And you thought your co-workers had nasty habits...

Why, yes, those are frozen veggies on my living room floor... .

I'm trying to re-train my "co-workers" so they'll quit peeing and pooping on the floors. It's not like I don't give them enough bathroom breaks or that I forgot to train them when they were pups or anything like that.

It's just that Beauty (aka Chica) got a little confused a while back and started thinking the carpet was her personal toilet stall, which in turn confused the Beast (aka Hunter).

So, as I await the installation of the new hardwood floors, I've called in a big gun in the doggie training world. (I'd name names, but then I'd get my hand slapped by a certain ad network so I won't... .)

I don't know what vibes the trainer was giving off, but they were enough to hypnotize the dogs into thinking they were well-mannered creatures before she even set foot in our house.

When the doorbell rang, Beauty, who usually barks non-stop while backing away from any visitors, turned into one big fuzzy wuzzy lovey teddy bear who held the door open for her guest while the Beast practically offered to take her coat and purse -- instead of his usual routine of trying to take visitors' feet off with his fangs.

Of course, the trainer said they probably wouldn't be so welcoming with just anyone, so she left behind some little pouches filled with coins to toss at the dogs' paws whenever they revert to their usual behavior. The clinking sound scares them enough to shut 'em up and shoo 'em away (the dogs, not the visitors; I still haven't figured out how to get rid of visitors).

So far, the tossing of the coin purses seems to be working although the Beast, who is old and deaf, keeps looking at me like "What the hell did I do to deserve getting beaned with the equivalent of a metal rod????"

As for the BIG issue, the trainer said we (as a "pack") need to first dissuade them from peeing and pooping anywhere the "pack" eats. Thus the frozen veggies on the floor because dogs and their human packmates like veggies mixed in with a little floor fuzz (plus it's better than leaving raw meat lying around).

The trainer also suggested spraying the "pack" and the floors of the pack "den" with lavender-scented water -- not so much because we stink, but because the offending pack members will smell it and think they can't possibly pee or poop where the "pack" lives.

So now I'm a member of a "pack" who lives in a lavender-scented pigsty/construction zone. Should you stop by in the next few weeks, please sidestep the flying coin purses and frozen corn.

For Renee...

Renee over at But Why Mommy has been down in the dumps over the state of her basement. I thought I'd cheer her up by sharing my own basement horror story.

As I've mentioned, we've been remodeling our basement since December. The people who owned the house before us went out of their way to do the crappiest basement finish job in the history of mankind. Really, they could not have FAILED more miserably... .

The initial finish job included installing industrial carpet throughout most of the basement and enclosing the furnace and water heater in a room so tiny we had to bust a wall out in order to replace the old water heater with a new one. There was also the eyesore of exposed piping in the laundry room because someone was too lazy to drywall everything in properly.

Minor inconveniences, you say? It gets worse... .

After we moved into the house 10 years ago, we noticed that whenever it rained DialogDog's basement office would sprout leaks. We tried everything to stop the leaks until one day when we came home to find that one of the two window wells had been turned into a fish tank with its own gushing waterfall.

After substantial clean up, we called in a guy who specialized in the drainage of water from one's property. He informed us that there was an underground stream running on the hill behind our house and when it overflowed, it flowed right down the hill and into our yard, which then resulted in the soil getting overly saturated to the point that water would pool on the surface and eventually seep into the basement.

Short of re-grading our whole yard, our best bet, he said, was to install a subpump in the basement so that whenever the stream overflowed our basement would be safe from another Niagara Falls incident. That would have required taking a jack hammer to the concrete down in the basement (plus 10 bazillion dollars), so the guy said we could install the subpump in the fish tank/window well and it would also solve our problem. We did and sure enough it worked. No more leaky basement office... .

Then, a couple years ago our kitchen sink backed up. It was a particularly stubborn back up, so the plumber searched high and low for the drain blowout, thinking he would run the "snake" up to the sink and then back down.

