Oooh, this week. The garbage that is this week began on Saturday, when I started editing this giant project for work that was due this week.  It is a long and stupid story, but the conclusion is: nobody did what they were supposed to do, so my boss and I have been working on it for a million hours since Saturday.  BOO.  The week also seems horrifyingly long already:  someone was introducing me to a college intern today, and during the introduction, I said that I had seen his presentation from earlier this week.  “Yes, from last week!” he said, to which I literally responded: “OH MY GOD, TODAY IS ONLY TUESDAY!!?!?”  Sad moment.

It is also the kind of week where I shorted out the keyboard on my work laptop (why must I drink tea near the computer?), found myself wrestling with a 50 pound bag of chicken feed while wearing high heels (feed won), and thought about how thankful I was that I could just come home and Not.  Have.  Anyone.  Talk.  To.  Me.

Anywho, here is what I was going to write:

I like things neat and clean and tidy.  However, I sort of hate cleaning.  What I find interesting about myself is what I let slide, and what I don’t.  For example, I make my bed every day.  EVERY day.  Usually, it is the actual, literal first thing I do after putting my feet on the floor in the morning.  In fact, if I so much as go to the bathroom before making my bed, I feel sort of itchy about leaving it undone.

But you know what I don’t do?  Dishes.  If there is a dirty dish in the kitchen sink on a weekday, it is basically guaranteed to stay there until the weekend.  Unless it is a cast iron pan.  Those I wash religiously, and would never, ever, ever, ever, ever leave dirty.  So why can’t I make myself wash the dishes?  I hate having them in the sink, and once I start washing dishes, I don’t really mind it, and it only takes about five minutes.  So what is the problem?  I don’t know.  but I do know that those dishes will still be there on Saturday.  Guaranteed.

Rusty and Gus are slowly making progress.  When Rusty first appeared on the scene, Gus-the-kitty was Freaked.  Out.  He stayed barricaded in the back room, and even if I locked up the dog in his crate in a separate, closed room, Gus would totally lose his mind if removed from his hiding place.  You can’t hold Gus down, though, and the two of them are working it out.

In other news, I had yet another horse incident on Monday.  It is starting to be just a little bit lighter for a little bit longer in the evenings, and since the weather was nice, I started my riding lesson in the outdoor arena instead of the lighted indoor arena.  The dusky time of night, however, is a bit tricky for the horses.  Things are extra shadowy, so there is more room for freak outs.  I had just started to get  into a good canter, when all of a sudden, the horse just took off running.

But I didn’t fall off! (for once)

The difference this time involved a few things.

* One, the horse didn’t have a sudden start.  We were already moving quickly, so he just increased his pace until he was bolting.

* Two, he was going in a straight line, more or less.  There were no twisty turns to make me lose my balance.

*Three: I broke down and bought a saddle that fits me (I found one used for WAY less than I thought I was going to have to spend), and I think the proper saddle fit helped me keep my balance when the horse was going nuts.

*Four: I didn’t freak out.  I mean, clearly I sort of froke out, but I was somehow able to keep my head about me.  Because he took off somewhat gradually, I didn’t get as startled as I did last time the horse bolted (different horse, btw).  Time slowed way down in my head, and as my teacher yelled things to me like: “KEEP YOUR HANDS DOWN!” and “BEND YOUR ELBOWS!” I was literally thinking to myself: “I am just going to keep my legs long and my heels down and keep my butt in the saddle,” as I tried to follow her instructions.

Eventually, the horse came to his senses a little bit, and I was able to slow him to a stop.

I was definitely shaken up (and, you know, literally shaking), but I was thinking about it on my drive to work yesterday, and I think it actually made me a bit more confident overall.  Since I was able to keep my balance and (eventually) bring the situation back under control, I fell like if it happens again, I’ll feel like I know a little bit better how to handle it.

Although hopefully, I won’t have to test that theory out any time soon.

The dogs spend their day in the smaller side-yard off of my kitchen.  Every couple of weeks, I hose everything off back there, and every couple of months, I tidy it up a bit more- rearranging the stepping stones and gradually replacing bark with rock.

