My good friend Fall

10 REASONS WHY I'M GLAD IT'S

1 Cooler temps = Less sweating and Less bad hair days

2 Mosquitoes are on their way out.  My blood is mosquitolicious!  

3  Halloween.  I may or may not wear a costume this year but the boys and the Darling wieners will be sporting theirs.  Plus, this little town does Halloween up right.  They break out the fire truck and block off Main Street.  It's big doings.  

4 Pumpkin patches..  There's just something I find irresistible about a big ole display of orange pumpkins.

5 TV is back!

6 North Carolina is at its finest in the Fall.



7  Cute jackets, boots and hats.

8 Kids are back in school so I'm not playing referee all.day.long.

9 My oh-so-comfy sweat pants and yoga pants are back!  No, I don't wear them out and about but I practically live in them at home when the weather is cool. 

10 Scarecrows. Because while I found the tin man the perfect gentleman and that lion endearing, I've always been a Team Scarecrow girl at heart. 

        

Happy Fall! (I want to add "Y'all" here real bad but I'm refraining) 

This post was written in response to Mama Kat's writer's worshop prompt number 5. Ten reasons why you're glad it's fall.

Week in Review on a Post It Note

    





Click on this post it for more Post It Note Tuesday with That One Mom!

It's complicated

It's a teacher work day here today and it's raining which is awesome since it hasn't rained here in forever and ever but it also means that the demolition duo and I are stuck in the house all.day.long.  So far, so good.  I give it about another hour.

We got a Sam's Club membership Saturday and the Dracenator has now proclaimed Sam's to be his absolute favorite store in the whole wide world.  "They have the biggest chair I've ever seen and the biggest Coke slushie in the world!"

The chair was one of those folding arm chairs that we like to take to little league and soccer games, only this one looked like it was made for an 800 pound gorilla.  I do not lie.  And to make it appear even larger, it was sitting up high so that we had to peer up into the heavens to get a good look at it.  WTH?  WHO would need this thing and WHERE?  Just...WTH?!

Apparently the marketing team over at Sam's Club know what they're doing because both boys were going on and on about this chair as we made our way back across the parking lot with our oversized loot.  Devin, as he slurped down his oversized Big Gulp slushie that he was so kind to not only purchase for himself but for his brother as well, went so far as to say that he wants one of those chairs for Christmas.

This boy who would spend 24-7 playing games on the computer if we allowed him to and who is impossible to impress, is excited about a chair?!  We explained to him that he would need some sort of cart with a motor to haul this thing out to the ball field.

He still wants the chair.

And the cart too.

Apparently he's all cool with complicating things though the Dracenator, on the other hand, informed us one afternoon last week that he is not.

He was doing his math homework last week when I found a math paper crinkled up in the bottom of his book bag that was completed on one side and the teacher had written on it to complete the other side.  We told him he needed to do that once he finished his math sheet he was working on.

He was already aggravated that he was being forced into this cruel child labor called math homework so he looks up from his paper and says to Charlie with all the 7 year old infinite wisdom he could muster,

"Now you are just trying to complicate my life!" 

Ba Ha Ha Haaa!!! 

Happy Monday!

Just Call me Blondie

I finished my blog post yesterday, tore myself away from reading other blogs and got my happy butt all ready to go to zumba...

Water bottle? Check.
Crackberry? Check. 
Sunglasses? Check.
Purse? Check.
Make sure the door's locked? Check.
Keys? huh? what?  NO!  Noooo!!!  S@&*#!!!!!

Phone conversation:
Charlie:  Hello? 
me:  Hey.  Ummm..where are you?
Charlie: I'm almost to the office (the "office" is about 50 minutes from the house)
me:  S@*#! I've locked myself out of the house!!  And I KNOW I locked all the doors. I'm sure of it. And I never got around to giving anyone else a key to the house. (we moved in April)
Charlie: turning around.  Be there in about 45 minutes!

