The Escape Artist.....

Keno hates squirrels big time. Basically he hates anything coming into our yard....birds and rabbits included. When he sees one of them he goes totally balistic. He gets this real high pitch bark that sometimes sounds like he's screaming...and he gets so excited! His whole little body trembles and shakes (I think that's the Chihuahua part of him coming out)and then he starts with this pitchy whine that evolves into this high pitch shrieky bark. Then he has to come find us and tell us. It's so funny. Even if I'm upstairs on the computer, he'll come flying up the stairs and starts shrieking/barking at me and wants me to follow him. So I have to act all excited cause he is telling me something and follow him back to the family room, where he proceeds to jump up at the window to show me. Then I have to say something like "It's a SQUIRREL!!", and he seems satisfied that I know what he's trying to show me. Then he runs to the door and demands that I let him out so he can go get the squirrel or whatever it is that's out there. I open the door and he runs like a bat out of hell and even tries to climb the tree that the squirrel is on. After awhile the squirrel goes away and he comes back in the house. Then he sits on the couch staring out the window for the next one to appear and it starts all over again. He does this allllllllll day. Searching for critters in our yard seems to be his purpose in life.

Anyway, he has figured out that he can squeeze through the pickets of our picket fence on that side of our yard. If it's just a squirrel that ends up in the neighbor's yard he seems somewhat content to just poke his head through, but I'm also yelling "NO FENCE KENO...KENO NO FENCE!!" at him and he usually backs off.

The other day there was a bunny in the yard and he went balistic as usual. I let him outside and the rabbit ran for his life with Keno fast behind him. The rabbit ran for the fence and easily slipped through. Even with me yelling, Keno paid no attention and went right through the fence after the rabbit. I had to go into my neighbor's yard screaming KENO and he just kept running after the rabbit into the other neighbor's yard (they have no fences). All our yards are super wet from all the melting snow and rain. My neighbor's yard is way worse than ours and has standing water in the back. So I was slopping through all this water chasing after Keno as Keno is chasing after the bunny. Finally he lost him and came to me.

Today he was barking and shrieking at a squirrel so I let him outside. The squirrel ran into the front yard where Keno couldn't get to. But we have this small wood fency thing that is between these two big wood fency things that faces the front. It's small so we can step over it if we want to get into the front from the backyard. Keno jumped up on it and pulled himself right over it! Then he ran for the squirrel. I jumped over it and ran after him. Luckily, he lost the squirrel and came to me.

Later a bunny was in the yard and Keno went nuts and wanted out but I told him "NOOOOOOO!!...You are NOT going after that bunny!" Cause I knew where the bunny would head and Keno would be right behind him.

He is a little escape artist. My husband already knows that he has to get some chicken wire and put it up in front of the picket fence to prevent him from slipping through. Now he has to do something with the small wood fency thing. We may have to build an entire 10' stockade fence to keep Keno in.

We never had this problem with Mini Sue or Lucky.

But then again, Mini Sue could care less about Squirrels or bunnies.
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Also today is my father's birthday. He would have been 82. He died when he was only 52.

Today is also my grandson's birthday. Jayden is 5. Happy Birthday, Jayden! It was so awesome that he was born on my father's birthday.

It's Caseville time again....

I've been packing up my jeep today with all my garage sale stuff that I'm taking up to Caseville. I plan on leaving by Thursday. I'm taking Mini Sue and little Keno for his first trip to Caseville. He gets nervous when he rides in cars, so I'm not going to stop anywhere along the way except for a quick pit stop. I know he is going to be scared and nervous being in a strange place. He'll probably think he is being shuffled off to another place just when he was getting use to and liking his new home here. I'm hoping that with Mini Sue there with him, he will begin to relax and check out his new digs and learn to like it. He'll be doing a lot of driving back and forth this summer. All my dogs have gotten use to it and he will too in time.

I have some outdoor work to do up there so I'm hoping that the weather will get better by the weekend. I'm not planning on staying very long on this trip. Get some things done, turn the heat off and be back by next week. Then I'll get back up there by the middle of May (with a last load of GS stuff) and stay through Memorial weekend when I'll have the sale. Caseville is having a city-wide garage sale that weekend so there will be tons of people up there. Then summer will finally begin....

