Monday, October 05, 2009

Handy Charlie

The projects roll on...
My Mom got a new countertop in her kitchen and we talked her in to letting us do the backsplash ourselves. Charlie dove right in. This one was MUCH easier than the one we did for our backsplash in Houston. The tiles were 2 x 2 tiles on a mesh 1 ft square, very little cutting and it was a really good fit. I'm sorry honey, I mean...Charlie used his awesome skills. Geometry skills, sawing skills, troweling skills, measuring skills, artistic skills.... and here is the beautiful result....

Well, it gets more beautiful down at the bottom...

I know Mom was really nervous because she has the perfection gene, which did not carry down to me. I limited my participation accordingly...

I did some of this corner...

Ta- Da! after grouting. The counter is really nice solid surface. It's not as speckled looking as it appears in this pic...

He had to go back and work on the plugs. And I'm not sure if the undercounter lights have been put back up yet.


But it looks GOOD, if we do say so ourselves....

Friday, October 02, 2009

Karma For Captain Underpants

The dogs have been a menace lately. A.J. was always very good about staying home despite the fact that we have no fence. She might go say "hi" to the neighbors every once in a while, but not too often and she didn't stay gone long. After the addition of Zoey, however, they've become a couple of neighborhood hoodlums. For the most part it's penny-ante stuff. Don't leave your trash bag unattended, they've pilfered twice that I know of. But they're a general nuisance and I keep waiting for someone to knock on my door and tell me enough-is-enough.

So of course being the worry-wart that I am, I keep discussing with Charlie the fact that we need some kind of fence.
"Some body's gonna say something!" I say.
"Oh, they're not hurting anybody." he replies.
"But you would have a fit, if some one's dog was in our yard.", I say.
"Only if they poop in the yard.", he answers back.
"Well, I'm sure they've pooped in somebodies yard!", I retaliate.
To which he scoffs at me and says "They're just fine."

Lately, I can hardly keep them home at all. Yes I have a pen, that we use mostly in the house, but Zoey climbs it like a ladder if I put her in it outside. I haven't tried it on A.J. because she's mostly a follower and not the leader, until about two weeks ago when a friendly stray cat took up residence under our next door neighbor's shed. Mrs. Ne-nache has caused such a ruckus that I can't keep A.J. home if she's caught wind of her. Zoey likes to chase her, but knows the cat would eat her for lunch if she got too close. A.J. wants to grind her bones. Mrs. Ne-nache loves the kids and comes over when she sees them jumping on the trampoline and meows and meows and meows. Now sometimes in the middle of the night, Zoey thinks she sees her and starts barking and barking and just WILL NOT shut up, so most nights Charlie gets up and moves her to the garage.

One night last week at about 1:30 in the morning, Zoey starts in and after about three minutes, Charlie grumbles, rolls out of bed and shuffles half asleep, into the kitchen. All of a sudden I hear "HEY! GET OUT OF HERE!!!" The back door slams and I hear this banging around on the back porch and Charlie's yelling and the dogs are going crazy. When Charlie gets back to the bedroom I mumbled "What was that all about?" and he said "There were TWO HORSES ON OUR BACK PORCH!"

He goes to get Zoey out of the pen and looks out the back door and sees this huge shadow on the back porch and yells, "HEY GET OUT OF HERE!" he said "I thought I was gonna have to go out in my underwear and fight somebody!" and then he turns on the light and sees it's a horse, and the horse is taking it's nose and trying to scoot the big metal pail we keep the dog food in, off of the table it was sitting on and right as he gets the door unlocked the horse knocks it off the table and it hits the porch and explodes dog food all over the porch. He starts shooing it and it backs up and steps in the dogs plastic water bowl and shatters it and slides off the porch. The other horse was out further in the yard and he couldn't scare them off any further that that. He said "By the way, thanks for coming to my aid when you heard the excitement!"

The next morning there were a couple of fresh piles of horse poop out in the back yard and I said "Karma's a bitch, ain't it!?"

Still no fence....