Dreamin'

well, the mother-in-law as cleaning lady has been great. It took a little getting over my privacy concerns (and realizing I had nothing that was all that interesting), but it's really great.

I would normally be upset about having her know we live in such filth, but really, *we* aren't dirty. My laundry is all folded and hung (maybe not put away, but it's okay sitting in a basket all tidy), my dishes and counters are clean, my fridge and oven get scrubbed out regularly, and so on. We're actually pretty clean.

It's those dogs....Those blankety-blank dogs who like to dig and bring in half-eaten vermin and hide them under the sofa (and I discover when I smell something funny). And it's obvious because after she came to clean, she came back the next day to visit...

And the muddy pawprints were back and the Hound (as seen right) brought in a freshly killed squirrel.

I love my girls, but yickkkkkhhhh!!!

But besides all that, we are still looking at very "doggy" dogs for future pets. We don't expect KerryGirl to live too many more years and know a waitlist can be as long as 2-3 years with a breeder. And it can take a while to find a good one and get them to put you on their list so we're kind of thinking about types now. No prissy lapdogs for us.
And nothing tiny either. The Hound is even a little small for us.
We have a few thoughts: Podengo Medio, Airdale, Kerry Blue Terrier, Spinone Italiano, Portuguese Water Dog, Polish Lowland Sheepdog, Twatha-Utonagan, Irish Wolfhound...

Dunno exactly what we'd want and they're all a bit odd choices. Since I'm pretty decent at grooming and now have practice with dealing with nearly every temperment I think we can manage just about anything. They're all beautiful, good with kids (okay, the airdale and spinone may take some work, but very doable) and medium-ginormous. They all have their good and bad points.

Plus, we don't expect to stay where we are. We hope to move to the Pacific Northwest and get a large lot and build our home. It's cheaper up there, life is a little less harried (but not to the degree of "island time"), and we thought it was beautiful. When I finish school and the housing market improves (we'd never be able to sell now), we may pack up and go. We already have 'the list' drawn up of what the house should have. We do think a good alternative to building new may be to buy a really old home and restore. But that depends on Sasha and any hypothetical future children.

Work would be easy to find, as Hubby teaches and my job is...lets just call it Highly Applicable to Everything.

I know I get dreamy about the future when I'm tired. It's an escape mechanism to disappear to a time where today's problems don't exist and life is all exactly the way I want it because all our plans have panned out that everything is hunky-dory.

Sasha's state has degraded to no naps, no sleeping at night, and repeated crying jags. Oh yeah, and he isn't the only one. Thankfully, I'm in school this week so I get a break while he goes to Mom's.

Bright Starts has offered to send us 2 replacement Linuses--free of charge. I called them, told them our situation, and asked if they will sell parts and they said no. But they are very kind and giving them to us. They now belong on my list of Companies with Great Customer Service along with Nylabone.