The weekend was really busy so I didn't get a lot of the down time I so badly crave. Our plumber came to fix the bathtub drain on Saturday morning. (It was seriously clogged.) And then Sweetie and I had a number of errands to do during the day. I also baked cookies to bring to the party that night.

Then there was the party which was fun, but tiring. Also, we didn't know that many people so some of the time we were just standing or sitting around observing and listening. Our friends have a little dog that they adopted recently, but he is certainly NOT like Blue about visitors. There were tons of people there and he was darting all over the place and wagging his tail.

Sunday was the day we had scheduled to install the clothesline I bought. Our brother-in-law (Sweetie's sister's husband) agreed to help us do it in exchange for pizza and beer. I ended up not really helping, except for bringing our brother-in-law a beer, and just hung with my sister-in-law and her kids (one baby and one 4 (?) year old). Blue barked a lot had to spend most of the time in the crate because he has a tendency to nip at visitors' heels if they walk around. (He is getting better with my friend Writer who has been here a number of times though.) I had fun playing with my little niece. Oddly enough, when she and I were running around the house making growling sounds at each other, Blue didn't bark at all.

After the clothesline was installed, we all went out for pizza. I had a nice time and was also really glad to have the clothesline in. I used it that afternoon, and the laundry dried really fast and had that nice, crisp texture and fresh smell that you can only get from drying things outdoors in the sunshine.

Labels: dogs, family, friends, life at home

posted by Miss Rachel 8/14/2007 08:33:00 PM

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The lilacs are out, and as you might have guessed from the color of this page and the picture at the top, lilacs are one of my favorite flowers. The weather has turned rather cold and damp for the last few days, but I didn't want to miss out on the "lilac experience" so yesterday Blue and I ventured out on what I called a lilac sniffing expedition. There is a lilac bush in my backyard which you can see here, but it is a different variety. It looks pretty and it smells nice, but it doesn't have quite the heavenly fragrance of the purple and white ones so I decided to head out and bring Blue with me.

We went to Elizabeth Park, home of the world famous Rose Garden. There was some kind of work going on in some trees there. I guess they were pruning or something - ? The trees aren't the kind you normally think of pruning though - big old oak trees. They were sending men up from trucks in those little cart things. A lot of people were standing around watching, but I couldn't really see what was so interesting. There was also a plant sale going on. I wish I had the time and inclination to garden, and I seriously have been thinking about it, but I held off on buying any plants. I would need to get a place in the yard ready and plan things out a bit, not just buy any plants that struck my fancy willy nilly.

So anyway... Blue and I walked past the plant sale, and then went down the path that runs along behind the annuals garden (which is currently filled with tulips) and the rock garden. It was very quiet back there - no people. I could just hear just hear birds singing. I wasn't scared though. There were plenty of nice seeming people nearby. And then we got to the lilacs which surround the Heritage Rose Garden.

It was lovely. I walked around for a while smelling the lilacs and taking pictures of them. There were 2 men talking and one of them had a pug so I brought Blue over to say hi. The pug acted kind of crazy though and was making all these sounds like the Tasmanian Devil so Blue got behind me. We talked for a little while about dogs and lilacs, and then I continued on. I circled back by them again a bit later and one of the men suggested I take a bouquet. I think he was joking, but I mentioned I would have to a be a lot taller, as most of the lilacs were high up. I took a few more pictures and buried my nose in the blossoms once more, and then Blue and I headed back to car.

Labels: Blue, dogs, spring

posted by Miss Rachel 5/20/2007 06:18:00 PM

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