Naptime yet?

Oh, I didn't want to get out of bed this morning. It'd cooled off, and I was finally sleeping well. At least it does seem to be a quiet morning so far. I have to figure out a few more changes to the escort schedule today, but I got a lot done yesterday, and I'm going home right after work for the first time this week, so I'm feeling pretty good.

Last night I got home after patient-instructing, cleaned the backyard, and then Matt and I set to destroying the decrepid, although surprisingly sturdily constructed, porch couch. It had been a pain in the ass to get upstairs to begin with, three years ago, and dragging all the pet hair and dead leaves through the house with it also didn't sound so appealing, so we decided to go after it with hammer, crowbar, and knife, and pitch the resulting pieces over the porch railing. Exhausting and messy, but entertaining. I think the pets are deeply baffled, though. We normally leave a window to the porch open, and they can walk from the back of the inside couch to the back of the outside couch. Suddenly it's not an option. Now I'm debating what to do about the two couches we got from Ryan. They're really quite nice -- wooden "chair frame" construction, with cushions that simply sit on top of the wood and spring seats. Aside from the ridiculous quantities of glitter embedded in the cushions, they're fine, and the frames are really in excellent shape. We don't really have room for them in the house, and we do need new porch furniture, so I'm debating about how to handle that in terms of protecting them as well as I can from the elements and the pets. Right now I'm leaning toward using some of the plastic sheeting we still have around from winterizing the house, and just draping them with it. Not sure how it'll stand up to the pets, but it's better protection than nothing, and people who want to use them can just flip the plastic off. Because of the way the pillow simply perch on the frame, wrapping them individually won't work -- the minute someone touches them, they'll slide right off the wood. Hmm. Possibility #2 -- only move one out there, move the other to the computer room, and put the mattress in there up against the wall behind it. Matt, what do you think? Also, I'll definitely be moving the bent folding papasan chair outside, since it's really only good for pet seating, but they do love it. And I think I'll put my new cooler out there as a table, since that'll be a good use of it until we actually need it for cooler-type purposes, it'll survive the weather just fine, and it'll have the added advantage of giving us someplace to put it (it's huge). Becca, do you want extra storage/use out of any of the outdoor furniture down on your porch? If so, we can move a few pieces upstairs, and clear some space out.

I also need to toss the ancient and decaying wicker papasan chair from the porch, although I think I'll retain the cushion as a pet bed. Should've done that last night, if I was thinking, although between the folks moving up front, and all that we've been doing in back, the pile of trash on the treelawn this week is already scary enough. Once I do get rid of that, though, and before I move other furniture out there, the porch itself needs a really thorough cleaning. Oh, that'll be a joy.

OK, enough babbling about this -- I'm getting entirely too excited about getting all this accomplished.

WhatsMyMutt?

Before I forget again, last night Bec and I were talking about what breeds Jax and Harry are, and levels of certainty about that, and etc. And we got to the idea of creating a whatsmymutt community, where people can post pictures of mixed breeds, including any info actually known for certain about the dog's parentage, and let people make guesses about the rest. For example, we strongly suspect Harry is Shepherd/Malamute, but what percentage of people would agree, if we weren't allowed to state a guess like that right off the bat (and thereby perhaps skew the results)? Would any of them come up with suggestions that we wouldn't have thought of? Can anyone figure out Jax?

At some point there might be an elaborate "listing of all breeds" poll type system set up, but at first it would just be a comment-based thing, I think. Anyone else interested?

whatsmymutt

Well, I created the community. Now I need some good Jax and Harry pics to get started.

bec76, I temporarily stole your Jax icon because it was the only one either of us had that didn't have purebreeds in it. I'll take a different one at home later to replace it and prevent confusion.