So….From now on, go HERE for my current blog. Yes, it’s easy to remember – mt.gardenwife.com – but don’t expect anything to pretty until I figure more of this stuff out!

“Is this our rubber ducky?”, he asked. When I asked him if it was the yellow one our friend’s son left here one time, he said it wasn’t. Hmmmmmmmm…..

Yes, someone had placed a rubber ducky in our lawn tub. Oh, the hilarity!

It didn’t remain a mystery for long, because someone couldn’t keep her glee to herself. Last night, in reply to some pictures I’d e-mailed my siteless buddy Angie, I received the following missive:

when/who/how are you getting rid of it? just think it might be good to check it over before she goes.

Yep, it was her. She’d left our place around 10:30pm last night and gone to Wal-Mart to pick up some pictures. While there, she bought the little rubber ducky and snuck back to our house about 11:00pm. She parked her car down the street and covertly scrambled down the sidewalk in front of our house.

She could see me in the office window, puttering away at my computer. I never had a clue, sneaky thing. I just love her!

Well, it’s done now, huh?

The downstairs is really looking good! I’ve not posted pictures lately, but I’ve been chronicling everything in photos (note to self: do backup!). John’s got the bathroom, hallway and laundry room all drywalled…It’s just amazing how it’s coming together. We’ll be sooo glad when it’s all done, though. Even though we’ve pretty much grown used to the various construction noises, it still makes morning sleep restless, and we’re looking forward to having a working sink, shower and toilet all in ONE room again (two rooms, if you count the full bath downstairs).

We found a beautiful, quality nylon carpet at Rite Rug yesterday. It’s a mix of soft blues in a deep, sculptured plush. Best yet, we were able to buy it in the form of three large carpet remnants rather than off the rack. We’d decided to get a cheap, taupe carpet at Lowe’s for $2/square foot, including installation, but it was lousy carpet and the cheapest padding. This way, we’re getting premium carpet, along with a nice, thick pad, and only paying a couple hundred more than the cruddy stuff would have cost us at Lowe’s. Moral of this story: Check the remnants section at your local carpet store!

She doesn’t really want me speaking for her, does she? Oh, my, she’s brave if so.

It’s been so long since I’ve done papery-foldy types of things, though; there is no folding machine, and my speed left something to be desired when it came to folding and stuffing the bulletins with the two inserts we had this week. I ended up being there a couple hours longer than I though I’d be. Thank goodness there were only 150 bulletins to do.

I’ve decided I desperately want an 24″ Fiskars rotary paper cutter…Oh, yeah, aaalrgrrhhh. The church office has one, and one of the wheels you can put on the thing does perforated lines, which we use for a tear-off registration card for visitors. Way cool, that cutter. It also has a wheel which does a fluted, wavy edge.

I have an unhealthy love for office supplies!

The swarmers, or aletes, are the winged reproductives in a termite colony; it’s their job to go out and create new colonies. The critters have underground nests, usually away from structures, and journey to wood structures just to load up on yummy wood pulp to take back to the nest. Seeing swarmers does not mean your home is infested.

I learned about termites when we were in the process of buying our home. The inspection showed there was a minor termite infestation under the back door. Leave it to a termite to find the one tiny bit of wood in our brick house — the thin wood strip between the masonry block from the foundation and the brick wall above. The seller had to pay for an exterminator to come and treat our house. Actually, we are probably due for another treatment, or at least an inspection, since all that was back in 1999.

Back to the swarmers. Our small fishpond sits near the stump, and this afternoon its surface was littered with the bodies of their fallen comrades. I haven’t bought a fishnet yet, so didn’t have a way to skim them all off the surface. They’re likely to have the pond water really fouled. Yuck again. The tiny feeder goldfish we put in the pond are in no way up to the task presented.

For more than you ever thought you’d want to know about termites, check out the University of Toronto’s link here and Ohio State University’s great Ohioline page.

There’s good news to report, dog-wise. Angie’s brotherDennis is going to give Buddy a home! Yep, da brudder’s family has a female beagle, anyway, and wanted to get a companion for her. She’s an outside dog…And he’s buiding a kennel for them! It is a very specific answer to prayer, let me tell ya.

Ironically, Buddy’s new home will be a couple of states away, in Illinois. Buddy will be quite the seasoned traveler by the time he gets there, bless his heart. Fortunately, our vet’s prescribed tranquilizers for him since he gets nervous and carsick riding in vehicles. He’ll pretty much zonk out and wake up in a new home. I hope he does really, really well there – he’s such a sweet little guy, just stubbornly refuses to be housebroken.

It’s a weird feeling, planning to find a dog a new home. But, just when we again felt ambivalent about it, Buddy graced us with another piece of abstract pissquiggle art all over the office floor. Howie’s no longer waffling on the issue, and neither am I. Emma’s sure going to miss him, though, and that makes us sad. They’re such good friends, those two. I hope and pray Buddy gets along with his new little girlie beagle. Good thing Emma has Sarah (and us) to snuggle up to in Buddy’s absence!

They’re more our speed.

I have a wrought-iron stand I bought with an old aquarium at a yard sale last year. The tank was a real oldie by Metaframe (how’s that for irony – before we used the term for internet stuff!). It was a weird size and impossible to find a hood for…Just more trouble than it was worth to make our own hood. We donated the tank to Goodwill during our Great Basement Cleanout of 2003; someone will be thrilled to get it for reptiles or other non-aquatic uses.

Anyway, the stand and filters I got with it were worth the $20 I paid. Thing is, the stand is an odd size: 48″ long x 13″ deep. We may be limited in what larger tanks would safely fit on it. We saw a 75gal setup advertised in the Jack’s Aquarium and Petsonline sales flyer. It’s an All-Glass Aquariums brand and is $139, including the hood and light. It measures 48″long, 18″deep x 20″ high.

My big concern is that, even with a board bringing the top of our stand out to the tank’s width, it would be topheavy. Those 75 gallons of water, at 8 pounds a gallon, would weigh in at 600 pounds! For that matter, I wonder if our floor will be okay under all that weight. It would be along our living room wall.

Am I just paranoid? Would any aquarists and/or physicists (even rocket scientists if you’re so inclined) care to comment?

Howie and I saw him on Jay Leno last night and just cringed at his behavior, especially when he kept drawing attention to himself when it was Amanda Bynes’ turn to be interviewed. I’d never seen this actress before, but I felt badly for her time with Jay being sabotaged by that ham. She seemed annoyed, despite saying she was a fan of his (we noticed she said “was” and snickered that it might indeed be past tense after this guest appearance by his side).

We half expected Carrey to walk out on the stage while Tim McGraw was singing. It’s hard to say whether Jay was amused or embarassed by Carrey. We’re both just so turned off by Carrey; he strikes us as an immature, attention-starved brat when we see him in interviews. When he did a couple of more toned-down bits on the show, he was pretty funny. It’s just that big humor that really turns us off.