Been lazy about blogging...

...because not that much has been going on.  Let's see, what's happened? 

Milo's casualties include:

• a wooden block watermelon of Max's
  
• another wooden block
• a foam block
• the day lily flowerbed adjacent to the house
• the grass in the backyard
  
• an inestimable number of yogurt cups and Dutch tupperware containers
• my melon-colored rain jacket
  
• my summer sandals

That's puppies for you.  There are also muddy dog tracks all over the floors in every room, and I've basically just given up on the idea of having clean floors.  I clean them, and then there are more tracks.  So I'm surrendering.  The dogs win.  

Max is almost to the end of his first year of preschool.  He finally warmed up to the other kids around spring break time.  I'm not sure he will miss it during summer hiatus, but I sure will.  He has started to use "going" in many of his sentences to help along the verb, but pronounces it "goown."  He also likes to talk about how he's "goown" to "bahry" something from someone:  "Tante said I could bahry this car and bring it back next week."  

Max has discovered the joys of cutting paper.  In my house over the past few weeks there have been literally hundreds of small pieces of scrap paper here and there and everywhere as Max has created Batman costumes for Tunie with tape and paper, or made cars out of paper for Tunie to ride in, or just cut unidentifiable stuff up and stuck it back together.  The upside of this is that he can spend hours doing it.  The downside is the mess.  I've decided the means justify the end.  

I watched the last episodes of The Office and Medium and the second-to-the-last episode of House, and loved them all.   I really enjoyed the dynamic between Michael and Holly Flax, the new HR person (Is she going to be a permanent fixture?  I hope so.).  It would be pretty funny to see someone actually "get" him.  Someone besides Dwight, I mean, though Dwight doesn't actually "get" anyone.  And I loved the Kevin-is-slow prank.  Too funny.  I wasn't even upset that there wasn't a good proposal.  It was enough to see things get really messy with Dwangela again.  

I really hope that if there is a spin-off of The Office, they will take Andy and no one else.  I need everyone else to stay and be at Dunder Mifflin, Scranton.  

In other news, I got my sister hooked on Veronica Mars.  About 3 years too late for it to do any good at all.  But it's fun talking to her about it and watching her guess what might happen.   I can't wait until she gets to the end of season one.  There is that gasp! moment in the final episode I want to see her react to.  

I re-read Blubber by Judy Blume and was suprised to see how much of an involved partner the main protagonist, Jill Brenner, was in poor Linda's torture.  I hadn't remembered that.  I also didn't remember the Chinese best friend or the Bar Mitzvah, but kudos to Blume for being so multi-cultural waaaaay back in 1974.   I thought the ending, where Jill stands up to the bullies and they back down, was a little too easily done, but the female middle school bitchiness was just spot on.  I still have dreams about the girls I went to school with way back when, and they are not good ones.  

Oh, and our neighbors cut down almost all the trees in their backyard, and since our backyard now gets a ton more sunshine, I'm thinking about planting grapevines - the Concord grape sort.   The ones I've tentatively chosen are called Alwood grapes.   They grow in our agricultural zone, in a variety of soils, and ripen earlier than Concord grapes.  I've wanted to grow fruit in our yard for awhile, but it was far too shady to attempt it.  We'll see how it goes.    On a related note tomorrow I start working on the garden I'm doing with that same neighbor.   Should be interesting.  I'm not even sure what we're going to grow, but I'm pretty sure there will be tomatoes, grape tomatoes (if they can be found), watermelon, and greens.  The rest doesn't matter so much, as I hate to can and have only one chest freezer worth of space to freeze things in.  Basically, I just like to work in the soil, hope to get to know my neighbor better, and love fresh produce 'round about August.

Last, but certainly NOT least, garage sale season has started with a bang!  I've already found some great clothes for Max, a carrying case for our video camera, several puzzles and games to play with Max, books, dog stuff, fabric, dollhouse furniture, a little sleeping bag that to go along with Max's backyard tent, and all kinds of great stuff.  I love garage sale season!