Busy Week

I should be working on the house, and did do a little earlier, but I ran out of gas pretty early. Thursday was a very long, very busy day for me, and yesterday was just as long and busy. Ah'm tarred. Ah well, I'll have a little nap in a bit, and do some more work in the kitchen later. I'll prime some smaller areas in the kitchen - areas I can easily block off overnight - before bed tonight, and paint those same areas before bed tomorrow. That'll leave just the open area in the center, and if I play my cards right I'll be able to get that primed Tuesday night before bed, painted Wednesday night before bed, and the whole kitchen second-coated Thursday night before bed, and then the kitchen floor will be done.

Beau, Bailey, and Max were neutered on Thursday, and Beau and Bailey went to join Roux in their new home on Thursday night. Their new mom couldn't remember 'Roux' (Roo), so she's been calling him 'Boo'. So now she has Boo, Beau, and Bailey. I did a home visit for Rose the Cavalier on Thursday afternoon, and both Rose and I liked the family. She's going to be spayed Monday, and her new mom will pick her up at the clinic and take her home from there. She'll have a 2-year old Boxer mix sister, and a pair of gentle, well-behaved children to dote on her. It's a lovely home in a lovely neighborhood, with people who are experienced in dealing with shy/timid dogs. I think she'll do very well there. Parchesi the boggle puppy and Ernie the Shih Tzu are also going to the s/n clinic on Monday, and Parchesi will be going to her new home the end of the week.

Yesterday I went up to my mom's early in the afternoon, to escort her to a doctor's appointment. From there we went to the Ace Hardware store nearby, to look at and collect some paint color strips. Ace has a paint called Sensations that has Scotchguard in it. Even marks like crayon wash off with just soapy water. I think it'll be much easier to keep clean than most flat paints, so that's what I'm going to use on all the walls and trim. I spent several hours over the past week playing with color combinations of wall, trim, and floor paint. (I've used Valspar porch and floor paint in the half bath and kitchen, but I think I'm going to be using Behr floor paint in the rest of the house. The Behr paint just seems a little more colorful, and I like the color choices, too.) I think I've chosen the colors for the half bath - the floor is a color called Chinaberry, a kind of medium dusty rose. (Remember Teaberry gum? It's that color!) I've picked a pastel greenish-teal for the walls and a medium tone of the same color for the trim. (Mom says "I don't know about using a different color on the trim..... won't it look funny? Do people do that?" Yes, mom, they do, and no, it doesn't look funny!)

I'm still not 100% set on the colors for the rest of the house, but as of now I'm looking at a wine color for the floor in the bedroom, a pale robin's egg blue for the walls, and trim that's a dusty pink just a shade lighter than the half-bath floor. The half bath is accessed through the bedroom, and the bedroom trim (and the bedroom side of the pocket door to the half bath) being close to the same color as the bathroom floor should help tie the two rooms together and make the whole space seem a little larger. For the living room/dining room I'm looking at a medium-pastel peach for the walls. It's a nice bright color without being garish, and should help warm/illuminate the living room, which only has one large window and has a tendency to be a little dark. I'm playing around with trim and floor colors, but I'm looking at a floor in a medium sea-green (like the crayon, but darker), or a medium or darker teal, and a trim in a medium-pastel shade of the same color. I'm going to do all the walls in the living room and the north and south walls of the dining room the same color, but I'm going to do the east and west walls of the dining room and their trim in reverse of the way they are in the living room and the north and south walls. The peach walls (and trim) in the dining room will blend harmoniously into the darker peach floor in the kitchen.

I'm still not sure what I want to do about the family room, either. It's a very dark room, the only natural light comes from the sliding door which opens onto the covered patio. It faces south which would ordinarily provide quite a bit of light, but there's a big pine on the east side of the patio that blocks the light in the morning, and the house blocks it from the west in the afternoon. It's a cold room, too, except when I'm using the wood stove, because there is no HVAC ductwork to that room. I'd love to use a nice, bright peachy-yellow on the walls, something that'll both light and warm the room. Whatever I use in there will also go on the walls in the hallway leading to it, and has to harmonize with the ceramic tile on the floor in the hallway; it's got some peach and bluish-grey tones in it. I want something on the family room floor that's not going to make every single little muddy footprint clearly visible so I don't have to mop it every time dogs come in, but I don't want to use anything really dark in there, either. Behr makes some really bright floor paint colors - orange, sunshine yellow, primary blue, grass green, primary red. I'm thinking about maybe doing the family room floor a medium-light bluish-grey, and getting pints of some of the bright colors and using them to "splatter" or drizzle over the grey. It would add color without being overwhelming, and I think it'll also make doggy footprints less noticeable. I've got a couple of wood shelves/bookcases I'd like to put in there; they need to be sanded down and painted first, and I could use the leftover bright floor paint to do the shelves with. That would give me more bright, but not overwhelming, color in there.