I still have so much to do around here though. When I get back I need to rent a carpet cleaner and get my downstairs carpets done. I need to get my bathtub re-reglazed...then my bathroom will finally be totally done. We had it done about 12 years ago and it needs it again. I need to call this kitchen cabinet door guy and get him here and give us an estimate for replacing the doors.

We were hoping to get the driveway done before we start our summer Caseville stuff in May but the guy said that we would be better off to get it done later in the summer when the ground is much drier. We unfortunatly live in an area that has a high water level and he said that we would get better results if we waited. So we decided to wait until after summer....Sept/Oct.

I hate Spring weather. I don't know what to pack. Long sleeves, short sleeves, should I unpack my shorts?? I need to get back to working out....and I need to get back on my diet. My goal was to lose 10 pounds by summer and I think maybe I lost 2! I am so disgusted.

Late Night Visitors.....

I've talked about all the little mousies I have running around in my house. I hear them in the walls and attic sometimes. I use to see them running across the family room but Lucky was a real mouser and he would go nuts and sometimes catch them. He was better than a cat when it came to catching mice. He was pretty good at it. And he was good at hearing them and barking his head off at closet doors, kitchen cabinet doors, etc. But now that he is not here anymore, they are getting bold. The other night we were watching TV in the family room and I kept seeing this mouse running from behind the wall unit...across the carpet and down the hall somewhere, probably under the closet door. Then he'd run back to behind the wall unit and pretty soon I'd see him running across the carpet again towards the hallway. Mini Sue and Keno missed all the excitement. They had no clue. I told hubby that we have a mouse, and he's like "so what else is new".

I had clothes in my computer room closet that I was getting ready to give to the consignment store last week. I had this one dressy type outfit that I was going to iron and while I was ironing it, I noticed that it had a big round chewed out piece missing!...the size of a saucer. I know that a while back when I was tearing out the carpet I had found some blue fuzzy stuff that looked like it had been material and couldn't figure out where it came from....now I know...the outfit was mainly blue.

I have this open bag of M&M's in a bag that I'm going to take to Caseville sitting on my desk in my bedroom. I woke up last night and I could hear something rattling in the direction of my desk. It sounded like an M&M rolling around. Mini Sue and Keno didn't hear a thing....they slept through the whole thing. The rattling was keeping me awake. I knew it had to be a mouse and it sounded like he was playing a marble game with my M&M's. I finally fell back to sleep. Then I awoke again closer to dawn and I could hear more rattling again. It sounded like he was inside the bag. This time Keno heard it and barked. I got up quietly and turned on the light. I walked towards the desk and a mouse came out from behind this plastic basket that was sitting in the corner. He ran out and then ran back behind the basket. The dogs were fully awake and watching. Then he ran out and flew off the desk and landed on the area rug. He stood there for a second and then ran under my bed. I'm assuming that he probably headed for the closet...who knows. Mini Sue stuck her head under the bed and barked but I didn't see him come out. I took the dogs downstairs to put them outside and then we all just went back to bed. I took the M&M's out of my room for tonight. Hubby is suppose to find the mouse trap we use sometimes.

We had pizza yesterday and there were a few pieces of pizza left in the box sitting on the stove. Usually hubby puts the extra pieces in the fridge, but he didn't last night. I love cold pizza.....so I tore off 1/2 of a piece and was munching on it this morning when I walked into the family room. My husband looked at me weird and asked "Are you eating that pizza?" Yeah...so what? He asked me if I looked at the pizza cause he said that a mouse had gotten into it. YIKES! I went back and opened the box and sure enough...the two whole pieces I hadn't touched was chewed up on the tops. Of course, I had already eaten most of the piece I had. But the piece that I had torn off looked okay to me...what was left of it anyway. But I was gagging....YUK...I hadn't even noticed. I just opened the box, tore off a piece and scarfed it down. SICK, SICK, SICK.....DAMN MICE!!! Hubby better find those traps....

The problem is that I like mice. I use to have one as a pet...Fievel, the mouse. Had him for two years. I have mice figurines on my window sill in my kitchen. Anyway, the trap we use is a non-kill one....we catch them and put them back outside. But the problem is that they probably just run back into the house. So we may have to get serious and do some mice killing. Lucky use to do that for us...although we would usually yell at him when he did...but he at least kept the mice population down. Now they are taking over our house. I better not find one in my bed tonight.....

