Absurdly contented

The dogs in the foreground are MARS foster dogs, with the temporary names Herman and Bear. They are 2 year old brothers, half cocker spaniel, half poodle. I was approved as a foster last month, because of a particularly cute chocolate lab mix in need of an emergency foster home. She found one before I was approved, but now I'm on the list. These guys only needed an overnight, so they were pretty easy. Blue is in the background, staring over the fence at a squirrel.

The second photo is of my new fire pit. It's Minnesota-dorky, with a pine tree, howling wolf and a moon/cloud horizon. I love it. Nothing like fire in the backyard (with all my crazy trees nearby) to make home feel like vacation.

Early transplants

These are from my mom's garden (which used to be my grandma's garden). I had some rhubarb at both of my previous houses in Minnesota, but none managed to get moved to the new house. They seem to be doing well despite the fact that I planted them the night before it snowed this week.

It's pretty

But is it really necessary?

Cats

I guess this is what they do when I'm at work.

New!

It's a sleeper sofa. It's not arriving until next Tuesday, but it's bought & paid for. I have two couches in the house. The first is a futon that I got when Big Boy was a toddler. The second is one I got when my house was burglarized in 2002 and I was desperate for something, anything. It's a This End Up tank of a couch, made of wood with some not-terribly-comfortable cushions. It only cost $100, though. The New Couch is comfy, because we sat on every single sofa at the Room & Board Outlet. Twice. First I was thinking that I didn't need to get a sleeper, but it seemed like a good idea. The sun room can have the comfy couch, the living room can have the uncomfy couch (at least temporarily) and the futon can go up in the office/guest room. If for some reason I was to have lots of guests, I have another place for them in the sun room.

Back in the saddle again

New phone with real data capability makes it possible to remotely blog again. I sold my old phone, a Rumor Touch, for $50 on craigslist. A young woman was "so excited" to get it (and I was so excited to be rid of it). It had its nice features, but the quirks got to be too much after awhile. It ended up costing me $56 a month for six months, cost of phone included. That's a whole lot cheaper than, my old AT&T plan, which would have been $135 a month, not including tax.

So now I have a shiny new phone and have to stay a prepaid customer for a while in order for this not to have been an expensive mistake.