Day 1402: Adventures in the Garden

[nagi_schwarz]

Also other adventures, so here goes!

We had more adventures in the garden! A good adventure was having more people over. We had dinner, which was burgers, and then we made s'mores, and that was super fun! Polo and Romero had never made s'mores before, so we had a good time. Cody could practice his Spanish with them, and I was pleased at how much I understood by listening even if my brain was just too slow (and too programmed in Korean) to really be able to converse. Also Olivia liked it when they held her, so times were happy all around.

A bad adventure was when Cody went out to start digging the trench to lay down doggy containment wire after Dingo had an escape. I was feeding Olivia so I could put her to bed, so he was on his own, and...he cut our internet cable. By accident. Due to his colorblindness. Bright orange cable looked like brown/green dirt-covered tree root to him. And since it was an especially stubborn root, he put an awful lot of effort into hacking through it. Thankfully, he was also able to fix the cable, after googling some repair info and checking a couple of YouTube videos, and we were able to buy repair supplies.

Another bad adventure was when Dingo escaped the yard again yesterday. I saw him climbing the fence (and how so pudgy a dog can climb so delicate-looking a chainlink fence continues to be a mystery) and I tried to catch him before he went over, but to no avail, so I ran barefoot through the neighborhood shouting "Dingo!" like a crazy person. Thankfully Dingo stopped to say hello to my nice neighbor Jeff and I was able to take Dingo home. Jeff offered me a leash, which I should have said yes to, because when we made it back to my driveway Dingo spotted a chipmunk and tried to charge it and dragged me off my feet and I got scraped up. Good times.

A good adventure in the yard was last night, when Cody figured out an easier way to install the dog radio wire without having to dig a trench, so I strapped Olivia to my chest and we handed him tools and supplies while he got the job done.

In adventures beyond the garden, Olivia and I went karaoke singing for the first time, with the youth from church. Someone built a YouTube playlist of people's songs and we hooked an iPad up to a TV and someone had a bluetooth microphone and we had a good time. Olivia managed to fall asleep during a very loud rendition of a song from that one Hugh Jackman movie about the circus that I never watched all the way through. Still, I had a super good time. Tomorrow night we'll be carving pumpkins, which should be fun.

I've also been trying out Olivia's Halloween outfits, which include a bear onesie with cute bear ears on the hood and a onesie that looks like Bruce Lee's yellow jumpsuit from Enter the Dragon. I also have a Nightmare Before Christmas dress that I'm saving for the church Halloween party that's happening on Saturday.

Dingo and Ivy went to their new vet for the first time, and it went well, but they flunked their doggy daycare audition. We have to send them to doggy daycare while we head back west for Christmas, so I'm looking into other options, and I think I might have found one that's cheaper to boot.

Poor Cody has been working crazy late nights the last few weeks because he has deadlines, and it's kinda like grad school all over again, and I feel bad for him, but I appreciate how much he's sacrificing for his family.

Olivia hasn't really recovered from the sleep regression she went through when she got her cold, so I'm pretty zombie-like these days, but that's okay. She continues to grow well. She has started trying to suck on her feet, which is hilarious. I was just wondering when she'd do that, too, because other babies do that. She also has started paying attention to her reflection (but she thinks it's another baby still, and today she got pretty annoyed at that other baby lol). She is also getting good at scooting a bit on her tummy, so during tummy down I put her down facing one way and she can shift herself so she faces another way, so she's not great at rolling over yet but she is on her way to crawling.

It's getting colder here - it got down below freezing one night, and it's down near freezing just about every night now - but the fall colors are really pretty (thought Cody admits he doesn't appreciate them much).

I'm getting excited for the holidays, to see my family and for my family to spend time with Olivia, and also I've started getting Christmas presents for people. Usually I start much sooner but with the big move and the constant sleep deprivation I am a bit scatter-brained.

Also hilariously I get a text message from someone offering to buy our old house back in Utah. When we were living in Utah I'd get calls and texts and letters all the time from people offering to buy the house because the housing market back there was insane, and I kept telling them NO because at the time we weren't moving and I wasn't about to make us homeless. After we sold the house someone called and we had a weird exchange where I told them the house was already sold and they were like "but if you change your mind" and I was like...clearly you don't understand how selling a house works. This time I texted back that we'd sold the house in May and moved to a new state and there was no reply to that. HA.

I am hoping I can be more productive this week. My bestest friend from college, the lovely sherlockian_syn is coming to visit next month, so I need to decorate the guest room (we bought furniture) and finish unpacking the basement so we can hang out down there and binge on SGA and squee over K-pop together.

We shall see how that goes if General Olivia continues to sleep poorly.

Thanks to all my online friends! They're the reason I'm not completely crazy.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

hi hi! *sends you healing vibes for the scrapes*

At least you know Cody is very strong? And he independently discovered why tigers are orange -- deer are also red-green colorblind, so from their perspective tigers blend into green foliage.

*sends Olivia sleep vibes*

(also I put your card on my desk at work to cheer me :)

[nagi_schwarz]

Thanks!

They seem to have mostly healed up at this point. Only faint twinges when I bang my knee or elbow on something.

Cody is indeed very strong - he is a blacksmith in his spare time, and also I've seen him break bricks with his bare hands (karate).

I did not know that about deer, so that's cool!

Thank you for the baby sleep vibes.

[smallhobbit]

My son is colour blind, so it leads to interesting times.

Have a great time with sherlockian_syn

[nagi_schwarz]

Thanks!

My husband's color blindness hasn't resulted in anything quite this dramatic before. He was quite chagrined.

[aome]

If it makes you feel any better, I did something dumb while walking my dog on my bike yesterday (and, yes, I do this regularly - I just did something especially dumb) and did a face plant in the street, scraping both palms, a minor scrape on my shin, and clipped my chin, resulting in some jaw pain. It could have been so much worse, but, yeah - not my best moment. :-P

Yay for the good times in the yard. At least Cody's mistake was fixable!

For the dogs - is it worth asking around your ward what the locals do for dog-sitters? For several years we were fortunate enough to have one that came and stayed in our house, so it was both dog AND house-sitting, and our doggies could stay at home. Maybe someone around your new hometown does that?