Funny, though. There seemed to be no blowout anywhere in the house. So for an outrageous amount of money, we had Mr. Plumberman bring in a camera and high-tech listening device. He spent a couple hours searching behind the walls; and 16 holes in the basement drywall later, the blowout was located BEHIND the shower tile in the basement bathroom.

Having recovered from that financial hit, we started fixing all the holes in the drywall and tile this past winter, and decided we might as well remodel everything in the process.

Which leads us to the current basement nightmare... .

When DialogDog ripped everything out of the bathroom two weeks ago, he was surprised to find standing water around the shower drain -- standing FRESH water.

Apparently, the yahoos who owned the house previously decided that instead of installing a subpump in the basement -- where a hole was already cut in the concrete for one -- they'd instead install a shower drain over the spot and attach it to the rest of the plumbing. Then, where the shower should have been, they installed a basement laundry room to replace the main floor laundry room.

So now, we most likely will be paying 10 bazillion dollars or some other obscene amount to install another subpump and either relocate the basement shower or just totally do away with it. Either way, it won't be cheap.

Right now, we're so disgusted with the whole situation that we've closed off the basement bathroom and ceased all remodeling down there until we get the work on the main floor done.

Homeownership sucks, but not as much as the people who owned this house before us... .

How my garden grows... Part Deux

A Bun's Life inquired about how the Great Tomato Experiment of '09 was going, so I thought I'd update everyone on the state of my garden in general. (Not to mention, my brother-in-law, Andrew, was flaunting his tomatoes, so I figured I'd do the same... .)

So far, the Topsy Turvy thingamajig is definitely the winner as far as fastest-producing tomato plant. Three tomatoes have sprouted on the plant, which may or may not have anything to do specifically with the Topsy Turvy thingamajig. Here's proof that I'm not just making this stuff up:


The plant itself isn't looking that hot, though:


It's not as full and lush as the tomato plants residing inside the wall o' waters or the ones I just stuck in the ground the old fashion way (none of which have actually yielded any tomatoes yet, though).

I'm not that worried about the lack of tomatoes just yet. Apparently, each variety of tomato plant has a different length of time that must pass before its fruit is actually borne. Who knew... .

As for the rest of the garden, I'm finally having success with pumpkins, as witnessed here:

Now it's just a matter of an actual pumpkin showing up by Halloween... .

One of the four pepper plants is also showing signs of life:

And the green beans are looking promising too:

Before you go thinking I grew a green thumb, I'll leave you with this:

Yes, that is a hanging basket that died a slow, painful death because I forgot to water it... .

One of those days...

I actually have much to blog about for once, but no energy to do it.

The Midge pushed me to the brink today (i.e. got on my very last nerve until I could take no more). We've been having issues with back talking, whining and general obnoxious behavior. That coupled with the fact that we're all tired from all the activity going on around here made for a very long day.

I hope to get things together on my end and post tomorrow, so don't go away just yet.

Ponder this...

"Confidence and experience trump youth and image anytime." -- Allane Wood, 57, as quoted in More magazine.

Hmmm...

What's with all these politicians who are unable to keep their weenies under wraps????

I know cheating politicians have been around for centuries, but really ... in this day and age, how can you be so stupid?

DANGER! Construction Zone. Enter at Your Own Risk!

As if we weren't busy enough this summer with the travels and the bike riding and the swimming, we've undertaken massive home improvement projects here as well.

It all started with the dogs destroying the carpet in the living room and dining room, which forced us into replacing the carpet with hardwood. Then we decided that before replacing the carpet we really should paint the interior of the house beforehand so that we didn't risk messing up the new floors anytime soon. Then, we figured as long as we were painting we should replace all the lighting fixtures.

Oh, and as long as we were at it, we decided to finish the bathroom renovation in the basement that we've been putting off since last winter when DialogDog renovated his office.

So basically, we're living in a hovel right now -- and it's just going to get worse. There's construction grime everywhere. All the rooms are in disarray. And I'm getting ready to check into a hotel for the rest of the summer.

Where's an HGTV crew when you need one?