fawns | Temporary Sanity ...

They’re finally gon … ‘scuse me … sadly, the Namponians departed this morning amid hugs and smiles. Lydia and Cedric spent the night, again, and they kept Maryssa awake until well after midnight. Actually, we were all up past midnight which really tosses my internal clock in the trash. That’s because, of course, the dogs don’t care when I go to bed because their sole focus in the entire world is getting up at the crack of dawn so they can get their pouch and canned food. This morning it was 0515 when they made their wishes known.

Last night Bob was making frequent attempts to at least touch Ozzie, knowing that holding him was probably out of the question. Maryssa wanted to hold him, too, but he wouldn’t let her pick him up. So, I just picked him up and transferred him to her arms. He glared at me for only a little while before accepting the fact that he was trapped in a stranger’s arms and I wasn’t going to rescue him. He sat in her lap for half an hour, at least. Here’s proof that at least one of them was happy …

Yesterday we went to Uncle Jack’s and Aunt Wynette’s house to swim in the pool. They have one of those and it’s awesome. The kids always love it. Special for us was the inclusion of Gilligan and Baylee who have never had the pleasure of swimming in a large pool. They had an absolute ball. Gilligan, the consummate daredevil, spent all of her time bobbing up and down all around the edge of the pool until her little hands and feet had sore spots on them from pushing herself to the bottom using the pool edge and from pushing off the bottom to get back up. Over and over. Here are some pictures of all the fun we had …

Here’s Baylee, just floating around …

… and Jennifer keeping a watchful eye on Gilligan …

… Steffani giving Maryssa a piggyback ride …

… Lydia and Maryssa playing catch with Gilligan …

… Jeff teaching Baylee how to float on her back while Jennifer watches …

… Diane enjoying the antics from the safety of a shaded area …

… Maryssa and Lydia received wise council from Uncle Jack …

After everyone left I went outside and eradicated as many blackberry vines as I could in the back yard. I got lots of them, and they got me back. I learned that it’s probably a smart thing to wear long sleeves when working with blackberry vines, but I didn’t wear them because the barbs really stick to clothes, but they just scratch your skin and are easily removed. It hurts, but it really makes the job easier to do when you don’t have to constantly remove the vines from your clothing. I also removed a dead azalea and I’m pretty sure I dismembered more than one rose-bush in the process.

Yesterday morning, before lunch, we had a revisit from the doe and her babies. They were trying to play with Breezie in our back yard while mom was in the next yard. After playing for a while, Mom convinced the twins it was time to go and they wiggled their way through the fence. Too cute.

This afternoon, after collapsing on the couch for a short period of time, I took Jeran to his piano lesson. He’s doing really well for the short time he’s been taking lessons. The up side of it all is that he really loves taking the lessons. He’s going to be great one day. I’m looking forward to the time when we can play duets together, like my Mom and I used to do.

Now I’m going to rest some more.

This is my 365 blog entry since Thanksgiving 2011. If you are obsessive, and do the math, it will be readily evident to you that I haven’t written one a day. The only time that happens with regularity is when we are traveling someplace. Then dailys are required so those who wonder can travel with us vicariously.

Vicariously. That’s a nifty word. My brother, Jack, taught me that word in 2010. I’m sure I heard it before then, but never associated it with anything I do so didn’t give it much thought. It was he, Jack, who suggested daily reports when we took our USA Tour after retiring from my day job so he could travel with us vicariously. So I did that. All those blog entries were created with Apple’s iWeb which ceased to exist in November 2011 so the only copies available are on my computer. I might just start putting those out there on this and just change the dates.

Jennifer gave me today off so I could rest. She said I’ve been working hard and deserved it. I agreed. So, while resting I vacuumed the house and we rearranged the living room. We did this mainly because Bob, Steffani, and Maryssa are going to be here tomorrow and it’s an unbreakable rule that when company is coming you either have to paint the outside of your house, or paint three rooms, or clean and rearrange everything so it will look different from the last time they were here. We actually clean fairly often even when visitors aren’t expected, but when they are it gets done twice as hard.

The livingroom remake includes addition of the ‘new’ rug Diane purchased. Looks good. After Diane was happy with my work, she sent me outside to fix the in ground sprinkler that someone ran over. It’s the one at the end of the driveway in an area that has no pavement on it. People aren’t supposed to drive there, but they do it anyway. I don’t know who did it. Might have been me. So I cast no blame on anyone. It just happened. While fixing it I moved it away from the driveway about six more inches. I don’t know if that’s enough. We’ll see.

When I finished fixing the sprinkler I was released to, finally, mow the yard. I was going to just do the front, but wound up mowing and bagging the entire front and back yards. I finally finished about 9:15 pm. The moon was bright, but just a sliver, so I had to use the mower headlights on the last 1/4 of the back yard. I’ve always wondered why riding mowers have headlights. Now I know.

Now I must go shower and remove the stench of mown grass from my body. Then I will plead with Diane to dress my blackberry and apple tree wounds. Next year I will not sustain those kinds of wounds because I’m going to remove the low hanging fruit bearing limbs and eradicate the blackberry bushes. I’m also going to remove a forsythia thing that just sprouts willy nilly out of the ground, and another flowering bush that’s about eight feet tall and is composed mostly of dead sticks.

I forgot to mention that, while rearranging things earlier in the day, we saw a doe and two spotted fawns stroll through the yard. Very adorable little creatures. We’ve seen lots of deer, and evidence of deer who eat the flowers, but never tiny fawns. It was a special treat. They looked almost exactly like this, but different because this isn’t our back yard. I got this photo from the web. But, these are pretty much the same size as the visitors.