Oh how I love the Florida sun. It is truly wonderful to wake up to blue sky and sun shine.

Chasing one two year old is work. Chasing two is crazy!! Alexis Ann and Ashley Robin are happy busy little girls! They eat incredible amounts of food, but only because it takes lots of fuel to keep as active as they are.

My mind keeps wandering back to how tiny they were at birth. Ok, let's be fair, they were only tiny to us, who come from the land of 8 and 9 pound new borns. By NICU standards they were down right chunky at 4#7 oz and 4# 10 oz. One of the more vivid memories I have of the NICU was watching an RN try to feed a pic line into the vein of a 1# 13 oz baby. It was one of the most gut-wrenching moments I spent there. I was holding chunky Ashley and trying not to sob when that small, precious thing mewed--too immature and weak to cry out in pain. NICU personnel are incredible people and I'm sure they have their own little place in Heaven.

Tomorrow is the big day--Birthday Party for the Girls--celebrating a couple of days early, but celebrate we will.

Playing Hookie

DeDe and I took a vote and decided to skip work today (Wednesday). It really wasn't a hard decision and I think we really had made up our minds yesterday before we left work. The weather forecast is for snow and freezing rain and more snow. All today!!! Work is a 50 mile round trip. With the cold and wind to continue. So it was no contest--stay home and be lazy or gear up and fight snow and ice on our way home from work.

My creative side has been in sleep mode for a while but something about some cold and snowy east wind weather brings it out each winter. I'm working on making a quilt out of "left overs" and worn out jeans. It should be fairly quick to make but I'm kind of ADD lately. Nothing is getting "done". I need to get some cookies baked. I have all the dough made but I like "fresh" cookies and I don't know when the weather is going to cooperate and let me deliver the goods. Chuck keeps taking my car--yes the one with the studded snow tires all around--to work and leaving me with the truck. That is NOT a fair trade let me tell you.

One of the last things to do before we fly to Florida and warm weather is bake the cookies for the trip. I heard on the news I can take baked goods in my carry-on so maybe they will look edible when we get there.

This is a picture of one of the twins HELPING to bake cookies. Because we all know that taste testing is very important, and sometimes a little lick before the dough is baked is just what the chef orders.

Now which twin is this??? Most Grandma's would know, but I be danged if I can tell in pictures. And it's a little iffy in person. But I'm smart enough to dress them differently until I'm sure enough to keep them straight. All I can say is that it is certainly a good thing that Miss Alexis still has a strawberry on her back, Right Dan???? I've caught him trying to feel it thru her shirt when he isn't sure. LOL

Well time to start dinner. I did shovel the driveway and wash the throw rugs again. I'm am sure in a blaaaa lazy mode lately. I need sunshine and warm. NOW.

Freezing, Wet, Gray--yep it's Winter in Oregon

The wind--she be a blowing--the rain is going sideways and we even had a few snow flakes. I am FREEZING. I have on long sleeves and a vest, wool socks and boots oh and jeans. I have the heat on 72* AND

HOLY COW I'm LMAO--Wookie was sleeping on the edge of the sofa and just fell off in his sleep. He has done this several times. FUNNNY STUFF.

And to continue my saga I have the Pellet Stove turned on high. The sad part of all this you might ask---the weatherman is calling for colder, south wind turning to east wind and Blizzard in the Cascades. Oh joy.

Guess it's time to find the hot chocolate and herb tea.

Murphy---LEAVE NOW!!

So Thursday was an interesting day. Yep. Interesting.

This old house has issues with doorknobs. I try to "fix" them, but several are so old there are not parts available to accomplish the job. So they rattle, are loose, don't latch, won't unlatch or just plan fall off. Keep this in mind it's an important part of the story.

Wookie wanted to go smell dog smells, chase leaves and most importantly dig to China in his yard. Easiest way to "his yard", an enclosed area he can not escape from until he figures out how to dig tunnels not just random holes, is out our front door. So I opened the inside front door. This is a mammoth custom made door, thicker than any normal door and yes the door knob has issues. The knobs fall of on a routine basis. NO matter how often I tighten the screws. Currently there is one knob attached on the inside and none on the outside of the door. The prudent thing when using this door IS TO NOT SHUT IT from the outside. You won't be able to open it from the outside.

So I let Wookie out thru the front door and thur the front porch door. I remembered to leave the inside door open a crack so I got back in just fine.

The troubles started when it was time to get the Popsicle dog inside again. I left the inside front door open a crack, like a prudent person, then TRIED to open the porch door. No go. The stem thing that goes into the door frame (just what it is called escapes me) would not budge. CRAP!