I didn’t take before or after shots, because basically, it looks the same, just with rocks now.  My first plan included covering the whole area with bark, but there are two problems with that.  One, Casey-dog had some issues with boredom/anxiety induced digging when she first started staying in the yard by herself, and bark is far more pleasant for dogs to dig in compared to rocks.  The second issue is that in the rain, bark is still kinda muddy.  Rocks both make the area less fun for digging, and more mud-proof.

Over time, I also brought in stepping stones (from other, forgotten parts of the yard) to make less and less of the yard diggable.  And I’ve begun the transition from bark to rock, but only in the patch on the other side of the kitchen door, until now.  With the rain coming (and the rain is here!) I decided it was time to freshen things up and add more rocks.

The rocks are so heavy.  My back is still sore from all of that hauling.

Today was the first day the dogs stayed outside during a rainy day.  (Casey has before, but this is the first time with both dogs.)  I was worried that I would come home to soaked, muddy dogs, but no!  Both of them had completely clean feet (meaning there was no digging today!), and both were only a little bit sprinkly, which probably happened as they were waiting for me to let them in after I got home.  There isn’t that much of a dry area out there, so I’m really curious what they did all day.  Did they both hang out in the doghouse together?

I’m totally planning on sticking a webcam of some kind out there so I can see what they do all day.

Probably something similar to what they do in the evenings:

Progress continues.

Gus is so, so, so curious about Rusty-the-Dog.  So when they end up face to face, Gus really wants to check things out.

I don’t yet trust Rusty not to eat Gus, so I try to keep a hold on things.

And then he poses like this, trying to look totally casual:

In other news, I’m watching two nutjobs on the Bachelor cry in corners, and I just ate five chocolate cookies, which I’m sure will prove to be a bad idea when I’m too sugared up to fall asleep.  YAY!

Today Molly, Westerman and Javier’s dog, goes back home after three weeks of staying here while her dads were traveling to assorted exciting places.  Three weeks is the longest I’ve dog-sat Molly, and after about two weeks, I think she just gave up all hope of ever going to her real home again and decided that she lived here for good.

Molly is a good dog.  But three dogs is a lot of dogs.

These photos don’t so much reflect the reality of three dogs, only the reality of when the camera comes out, which is when they have moments of extreme cute.  Anywho, bye, Molly!  And happy birthday Westerman!

Rusty, my new dog, and Gus, the world’s amazingest cat, have a strained relationship.

One the plus side, Rusty doesn’t seem to have much of a prey drive, so he isn’t snarling and trying to kill the cat, as evidenced by a low baby gate serving as an effective barrier.  However, he does want to chase.

Gus is not afraid of dogs, having lived with Casey-Dog since he was a teeny, tiny kitten.  He also loves Molly (Westerman and Javier’s dog) who is really good with him as well.

So Gus really doesn’t know what to make of Rusty and all of this chasing, and yet refuses to act as anything other than the king of the house.

Gus has a little cozy spot in my linen closet behind the curtain above.  Even though I try to be careful about it, Rusty has tracked him down in there and cornered him at least two times, yet still, Gus hangs out there, clearly daring the dog to mess with him.  (Gus might think the baby gate has a bit more power than it actually does.)

Rusty just watches and watches, waiting for his chance to chase.  Rusty has jumped the baby gate before, so he knows it is just a polite reminder, not an actual barricade, one of the many reasons that Rusty is a fascinating dog.

Gus also likes to take it to the next level and taunt Mr. Rusty.

If you look carefully, you can see the blur that is Gus behind the baby gate, lolling around and stretching out, and generally showing off to the dog who is about eight feet away.

Even better, Gus is playing with his new favorite toy, which used to be Rusty’s favorite toy.

“Oh, this toy?  Yeah, isn’t it great?  I sure do love this toy!  I bet you wish you had a toy like this…too bad that baby gate is in the way!  HA!”

So, because of Gus’ fearless nature and relentless showoffery, I am confident that one day they two of them will be besties like Gus is with Casey-Dog.

Maybe just not anytime soon.

For those of you just tuning in, yesterday I fell off a horse and kicked myself in the face, and now my jaw won’t close.