I hang up the phone and decide to go around and just double check the glass doors on the deck.  Holy Crap!  The one to the kitchen is unlocked.  YES!!!  YES!!! 

I walk in, close the door behind me.  Lock it.  Grab the crackberry and start dialing Charlie back as I'm making my way back to the garage door...talking to him, telling him it's all cool...he can turn around and head back toward the office...Careful, Careful, the door's up...don't let Brisco "Bolter" Darling out...okay.  Good.  Back in the garage, the doors are all locked.  Get in the car...I can still make it in time...there's time.

OMG!!!  YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW!!!  Deep breaths, Deeeep Breaths!!!!!!!!

Yes. Yes, I did just walk back out of the house, lock ALL the doors this time and leave my keys hanging right on that hook beside the door.   

Phone conversation:
Charlie: Hello?
me: You are going to have to commit me!
Charlie:  Why?  What's wrong?
Diane: I JUST WALKED BACK OUT OF THE HOUSE WITHOUT MY KEYS!!!!  I LOCKED THEM ALLLL THIS TIME.. FOR SURE!

{about 5 awkward seconds of silence...}



Charlie:  And you're sure you locked the door?
Diane:  YES!!  I'M SURE!  I'M SUCH AN IDIOT!  WHAT  THE EFF IS WRONG WITH ME?!!! 
Charlie:  Bless your heart.  I'm turning back around.

I spent the next 45 minutes pacing, working out with my old pair of hand weights I found in the garage, sweating (cause it was 90 degrees!) cussing, pacing some more, checking my crackberry and making the dogs bark like mad by peering in the window at them. 

Thank God for an understanding, compassionate husband who never once reinforced my insistence that I was completely LOSING my mind as he so gallantly rescued me from my blonde moment of the year. 

The Barker and The Bolter

Mama Kat's writing prompts for the week:

1.) In the book I’m reading,Girls of Tender Age,the main character is deeply affected by the murder of a childhood friend. Describe a tragedy you didn't expect to be as deeply affected by as you are.

2.) Tell us about a day you were sure you wouldn’t get through.

3.) A time when you should have listened to your mother.

4.) Your pets least likable character trait.

5.) 10 Reasons why you love your job.

Y'all know I love my dogs so I couldn't resist another chance to write about the two little hounds again so I went with number 4, my pets' least likable character traits. 

We adopted them 11 months ago from a dachshund rescue group, DRNA.

Brisco "Big Boy" Darling and his sidekick, Charlene "Li'l Bit" Darling...

Li'l Bit is a priss pot. She likes, or at least tolerates, my dressing her up like the little girl I never had and she refuses to go out and do her bizness in the rain and she has a bad habit of peeing in the floor or on my person when she gets overly excited that I have returned from the great big world on the other side of the door.

Her least likable character trait? This would be her high pitched bark that she often uses to express herself...


Hey, look at me! I'm NOT little! I'm NOT! Hey...YOU! The boy that lives here, that I see every single day, that just walked in from the other room...Yes, I know I know you but I'm barking like a manic fool anyway!!! ARF! ARF! arf...arf...arf..arf arf!

Why in the H. E. double hockey sticks she insists on barking when someone, anyone, re-enters a room is a complete and total mystery to me.

Now let's talk about Mr. Darling. He's a Lover. That little wiener loves every.single.person. he meets and I feel quite sure he would be perfectly okay with a burglar walking up in our home and taking everything we own as long as they gave him a belly rub and an ear scratch.

He LOVES to be outside because I think that he believes, deep down in his little wiener heart, that one of these days, if he just sits out there in the backyard long enough that one of those squirrels will surrender itself to him.

He has a fondness for red dirt and for getting it all over his little paws and tracking it all over the house and on the furniture and on my white pants...

But his LEAST likable character trait is one that I find complete and utter INSANITY! We were forewarned by his foster family that he is a bolter.

