Baby Chewbacca

This is Kaylyn's new puppy, Chewbacca.  He's a Pomeranian and they got him to be a little friend for Emme, the teacup puppy they got last autumn.  He was named as such because he kind of looks like that character on Star Wars.  He's being called "Chewy" for short.

Baby Chewy visited this old house for the first time last night and I didn't get much done for wanting to hold  and play with him.  He is just precious!  If we ever get a puppy he's the kind I want.

After playing and pooping on the newspaper we put down for him he ended up sleeping on the sofa with Bob for about two hours...you know, because the IU game was too terrible to watch.

I don't know if he weighs even a pound yet. He's mostly fur and just like all puppies he is curious and kind of scared big, ole 11 pound Lucas.  Yes, our fat cat ran from the puppy!  It was quite funny.

March Madness Begins



The 1899 University of Kansas basketball team

We've completed our brackets here at this old house!  Bob and Robbie have IU winning it all and I had to go with Louisville.  It's going to be a difficult few weeks having to cheer that team on but if I want to win some money that's what I'll have to do.  ha ha!  I also picked a kind-of long shot, New Mexico to be in the Final Four.  We'll see how that goes.

I didn't spend as much time working on bracketology research this year due to being sick-as-a-dog over the weekend.  I started with symptoms of a cold this time last week but thought I was getting better by last Friday.  Well, later that night I started in with sneezing, sniffling and blowing my nose every 10 minutes and it only got worse as the weekend wore on.  I slept on the sofa on Friday night and moved up to our room on Saturday at noon and stayed there until I went to work on Monday morning.  I felt so awful that I just laid there and didn't even turn on the tv until Saturday night, and then on Sunday I had 101 temp so didn't watch tv again until that evening after I woke up when my fever broke.  I can handle just about any pain or discomfort but when I have a fever I can whine just like a man! 

Today I actually felt like a human being again and have spent most of this evening doing things around the house.  It's amazing how much better I feel now compared to 48 hours ago.  I'm still congested and stuffy but I think I'm gonna be fine.  I'm looking forward to yelling at the tv watching a lot of basketball games in the next few weeks!

Go KU!!!

And I Don't Even Like Radishes

I've been going to my massage therapist for orthopaedic massage and therapy for the past 4 months.  She's determined that she can make my plantar fascitis pain ease up without my having to get a cortisone injection from my doctor.  Make no mistake, I've not been spending $$ on a spa-type massage but she's been working on me from the lower back down with massage and stretching techniques because plantar fascitis is the result of multiple muscle issues that just rubbing on your foot and wearing those stupid orthotics is not going to heal.   Anyway, that's a whole 'nother issue I can discuss in another post.  She's certified in orthopaedic massage and has studied under Aaron Mattes (developer of Active Isolated Stretching)  and just got back from one of his seminars in Florida a few weeks ago. 

So that the hell does that have to do with radishes?  Well, I was at a session this past weekend and Anne, my therapist, was telling me about her garden. She and her family are country folk and grow everything. She knows all about gardening (she's a Master Gardener) and I was telling her about my little experimental herb garden and how I could not wait to get my hands in the dirt again this spring after being cooped up all winter.  She told me about lettuce and all kinds of other vegetables I could go ahead and plant now without any worry regarding the remaining cold days we still might have. 

She told me about this idea to use cinder blocks to grow certain vegetables and how the blocks would absorb any heat from the sun even on cold days and this is how she grows some of her lettuce when she starts her early garden.  Being all excited about the possibility of maybe having my own salad lettuce I decided to try it.  I spent 30 minutes choosing seed packets at Rural King and Bob helped me get a handful of blocks from Menard's.  Above is the start of the lettuce garden including some French Breakfast radishes because they are so pretty and looked like something Martha Stewart would grown in her garden.  They are cylindrical-shaped and very pretty!  If I don't like them maybe the rabbits will.  I have 4 more blocks and will fill those with more lettuce and radish seeds on the next day I can work outside.  I'll be planting my herb seeds in another month or so.

If you squint your eyes really good you can see a very skinny brown stick in the ground being supported by some bent garden stakes, shoestrings and painter's tape.  That is my 2013 Forestry Relocation program in the ground. ha ha!  I have another tree I rescued but it is growing weird and even though I don't like to kill trees, I don't think it would be a good specimen to plant.  The above tree was growing in my herb garden since last fall and I just hope I didn't damage the tap root too much when I dug it up and planted it in the backyard last weekend.  It does have some little nibs sprouting out of the trunk so we'll see if it lives and produces any leaves.  I'll do a post on all the trees I've saved later in the season after they get some leaves.

Custom Bookshelf

I'm kind of picky about some things so when I suggested we got a bookshelf to set up in the downstairs I knew I'd never find one just like I really wanted.  We also wanted something that would match the store purchased entertainment center we have downstairs and the handmade DVD shelf Bob built over the holidays. 

Since Bob has all these tools collecting in the garage we decided that he would build us the piece we wanted for the downstairs. Our garage has been a workshop all winter it seems.

Of course, the labor is free but buying good wood is not cheap!  We probably could've purchased a ready-made piece for what we spent on wood but it wouldn't have been the correct color or idea I had in my head. 

In our minds, we had this massive wall unit mapped out but after spending some time at Menard's piling up all the pieces we needed on the cart, we realized we'd need 4 adults to carry the finished piece inside.  We cut our idea back by about 1/3 in order to actually be able to move it (and save some money).

So, above are some of the pieces laid out on the garage floor.  This was the first day Bob started working on it last weekend.  The large area in the bottom will be two cabinets with an open area between to stash floor pillows.  Above that will be 6 shelves, all of different sizes.  The total size is about 73"h x 48"w.

More to come...