17 Things On My Mind

There is so much that happens in the course of a day that I'm just exhausted by the time I go to bed. My brain turns to mush somewhere around 9PM and the work I do after that is either done by rote or not done well at all. (Note: if I message you later in the evening, know that I may or may not remember that conversation the next day. And coherency is overrated.) Remembering to blog about the fun things that happen in my life? Yeh. Not so much anymore. That saddens me. So here is a highlighted recap of a few things that kind of make me go "huh, really?" lately.

1. The Pocket Hose. Yes, we're behind the times. We finally got one of those retractable hoses and absolutely love it. If you don't have one, I suggest you get it.

2. Buying dogs is hard. Good lands, it's hard. Apparently my standards have gone up immeasurably since the last time I bought a dog. (In April, mind you.) (Not that Louie is not a good dog, because he totally is.) I am happy to say, however, that after a 6 week search, we have finally found a replacement for Margo, who is going to a wonderful pet home later this month. I also don't want to have to buy another dog for a very long time.

3. I think all our puppies are sold. This is always an amazing thing to me when they sell well before they are ready to go to their new homes. It makes me happy that I can share puppy photos with new owners, knowing that I've just made their day with the click of an enter key.

4. I hate painting kitchen walls. Friends that fly in all the way from Oklahoma to help are pretty amazing, but I still hate painting kitchen walls. The detail work around cabinets is just tedious stuff that I have no patience for. Nor a steady hand. I'm trying to strategize how to get that finished without actually doing it. Any suggestions in that department would be appreciated. Help would be even better.

5. Extending a brick sidewalk is far more difficult than just making an all new brick sidewalk. So that may or may not get done in a timely manner either.

6. It's hard to get outside chores done in a timely manner when it rains mostly every day. I'm just saying, Mother Nature. Maybe rain at night only? Can that be a thing? Thanks.

7. Tadpoles have ridiculously long lives. I kind of thought their morphing took place in a month's time. I was wrong. I mean, kind of wrong. Apparently their transformation is dependent on how much and what kind of food they have to eat. And apparently the algae growing in my pond isn't the best thing for making tadpoles turn into frogs. And also apparently the pond will either not get re-built this summer or I'm going to turn into a tadpole killer. I'm going with the first option.

8. I find it hard to get motivated to get work done when I'm so hot I work up a sweat just sitting under a fan with a cool drink in my hand. I mean, I'm sure the fact that I'm sitting and sipping has little to do with my lack of work, right? But dude, the weather has been very opposite of what our winter was. It's a fact.

9. Naps are not my friend. I must remember this in future. If I get super overtired and cranky like a toddler, the best thing to do is put myself to bed, right? Wrong. That nap (no matter the duration) will cause insomnia that night. I napped for 1 hour on Sunday and also got 1 hour of sleep that night. That was a megafail in the "resting up" department.

10. I have incredibly wide hands? I mean, I've always known they weren't slender, but they're not ginormous either. (Note: ginormous is a recognized word that doesn't set off spell check. I love this.) Those bracelets that you slip on and slip off don't so much on my apparently incredibly wide hands. They go on (with a tiny bit of a struggle) but they do not come off. Maybe they shrink? I bruised my thumb joint so badly that my thumb was black and blue from the first knuckle down to my wrist. That takes skillz right there.

11. When you give blood and the nurses tell you to leave your bandaid on until your arm is done bleeding, they're only telling part of the truth. When I'm told "until you're done bleeding" I know that it means "blood running down my arm from the wound you just inflicted." They, apparently, mean "it can be bleeding internally under your skin, but pressure from the rolled gauze under the bandaid will stop that flow." See how communication is a good thing? Because I took my bandage off as soon as I walked out the door of the hospital lab and woke the next morning with a bruise the size of my iPhone on my arm. That is not an exaggeration.

12. So clearly, I bruise easily.

13. I am currently in love with rubber mulch. Shush. I know it's an abomination to mulch everywhere. But one can't help what one falls in love with.

14. Paint doesn't dry in high humidity. We're currently on Day 3 and the walls are still tacky. Not so cool. (Neither is the weather.)

15. Micah loves the city of Pittsburgh. I can't blame the kid, because I do as well. But when I logically thought that through, he's really only in Pittsburgh to go to Children's Hospital (which he hates), at the Pirates game last summer (which freaked him out), or to go to the airport (which terrifies him in ways I don't understand). So why, really, does he love the city so much? I'm glad he does, mind you, but it is rather baffling. Also, he has pictures of the city on his iPad because he took many while driving through. This makes me smile.

16. Micah doesn't like driving in the passing lane. This stresses him for unknown reasons. I must be in the right hand lane at all times. Sometimes he's okay with me passing, but I'm fairly certain those are days that he's plugged into his iPad and not paying attention to his surroundings. It makes for an interesting and very stressful car ride for everyone involved when I'm traveling the highways and need to pass the slow people.

17. I have puppies. This always makes me smile. And talk in a high pitched baby voice when I see them because they're so adorable. And I sometimes just stand and stare at them because I love to watch them sleep.