In response to: Pride

hahahahaha from Bob Spryn on Vimeo.

Bob quit his job and is working on forming a company with some of his friends. Since he no longer drives into an office every day, he has saved 40 minutes worth of a commute.

I felt the urge to offer suggestions for how to fill that extra 40 minutes a day: make the bed, empty the dishwasher, do some dishes, dust, vacuum… you get the point.

When I got home from work yesterday he was full of pride!

Bob: I washed the coffee press and I put my plate from lunch in the dishwasher. Aren’t you proud of me?

Me: Wow, you put a whole plate in the dishwasher? Also, when you washed the coffee press you set it on top of all of the dishes that were already dried in the strainer so now we have to wait for those to air dry again. Next time, empty the strainer first.

Bob: But aren’t you proud of me?

Ok, ok. I am so proud of you for putting a plate in the dishwasher. I’ll have some gold stars ready for next time! I appreciate the effort.

<3

Paco was staring at our garage door a few weeks ago which alerted us to the mice in our garage. I bought a humane trap and also set out a storage bin with cheese and oats inside and a wooden ramp to entice more mice to get captured. Soon enough, we had three mice!

They were cute little babies. We wanted to see what Paco would do if he saw the mice so we let him into the garage and he was terrified. He has no problem beating up a 75 pound dog, but a baby mouse is spooky. He glanced over at the bin while staying as close to the door as possible.

Bob scooped him up and brought him closer to the mice but he still didn’t like it. Someone needs to explain to Paco that he eats, sleeps, poops and creates shenanigans 99.9% of the time. The other .1% of the time I expect him to earn his keep around the house.

Bob released the family of mice far away from the house and we haven’t seen them come back since. We are officially mouse-free, no thanks to Paco.

Speaking of Paco filling his time with shenanigans, flowers don’t last long on our table. I’ve known of his little habit for a few years now but I still love having fresh flowers in the house. I started purchasing inexpensive carnations so it isn’t a major loss when he lashes out. Plus, I think carnations have a bad wrap for being cheap and I still think they are pretty. This is what remains of a dozen carnations.

When we moved to Colorado over 3 years ago we knew we wouldn’t be here forever. We moved here pretending to be on an extended vacation so we spent a lot of time exploring the state. We’ve seen so many wonderful things already including Red Rocks , a rodeo , Rocky Mountain National Park, Boulder Falls & Nederland, Georgetown & Guanella Pass, Aspen, Vail, Fort Collins, Cheyenne WY, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Lake Dillon, Hiked Royal Arch, took a flying lesson, Shopped at Boulder’s Farmer’s Market, Went fly fishing in Boulder Creek, Gold Hill, Royal Gorge, Camping in Rollinsville, and Steamboat Springs/ Strawberry Hot Springs. There are so many other places we’ve seen that I didn’t even link back to. (Sheesh it just took me 40 minutes to find all of those links. Ya’ll better click one to reminisce with me).

We’ve covered a lot of Colorado state but there are a few things still on my bucket list while we’re out west. I made a list of 18 places that I’d like to see within an easy 12 hour drive so we can have nice weekend trips. Without further adieu, here is the official list:

I bet you all re-read the line where I described a 12 hour drive as “easy”. After driving across the country with 2 dogs and a cat, 12 hours is an easy drive!

I made these cut-outs and wrote in the items on my bucket list. I used leftover scrapbook paper that I framed for the guest room and added the shapes to an empty cork board in the room seen here from the guest room makeover:

When we have a free weekend next summer, we’ll look at the board and pick a weekend adventure.

Possible adventures for 2012 are:

Mt. Rushmore, Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado National Monument, Albuquerque, NM, Teton National Forest, Yellowstone, Telluride, CO, Grand Canyon, Salt Lake City, UT, & Jackson Hole, WY.