IT'S (almost) SHOWTIME!

Yesterday I decided to go to the movie theater and see that new movie out with Nicholas Cage "Knowing". Earlier in the day I scanned the movie section in the newspaper to see where and when it was being played. There are a few theaters in my area that I checked out. One started at 7:10 and there was another one starting more closer to 7:30. So I decided to go to the 7:10 show, thinking that the theater was also the closest one to me.

So I drive and get there shortly before 7:00 and told the young man that I wanted a ticket for "Knowing", whereas he stated that "Knowing" wasn't being played. I told him that he must be wrong cause I saw it in the paper and it starts at 7:10. He told me that I must have been reading an old paper. He said that their movies change every Friday. I thought maybe I might have been reading Thursdays paper. But he said that it hadn't been playing on Thursday either.

I asked him what other movies were playing then. He pointed to a sign. There was some monster/alien movie....a Hannah Montana movie...Observe & Report (which he said was a bit obscene) and Fast and Furious. I would have seen F&F but it didn't start until 8:30 and I really didn't want to hang around talking to this guy for another hour and a half. So I decided to go to the other show and catch the 7:30 show.

The other theater is down the road a ways at the Laurel Place Mall. I drove there and drove around and around that mall and did not see any damn theater. I finally parked my car and went in and walked from one end of the mall to the other and did not see any damn theater. So where the hell is the theater?? I have no clue. Although I could swear that a few years ago I went there to see a movie once. Well, I couldn't figure out where it was. It was 8:00 by this time.

I went home and popped in an older DVD movie and watched "Seabiscuit". Which turned out to be a pretty good movie. Guess I'll catch "Knowing" sometime in the future when it comes out on DVD.

I rechecked the movie listings and apparently the theater with the 7:10 showing was another theater which is the farthest from my house. I forgot about that one.

Bye Bye piles of S***

I have all these different accumulation or piles of STUFF in my house. I have piles of stuff for charity. I have piles of stuff to take up to the cottage for my garage sale. I have piles of stuff to take to the consignment store. And I have stuff I've been gathering for door prizes for my high school class reunion in September....as a committee member, I'm doing 'door prizes' among other things. I've had these different piles of stuff sitting everywhere and getting in my way and making my upstairs look junky again. Finally today I got rid of 2 of the piles! I boxed up the one pile and took it to the consignment store. These are things that I think I can do better selling there than at my garage sale. And I bagged up two big garbage bags of stuff and the Charity truck is picking it up tomorrow. Most of the door prizes stuff is packed in a big footlocker type thing I have and out of the way, but a few things are sitting in bags in the room....not too bad though. I'll be leaving for Caseville in a week or so, and then I can get all this garage sale crap out of here. And I'll be FREE of 'piles of stuff' for awhile...

Then I'll start accumulating piles again. Cause I'm on a mission to get rid of as much of my stuff as I can. When I get done there will be nothing in my drawers, nothing in my closets and nothing on the walls or on the tables!!! Well, maybe not that bad, but I am trying to downsize things and get rid of crap I don't need or want anymore. I've been getting together things that are related to my stepfather who passed away long before my mother did and then I'm going to box it up and send it to his son. I have some family things to send to my cousin out in Vegas. I have pictures to distribute to family members. I'm slowly working on it....
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So yesterday I gave blood. Red Cross has been calling and calling me for the past month so I decided to just go in and donate and get it over with. I'm good now for a few months. It's easy to do and doesn't take very long, but it's finding the time to do it....not enough days in the week sometimes.

Tomorrow I'm going to a girlfriends house. I have a lot of pictures I want to share with her before I send them off to my godson. She and I were both friends with his mother when we were young. It's been awhile since we've gotten together so it should be a fun day. We've known each other since 2nd grade! Where have all the years went????

That's about it....ciao til next time

IT'S EASTER BUNNY TIME......

......and chocolate bunnies and jelly beans and colored eggs time! What the hell does any of this have to do with Jesus rising from the dead after being nailed to a cross???

There is a pagan explanation, but I won't get into it.

Easter is one of my favorite holidays cause it's basically a boring holiday and I don't have to do much.

I bought a ham and some fixin's that I'll prepare for just the two of us.

I colored some eggs tonight and even hid them around the house.