Anyway, after checking out paint we went back to Mom's. I got the ham in the oven, then gave Daisy a bath, combed her out, and clipped her nails. While she was air-drying, I got the asparagus, carrots, rice mixture, and baby portobello mushrooms ready to start cooking when it was time. Then I gave Daisy a haircut. I finished her just in time to start cooking the rest of the stuff for dinner. We had a Pepperidge Farm frozen lemon cake for dessert. I didn't get home until about 10. My brother called while I was there, he's going up tomorrow to take her out to lunch and she wants me to come too, but unless I wake up early tomorrow bursting with energy - and I doubt that'll happen - I think I'll skip it. I've got too much I want to get done here, and a busy day on Monday.

Blizz is OK, she only had two small wounds that have healed without needing any more attention than initial cleaning with hydrogen peroxide. I kept her and Ten separated through Monday, but then I let him go out in the yard with her. I stood inside and watched them through the window for a while, and since everything was copacetic I went about doing what I had to do and kept checking on them every15 minutes or so. At one point I looked out and they were lying on the grass a few feet apart, just hanging out and napping on and off. I know that Blizzard would not go and lie down by Ten, he has to have been the one to go lie down by her. They've been fine together since. Actually, it's been unusually peaceful out there since Lumi hasn't been out in the yard with the other big dogs.

Lumi is healing well. It's not pretty, but he's healing. I've kept him and Ten separated for the last two weeks. I let Lumi and Blizzard out together for a few minutes first thing in the morning along with Tansy, Penny, Dudley, Sparky, and usually Chu-Chu and Ginger (the Papillon, fka Pittypat). I leave the gate from the patio to the yard open, anyone who wants to go out into the yard can go, then I close the gate behind them. Then I let Lumi, Penny, Dudley, Sparky and Chooch back into the patio as they come back to the gate, and then bring them all inside. Then I put Ten, Nellie, and Spot out in the big yard, then the rest of the little dogs out in the patio. Once everyone was out this morning and the yard was "locked", I let Lumi back out onto the patio with the little dogs. (I have a panel from a big wire crate attached to the bottom half of the patio gate. It extends past the gate on the latch side, and I use a snap bolt to fasten the extended end to the fence on the other side of the gate post, once the gate is closed. Not only does this prevent small dogs from wriggling through the gap there and into the big yard, it prevents the dogs in the big yard from getting the gate open and getting into the patio to rearrange the furniture, up-end tables, chew on the hose, etc. Except it doesn't keep Nellie out, she just climbs the gate and jumps into the patio. Little stinker.) Lumi and Ten greeted each other through the fence. They each seemed happy to see the other, there was no tension in their postures, and both tails were doing relaxed, scooping, happy wags, instead of sharp, on-alert waving.

It looks like this is going to be easier to manage than I thought it was going to be. The last time I had to keep dogs separated - Eiger had to be kept away from both Blizzard and Lumi - an instant attack was certain. But with Ten and Lumi, if I slip up they wind up in the same space together accidentally, I think the risk of an instant conflict is probably pretty low. I think they'll probably be able to be together for a few hours out in the yard again, too, at least occasionally if not on a regular basis. I'll just have to make sure they come into the house separately, Lumi first and crated before I let Ten in.

Ten's been his usual sweet self, and he's been extra compliant and well-behaved too. I'm less stressed about him than I was a week ago, and much more hopeful that his recent behavior is due to transitioning from adolescence into adulthood, and that I can manage it and work through it with him. I'll have to be ultra-vigilant and consistent, and he's going to have to prove he's worthy before I'll trust him again, so it's going to take time and work. But I'm feeling much more optomistic about the whole situation.

My brakes are a little funky. There's either air in the brake line, or the master cylinder's going. I hope it's just air, the master cylinder was replaced 2.5 years ago and really shouldn't need to be replaced again. (It's not under warranty any more.) If it's the master cylinder, there goes the check - which should arrive this coming week - for this term's Monday night obedience class. I had other plans for that money. *sigh*