Yep. A BOLTER!

They did not lie.

He's got it made here. I mean, come on! I would want me as a dog mom if I were a dog. He's loved, petted often, sleeps in the big bed with us, is fed the special dog food, gets to ride in the car to take the boy people to school every morning, has his own big backyard with a great big fence put up just for him. That wiener hit the wiener dog jackpot when he landed here.

But he CANNOT RESIST an open door to the world outside the fence. If the front doorbell rings I'm all... "WAIT! WAIT! Where's Brisco? Let me get Brisco before you open that door! "

People. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that he runs faster than Speedy Gonzalez on a six pack of Red Bull and a bottle of speed if he sees an opportunity.

Every single one of us has chased that crazy wiener through the woods, through briars, through poison oak and ivy and a cold creek and the good Lord knows what else.

For the Love of God!  WHAT is he running for?  WHO is he running for? I mean, you'd think he just dug his way out of Alcatraz with a posse of 10 armed men and a pack of wild wolves on his trail. 

And did I mention the shedding? 
Ahhh...For the Love of Dogs....

Heavenly Coins

I don't usually post twice in one day but I just couldn't wait to write about what I found today or about what found me, depending on how you see it. 

I'm sure we've all heard that old, old song (or at least heard of it),
Pennies from Heaven. I mentioned, in one of my very first blog posts, Everyday Magic, that I wrote back in March about how I began opening my awareness to things I considered signs back when I was battling grief brought on by the loss of my first husband.  

Every coin I found I had to pick up and check the date on to see if the year on it was of some significance to me.  I still do that to this day.  I absolutely cannot pick up a coin without checking the date.  

I also mentioned in that post  about how the day after my beloved dog of 14 years, Dixie, who I wrote about today (on the one year anniversary of her death), I found a coin in the laundry room that was dated 1995, the year she came into my life.

Sure, you could say it was just a coincidence but sometimes you just feel that you are in the midst of something spiritual and magical.  Because it sweeps you up and brings your soul to the surface of your skin giving you an overwhelming sense of certainty and "knowing" that there is a God and that He is always with you and at work in your life.  

Losing Dixie was hard and extremely painful for me as she was my constant companion for so very long.  I'm sure anyone who has lost a beloved pet can relate to this.  I cried myself to sleep many nights and still have dreams about her from time to time. 

So, it was not surprising that the one year anniversary of her death brought a lot of emotion to the surface for me.

When I woke up this morning, I felt something stuck to my arm but I'm always extremely groggy and out of sorts in the mornings so I brushed it off, couldn't make my eyes focus enough to see where it went or what it was, rolled outta bed and forgot all about it.   

While I was cleaning house today, I found two pennies in two separate rooms and places.  The date on both of them was 1995.
When I finally got my butt around to making up the bed this afternoon, guess what I found right in the middle of the bed? 

A dime (the unknown thing that was stuck to my arm this morning).  And guess what the date on that dime was? 

Yep. 

1995. 

My heart is still smiling.  :)

Remembering Dixie

She could be an outright bitch at times and very spiteful if she felt slighted. 

She once peed on my bed because I came home smelling of another.

She bit on more than one occasion.  Most all of us in the family have a little scar to remember her by.  It was usually because she thought you were going to take one of her stuffed toys away from her or ( heaven forbid!), some treat she had found and knew she was not allowed to have.  

She, especially in her later years, passed some gas that would burn the hairs out of your nostrils.

She sometimes scared little kids, and even some grown ups too, with her surprisingly loud voice.

But she could put a smile on my face like no other...

She was a long haired Dachshund named Dixie Dog who came into my life in the Fall of 1995.  

She loved to ride in the car.  The destination never mattered.  It was all about the journey.

She could sing with the best of them (but only if I howled along) and she loved opening presents about as much as she loved riding in the car and could never resist a basket full of clothes or a balloon.

She was there by my side, with worry in her soft brown eyes, when I went into labor with my first baby boy in 1999.

