Watch Out Virginia

Erin came home yesterday. She has decided she wants to live in Virginia again, having run out of boys in Florida I guess. She gave her 2 weeks notice at a job she had held FOR A WHOLE YEAR and will be starting over here. She says that living with us is just temporary. That’s fine. It’s what parents should do…...right? So the plan is that she’ll look for a job, save up some money, and then move out.
It will be a bit of an adjustment, but she’s an easy keeper for the most part. And because she lived on her own (with roommates) for awhile, she’s apparently acquired this strange habit of keeping her abode clean. MY DAUGHTER? She asked me where the cleaning supplies are (hahahaha) and said she’d be doing some housework during the day. She even said she now sees the necessity of cleaning baseboards because that’s where all the dust settles. I think at that point in the conversation my jaw was probably on the floor. I told her she wouldn’t hurt my feelings at all if she wanted to tidy up the place. With 6 dogs and 3 cats in the house, things get dirty and dusty and I can’t keep up. Not that I was ever a good housekeeper even when we didn’t have animals. I just never learned the art of keeping a clean house.
She mentioned she wanted to paint her room, and at that point Andre walked out of the computer room and said “I thought this was going to be temporary.” I think he’s a little worried.
Welcome Home Erin.

We're not in D.C. anymore, Toto....

We were getting ready to drive down to the Montpelier trial a few weekends ago and pulled into the local gas station to fill up the truck with diesel. I went in to prepay while Andre was at the pump. As I was leaving, a guy shouts out, “Your husband a coon hunter?” I wasn’t sure who he was talking to, but I turned around and sure enough he was looking at me. I said “Um, no.” Then he said he saw the dog box in the truck bed and said, “Yeah, he didn’t look familiar to me.” I told him what we did with our dogs and he had a blank stare just like I guess I did when he said he was a coon hunter. (Why do people hunt raccoons? What kind of dogs do they use? Do raccoons taste good?) I guess the coon hunters and the sheepdog people both use dog boxes.
Again, another moment we would never have experienced if we still lived near D.C. (and instead live pretty dang close to West Virginia.)

http://www.diamonddeluxe.com/aluminum_dog_boxes.html
(We have the O-Style.)

Men are from Mars AND Venus

Andre is a High School History teacher. He told his class that when he was a student and was bored with a lecture, he could tune out for a bit, listening to every fourth word or so. He could then rest his brain a bit and still retain and understand most of what was being discussed when he tuned back in. He told them that he uses that same technique with his wife. He got a good laugh from that…..from his students, not me.
So last night I was reading in bed and mentioned to him that I had gone to Target during lunch and they had reading glasses AND cases on sale for $1 so I stocked up and bought a few. I realized he was just nodding at my story so I quizzed him about what I had just said. “Ummm, you went…somewhere…..and bought……something???”. Okay, so it wasn’t the most exciting conversation, but he needs to perfect his technique and at least pick up on the important nouns! I can’t get mad. I completely tune him out when I’m watching The Hills and he starts talking to me just when LC and Audrina are having one of their deep conversations about……oh yeah, they never talk about anything important and as a 51 year old woman, I should not be watching that show anyway!

Everyone is a critic

Last night I had the song Instant Karma in my head (it's on my IPOD) and was singing it while getting ready to go to bed. Heather had jumped up on our bed, acting like she belonged there and maybe we wouldn't notice her and she'd get a night of being a very special border collie who gets to sleep with her humans. But that doesn't happen in our house because Andre and I LIKE OUR SPACE IN OUR KING SIZED BED.
Anyway, as I was singing, she was lying on the bed, wagging her tail like a good little music critic suck up. It didn't matter that I couldn't remember the words or that I was out of tune. But then Andre comes in and says "You are scaring me". I asked him if it was because I sounded eerily like John Lennon. He said "Ummm, no". Guess I should keep my day job after all.