I was hoping that it would have miraculously fixed itself overnight, but not so much.  Happily, my jaw still doesn’t hurt, I just can’t get my back teeth to touch each other.  It does limber up just a bit if I stretch it out, but then it gradually clenches back up.  I’m guessing it will just take a bit more time to figure itself out.  Also, today the rest of my body remembered that it had fallen down, and so not to be left out, my back and neck are all achy.  Twice today I have coated myself in IcyHot, and man, that stuff is gloriously fabulous.

In other Tuesday news, I took Rusty to the vet to have him microchipped and vaccinated and whatnot.  He had a blood test and was positive for Lyme Disease.  Yay.  Luckily, Lyme Disease isn’t that big of a deal in dogs, he just has to take antibiotics for a month  (A month!) and then he should be fine.

Come on, 2012.  I think we can do a little better than this.

To end on more cheerful note, Gus, like many of today’s youth, is addicted to the iPhone, and enjoys taking self-portraits.

I think those photos are really, really, really funny.  I’m pretty sure he took them for his Facebook page.

My persimmon tree has left me with a ton of persimmons.

Now, I hate to tell you this, and I’ve mentioned it before, but I don’t like persimmons that much.  However, I also don’t like waste, and so I’m trying to use them up.  Unfortunately, I am not a fan of “spice” flavored things…. anything in the carrot cake genre, really.  Not a fan.  But most persimmon recipes are for some kind of spice thing… cookies, cakes, what have you.

In an effort to use up some persimmons, I decided to make the persimmon pudding that I read about on the Lovely Morning Blog.  Secretly, (and this may be worse than my “eh” feelings for persimmons), I don’t really enjoy baking.  It requires too much precision and creates too many dishes to wash.  I really like cooking, but baking just has too much potential to go wrong.

Anywho, I started off quite positively.

I got my recipe ready.

I started with the dry ingredients.

Look at that lovely cinnamon!  Baking is fun!

BUT.  Before too long, my kitchen looked like this:

Please note that nearly every single thing you can see was brought out (and dirtied) in the pudding making process.

And then, AFTER I had used every dish in my kitchen, only then did the swearing begin.  See, you have to steam the pudding.  You have to set it on top of a bowl in a pot of boiling water.  This sounds easy, but there was a lot of trial and error.  Now that I know what I am doing, it would be a lot easier the second time around, but good lord, was there drama created around that process.

It steams for an hour and a half.

But.  I checked on it periodically, and had big plans to bring the finished product to a friend’s house for dinner.  And, shocker of shockers, when it was finally done, it came perfectly out of its little mold:

TA DA!  Look at that beauty!

I was feeling so impressed with myself that I loaded several of the mushier persimmons into the freezer so that I can make this again later.

Also, I have a cutting board in there because I was freezing Ziplock bags of chicken stock, and I needed them to be flat while the froze.  And, yes!  You may feel free to admire the amazing organization of my freezer!

BUT THEN.

(Yes, it gets worse than that kitchen photo)

Here is some foreshadowing:

My new dog, Rusty, the sweet little innocent darling in the photo above, well, Rusty was homeless, and being a crafty guy, he learned to scavenge food.  Like, all food is fair game.  Christmas Day, he stole a package of brie and dropped it off on his dog bed for safekeeping for later.

But back to the pudding.  I was feeling pleased with myself after more than two hours of pudding making, when suddenly,  I heard the sound of a dish being bumped in the kitchen.

I jumped up, and saw two things.

One, Rusty trying to act super, super nonchalant.

Two, this:

He snarfed that whole piece down in one gulp. That effing beast.

Needless to say, I did not bring persimmon pudding to dinner.

The chickens, however, were happy with the share that they got!

So, in conclusion:  baking is far, far more trouble than it is worth.  The end.

I neglected to mention that I am dogsitting Westerman and Javier’s dog Molly.

For three weeks.

I think the above photo sums it up the best:  Molly does, in fact, have her dog-hand on Casey’s head.  And not randomly.  She is the queen, and she would like to make sure everyone is quite aware of it.

Anywho, three dogs is a lot of effing dogs.  But for the most part, it is highly entertaining.

There are two dog beds in the living room, and three dogs.  So sometimes sharing is involved.

The other day, Casey and Rusty sprawled out in a sunny patch…

…and Casey used Rusty as a pillow.