Cemeteries

Keri Lynn stayed home to get a good jump on her school work and Keva is at her school, so I had just five with me on a little trip to Wal-Mart this morning. I needed fabric softener, steam vac cleaning solution, diapers for my bed wetters, trash bags and paint supplies. When you're going for a lot of odds and ends like that, it's nice to go to a Super Wal-Mart.

I'm planning to get some painting done, first in the hallways to cover up all of the little kid finger prints and then in the main rooms. It will be good practice to start in the hallways -- simple, smaller surface. I'm looking forward to making some headway with my color scheme. I've still got to make a stop at Sherwin Williams for some paint. Details, details. Keith wants to make sure I get a really good quality paint that only requires one coat and will fight off all of those little hand and fingerprints. At least we're finally past the wall art stage so I don't have any cute little pictures in markers or crayons to cover up!

On Saturday, Kody pooped in the dining room twice and living room once -- all in the course of a morning. He had not done ANYTHING at all in the house for two weeks that we'd brought him up from the basement and then all of a sudden he was a poop making machine. I was so mad! So I got the steam cleaner out and cleaned up the mess -- this was after I'd already done all of the living room and dining room rugs after he'd turned into the vomit comet earlier last week. I went on to clean all of the rugs and emptied out a filthy tank eight times. (Thus the need for more steam cleaning solution.)

I go between loving that dog as if he were one of my kids to thinking that we ought to trade him in for a 10-year-old sweet submissive dog. He's all fire and feistiness. If he gets too excited, he's nipping the kids and jumping and barking like a rabid wolf. But then I come after him with a newspaper roll and he's cowering under the breakfast table all sweetness and humility.

Kylie went with me on the last "kid" walk, and she wanted to know if she was going to have to go to the cemetery on Sunday.

"Cemetery, Kylie?" I asked quizzically, "Oh! You mean SANCTUARY!"

"Yep," she said, wondering why I was laughing.

"Well, maybe some sanctuaries ARE cemeteries, Sweetie," I said, "But our's isn't!"

Whenever I tease her, she always says, "Mo-om!" in teen-like mortification.

Kylie continues to improve on her reading. She plodded through her American Girls book because she wanted to be like Kathleen who reads one series a week. But the problem was that she was struggling through and not enjoying the actual read. I was impressed with her tenacity, though. She was going to finish that book if it was the last thing she did, setting her goal to read two pages a day. However, when she did finish, she announced to me that she wouldn't read any more American Girl books for a while. So I got her a Barbie book and a Princess book for her night time reading, and she told me the next morning that she had read AND understood them and enjoyed them. Once she gets a little bit faster in her reading, she'll be reading through those American Girl books just like Kathleen.

Keri Lynn will be going for her next orthodontist appointment in California tomorrow. Ah, the life of the jet set. : ) We're aiming for a one day trip -- she'll be leaving here early in the morning and getting into California probably about 8:00ish and then taking an afternoon flight back home. The whole idea of letting her have some time to spend with friends and family hasn't worked out as I'd thought because it's just simply too much time away from school.

A group of Mexican guys came to work on our fence on Saturday. They put up the posts all along the road and into the back a little. So far, I think, it looks really nice. It will block any view of our backyard, so potential buyers can skip the mud slides, hay bales and kids' toys from our yard and go on to make happy purchases in Phase II. Now the cement that holds the posts has to cure a little. Next Saturday, they'll come and start hammering the fence together. We'll also be putting in our maple trees along the fence, too. I think it will look really nice and the trees will help the land not to slide so much in the rain.