Six o'clock in the morning

It's an hour until I wake Cliff up.  Most blog entries take longer than an hour to get finished by the time I proof-read things and change it around a bit.  If I'm adding photos or links, it takes longer.  But we'll see how much "nothing" I have to say this morning.

Gabe had his every-two-month grooming yesterday.  Most dogs are happy to visit Bed-and-Bones because they are treated so well there; we used to take the grandson's Great Dane for him occasionally for a bath (because, did you ever try to fit a Great Dane into a bathtub?).  The closer we got, the more excited Titan became, until when we arrived and unloaded him, he'd eagerly run to the door.  Not so with Gabe:  First of all, he hates getting a bath, even at home.  So I imagine the thought of not only being bathed, but also having clippers buzzed all over his body afterward, seems horrific to him.  When I took him inside the facility and put him down, he ran to the door through which we had just entered and started pawing at it.  I always feel guilty, leaving him, but it's part of owning a Schnauzer; they have to be groomed.  When we went to pick him up, he was running around behind the desk with a big Standard Poodle who had befriended him, and was very glad to see me.  One thing I like about Bed-and-Bones:  Dogs aren't kept in a cage during the day unless it becomes necessary for some reason; they get to play with the other guests, go outside when they want to or need to, and get plenty of exercise. In summer, there's a pool outside for those who like to play in water.  

We have some errands to run today that will have us coming back from the city around noon:  This is always a problem, because I cook meals from scratch most times; so when there aren't leftovers, we are really hungry at noon, due to the fact we usually have a bowl of cereal with fruit, or sometimes scrambled eggs and toast.  It's the only time I can really limit calories for the two of us.  But by noon, we are hungry!  So I assessed things in the freezer and found a couple of packages of diced ham ham marked "ham casserole" from the last ham we cooked.  So I gave up some of my precious morning time that I would have spent reading and made a ham casserole.  We'll heat a couple of servings up when we get home.  I think I'll have green beans with it.  We love the casserole, but it has WAY too much butter in it, which I feel isn't necessary.  I made it by the recipe this time because it was early and I didn't want to experiment at that time of day.  But I intend to get some of that butter out of the recipe.  On the bright side, it's probably no worse for us than the Whopper Meal we often grab when we're out at noon.  And it isn't costing $15 for two of us.  

The little girl we used to babysit spent most of a day with us last week.  School was cancelled because of snow and cold weather; she was with her local grandparents' for the day and asked her grandma to call us and ask if she could come and play.  And we did play!  She shouts orders and Cliff does her bidding.  I get my turn playing too, but I don't yield so easily to her dictator whims.  She's in kindergarten, you know; I handed her a children's book and told her to show me some words she knows:  I was impressed.  She recognized many words.  When she was here every day, I could never interest her in learning letters or numbers.  Even when she got to the point she knew her numbers, she would deliberately give the wrong answer.  She is hard-headed!  But I guess genuine teachers know some secrets to make kids learn.

OK, Cliff's wakeup time approaches.  I wish you all a good day.  Spring is coming... I can almost feel it heading this way.  I know we could still have snow and cold weather right up to April, but I'm hoping for the best.

Yours truly,
Donna