Ouch

Ok, this will probably be of excruciating length, not because so much as happened but because I've been blogging in my brain for a full 24 hours and it needs to be on the blog or it'll be racketing around in my brain for even longer. Of course, my brain being what it is, it is quite possible that I'll forget half of it so the warning may be for naught.

First of all, Cousin Monica asked me if Elof is off living the sweet in Lebanon, OH. He is not. He is still living the sweet life in our back yard. So mourning has been called off for now. The guy who seemed so interested and cool has not called me back with the name of his vet reference and I'm not turning sweet Elof over to some miscreant who won't at least tell me the name of his vet. Perhaps he's an ok guy but I'm suspicious that he is a bad 'un who wanted to hurt sweet Elof.

Meanwhile, sweet Elof has escaped our protective custody at least twice recently. He always comes back but it's a little disconcerting.

Saturday I spent at Circle Tail walking various puppies on both mud and ice. It was quite an experience. I came home utterly exhausted. I got to walk Coastal again, for his last walk at Circle Tail before his "people" came to get him. He was the pup that I got to walk my first time, after he had been rejected by some people who were interested in him. I got to see the people who were adopting him on Saturday. They were walking up as I was driving out. Nice little family with a toddler son. I think they'll enjoy the sweet boy. I also got to talk to Friend Gina, which is always a pleasure and now that her parents have moved to town, is a pleasure I get less and less. Haha, Gina! Did you ever think I'd be jealous of your mom? :-)

Sunday was not a happy day as I felt horrid most of the day but what can you do?

And then we come to yesterday. If I had had the time/inclination to write this yesterday, I would have entitled it, "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood". It was just a stellar day, warm and sunny. Even better as it was between some nasty cold days. I determined, since it was supposed to be our half-day off, that we'd spend as much time as possible outside soaking up the elusive sunlight. And that we did, at least the twins and I. The girls did have to do their afternoon schoolwork but the twins and I were outside all day except for the time that we had to go to the grocery for meds and eggs.

Ahhhh....there's something about an unexpected beautiful day in the middle of winter. OH! And we saw the first crocuses yesterday, so that's always as red letter day. So, seeing as it was nice out and we were going to be out anyway, I called it a semi-work day. The twins picked up dead wood in the yard while I pooper-scooped. I also moved Elof over to another part of the yard so that he could enjoy being somewhere else for a change. He enjoyed it so much that he wrapped his tether all around the roots of a fallen tree and got to stand in one position until I could come to rescue him. As I tell him almost every day, he is an inordinately stupid animal. Of course, I say it with a smile on my face. But he is rather dumb.

I also picked up all the aluminum cans that Elof had strewn all over the yard and garage from my recycling (and I noted that Friend Husband had cleaned up the garbage he strewed all over the garage, thanks honey!) plus put away those huge plastic sand boxes that were still in the back yard from the summer. After picking up and distributing the fruit & veggie co-op goodies and going to the store, I returned home to think about today and the torrential rainfall that we'd been promised. And, sadly enough for me, I thought about our gutters.

If we have a big rain, our gutters regularly overflow. Part of that is because they are but-old and need to be replaced and part of that is because we have huge old oak trees that deposit an unimaginable amount of leaves and gunk in there. I try to keep up with them but I'm not getting on a roof if it's wet and sometimes I have to just leave it. Seeing as the roof was dry yesterday, I decided to clean out gutters.

No, I don't know what possesses me sometimes. I guess that I, like Elof, am just sometimes an inordinately stupid animal. (Sarah says that the line between nobility and stupidity seems pretty thin to her too.)

So up the ladder, up on the roof, and I was glad I did because, inexplicably, the gutters were full again. I plopped down rotting leaves, twigs, and acorns and got to the ONLY downspout that is on the back of the house. Did I mention that the house doesn't have nearly enough downspouts? No? Well, it doesn't. And this one was full of acorns and other muck that I couldn't get out. I sent Rachel in for a spoon so that I could do that. Digging as deeply as I could, perched on the edge of the roof, with a tablespoon (don't worry, I won't use it if you're coming over for dinner), I still couldn't get all of it out. After I got off the roof (for the first time by myself, yay me!), I moved the ladder over so I could remove the downspout. This, of course, took more time than it really needed to because the screw hadn't been removed in, oh, about 30 years. As I was working on the screw, it started to rain. Lovely. When I finally worked the downspout loose and emptied it, muck poured out of the entire length of it. No wonder we have trouble with the gutters. I still haven't worked up my courage enough to go into the laundry room and see if we still had some overflow but I hope that it was lessened by my mucking out the gutters yesterday.

Well, it seems that time is up and silly twins feel that they need to be fed. But the ouch. I knew that I would be sore today but my word! Trying to get out of the car to work out this morning was a special sort of pain. I hope to feel much better tomorrow. And at least it is now too cold to expect me to clean out gutters for a while.

Oh, I just remembered one more thing when I was looking at David standing here. I put the twins into the tub last night and Keziah kept asking for "hot water, Mama, hotter!" After a shorter amount of time than usual, Keziah asked for me to come get her out. After I got her dried and slathered, I turned to get David. I looked at him just in time to see him stagger back away from the wall of the shower. He had fallen asleep, standing up, with his forehead resting on the wall. Poor little man! He snuggled into my shoulder and slept while I dried him off, slathered him, and dressed him. (I just love it when he's a snuggle-puss.) Of course, he sprang to life after he ate a little but it was still nice to have a sleepy Dave snuggle.

Now I'm really gone. And aren't you glad?