Pronoun Trouble

After getting to have a puppy sleepover two nights in a row earlier this month, on account of Fireworks Suddenly Scary, Molly has decided that this means every night is a puppy sleepover night!

Unfortunately, I disagree with this. We are both restless sleepers, and despite her being less than a tenth of my mass and me having an XL Twin instead of a standard, there isn't enough room on the bed for both of us.

Still, if she were willing to sleep on the floor instead, I thought it was possible we could work something out! So I bought her a (super cheap) spare bed to try it out. It didn't work.

Mom directed me to a larger spare bed we had in storage; open to the possibility that Molly just wanted a larger bed space, I brought it downstairs and set it next to my bed. That didn't work, either.

Tonight, knowing what was coming, I brought her "favorite" bed with me when I went downstairs, hoping she would take the hint. I then left her alone in my room while I took care of my nightly hygiene activities (about twenty minutes). When I returned to my room, she was laying in the second bed. Success!

I laid down in my own bed, getting ready to give this new setup a try. If it worked, I would have to rearrange a few things in my room, and possibly adjust my own sleep schedule (Molly's morning walks take place at least an hour before I'm up most days), but it would be kinda nice to have a sweet pupper for company in the evenings.

Less than a minute after I got settled in bed myself, Molly got up and started whining. I gave up and managed to usher her back upstairs, where she actually didn't chase me back to the stairs for once.

If I didn't have work in the morning, I may have been more open to testing either of our patience; tonight, I'm just glad she didn't follow me when I left her upstairs.

Today I was woken up twice before my alarm went off by the Saddest, Loneliest Dog in the World (AKA Molly when no one's there to pay attention to her). Either I had neglected to close the door to the stairs completely last night, or she followed someone (most likely Dad) downstairs while they went to do laundry. The first time was roughly two hours before my alarm, and after hearing her whimpering pathetically outside my firmly closed door, I greeted her and managed to usher her back upstairs.

...Only for her to return to my door an hour later, just as sad and pathetic and unloved as before, begging to be let in. This time I let her nap on the bed with me, partly because I'm not a heartless monster, and partly because there's only so much I can do in the face of that much stubborn, and I wanted to at least try to get that last hour of sleep before work.

She woke me a final time a mere five minutes before my alarm went off, but by then she was definitely not the Saddest, Loneliest Dog in the World, so it doesn't count towards her previous total.

Took the dog on an hour long walk today. Usually she'll continually beg for another walk, no matter how many she's had in the day, but today she was finally tired enough to stay inside instead. I certainly won't be trying that every day, though I might aim for about once a week while the weather is good.

I have purchased an extra doggy bed for Molly. She has one she uses upstairs, and can get up and down off the living room couch easily enough, but it is my hope that the bed I just got her will persuade her to spend puppy sleepovers on the floor instead of fighting for space on my twin mattress. It is very fluffy, like the one she already had and does seem to like, but has the added bonus of having a built-in blanket that she can tuck herself in under, because she looooves being under blankets.

On the minus side, it may also have given her exactly the extra inch or so she needs to be able to reliably jump up onto my mattress on her own, so we'll see how this goes.

I've been pretty on top of making sure my fancy mattress gets rotated every two months (as directed by the manufacturer), and I'm pretty proud of that!

Today was mattress rotation day, and in addition to standard mattress moving, I had a few minor tweaks to do. First I needed to get the "belt loops" onto my fitted sheet, then I needed to remove and re-place the attachment bits on the mid-sheet belts I made to keep the middle of my fitted sheet from bunching up too much. My sheet was still bunching up a bit when I attached them for the first time, and while it was much better than not using any sort of mid-sheet garter belt, I was still certain I could do better. So we'll see how this one goes with the hooks moved in an inch or two on each side! I'm cautiously optimistic.

I also used up the last of my plastic snaps to make two more secure pillowcases. Turns out I lucked out and had exactly as many as I needed! I'll be applying those pillowcases shortly, as my other set is in the wash.

In celebration of all of this, and also having today and tomorrow off, I've declared tonight to be a Puppy Sleepover! Or, well, if she sticks around after my evening ablutions it will be; we'll see how she feels about that 😜

So this was going to be a post about how I took a nice, long walk in the sun and warm weather yesterday, and felt so refreshed and rejuvenated that I'm still feeling it after a full day of work, and how I absolutely need to look into UV lamps and seasonal affective disorder before next winter...

...but instead it's going to be another post about the saddest, loneliest little dog in the entire world, who only got forty-five minutes of cuddle time with me instead of an amount of her choice.

(Molly, I'm sorry, but you only came downstairs to cuddle at, like, 9:30pm! You're usually ready to sleep by 11:00pm at the latest! Forgive me for wanting to make sure you were upstairs by then!)

A project I finished on Wednesday, actually! This one has been in the works for several months now, and I only finally got around to sewing it all together. (I... may have already talked about it? But I am le tired, and cannot recall.)

( Cut for pics! Rainbow Amish puzzle ball )

Every year, my parents like to go out and plant geraniums on the local family (and family friend) graves. I've missed at least a few years of the past seven due to work, as has my brother, but this year not only did he and I make it out, so did his wife and their baby. Nibling was very well behaved for the entire trip, and I remembered where a lot of the graves we usually visit are better than I might have thought, given I haven't been on the trip in a while. It's still not as well as I used to remember them, but considering it's a once-a-year trip that I've missed several of recently, it's still reasonably impressive, IMO.

We left Molly the dog behind this year. Chester has attended in previous years, but Molly is... a bit more fussy than Chester was.

After, we all went out to eat at a local restaurant with outdoor seating. It was a very nice trip, all things told. Pretty sure I can honestly say I've missed making this trip.