Tag: pet ownership

Charlie and Orso Playing While We Work on the Bathroom

The Gutting of the Bathroom Day 3

Day One didn’t go as planned.  I would have expected nothing less.  Mitch wasn’t done installing the new front door that we had to put in to fit the hole in the wall.  I forgot to mention that, sorry.  The new tub/shower we bought wouldn’t fit through any of the doors into the house, so in order to get the new tub inside, he had to remove the front door and cut a bigger hole in the side of the house so that the tub would fit through the doorway.  Mitch started that project two weeks ago and as usual, the three-day project took two weeks.  The original structure of our house was built in 1928, when the short people ruled the world.  Then an addition was added on in the 1930’s.  Whoever built the original structure and the addition used whatever materials were available and there were no building codes then.  The roof comes down and meets the top of the walls at right about six feet.  There is no way to put in a regular height door without a building permit and an expensive front entryway built.  So we did the next best thing, bought a solid wood door and cut inches off the top and bottom of the door so that it fit height wise.  There was still the width to worry about.  The original door was six-foot by thirty inches wide and did I mention it was an old fashioned homemade cabin door with a wooden slide bar?  Straight out of the 19th century.  Not the least bit in anyway energy efficient or even safe security wise.  So the door had to go.  I’ll post pictures.

I took out all of the shelves in the closets and tried removing the metal wall strips for adjustable shelving, but some of the screws were stripped and wouldn’t come out.  So I gave up on getting much accomplished on day one and decided to take the dogs for a long walk.

Day Two, Mitch worked on finishing up installing the new storm door and because the weather was so beautiful, I decided that it would be a good day to mow.  So I mowed the yard, pulled weeds, raked leaves and pretty much blew off another good day to work on the bathroom.

Day Three we actually got started.  Mitch finished getting all of the metal strips out while I pulled all of the trim off around the window and doors.  I pulled all of the base board out.  While Mitch removed the doors and door frames and knocked out the sheet rock that encased the closets I went to the plumbing store and picked up the pedestal sinks we had ordered..  We found the vent pipe from the furnace which will have to be moved from the outer corner of where the closet was and no longer is.  Mitch is getting his money’s worth out of his sawsall that I bought him.  I think that’s his favorite tool. 

Surprisingly, no fights yet.  Is this an omen or the lull before the storm?  I’ll keep you posted.

Clean Dogs Inside and Out

Just when I thought that nothing would surprise me about the dogs, I am totally amazed at them.  We are getting ready to gut our master bath and remodel it.  That is another story in itself.  In anticipation of the demolition, I removed everything from the closets and put the contents in boxes and placed the boxes in the living room.  I secured all of the medicines and harmful chemicals, but wasn’t too worried about the candles,  soap and some of my makeup samples.  Silly me.  We came home from work to find that dogs unknown as of this writing had eaten two bars of Dial soap and half of a bar of Super Eight soap.  Why?  What would possess a dog to eat soap?  Yuck! 

So far no involuntary bubble blowing, no gas or diarrhea. Normal massive appetite.  I just don’t understand what was so tasty about soap.  Maybe all of the frequent bathes has caused them to like the taste of soap.

Just another shining example of the intestinal fortitude of Labrador Retrievers.

Tug of War – Our Favorite Game

Road Trip (2nd excerpt)

The plan was that we fly into Boston, catch a bus to some bus stop, wait for owner of the car to come and pick us up and drive us to some unknown location to look at the car and if all goes well we pay him the cash, load up the car and drive home.  I had never done anything like this, so needless to say I was concerned that we would fly halfway across the country to have our heads bashed in, robbed and left in a field to die by a serial killer like on TV.  I know, I watch too many cop shows. 

The owner of the station wagon showed up and was very nice, but a typical car salesman.  After some more haggling, we paid for the car, loaded up our luggage and headed out to the highway.  After driving the wrong direction for about 30 minutes, going toward Cape Cod instead of west to New York, we turned around and got on track to upstate New York.  Our road trips are always an adventure.  We don’t make hotel reservations and drive until we get tired.  I only have one rule.  NO creepy roadside motels.

The drive through upstate New York was beautiful. We were a little early, the first of September, so the trees hadn’t turned yet, but it was still beautiful.   I loved the Finger Lakes and all of the vineyards and wineries, I was in heaven.  We tasted many wines and bought lots of bottles of wine. You know me, stimulating the economy.   Good thing we had just bought a station wagon to haul all of my finds.  How timely. 

After the Finger Lakes, we drove up to Niagara Falls.  We got there late in the day and didn’t have to pay to park, or get in.  Which was nice.  There were still a ton of people running around taking in nature’s strength and beauty.  But no one was willing to ride a barrel over the falls so that I could take photos of the historic event.  And I take awesome photos.  What a bunch of wet blankets.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the first excerpt and this one, come back for more.

Road Trip (first excerpt)

Mitch bought the Buddy Mobile, a 1978 Chevrolet Caprice Station wagon in 1999.  He bought it to replace his 1976 Chevrolet Suburban which had 300,000 miles on it and was very tired. We used it to haul Buddy, our yellow lab, around town and for all of our gear for hunting.  It was a good reliable wagon that got lots of abuse.  Mitch replaced the engine in it in 1995.  It was like a Timex watch, it took a lickin and kept on tickin.  It went through two engines and about 3 tons of dog hair and drool.  The air conditioning went out a few years ago, so in the warm weather with all of the windows down, the dog hair would swirl around like a mini tornado inside the car.  No matter how many times we would vacuum and clean the car, there was always dried dog slobber and nose prints on the windows.  There was also the aroma of “Eau de Dog” in the upholstery that no amount of little green trees could eliminate.

People would point at the dog heads hanging out of the windows as we drove along.  Sometimes I wasn’t so sure that people weren’t also pointing and laughing at us.  The car definitely was distinctive.  Well it now had over 300,000 miles logged on it, so we decided it was time to retire it and buy something newer for the dogs and hunting.

After I gave the go ahead to look, Mitch went on an online search for the best fit for the money.  He searched cross country and even got into online auctions on E-Bay.  We ended up as the high bidder on a 1995 Chevrolet Caprice Classic Station wagon.  Much newer, only 15 years old instead of 31 years old.  We are definitely moving up in the timeline.  Oh, did I mention that the car was in Boston, Massachusetts?  Since we live in Missouri this meant “Road Trip”.  Because I like to multitask, we decided to combine flying to Boston to check out the car and if it met our needs, then we would turn the drive back into a mini vacation.  I had Mitch pick up travel books from AAA for all of the states that would be on our journey home.