Friday Bullets, June 30, 2017

How did it get to be Friday? While in some respects, the week felt very long, it also feel as though it has zipped by. Let's start to get back to a more normal schedule, and do some Friday bullets.

• Kenzie is currently a very nervous dog. He looks concerned due to the hound in him, most of the time, but this week has him looking truly pathetic. Every time someone gets in the car, he tries to get in, too, as if to say, "Are we going to go home now?!" The cats and quail don't seem to notice or care too much about the change of scenery. 
• In positive Kenzie news, his recall is getting much better. P. and I have had him out in the back and been calling him back and forth between us. He has done a distance of several hundred feet now. Unless the barn cats from next door wander by. Kenzie has decided the barn cats are mortal enemies and must be vanquished... if he could ever get near them. We are not quite there to trying him off the leash.
• The wall was taken down yesterday. Someone from J.'s work, who does contracting type stuff on the side was able to come out and do it. He wasn't able to take it as far back as I wanted because of water pipes, but it is still a good five feet more open. But it also doesn't look as though the floor guys will be able to get out to finish the patching until next week. I guess the movers will just have to work around the gap and the stacks of flooring.
• J. figured out the small tractor today and mowed the entire property. It's an old tractor, and J. likened it to riding on a bucking bronco. He anticipates being a little sore tomorrow as a result. In hindsight, he realized that breaking the mowing into two different days would probably be wiser. And some ear protection. That old tractor is pretty loud.
• I think I know why some people have the mistaken belief that they cannot cook. If, whether by necessity or cheapness, they bought they bought the lowest price range, it is not surprising that cooking does not come easily. Our current range is definitely on the low end of appliances. It's like cooking over a candle. I'm actually surprised it can even boil water. How do people function with such a low flame on their burners? I really think if finances make the lowest end all a person can afford, spending the money on one or two really good hot plates would be far more efficient. At least then you could actually cook something. Things that took me minutes to saute on my old cook top are taking me 20 or 30 minutes to cook here. It's throwing off my game a bit. 
• My complaint about the range is also indicative of my return to actually preparing meals. There have been many sighs of relief from the masses that we are finally eating 'real' food again.
• Y., who has had too many changes recently, is continuing to mourn the move from Evanston. It has been a fairly constant refrain for the past week. This in and of itself, isn't a problem, and is certainly understandable. The trouble is that sometimes it's terribly contagious. I can have a houseful of happy people, and then once Y. starts in, we can go from happy to communal wailing in the span of several minutes.
• R.'s anxiety is also back up at an all-time high. This is also understandable. The trouble is, that it is seeming more and more as though her seizures are totally anxiety-produced. She has been having auras and some shaking over the past couple of days, and it is very difficult to parent her in this state as she is totally unreasonable. That would be unreasonable as in not full of reason, just acting on pure, overwhelming emotion. It also means that neither J. nor I got much sleep last night. 
• We think the quail thinks he's a cat. Every so often, we will happen upon him while he is resting. Except that sometimes when he rests, he lays on his side with one leg extended. The first couple of times we noticed him like this, we thought he was dead. It is a very unbird-like way to rest. And then we realized that this is exactly how Nefertiti would lie on top of his box when he was still little. We think he has imprinted on the giant cat, and decided that was how animal such as he should rest. If I can get a picture of him doing it at some point, I will share it. It's just goofy.
• TM and D. return from Boy Scout camp this Sunday. The house will feel very full with the combined effect of having two 14 yo boys home, and filled with furniture and boxes.
• I will try to be better about pictures. My mom has requested one of the house with all the trees leafed out, and I'll share the current wall situation picture with you as well. I'll try to get to that tomorrow. I've spent today trying to figure out where everything that is currently in the house is going to live so that it is all stored when the furniture and boxes arrive on Monday. 
• I'm not actually looking forward to that, mainly because I know it will be several days of chaos again, and I am just feeling as though I have dug out of the initial chaos of our arrival. 
• There are many people who are very excited about sleeping in beds again, though. Y. has told me, "I don't even remember what it is like to sleep in a bed." There is a countdown of how many more nights until the beds arrive.