I know I repeat myself but I want to be sure everyone knows this - snow is a four letter word!!!!! And I have had ENOUGH of it for this winter - seriously. Along with being down for the count this week we/Iowa/the Midwest dealt with one storm that came in two waves. The second wave left drifts in my driveway as high as my waist (or higher). Thankfully I got most of the driveway done before today (during my medicine issue, boy was that fun....not) so that when the sun came out today what snow was left on the driveway melted. BUT....I didn't quite make it to the retaining wall on the north side of the driveway Thursday, so I spent some time today knocking down snow to expose the retaining wall and then tossing the snow higher than the retaining wall onto the lawn. I definitely feel it in my neck.
Got a little surprise on my checking account statement today - my monthly mortgage payment (PITI) went up $141 without any notification. My payment is an automatic "pull" from my checking account. Needless-to-say I think I'm going to start looking to refinance and see if I can get a better interest rate since they are so low - wish me luck. Looking at my mortgage account online the increase is due to my escrow account but still - why did it increase so much without any notification? I won't say what financial institution holds my mortgage but its initials are B.O.A. and it's larger than my employer.
On to the baby gate saga and Butler's Speedo. I think it was last week Thursday I came home from work and Speedo was on and wet - and there was pee on the living room floor. Great. I came home Friday, Speedo was on and wet - there was pee on the living room floor - and I realized something about Butler. Butler had figured out how to get his Speedo past his "who ha" as Jeff Foxworthy calls it. Let's just leave it as Butler has figured out how to "free Willy". I was not pleased, so I figured I'll fix him - I'll duct tape his Speedo around him, "that'll teach him". More to come on that.
So here's how the baby gate was secured for a couple of days and it worked wonderfully. I believe it was last Friday that Butler got past the gate and trash can to meet me in the kitchen when I got home from work - nice. Or maybe it was last Sunday when I got home from church......
So today when I started feeling like a human again and thought I'd actually go somewhere besides my driveway to shovel snow or my doctor's office this week - I thought the dining room chairs would help reinforce the baby gate. Like the upholstery pattern on the chairs :) Mike did it to go with our black and white theme in our eating area. And if you look really, really close at Butler and see something "shining" on the front part of his Speedo - that's the duct tape.
I came home from running errands and knew by Butler's bark he was in the kitchen - wonderful. Opened the kitchen door and there he was in all his glory but Willy was not free - yes. Baby gate was in the living room, dining room chairs pushed aside but no pee on the floor anywhere. Then it hit me - I've got to get that duct taped Speedo off Butler. Let the games begin. Imagine if you will a 49 year old woman and a 13-15 year old, skinny greyhound on an enclosed back porch going around in circles. I finally get a good enough hold on Butler to stop him and try to find the end of the duct tape to pull it off. Of course that doesn't work - why would it. So I start pulling on the tape and think, Butler's so skinny I'll just pull everything over his skinny, little behind. Well that would have worked if he wouldn't have had those two boney hip bones sticking out. So I had to go to the junk drawer in the kitchen for scissors and cut the duct tape, pull the Speedo off and shove Butler out the door in case there was anything left in there to add to the rest of the yellow snow in the backyard.
I talked to Mom tonight and we laughed about the duct tape. I told her I was going to give it another try tomorrow when I ran errands but I would leave a little edge to fold under so I had something to grab on to, to try to rip the duct tape back to pull it off. Wish me luck......