She was there outside the nursery room door, waiting patiently, as I nursed and rocked him to sleep at night.

She was there in the summer of 2003 when we brought our second  baby boy home, and again that December  when we were struck with tragedy and grief at the loss of our family member, my first husband.                   

And she was there 9 months later when our little buddy Dexter Dog (another dachsie we got in 2001)  got sick and eventually died after a 4 night stay in an animal hospital.

She never left my side for all those days and nights that I cried tears of grief into her fur.

She was there as I began to smile again, laugh again and live again.  Each and every time I came back through the door, whether I had been gone for one week or one hour.  Always with so much elated excitement that I felt like the most important and loved human being on the planet. 

She accepted my new husband, though not without some reservations at first. (He has the scar to prove it!)  Though in her defense, he did get dangerously close to her favorite blue baby. 

She was my best friend for 14 years and not a day has gone by in the past year since her death that I have not thought of her with a smile or a tear.

She is the reason why I am, and forever will be, a Dachshund Lover.




Remembering Dixie Dog

(August 31, 1995 ~ September 21, 2009)


To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace. ~Milan Kundera


Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened. ~Anatole France
 
 
 

Friday Finds of the Week

" Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful"

 ~William Morris

I've been thinking of bringing back Fancy Fridays but I just haven't had the time or energy to surf the web for cute fanciful things.  Okay, I probably could have found the time and the energy but I just chose to expend it on other things, like watching Hoarders and Hoarding:Buried Alive. I know.  I know. I've mentioned these crazy shows like umpteen gazillion times in my blog lately but seriously, that's some CRAZY SHEET!

And  I discovered a new behavioral disorder show last week on TLC, Freaky Eaters.  There was a woman on there who absolutely could not bring herself to eat anything other than french fries.  A grown woman.  With a daughter.  WTH?  The therapists tried to get her to take itty bitty baby steps by starting out with fries that had been colored with food coloring and she was sniffling and squirming like they were trying to get her to eat a tarantula sandwich. 

I'm telling you, there is nothing better for validating your own sanity than watching some of these shows. 

Seriously though, I have been busy at lots of other important mom stuff and house stuff.  I lived in a 1000 square foot house for 13 years so I've been kinda like a little kid playing house since we moved  in April.  My MIL put it like this, "You feel like you've been set free, don't you"?  Yes. Yes, that is exactly how I feel!    

I've developed an almost obsessive fondness for all things vintage or antique and Charlie and I have been spending our Wednesday date days visiting nearby towns to scope out different antique shops.  

So... I have decided to begin sharing with y'all each Friday my best find(s) of the week.  

I am absolutely in love with this old vintage wicker chair that I was told most likely dates back to the 30s.  I was shocked at how sturdy it still is.  I love the weathered look of it.  It is sitting on the front porch and all it needs now is a cute little cushion.  Oh, and the very best part about this sweet little treasure?  The price tag.  25 bucks! Gotta love that.

I think I mentioned the old rotary phone I found a few weeks ago but I swear, I am still giddy over that phone.  Who would have ever thought, back in the day, that I would one day see what was an everyday phone then, as such a precious treasure now?  It takes me back to my childhood every time I dial it or hear it ring...Ahh...Sweet Nostalgia....

And this picture I'm about to show you is not old but it makes me so happy.  I can't look at it without smiling.  In addition to our antique shop hopping, we popped into a Marshall's Home Goods store. That was my first time in one and if you haven't been, ya need to go! 

I saw this picture and was smitten beyond words.  To know me, is to know my love for Dachshunds, (especially longhaired ones) and my love for shoes and the color RED.   The little silhouette of the longhaired dacshie in this picture is the spitting image of my precious Dixie Dog, who was my baby for 14 years.  I lost her to congestive heart failure a year ago next week so finding this, to me, was like a gift from her.  It hangs in my red bathroom...