I go back into the house and get MY philips screwdriver and the lube stuff I like-- not Chucks WD-40 crap. Out I go to fix this darn door knob. It has been moody ever since the contractors installed it. Just living up to the 100 yr old house expectations. I made a little tactical error next. I shut the inside front door tight. Cut off my own escape route. Made a little cell block just for me. As soon as I shut it I knew I had made a huge error. I was going to have to go over a fence anyway I went to get back into the house, if I could get the porch door knob fixed. You can start humming "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" now.

Let me say that I am glad I was fully dressed at this point. I Have climbed over the fence in my bathrobe and slippers before. NOW that is a Kodak moment. Especially because I haven't had a shower yet and my hair is standing on end. I have lucky neighbors for sure.

Back to the story. With my trusty philips screwdriver I start removing the screws in the door knob. Those suckers were LONG!! I got them out and took the knob off and lubed that sucker good. But I still didn't get the darn thing to retract the part that goes into the door frame. (I am going to have to Google door knobs and find out what the blue blazes that is called, it's driving me nuts!) I fiddled and farted around for quite a while before I finally got the door opened. I drowned the parts with lube, reassembled and opened and shut the door several times to make sure it was fixed as good as doorknobs get fixed in a Poetz house.

I chose to go over the short fence this time. Not as much of a challenge with jeans and tennis shoes as when trying in bathrobe and slippers so I didn't get may style points. Wookie has been thoroughly entertained by all this activity and had momentarily halted his excavations to observe the crazy lady work.

So my next fun came when I was making a HUGE batch of Cranberry Hooty Creeks cookies. These are really good cookies but expensive to make when you are quadrupling the batch. I had softened the butter, creamed the sugars in and was adding the eggs one at a time--I was using my Bosch Mixer, this is important, I got the first several eggs in without mishap. But the last darn egg---well---that sucker slipped out of my hand and the entire egg, shell and all went into the Bosch Mixer bowl as it was RUNNING.

Holy Crapola! I spent the next 20 minutes picking out egg shell. I was not about to waste all that butter and sugars and eggs and 4T of real vanilla. Besides everyone needs calcium, Right???

And to round off my delightful day I decided to see if I could bounce better off hardwood floors than I do off stairs. I don't just for the record.

I have doggie gates setup to keep Wonkeye out of important places--like my crap (craft) room and such. I was tired--besides the problems above mentioned I had cleaned carpets, dejunked the kitchen and living room, folded laundry, finished Christmas cards, hung a Quillow in the laundry room, vacuumed and mopped and taken Wookie to pee several times, and jogged for a 1/2 hour. Full day.

I was going to put laundry on our bed and stepped over the dog gate into my crap room, with no style points at all, nicked the top of the gate with my slipper clad foot, tried to catch myself and somehow tripped over the trampoline, dropped laundry basket and tried to catch myself but ended up landing hard on my right hand and right knee. I DID NOT BOUNCE. I scared the H*LL out of Wookie and had a little pity party laying right there, afraid to move. I have tripped over this darn gate often enough that Wookie clears out when he sees or here's me coming close to it.

When I told my DH what I did, bless him, he didn't laugh--he just sort of shook his head. He doesn't bounce well either. But he only falls with his bike. So today I'm sporting a great bruise on my hand and one on my knee, sore neck and lower back. Great. I'll be nice and green by Sunday.

Wonkeye and I getting edumacated

There is nothing as stubborn as a "little" dog. I have had one or two "come to Jesus" meetings with my Shepard's but they are a breed that likes to please their owners. A stern look is often all it takes to correct a miss-adventure.

And then there are the little dogs. They truly don't give a rats behind if you like what they do or not. They are on this earth to be worshiped and catered to. Ummm that's really not my thing.

I was driven to yell and threaten Wonkeye many many times. "Do ya want to be drop-kicked into next week??" or "Damn it to Hell!!! Quit chewing on your leash!!" Can I tell you how non-effective that is? Pointless but therapeutic.

So I signed us up for some training. Private lessons. 2'x a week crash course. We started today.

So I only have one question ---Why didn't I do this MONTHS ago?? Mr. Wookie now walks like a civilized dog, does not chew on his leash, nor does he rip my arm out of the socket. After 1 class.

Now my only concern--and this could be a problem--the marshmallow, my other half, the never discipline a kid or dog other half---HAS TO REINFORCE THE NEW RULES. This will be interesting. Very, very interesting.

Does this look like some one who can follow the rules let alone reinforce them?? Kind of has that window licker look huh?

I am also playing hard ball about the peeing in my house. Back to basics. Crate at night. Go out 1st thing in the morning and if he doesn't pee, back into the crate and try the drill again in 10 minutes. Lets hope this is a fast fix too!! If this doesn't work--my back-up plan includes a rubber band.