4:17 A.M.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night, with an urgent need to, um, use the facilities, so I grabbed my glasses off the night stand, got out of bed, and crept my way to the door, trying to avoid the major squeaky spots so as not to wake my sleeping husband. As I did, I glanced at the clock: 4:17 a.m. I quietly opened the door, took a step into the hallway, and promptly found myself face down in a veritable pile of puppies. (On a side note, if you're in the market for a family pet, don't pick a black one. They simply disappear at night, leading me to believe that Alice's encounter with the Cheshire Cat was simply an encounter with a black cat in the shadows of a tree's leaves. Silly Alice.)
Now, the nice thing about dogs is that when they sleep, they really sleep. One of them sort of sighed, but they both never moved as I extracted myself from the pile. Once freed, I went down the hall to the restroom, which is equipped with a handy night lite so as not to wake the whole household at 4:17 a.m. This is not one of those plug-in nite lights, but an actual wired-in light with a switch on the wall, with a wattage of about 4 or so. When I was finished, I thoughtfully turned off the light before opening the door. My night vision now truly gone, I stepped outside the bathroom to once again find myself face down in the aforementioned pile of puppies. They seemed to have thought it was funny enough the first time to quietly move down the hall way and lay in wait outside the bathroom door for a repeat performance.
This time, however, they were not quiet about it. "Woo-woo-woo!" said our Malamute, while the black lab did his hound dog imitation:"Roo-roo!" "Shhh!" I told them, then extracted myself from their wagging, licking embrace, and stepped over them. I've had dogs long enough to know what a 4:17 a.m. howl means. Grabbing the wall for support, because I've been here before, I cautiously asked them,"Outside?" and was promptly almost knocked off my feet by two swirling masses of fur competing to be the first to the back door, the lab stopping halfway down the stairs to run back up, circle me, lick my toes, and jump three steps in an attempt to catch up with the quietly confident Mal.
Once they were outside sniffing, I leaned on the back window for a good look at our sleeping neighborhood. The narnia house behind us (my name for it-you can only see a window between several tall trees, but there's a street light near it that casts a permanent glow in the back yard, and in the summer they leave a side window open, and a trick of the breeze causes the curtains to blow out into the yard, giving the illusion that you're inside the house looking out. ) , the totem pole in the yard next to us, and the eternally blinking light in the garage next door.
I let the dogs in, settled them with a treat, and went back upstairs to my warm bed. I lost this particular battle in the war of Who Lets the Dogs Out at 4:17 a.m., but that's alright. Falling face down in a pile of puppies isn't too bad, when they're your puppies.

Random Stuff

Well, we've all had the flu to various degrees here. I think I had it the worst, and when it left, it left behind a nasty sinus thing which I am still struggling with two weeks later. Thank God it wasn't that nasty 1910 flu, which killed thousands of people, but it was bad enough, thanks.
Things tend to get neglected when you move, and the list of things I've neglected due to simple forgetfulness grows longer daily. I recently realized we haven't had the oil changed in the family van since before we moved here in September. I normally have it done every 3ooo miles like clockwork, but for some reason it just escaped me when we moved. So I'll try to have it done on Thursday this week, my only short day of work, currently.
We had a lovely warm day on Sunday, and managed to get all kinds of cool, warm day-like things done: we got the car washed and vacuumed, cleaned out the garage (two dogs in the garage on a long day of shopping equals one messy garage!), picked up trash in the backyard, and dd picked up a weekend babysitting job due to a local mom going back to her weekend seasonal job at the local ice cream place. The dogs got to spend quite a bit of time outside, which meant they both needed baths afterwards. Didn't get them, but then that's on the list for the next free day.
I like spring, but it has a nasty habit of leading to summer, which I just sort of suffer through to get to autumn and winter. I can't stand the humidity of a midwest summer, but it's better, IMO, than the dry heat and various poisonous creatures of a western US summer, and the nasty weather of an eastern US summer, so I'll stick around here, at least until I win the lotto and can afford to travel during the summer. ( Notice I said ," Until I win the lotto"? I have every confidence I'm going to win. Have to, every week when I pay the bills, it's what keeps me going until the next week!)
On the list of neglected things is the two full size quilts I'm currently working on. One has been so frustrating I'm not sure it will ever get done, and the other one is simply awaiting a few spare minutes. Spare minutes are not something I have in great supply; I'm writing this blog post while the daycare kids are playing at my feet, so this time doesn't count. I can't quilt with babies in the room, there are too many spare pieces of thread and needles to chew and choke on.
I recently bought a pair of reading glasses for when I work on my cross stitch. I ignored to need for them for quite some time, but the last time I tried to thread a needle, I ended up poking myself in the finger so many times that I just gave up. Old age threatens, but hasn't won yet!
Well, that's all for now. I'm off to change diapers.