Day-by-day dog

That's what Crystal is right now. Her foster "dad," M, and I are taking it day by day. He isn't going to boot her out the door on Friday (a good thing, since I have nowhere for her to go and two rescue organizations have said they can't help), but he hasn't said he's ready for her to live there forever, either.

Although he did say she has been "the perfect dog" thus far, in the time she's spent at his house.

So I'm praying for continuing perfection.

***
In other news:

- Lovely Niece's husband (who still doesn't have a blog name, but that doesn't mean I don't love him) landed a job at a national home improvement retail chain (not the orange one). He had three--three--interviews for the part-time position. He later learned that he was chosen from among 150 applicants for that one non-seasonal position. If that's what he's been up against this past year and a half, no wonder it took so long to land a job! The better news is that even though it's part-time, he does qualify for benefits. Lovely Niece doesn't get university benefits during her internship year, which begins soon, so having another source for health insurance will be especially helpful. *sigh of relief*

- We began work on the master bathroom walls. Ugh. We have a 7-foot-long mirror in there above the vanity. It's going to have to come out of there soon, and I don't know where to put it while it's down. Also, we want both bathrooms functional next time we have visitors (in just a couple of weeks), so we're going to have to watch our timing.

- Speaking of timing, the dogs know what time it is. Breakfast time. Off to fill their bowls.

Oh, the days, they pass.

And here I am on the downhill side of February.

- Under deadline at work. I have until Wednesday 4 p.m. for a deadline that's normally Friday at 10 a.m. But I feel as though today I triumphed. I drafted the big article that all the church nerds will want to read. The rest of the words will come (a few column-inches at a time). And for help with making it pretty, I'll turn to the can-do-anything communications assistant across the hall. So tonight, instead of trying to write more of that stuff for which they pay me, I'm blogging.
- Last year it didn't bother me that I wasn't going, but this year I'm trying not to envy the folks going on the Big Event 4.0. The first two were lovely. Perhaps in year five...
- We bought Angus and Tuesday their first bag of "vibrant maturity" chow. The Boy will be 7 in April. The bag says for dogs 7+. He's no more vibrant than he was before, but then again, he's a pretty vibrant little guy. Tuesday is older, we have always guessed, but her vibrancy isn't in question, either. I just keep thinking that at this age with Cub, we were beginning our losing battle with liver disease.
- My Dear Sweet College Friend of The Jacuzzi Incident of 2010 is having her c-section in the morning. (Yes, that was the "life got a little more complicated" reference near the beginning of that post.) Deadline, schmeadline, I'll be making a run to the hospital for a visit.
- We haven't done anything to the interior of House Two since we painted the guest room and office. What remains paint-wise is in the master suite. I told The Alpha he can go ahead and buy the bedroom paint, but I haven't yet made up my mind color in the bathroom.
- When we finish the bathroom walls, we can pay someone to have the whole-house interior trim painted. It's still not enough motivation to get me to choose a color.
- Lovely Niece defended her dissertation last week. It was a breeze, with professors arguing with each other instead of asking her difficult questions. She really impressed them, as we knew she would.
- Our first trip back to Texas since we moved is coming up soon. I'm sure that will stir up a bunch of feelings and crap. Oy.
- Time for bed. Tomorrow is one of those crazy mornings in which The Alpha has a long commute and we all get up well before the sun figures out what's happening.

Year in review

We've accomplished tons of stuff during this last week of 2010. (Some might even call us Responsibility Champions.) Both of us have the week off, and we have used it to do lots more unpacking, grout sealing, relative visiting, errand running, furniture and decor arranging, and the like.

One of the things I moved out of the garage today and into its proper place on the wall next to The Alpha's side of the bed was a shelf his dad made. It's a simple but elegant shelf, 16 inches wide -- perfect for mounting into two studs -- and the finish matches our bedroom furniture very well. At the old house, it held a piece of comic art, as well as three dog collars: Cub's puppy collar, Cub's grown-up collar, and Angus' baby collar (well, he was already a year old, but still -- after a few months he broke it and we got him a bigger one).

Moving is a great time to examine what you put where, and why. I figured that really, the comic book art was probably more suited to our office (i.e., third bedroom with no bed), so I grabbed a framed family photo to hang above the collar shelf. I'm not sure what year it was taken, but it was before Angus came along, so probably 2003. We were a family of three, with eight legs among us, instead of the six many humans would assume of a three-member family.

In this photo, Cub has barely any gray in her muzzle; only the kind that can be ascribed to her normal coloring, not to her age. Her right ear turns down at the tip, as it did for about the first half of her life, giving her a more distinctive (and endearing) look than a purebred dog would have. We are all smiling, all in the prime of life.

Just after I'd hung the shelf, The Alpha walked in, so I caught him up on my work in progress. He loved the idea of having that particular picture above the collars. He totally got it (one of many reasons why I love him so dang much).

So he drove the nail while I added a wire to the back of the frame. We hung up the portrait, and he arranged the collars with Cub's grown-up collar in the center, tags dangling off the front of the shelf. And I burst into tears.

Cub has been gone almost two years. It doesn't matter that she's a dog and not a human. She's family, and she's gone. And I will always miss her.

Which brings me to the year-in-review part of this post. At an appropriate point after my crying jag had ended, The Alpha and I reminded ourselves of what wonderful dogs we do have with us now. And he pointed out something very true: If Cub had still been around, we never could have taken in foster dogs. This time last year, I had jumped straight into the deep end of animal rescue and come up with Homer the Pit Bull, who was saved from being euthanized because I was able to pick him up at the shelter and hang onto him for a few days. He now lives in the Temple area.

