Cold and wet

The weather out west was incredibly beautiful. Warm, not hot (although hot is fine with me), cooler nights for easy sleeping, sunny, a little overcast off and on but of course no rain (or icky snow). Toss some gorgeous, non-stop beautiful scenery into the picture and I was a happy puppy to be there. Add in a big dollop of seeing some special people in my life during the trip, and even meeting some great new ones. All in all, a travel well worth the time gone from hearth, home, and beagles.

Have I ever been able to go out of town without a hassle over dog sitting? If so, I can't remember. Even when the child still lived with me and I was finally able to convince her that yes, it was her responsibilty as a member of the household to watch the dogs when I was gone, I still worried. She surely would think nothing of forgetting to feed them, or water them, or let them out, or keep things out of reach.

Over time, I have learned to be a little more relaxed about what to expect. I live alone, so any changes in my home are very apparent to me when I return. Some I just don't care about. I hired a new lady this time for half of my trip. I honestly told her that there isn't anything valuable in my house to steal, that my new ceiling fans were the most valuable items in the entire home. OK, so I left out a few things, but she might have had to dig hard for them. Molly is more likely to lead her to the fridge than to my hidden items of value. I didn't worry about theft, other than by my child who only was assigned a couple of hours this trip. That is long enough to find my favorite lipsticks and clothes. It amazes me how I can have a closet so full of clothing, yet if I have one new favorite item in it, she wears it home and I never see it again. I have learned to accept that, although I do wish she would just leave me a list of what she decided she needed to take with her. It makes replacement quicker and easier.

I have accepted that every towel I own will be in a damp pile in my laundry room. Usually it's on the floor, but on occasion it will be on top of the washing machine. Never in it. I don't care about that, either. I have a lot of towels, and it's hard to not leave at least one dry clean one for me to use. Otherwise, I just wash towels right away. No big deal.

The kitchen will not be clean. I do not expect to find that someone took the time to wash off my counters, clean out my sink, and generally return it to the condition I left it. The nieces come in like locusts and eat everything that they like. I don't care - I can get more food. I don't eat much, surely they will find something they don't like and it will still be here when I get home so I can eat. Otherwise, I can go to the store. If desperate, I could stop on the way home from the airport and grab something. As long as they feed the dogs, they are welcome to any food that they can find. I can easily tell what they ate by looking at my countertops and sink, anyway. Further details can be garnered from the floors. Who cares? I clean weekly anyway, and if I am gone for a week, it's time to clean.

I expect to wash my bedding when I get home. I leave out spare clean sheets, just in case, and I am never sure if anyone actually sleeps in my bed as my couch seems to attract younger people as an ideal sleeping surface. Grab a blankie from the dogs and please remove any belts with buckles so the leather doesn't get ripped, OK? So I wash my bedding and the dogs' blankets. I do that every week, too. This time I did remind them that my throw pillows are silk, and perhaps it might be better to grab a bed pillow to drool on. No big deal, though, I can get new throw pillows.

So far, doors have been locked when I get home. No screens have been removed, not after I returned home after being gone one night from my old house. The child had removed the kitchen window screen and it certainly appeared that she and her friends had used that window for an ashtray, leaving ashes along the outside brick. I wasn't happy. She figured it covered "no smoking in the house," since the ashes went outside. I counted to at least 10,000 on that one. Slowly. I counted until my teeth ungritted, then asked that she not ever do that again as a cat or dog could push the window open farther and get loose, a stranger could get in, and certainly mosquitoes were coming in.

The one thing I don't like is my thermostat changed. I have said change the temperature up and down all you want, but please don't re-program it because it takes me forever to do. If you do re-program anyway, let me know so I can fix it before I freeze without warning. Everyone smiles and nods. I never know what temp I will come home to, but by the next cycle it is back to normal (my normal, that is). No big deal.

The dogs get their food, meds, and lots of attention. that is all that matters. I always, always find pee or poop some place. I can't expect anyone to be as vigilant as I am at finding it and cleaning it up - Baby goes without warning when someone leaves the house, probably due to separation anxiety. She will get up and go in the middle of the night, rarely, if no one will get up and let her out. She asks, but not loudly. I shut them in the master suite with me, and they wake me up if they have to go out. If the door is left open, I might find a prize in the morning and I consider it my own fault. Baby has a tiny bladder. She can't help that. They only ask to go out maybe once a year in the middle of the night. I really can't complain.

No matter how many times I ask the nieces to sleep in the bedroom with the dogs and to shut the door, I come home and find them all sleeping on the sofa and love seat. They all look happy, so I don't care.

This time, I came home, 6 am, and found all sleeping on the furniture. I found pee on two of three rugs in the guest bathroom. Those rugs have been in there almost 2 years now, and have not been peed on before. I found poop in the dining room, which isn't easily seen due to the furniture arrangement, but since we know where Baby will go - I assume it had been there for days, but I was the one to find it. Lucky me. More pee was on a throw rug in the kitchen, or someone spilled something. Also, I noticed that Molly had to pee so bad when she saw me that she ran down the basement stairs, then refused to pee outside. No pee at 6 am? I turned on the light to the basement stairs - sure enough, a small lake at the bottom of the stairs on the ceramic tiles. Finally, Molly found a safe place to pee inside! I consider this a good thing.

All this was found before the nieces woke up. They seemed surprised. I wasn't showing anger, I was just doing an assessment of where I had to clean up after the dogs. I know the nieces try hard, but they don't have a dog at home. They love my dogs. I will not complain.

They left after a while, and I was so tired....but I had lunch plans. I went off to lunch, came back, sat down for a while,and realized I was cold. The thermostat showed 69 degrees, and I keep it at 72 during the day. Oh well, I figured, since it goes to 60 at night and they were sleeping in their clothes, maybe they set it up to 69 at night. I was too tired to realize that it should have re-set at 8 am from 60 degrees to 72.

When I went to bed, I noticed it said 72 degrees still, where I had put it earlier. It should have said 65 or 60, more likely 60, since it was around 1 am. I dropped it to 60 degrees, assuming it would go up to 72 at 8 am, as programmed. When I got up this morning, the actual temp in the house was 66 degrees, and it was still set at 60. Much too cold for me!

So, today I have to clean my entire house, wash all my towels, steam areas of the carpeting, wash all hard surface flooring with a machine, scrub the kitchen raw, wash several loads of my own clothes, and re-program the thermostat, which will take me probably an hour itself.

I still love to travel. I just might need a security box for my thermostat :-)

Weather at home? It rained all the way from the airport. It was in the 60s yesterday, but I missed most of it. It was very windy. We had severe thunderstorms in the evening, including some impressive pea-sized hail. It's still raining, the grass is over-soaked as a result, and it's 43 degrees. The high for today is 45 degrees, and we are expecting some snow tonight and tomorrow.

Welcome home.