work, so we have become a one-income family again. We've been seeing many specialists, and they've ruled out a lot of really scary things that might have happened. We still don't have an answer - which is frustrating - but they've been introducing new medications (slowly, always slowly) and adjusting current ones, looking for that magic combination that will bring her back to normal. Or as close as possible anyway.

At work, we've had the fiscal year thing happening. Working in a finance-related field, you can imagine that it's been chock-full o' adventure and happenstance.

The home remodel is 95% complete. It's down to details, details, details. On Monday the floor people come out to figure out how they're going to fix the kitchen floor, because they botched the job. It's going to have to be redone, and they accept that, but unless better prep-work is done correctly, it'll just happen again.

Some touchup painting needs to be redone, some finishing trim installed, and of course lots of putting stuff away. I've been cooking like crazy this weekend (yay! finally!!!), and it's all harder because I don't know where anything is. As I get used to the new layout I won't have to hunt down the stuff I need, I'll just instinctively turn to it. We like it very very muchly though.

The new carpet and furniture is beautiful. The living room has looked like a cemetary all weekend because it's Fall Break at Rachael's school, so she brought some friends home with her (hence the cooking spree), and they're sleeping en masse in the living room. Yes, I'm living "Standard Male Fantasy #11 - House Full of College Girls".

I'm about three weeks away from being able to slow down, but I've gotten into a nice groove about things, so instead of being hectic and frantic I just stay steadily occupied from 4am (when I wake up for work) until 8pm or so (when I decide the day is done and unwind for a bit before bed).

Pictures of the house to come.

Posted by: Ted at 07:25 AM | category: Square Pegs
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Just been insanely busy. Maybe this weekend, if not before.

Posted by: Ted at 07:48 PM | category: Square Pegs
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After yesterday's accomplishments, today I fixed a leaky drain in the upstairs bathroom sink, put half the basement back together and removed the old toilet in the downstairs bath so the floor guys could do their thing.

Mike, the friend that helped with the laundry sink yesterday, bought a new pickup.

Posted by: Ted at 06:00 PM | category: Square Pegs
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No dreams this time. I got up to close windows because it's raining and damn near tore a toe off kicking a box sitting along the upstairs hallway. That's way exagerated of course, because nothing is broken and no blood is leaking, but it's still throbbing and I'm pissed off.

What's with the freaking rain, anyway? All week long we heard about how beautiful the weekend was going to be. It drizzled much of yesterday and now rain overnight. Stupid weatherman.

Look at me, I'm a whiny little bitch.

Posted by: Ted at 05:12 AM | category: Square Pegs
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