Oh, the Randomness of Me

It's Tuesday and you know what that means! We're gonna have a special guest! (Oops, wrong show.) (But can you name it?)

It's time for Barb to be purposefully random! (And you know what? THAT would be a great name for a band. Or a blog.)

(As a complete aside to the normal randomness, my girls are very into calling things "random." And lately, they've been announcing, "I'm so random." If you announce that you are being random, don't you think that implies premeditation? But what do I know--I'm just the mom.)

Bullwinkle, from the comments, is trying to win a trip to Antarctica. It's easy to vote for her --all you have to do is go here and register (free). If you then leave a comment on her blog telling her you voted, she will enter you into a hand-knitted sock raffle. She's in the midst of a remodel and her dog is having some health problems--she needs a good trip. Increase your Karma AND possibly the warmth of your feet come winter. (Also, Bullwinkle has two really funny cats and they are all over her blog.)

Austin the puppy is now bigger than our older dog, Scout. I LOVE him. Even though he is gradually destroying my hardwood floors and frequently knocks over furniture and I'm pretty sure we should register his tail as a lethal weapon, he is the SWEETEST dog. His temperament is really perfect. Plus, he's funny and you know what a sucker I am for funny. He barks in his sleep. He wanders into ever picture I take. He has to have a toy in his mouth at all times but what he'd really prefer is to have THREE toys at once. When left to his own devices, he will throw the ball for himself and chase it. (I am not kidding. The next time he does it, I'll try to get it on video if I can because it just makes me giggle out loud.) I know about half of my friends thinks I'm crazy because we have all these pets. (The other half thinks I'm crazy for other reasons.) But you know what? In my vision of what a happy childhood/life looks like, there are just a lot of animals. I love a big, sloppy, happy dog. Warms my heart.

Today my yard service restored my faith in the tradespeople of New York. Last week, I paid the company to take down four dead trees in my front yard. I wanted the trees cut up for firewood and taken into my back yard. I paid them before they'd cut up all the wood but I was just kind of out of Confrontation for the week. I figured I would ask my husband to call and complain have them finish it during the fall clean up in a month or so. But lo and behold, today there's a guy here loading wood into a wheelbarrow and toting it into my back yard. I'm so grateful that someone is actually doing what he said he would do that I actually called the company and gushed all over their answering machine. And I slipped the worker a little cash --because y'all, it's hard to put a price on good honest tradespeople.

Have I mentioned my red bell peppers? Behold: Really, it makes me wish more than ever that I was Carol Marine.

Coop was traveling all last week. When he got home, this is how Edward rejoiced:
(As always, you can click on the pictures to enlarge them. If you click on the last picture, you'll see Jane's bandaged leg. She collided with Ana while on the neighbor's trampoline and sprained some part of her leg. She's really enjoying all of the attention and she's been so sweet about it (yesterday, she thanked me in front of the Principal for taking her to the doctor) that I want to EAT her. Just gobble her right up.)