Then tomorrow morning I'll get up and find them.

I figure as long as I can still find them, then my mind is still good! So it's kind of a test. When I can't find them, then I know I'm in trouble.

The kids won't stop over cause they never do and I don't expect them to cause I don't invite them anyway.

Cause if I did, they wouldn't stop over anyway.

So I don't....

So hubby and I will eat our ham and cheesy potatoes and beans and cole slaw and cherry pie and watch TV with MiniSue and Keno.

I wonder if Kohl's is open tomorrow???

I'M DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today was my last day of work! I got my last check and my bonus check. So I'm on vacation now until next February.....ain't life grand?

I drove out to my cousin's in Tecumseh yesterday and we had a nice day visiting and we went out to eat at this really neat western-type restaurant. Lots of John Wayne pictures and cowboy boots and hats on the walls, etc. We hit a consignment store and I bought this sunflower wooden thing to put outside. There is a small lake there and we went driving by the houses and picking up brocures of ones that are for sale. It's a nice little town.

After work, I did some shopping and I'll do the rest tomorrow. I'm going to buy a spiral ham from Kroger's. I bought one there last Xmas and it was better than the HoneyBaked ones as far as I'm concerned...and cheaper.

I got a couple DVD movies to watch. Tonight we watched "Stepbrothers", which was about these two moronic adult-boys. And I thought that the movie was a bit moronic as well. I guess it had it's moments, but a lot of it was stupid and I sure wouldn't watch it again. Tomorrow we'll watch "Vacancy 2". The first "Vacancy" was good, so I suppose this one will suck, but I'm hoping it will be good.

I've got Charity picking up stuff on Wednesday so I've been going through my clothes and getting rid of more stuff. I've been buying some new summer tops and I want to get rid of some of my old crap. And I'm tossing more of my jeans that DON'T FIT. I got this whole drawer of jeans that USE to fit and they will be moth-eaten by the time they will ever fit again, so out they go......Let's face it, I'll never see size 6 again in my lifetime.

I thought it would be nice to drive up to the cottage for just a couple days and get Keno use to the drive and the place, but not stay long and drive back home. Spend Easter there and be back by Monday. That way, we can at least turn our heat off. Then go back up in a couple weeks when we can stay longer. But NOT....unless I want to go by myself and that would suck since it's a holiday weekend.

Wishing everybody a good happy Easter weekend!

I'M DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'M DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Graduation Day!!!

Today..well, Saturday afternoon...Mini Sue graduated from her obedience class from PetSmart! It was an exciting day...! She wore her pretty pink princess dress for the occasion. Her classmates, Angel and Cotton, were also there for the big event. She had to go over all her lessons. She did her sits...and her stays...and her stay and come. She only passed her 'downs' cause I took videos of her doing them at home cause she absolutely would NOT do her 'downs' in class. So I video taped her doing them at home and showed her teacher. Then she had to do "hide and seek"....where the teacher holds her leash while I hide in the store and then call her name and she has to come find me. Hubby and Keno was there with me while we hid in the corner and I was yelling her name and yelling and yelling and then I heard the teacher say "mom"...and I looked down and there Mini Sue was sitting by me. She had found me by coming from a direction different from where I was looking for her to come!! It was so funny....I was yelling her name and she had already found me and was sitting by me. The teacher had timed all three dogs. Angel was the fastest at 15 seconds....then Cotton was next at 18 seconds, and Mini Sue was a second behind and found me at 19 seconds!

After they all passed their lessons they all received their graduation hats and got their diplomas and the teacher gave them lots of presents...toys, frisbees, treats, etc. Then we took lots of pictures. The other dogs kept trying to take their graduation hats off but Mini Sue kept hers on like a little lady. Even the other teacher commented that she was the only dog they ever saw that kept her hat on for so long.

I was so PROUD OF MINI SUE!!

Here are a few pictures of her graduation day....





Here's Mini Sue graduating with a smile on her face!!





Mini Sue and Angel.....





Mini Sue and Angel and Cotton....her graduation class!







We all exchanged emails and we want to enroll them together for the advanced class in the fall. I'm not sure how many classes I'll be able to attend cause I spend so many weeks or weekends in Caseville but I'll try. I know I enjoyed the experience and judging by the smile on Mini Sue's face, I think she enjoyed it too!!