Next came Foster (now Amos, making his home with a retired clergy couple in Dallas). After that, we had our smallest foster dog, a 20-pounder named Ralph, but who we called Little Bittle (he's now known as Teddy, and "good for absolutely nothing except being petted," according to his very pleased people).

And during the freaky Texas snowstorm, I braved bridges and overpasses to pick up Dustin (now Dusty -- adopted by my friend Cherrie, who officially designated me his fairy dogmother). Then there were the last two, Crystal and Poohbert. Crystal is still Crystal, but Poohbert, who lives by the lake, has become Puddles, so named for her love of water. Both are doing well; I've received emails from both of their families within the past week.

So, as dog years go, it was a pretty darn good one for us. Not an easy one, by any means, but a rewarding one. No, we couldn't have done it with Cub around, but you know what? We couldn't have done it without her, either. She made our household what it is.

Someday, we will be settled enough here in the new place that we will be able to help another dog or two. And Cub will still be one big reason why we can.

Before and During

The following photos aren't that great, but for those who asked to see, they should give you the gist of what's currently going on at the new (to us) Manor.

First off, if you haven't seen this over on teh Facey Spaces, here's the first thing I removed from the house after I signed the papers and got the key:

It's still in the garage, because I kinda hope I get invited to a white elephant gift exchange this Christmas.

Okay, on to some more stuff.

Here's the back hallway, facing toward the front of the house. The door in front of you is the garage; the door in front of it is the open door of an oddly-placed closet. Oh, well, at least we have storage. To the left is the laundry closet (I wouldn't call it a room because you can't actually walk into it, but it's big enough for the washer and dryer and a couple more things). To the right is the master bedroom. Behind the camera is the bedroom we're using as the study/office/whatever. Guest room and hallway bath are around the corner to the left.

Here's the breakfast area. It's maybe halfway finished. No, I take that back. Only the floor is finished. But we still have to seal the grout, so technically, none of it is finished. We must also rid it of the rest of the wallpaper, paint it with the same tan and red we used in our old house, and replace the light fixture.

Here's the dining area (three walls and an open view of the living area, so not technically its own room). Two walls painted the same red as our old dining room. Third wall painted the same tan as our old kitchen and the lower part of our old dining room. Though it doesn't show up in the photo, the light fixture is the hard-wired oval paper lantern we had in the old house (new owners let us take it). The doorway you see leads to the breakfast area off the kitchen (pictured above).

More kitchen-in-progress. The cabinets have already been stripped and re-painted white, but the pinkish wallpaper has yet to go. The countertops left today. Granite countertop installation happens Friday. Dishwasher installation should happen before that; stove installation after; and a new, deeper sink at the same time as the granite.

Also, we discovered our fridge, the pretty one we bought last year during the Kitchen Remodel of Aught-Nine, is too wide for the space in this new kitchen. Craptastic! We have to buy a new fridge, and hopefully sell the year-old one at a decent return. Plus, we made a little money off the previous owners' fridge, which they didn't care to take with them. (We have sold a number of such things on that list, by that guy. You know the one.)

I'm feeling way over-consumed. We aren't going into debt to do any of this, but I don't like buying so much stuff.

Which is one of the reasons why we're going to endure the master bathroom's current condition a bit longer...

Yeah, let me give you a close-up of that wallpaper pattern. Notice the sheen of stripes? As if the other wasn't enough.

Impromptu contest: Leave a description of this wallpaper, or perhaps a story of the pattern's origin, in the comments. Best answer gets a prize. I'll figure out what the prize is while I'm unpacking. Which should happen some time before Christmas. Maybe.

Because I miss my blog.

And I miss reading other people's blogs, too. Between my work duties and our mad rush at home improvement since the move, blogging has fallen even further down the list of priorities. True, FB helps me keep up with many of the same people, but not in such a significant way as reading regular blog entries would. Most of us face similar situations these days, it seems.

So, a list. I do lists well.

- The kitchen cabinets are now nicely painted (instead of crappily painted like they were when we moved in), and the wood-look tile we loved having in our old house now makes up our living/dining/kitchen floors.
- We still haven't moved into those three rooms. We want to get some other stuff done first (like grout sealing, doing away with the kitchen wallpaper, installing countertops and appliances). Lots of stuff in the garage; cars don't fit.
- The dogs seem to be adjusting. The first week we were here, I actually splurged for 3 days of doggy day care because workmen were at the house all day and I didn't really know if the dogs understood that the backyard belongs to them. Now they seem to get it, though.

- We did get our guest room arranged, and have already hosted overnight guests: my sister, bro-in-law, and their two dogs.

- The Alpha is driving a 65-mile commute each way, three days a week. He's really hoping to back that down by a day or two within the next few months. His two work-from-home days per week are going well.
- Tonight I'm planning to texture the walls in the hallway bathroom. We have a to-do list a mile long, but we're chipping away at it, bit by bit.
- New flooring in the hallway should happen this weekend.
- Work we've had done: kitchen and hallway cabinets and fireplace mantel professionally painted with oil-base enamel; tile laid in three rooms; new HVAC system in the process of installation (furnace complete; a/c on Friday); burglar alarm installation.
- Work we've done ourselves: three ceiling fans installed; wallpaper stripped from hallway bath; blinds installed in living room; old stove and dishwasher removed and sold; dining room lighting from old house installed (brass chandelier taken down and donated to cool urban church plant -- they'll spray-paint it yellow to hang it in their space); and a number of other tiny things.
- And now it's time for me to leave for work. 'bye now.